Master Bedroom Wall Mural

Outdoor Week: Front Porch Flower Box

I love flowers and wanted to somehow bring them up on my porch. After pondering this for a few days the perfect idea came to me. I wanted the flowers to be elevated and I came up with putting a flower box on a end table or nightstand. I went to my favorite thrift store, Salvation Army, and found exactly what I wanted (that doesn't happen much). The best part, is that this end table was just $2. You can always find great end tables when you go to the thrift store. There is always a handful at any given time.

I had to do some research before I made my front porch flower box and thought I would share with you what I learned.

First I painted my table. Erica has a great tutorial on this.



I had my husband make me some boxes with some left over wood from the playhouse we are building. Any box will do. You don't have to have holes in the bottom (continue reading to find out why).

My husband nailed some small pieces of wood to the bottom of the box so that water won't get trapped between the table and the box.


You will need a water sealer inside your box. I used Flood Wood Sealer I purchased from Home Depot or should I say my little guy did. I had some great helping hands on this project.

For the outside of the box we primed, painted and then topped it off with the water sealer.



If you don't have holes in the bottom of your box you can use a layer of gravel. This helps hold the water so that the dirt doesn't get to wet and is unable to dry out. I ended up putting 2 inches of gravel at the bottom of my box.

Fill the rest of the box with dirt.



Something that my husband learned in one of his botany classes is that you want to break up the roots on your plants when you take them out of your purchased plastic container. They roots are so tight that it helps if you separate them. I used my hand and just loosen them up. My husband likes to scrape a knife across the roots to beak them up.



Plant your flowers and your box is ready to enjoy!

Happy summer to everyone!

Inspiration Frames

If you are like me you have a million frames just lying around waiting to be used.  I love picture frames, but I seem to accumulate them faster than I can use them.  I also have a blank wall in my 'studio' - I use that term loosely.  I love to sew, craft and come up with ideas for new projects, and my messy 'studio' tends to help me loose all of my inspirational papers.  When I look through a magazine or on the internet, I love to clip out pictures or ideas that I want to try sometime.  I thought it would be fun to use my excessive amount of picture frames to help organize my ideas. 

All I did was take out the glass and back part of the frame then I sanded it really well.  I picked out my colors and painted each frame.  All of the frames took at least 3 coats of paints.  I distressed them the same way I did for my dresser redo. 

After you hang the empty frames on the wall, all you have to do is add your inspiration.  I used painters tape to put up my pictures, so it wouldn't peel off the paint on the wall.  It is also really easy to change the pictures as you have more inspiration.

Don't you love that white dress!  I have never tried to come up with my own pattern before, but this dress makes me want to try.  

I am going to add more frames to cover the wall.  It would be so cute to have the whole wall covered with inspiration frames.

This project was so easy, and it was fun going through my folders to pick out what clippings I wanted to use.  Is everyone else as obsessed with clipping out ideas as I am?

Trunk Transformation

I love a good transformation project, and I am so excited to show you how this project turned out.

When we were at my in-laws for Christmas, they told us they were cleaning out the basement and offered this trunk to anyone who wanted it.I was excited no one had bitten on this great offer. To be honest, I was stumped on what to do with it at first, but I knew that it had potential.

Polka-Dot Tree

When we were looking around at homes Bethany told everyone that she was going to be getting a new PINK room. So, that left us with not many options, a PINK room it is.

One pink wall was plenty and I wanted to do something on another wall that pulled all the colors in. I found the perfect fabric for Bethany's bedspread and blind coverings that had polka-dots. I am in love with the hip vinyl trees you see everywhere but I couldn't find just the right thing I wanted so I decided I would make my own.

I got all my pots and pans lids, my biggest bowl and a tupperware lid and traced a bunch of circles onto butcher paper and then cut them out. I then taped all the circles to the wall and played with there location and how many I wanted. When I found just the right look I traced the circles onto the wall. I then sketched a trunk out of butcher paper and taped it onto the wall and made it just right and then traced it as well. I used my pink from the one wall in her room and the other paints where just a water based acrylic paint from Michaels. I used a few different sized paint brushes. The acrylic paint took 3-4 coats and the wall paint just took two. After it dried for a couple days I took a paint pen from Michaels as well and drew on some stitches around each circle. The stitches really finished it nicely!! I used a brown stitch in the circles and a white stitch in the trunk.

And voila, a tree that cost less than $10, and it fits perfectly in the room.

Update Your Hardware For Almost Nothing

Like I had mentioned before I just purchased our first house. Our darling new house was built in 1984 so there is gold hardware everywhere and I new I really wanted a newer look.

I took a step back and thought if I could have all new hardware what color would I choose? I thought black because it would go with all our black furniture. So... I went to the store and got a few cans of black spray paint. There are so many color options out there. I really liked this Oil Rubbed Bronze because it had just a hint of the popular bronze color to it.

I laid out a sheet outside and took down ALL the gold hardware. So, my neighbors first impression of me was outside in my paint cloths spray painting just about everything but the kitchen sink. (I have had a few neighbors say something to me about it.) I cleaned the hardware really well and then hand sanded all the handles and door knobs because I wanted the paint to stick really well seeing it will be touched and used all the time. I put 2-3 coats on everything just to make sure I got in all the cracks and notches as well as have the color I was going for. I was so excited about the difference it made in the house. So if you have been considering getting all new hardware for the house you might want to try this out first.