Shaker Style

Happy weekend to you! I have a tiny lull in my morning and thought I'd post today, since I neglected to do so yesterday. I have a JustRite card to share with you that uses the Antique Autumn Tags One set. I created a sort of shaker with vellum, sequins, and my sewing machine. I think it creates kind of a cool backdrop to the sentiment.  I added additional leaves using    Spellbinder's dies.  

I colored my mini leaves and acorn with Copics, cut it out by hand, and added glossy accents to make it a bit more substantial. 

I have a busy weekend ahead of me!  Hubby is taking me out tonight for my birthday and hasn't spilled the beans on where he is taking me.....so that's always fun! : ) Tomorrow we are headed to the north side of Chicago to volunteer our time at Misericordia.  It is a group home for children and adults with mental and physical disabilities.  

Be sure to check back on Monday for a giveaway!  (It will be pretty big....cuz it's......ahem....a special day! 

; )

Basement Before and After!

Good morning! I am so excited to share with you my basement photos! It is not totally done, but getting close! It was tough taking pictures down there....I definitely need to work on my home photography skills! ; )   I hope the pictures do it justice.  We started with knotty pine...ugly. Dated. Dark. Gloomy.  After the repairs were made to my drain tile and Permaseal repaired the crack in the foundation, we decided to paint the knotty pine.  My husband was dead set against it at first.  I believe he called me "crazy." and "How could you want to paint knotty pine?" and, " Do you know how expensive that was back then?"  Um yea. I can paint it because it's Ugly with a capital U.  And yes, honey, it was expensive BACK THEN! Welcome to 2012.  What finally convinced him you may ask?  My hero......Pinterest!  I showed him all the before and after photos...and he finally caved.  (Thank goodness he came to his senses!)  So we cleared all the crap clutter and got busy painting.  Okay....we didn't actually paint, we hired someone to do it.  ; )

 So this first set of pics is Brian's work area.  You can see all the crap clutter that we had.  And the part of the wall that had to be taken down.  And of course the new desk, white walls.....

This next area was Kyle's gaming/LEGO area.  And now the more updated version with track lighting and a brand new painting on the wall.  So much cleaner! 

This was our couch/TV area with an attempt at a gallery wall. My new gallery wall uses track lighting and photo ledges to ensure that my photos are always straight.  I converted all of my photos to black and white and spray painted a few frames and mattes in lime green.  It really pops against the white walls!

Here is a close up of my gallery.  

Here is our fireplace and TV area.  The fireplace seems to stand out more now with the white walls.  I love all the shades of green and such. 

Here are a few of my decorative items.....

My window coverings are being made by my very sweet MIL out of burlap.  I am loving how they are coming out!

I hope the pics were clear enough and do the basement justice.  It is such a cozy, warm, and inviting space now and am so glad that Pinterest was able to sway Brian into seeing my vision for the room!

Have a great day!!!

Tutorial on dressing up a cabinet!

Good morning! Happy Labor Day to all of my USA friends!  As many of you know, I've been redecorating my basement.  It all started back in March, when we had flooding from a broken drain tile. We had to have all of that fixed, which meant taking part of the wall down, digging outside, Permaseal....the whole nine yards.   After we knew we were dry for several months we decided to redecorate.  So I will show you the entire basement later this week.  For now, I have a quick tutorial on how to spruce up a cabinet using fabric and foam core. I chose this chevron stripe.

Here is my IKEA cabinet before and after.  I think the addition of the fabric really brightens it up a lot!  

Here's how to do it.......

What I love about this idea, is when I don't like it, or want to change the look, I simply pull the foam core out and there is absolutely no damage to my cabinet!  

I am not quite sure what I am doing today.......no plans as of yet.  I am hoping to get in my craft room at some point.  It's been days and I miss it.  

Have a great day in whatever you do!