POWW Faves

Happy Saturday!  Hope your weekend is off to a good start!  We are hoping for no rain today so Sawyer has a game, and not a muddy one!  I can't wait to cheer my little Cheetah on and snap some pictures!  And then of course, I am looking forward to my special day with my boy. :)

Another fabulous party was had this week!  Thank you so much for constantly linking up amazing projects and inspiring me.  Let's check out some of the links that caught my eye this week.

I am not usually a huge lavender fan when it comes to furniture, but I love this nightstand from Confessions of a Craigslist Junkie.  It's so pretty and elegant!


How fabulous is this chair from Sara's Closet?  It was my first time visiting her blog, and I loved it and am now a follower.  Such great style!  I mean, just check out that quirky herringbone wall behind the chair.  It oozes coolness.


This dresser from Retail DIYet is awesome!  The yellow knobs against that dark blue are perfect.


This cedar chest from Redemption Refinishing is awesome!  It has gorgeous unique details and the paint technique really highlights them!


How fabulous is this mod podged piece from Little House in the Big D?  It's so happy!


And finally, Freddy & Petunia shared this fun little vanity!  What diva in the making would not love this?

That's all, folks!  Happy Saturday!

Friday Guest: Kelly from View Along the Way

Happy Friday!  Hope you all are ready for a wonderful weekend!  Emmy is headed to Gramma's tomorrow to see a ballet of Sleeping Beauty.  Chris is away golfing with his brother for the weekend, so I have a date with my favorite boy, Sawyer.  We are going to head to his soccer game, have some lunch, and we are going to have a glorious afternoon together.  We plan to play Star Wars Trouble, take Jake for a long walk, and then snuggle on the couch for a movie night.  Sunday morning he and I are going to try out another church where some of his schoolmates worship, so we are looking forward to that!  I am super excited for some one on one time with my little man.

Also, you can find me today over at Tiffany's awesome blog, Living Savvy, sharing how I made Emmy's room so easy for  her to clean up.  It seriously takes her less than 5 minute.  Come and see why!

Anyhow, another thing I am super excited for.... today's guest!  Kelly from View Along the Way is creative, talented, and has a fabulous sense of humor!  I love reading her blog for inspiration such as creating your own built ins...

ideas on how I can save money while still shopping....

and of course, her humor...

I promise you will love her.  And you will love the little picture of me she put together.... I told Chris I was going to frame it for him as a constant reminder of my awesomeness (as if he needed it, geesh!) ;)

Enjoy!

You guys, I am SO excited to be here at Primitive and Proper today! Cassie is one of my bloggy heroines, because I'm pretty sure she's superhuman. Don't you agree? She's like a nonstop gorgeous-project-creating machine.



This is an actual photograph.
I like to collect furniture to redo and allow it to accumulate in my garage. That's my style.

But every now and then my husband Andy and I actually finish something. We chronicle our starts and stops on my blog View Along the Way.


And sometimes we manage to redo whole rooms, which is really the goal but doesn't happen as often as
we'd like
it would if Cassie lived here. This is what our powder room looked like when we bought our crusty ol' foreclosure a few years back:




And we STILL bought the place!

We found an actual used hairpiece in that broken vanity, courtesy of the previous owners. And how bout the grodiness all over that floor? Yum.

But no prob! We just gutted it.

Took out the popcorn ceilings (here and in the whole house - here's how to do that).

Added hardwood floors throughout the whole downstairs.

Painted stripes on the walls.

Found this amaaaaazing vanity for SUCH a great deal.

And called it a
day

month
year.



Currently I'm about one hundred months pregnant, so right now we're quickly churning out a nursery, in addition to a hundred other little projects I can't wait to show you!

I hope you'll stop by and say hi! You can follow me via RSS or email here, or via Facebook or Twitter.

Thanks SO much for having me, Cassie! Now, back to saving the world for you!

A Spring Mini-Bunting

I am over at the DIY Club today sharing the easiest 10 minute Spring project- a happy little mini bunting!

Hop over there to see all the details on this easy peezy project!

I'm Rockin' Around the Easter Tree & You Could, Too!

I was so excited when Treetopia contacted me to try out one of their fabulous Easter trees.  I knew this would be a fun project that my kids and I could do together, and bonus, I knew I could use the tree for Christmas as well!  And I think it would even be cute for Valentine's Day.... because it is PINK!  The tree arrived on Saturday, and I was so excited to get it up and decorated.  I moved the bar cart in my dining room, and set aside space in the corner for it.  I put it together in 4 easy pieces.  Here it is after I just put it up.  (And please note I forgot to tweak and straighten the top, and noticed after I had my pictures!  OOPS!)  And that green tarp looking piece on my sideboard is the handy storage bag that came with it!

