Tuesday, September 25, 2012

BURLAP LETTERS

Burlap has to be by far one of favorite materials right now.  Its rustic, clean and you can use it in multiple projects.  Its just awesome.  So I have been wanting to add burlap letters to my store (even though there is a lot of competition out there for them), and I finally did.  I started with making letters for my son's nursery.  I am slowly turning it into a toddler room and making it a little less nursery like.  I still can't believe he is going to be 2!! Anyways, I love them.  The wood I used was already distressed so when I covered it with burlap that actually showed through.  I chose a slate grey for the letters instead of black to make it look EVEN MORE rustic.  I am really starting to think I need a support group for my "rustic-ness".   12 steps?  haha.  Here they are, in all of their Burlap glory. Available now at RusticHomemade.


Monday, September 24, 2012

MY CUTE LITTLE TODDLER CHAIRS

Yes, 2 blogs in one day! Watch out world!  

I just have to share about these 2 cute little wooden school chairs I BEGGED my grandmother to give me.  My grandmother is an antique genius.  Her house is filled with lovely things she has bought and redone over the years.  I use to wonder why I didn't get her sense for antiques.  But to my surprise it didn't hit me until my thirties. Yes, my thirties, I have admitted it here in blog land for all to see. LOL.

So the chairs....First, I remembered to take some before pictures.  Sure it was while in my garage and sure I had already started the project, but at least I remembered, that is the important part.  So I am really not sure how my grandmother inherited these but I do know they came from an Elementary school here in my town and were used back in the day when they had the wooden desks and painted everything with that horrible green paint stuff that I am sure is filled with lead or some other hazardous chemical.  So first, that had to go!




I cannot even tell you how bad my arms feel today.  That stuff is rough.  I didn't even get it all off, there are tiny specs of it in spots on the chair.  I also had to replace a part on the bottom of the chair to make it more sturdy, don't have a picture but in the first picture you can see it is missing.  I then went back and forth about what color to paint them.....I do love color.  But I decided just to stain them a walnut stain for now to show off the pretty wood I exposed through that nasty green stuff. 

They are so cute.  And I know my son will now enjoying having a chair to sit at in the living room instead of my foot stool that he insist on dragging out every time he wants to sit at the coffee table and draw or make "vroom" sounds with his cars.  And I know I only have one pictured. It is because the other one is still awaiting me but it is going to be worse than this one so my arms need to rest up a bit before I tackle that project again. 

MY LOVELY FOYER

I have this problem.  In my head several times I have written an "how to" blog over the past couple of weeks.  Don't start scrolling down trying to find them, you won't.  It would seem every project I do I always manage to forget to take "before" pictures!!  Its border line frustrating.  So I have done a few things around the house, my foyer wall is by far my favorite to date...

I changed the frames around a few times because I couldn't get the look I wanted to achieve.  But finally I settled on some frames from Walmart because I like the matted look.  The big ones were around $5 and the small ones I think were $3.  I then spray painted them with an Ivory and sanded them to look distressed.  And the "Family Established" sign I made to match and also can be found at my Etsy store.  I LOVE IT! Also note the black painted doors, such a nice clean expensive look without spending the actual money. My kind of project.  Here are some more views of the foyer..