Thrifty Purchases

Hey there. I've been scoring some good bargains lately at my local Goodwill and wanted to share.

First up is this cute white frame with navy carved pattern. A whopping $2.

This shadow box was $4.55.

This planter was $2.

I LOVE this metal bowl! It looks great with my orchid. Best part, it was 99 cents!!

I found this vibrant blue lamp shade for $2 and the silver plate/platter was $3.

The metal fruit holder was $4 and the blue jar and green vase were free thanks to my Mom!

All this for less than $20! 

Suzy :0)

Birthday Cakes

May is a busy birthday fest in our family. My youngest daughter's birthday is at the beginning of May and my son and dad's birthdays are at the end of May! Then a week into June comes my sister-in-law, niece and husband's birthday! Phew...

Sooo, I thought I would share my youngest daughter and son's cakes that I made myself.

As if a rainbow of skittles wasn't colorful enough!

It was a hit with the kids and the adults. I made the butter cream icing from a box mix by Wilton. YUMMY. It wasn't too sweet, just right. 

The cake almost slopped off the plate. I needed help and fast! Good thing the Lego Dudes came to the rescue! LOL 

I found these cool Lego candies and used real Lego dudes. The inside layers were colored in primary colors.  I also used the same Wilton icing mix. MMM...MMM!

Suzy :0)

Painted Kitchen Cabinets

I'm on a serious painting binge! My latest inspiration came from three different cottage-style kitchens: The Lettered Cottage, The Empty Nest and The Handmade Home. I'm in love with the modern cottage look in kitchens. The whiter the better with pops of bright colors. I consider this "phase 1" of my kitchen. It's not quite there yet but getting closer one project at a time and pennies permitting. :0)

Here's what I've done so far:

Leaving the doors off certain cabinets allows me to display items and add to the cottage kitchen feel. I will be painting the backs Martha Stewart's "enamelware" and adding bead board over the tile back splash. 

Here's some befores with rusty red walls and tacky oak cabinets:

Even with windows, it's so dark isn't it?

Can you believe I painted all those cabinets by myself? 

It's amazing what paint can do:

So much brighter!

I glued corbels, with liquid nails, to the island and plan on doing the same under the cabinets after installing the bead board over the back splash. The chairs helped keep everything in place while the glue hardened.

Paint colors used:

1 Gal. of Glidden Latex Primer

1 Gal. of Behr "Ivory Mist" paint and primer used on cabinets

1 Gal. of Behr "Dolphin Fin" paint and primer used on the walls

2 Quarts of Behr "French Roast" oil based paint and primer used on the island and corbels

In case you're also interested, I bought the corbels at Home Depot. The baskets in the cabinets and the light fixture above the table are from Ikea.

That's it for now. The next phase will be attempting to install the bead board over the tile and capping the ends with trim and gluing corbels to the upper cabinets. Oh, and paint a final third coat on the white cabinets and the bead board, and touching up the paint on the island. Am I in over my head or what? LOL It might take me months, but I'll get there. 

Suzy :0)

Been doing some painting...

I got around to painting the dresser and rusty red walls in my kitchen area. The walls were painted dolphin gray in eggshell by behr and the dresser was painted ivory mist in semi-gloss by behr. Both are paint and primer-in-one.

Here's the only before shot I have because one of our computers had to be restored and I lost the good before shots, sorry!:

Notice how tarnished the drawer pulls are. I bought the dresser on craigslist. Whoever owned this dresser before put a lifetime of cigarette resin on it. It was bad. 

And here it is after two coats of paint! I ran out of paint so I'll eventually get around to that third coat. I soaked the drawer pulls in bowl of white vinegar and then scrubbed them with a toothbrush. It was amazingly easy. 

The gray walls create a nice contrast and you can really see the detail in the clock now. 

A view into the study/office. Not sure if I should keep those yellow walls or not.

Master Bedroom....again.

Hey there! I added a tv armoire to my bedroom plus accessories:

I painted the armoire a beigey white, which was originally a dark stain wood look, and painted the tv tray turned-accent-table a creamy white. 

These boxes also got a fresh new look. They had wine bottles and wine glasses on them and I painted them white and used a homemade stencil in a chevron pattern. I think it really brings out the brass details. By the way, I'm loving this pattern right now (along with most of blog land)! Every time I see this pattern being used, whether it's on a pillow or a rug, I WANT it. LOL

Here's how everything looks on this side of the bedroom now:

It's coming along, one project at a time, and very little money spent. Next I'll be adding a sitting chair and accessories by the window. 

Suzy :0)

Ikea Malm dresser hack

Long time, no post! I finally ordered the pull rings I found at www.bellacor.com. I'm very proud of myself. I have NEVER used a power drill before and it was pretty intimidating. I was sure that I would, somehow, mess it up. After careful measuring TWICE, I marked a dot where the holes would be and drilled right in. It was so effortless! This may seem lame to experienced handy people, but when you don't know how a tool is going to feel or react when you push the button, it's kind of intimidating.

I changed out the knobs on the hemnes dresser to compliment the pull rings on the nightstands. Thanks again to Emily A. Clark for this great Ikea hack! 

Speaking of Ikea hacks, I found some other great examples of what can be done to Ikea furniture. 

Here's a great one from Jason @ retrograde: 

{source}

Look at how Morgan @ ikeahackers.net transformed this Edland dresser. 

{source}

Wow, this is gorgeous! Nancy @ MarcusDesign did a fabulous job of making these Rast dresssers look like Dorothy Draper Chests. I could see this working with the Malm too. 

{source}

{source}

I really want to try my hand at all of these. Just one of many, many things I have planned. *Sigh*

:0) Suzy

Update on My Master Bedroom

I've been busy re-tweaking my master bedroom and adding new furniture. Plus a new mattress set that we desperately needed. Our new bed is sooo comfortable!

 I got some incredible inspiration from Emily A, Clark. She used two ikea malm dressers, in her latest client project, and added pull rings to the drawers to dress them up. Absolutely beautiful and affordable! I headed to ikea and bought two malm dressers and the eight drawer hemnes dresser for under $500. I still need to buy pull rings and this is what I'm thinking of getting:

They are very similar, and may be the exact same ones she used.  You can find these at www.bellacor.com for $4.03/each. I love the poster bed she used and it looks very similar to the one I've been admiring from Zocalo Furniture's Madison Collection. 

It retails around $900-1,000 for a King. NOT in my price range. But, I found a similar poster bed at half the cost! 

I could easily paint it black-brown to match my other furniture. This is definitely on my list of future purchases! 

The beautiful, sleek beveled mirror used above the dresser looks just like this Z Gallerie mirror. 

But, at $270, I just can't stomach paying that much for a mirror. So I'll be on the look out for something similar at half the cost. For now, I like the current mirror I'm using. It used to have a rubbed silver/black finish and I spray painted it "heirloom white" by Rustoleum. More to come...

:0) Suzy