Sunday I headed off to Michael's to find some fun decorations.  I didn't want to hang eggs all over and I knew I wanted to find butterflies.  So that was what I started with as a plan!  I found some adorable clip on butterflies in aqua and yellow, and also some tiny pink ones.  I also found packages of daisy heads that were meant to be wired onto something, so I came home with those as well.  IN my own stash I had a few miniature watering cans, so I added those to the decoration pile.  Then I called the kids in to help me decorate.  Sawyer wanted to know where the "boy decorations" were.  Um.... butterflies and daisies aren't boyish?  So Emmy stuck around and had SO much fun!  Her face lit up when she saw the pink tree with its lights on.  Together, we clipped on butterflies, wired on daisies, and hung the watering cans for a happy Spring Easter tree.

Emmy said it was the most beautiful Easter tree ever!  Look at how happy she was after we decorated it- she was so proud!

Treetopia is giving away an Easter tree on their facebook page!  The contest has already begun and runs through Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012.  To enter, all you need to do is like the Treetopia Facebook page and provide your email address and name.  Please note, you do that on their page- you do not enter here.
Be sure to go and enter!  This tree is so fun and happy!

Disclaimer:  All of the above opinions are my own!

Pipe (Curtain Rod) Dreams & a Guest Post

Happy Wednesday!  Before I get to my project, I wanted to let you know you can find me at Redoux today, sharing a project in a happy Spring color!  Come on over and check it out!  While you are there, have a look around if it's a new to you blog.  Karen is sweet, funny, and can pick dumpsters like no one's business.  You will see beautiful makeovers and learn how to dumpster dive with the best of them!


As with so many great ideas lately, this one came from Pinterest.  I saw this idea and knew it was PERFECT for Sawyer's room- masculine, industrial, and suiting the Star Wars overall theme. Want to see this idea....  Pipe curtain rods!


Not only do I love the look, but I love the price, and with Sawyer's room having odd windows (one is regular, and the other is a smaller dormer window).  The dormer window cannot hold a regular rod and have it look normal.  When we moved in the room had hunter green plastic mini blinds.  They served their purpose, but they were ugly.  Here is a picture from the week we moved in which shows just how ugly they are....

Eew.
So I headed off to Home Depot with my measurements, and purchased 4 flanges, 2 pipes, cut to size and threaded by the nice people at Home Depot, and 2 elbows for the regular window.
In the meantime, I waited for the fabric I ordered from fabric.com to come in.  You saw a sneak peek of that on Sunday.  I knew I wanted red fabric as that is the color pop in the room, but I wanted Sawyer to have a choice as well.  I showed him these options...(click on the swatch for the source).


What do you think a 6 year old boy would choose?  Yep, he chose "zig zags" or chevron as the cool kids say.

I knew that my panels were going to be about window sill length as one bed is against the wall in front of one window and floor length would not work.  So I overestimated the length of each panel to be about 60". With the larger window I knew I was going to need two wide panels (the fabric was 54" wide), so that put me at 120" of fabric needed.  With the smaller window, I thought I could get away with cutting it in half to 27" wide per panel, so that put me at 180" of fabric, or 5 yards.  I ordered 6 yards to be on the safe side- you should always allow yourself a cushion when it comes to fabric yardage!

When the fabric arrived I remeasured for a more accurate length.  I cut the panels to size, giving myself about 1.5" longer than needed for hem length.  then I ironed the hems around all 4 sides of each panel.  Then I used white thread and sewed around each, so I had 4 rectangles hemmed on all sides.

I had Chris pick up Ikea clips for me to hang the panels.  I wanted black to match my pipes, but they were all out, so I just had him get white.  I figured if they didn't look good that I could exchange when they had the black in.  And a big thank you to Ange on the tip for where to get these clips cheap!

Now, here is the real thing to remember, and fortunately I did remember!  Before you screw your pipes together (elbows, flanges, etc) make sure you put your curtain clips on the pipe.  Otherwise you will not be able to get them on since this is not a regular curtain rod!

I measured, drilled, screwed, and eventually hung the rods.  This was a two person job in the dormer window especially, so I had Chris there to be an extra set of hands.  With the pipes, you have the whole rod assembled when you are hanging, so it's not like a normal rod where you mount the brackets.  So don't try to do it alone!  You will get frustrated.  Don't ask how I know. ;)

Anyhow, once I had the rods up, I was able to clip up my panels.  Now, one other thing I should mention is that the packages come with 10 clips each.  I had Chris purchase two, giving me 20 clips.  I used 12 on the normal window since those panels were wider, and only 8 on the dormer window since I knew the narrower panels would be ok with just 4 clips each.

Anyhow, after all that math, my brain was tired, but it was all worth it.  Here are the curtains, and pipe curtain rods in his room!

The up close of the rods show what I mean about the odd sizing and why this solution worked.  The elbows helped me mount one pipe right to the wall, and the dormer window pipe is mounted to the opposite walls adjacent to the window wall.  So this method worked well, and the cost of the pipes and pieces was only $17.  The clips were $2.99/pack, and the fabric was close to $50.  So all in all, these were relatively inexpensive treatments, and I still have a yard of the fun fabric to use elsewhere!

I am still waiting for some things for his room, but at least I am able to share some of the progress with you for now!

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