Out with the old, in with the new! (NOT!)

You used to always hear "Out with the old and in with the new" but why out with the old?
The way I see it your already attached to and comfortable with the "old", why not just spruce it up. (I'm talking furniture!)
I have one of the most amazing bargain hunters in my life, my grandma <3 My Aunt Franny and best friend Too Real tie in a close second.....
Anywho, before my birth my grandma searched and found a cute 5 drawer dresser for me. She and my mom cleaned it up and used it for years. As I got a little older my mom updated it, a little fresh paint and drawer liner.



                                                                                                           















    THIS IS IT!! It is super simple but functional and cute. And they put the cutest little knobs on them.

Now luckily they decided not to glue in the liner other wise this project may have been a little harder, They used clear tape, the reason they chose to use tape is their own but in the end it was perfect for me.

So, first I went to Dollar Tree [favorite store ever!] and got a few things. To include:

paint scrapper

rubber palm work gloves

sand paper

paint brushes

shelf liner (non-slip)

drop cloth

and a few other things none of which were needed for this project.

I used the scrapper to get excess paint off the dresser, removed the drawers, then I sanded everything. After sanding, I brushed off the dust and wiped it down with a lint free cloth.

Then I laid out my drop cloth and started painting, main dresser first and then the drawers. Let dry overnight and added another coat the next day. 

                              

this is how it looked on day two, kinda looks like a robot. Ironic that I am putting the dresser through a transformation and it looks like a stick figure transformer. Well... I think so anyway... then again I am just a nerd.

After it completely dried, I coated it in Minwax Polycrylic, added non-slip shelf liner (in light blue and white) and added new knobs.

American Tradition (Valspar) satin paint in Blue Burst

and

Valspar Semi-gloss pain in Ultra White

(both of which my mom already had in her shed - she's awesome)

I got these knobs for less than a $1 from Lowe's, they are GateHouse 1.5 in concave knobs.

In the end a little elbow grease goes a long way. So, No! not "out with the old, in with new."

I say " Go with the old and in the end you'll have gold"

Cricut fun

So for the last one and one half years I have owned a Cricut Create and did nothing with it. Well now I have! Thanks to my friend Jackie, I learned a few things, first of all I learned that I could connect it to the Cricut Craft Room which, for some reason, I thought only the newer ones could connect to the PC. Well I was wrong of course!

Here's a funny (not really) story!
I hooked up my Cricut to my pc after downloading the Craft Room and it said I needed to update the firmware. I attempted to numerous times, called the company- they had me load the old verion of the room, try a differnet browser and run through the update a few more times, bought and used a new USB cable.... IT DIDN'T WORK!
Asked Jackie for help.....
Turns out, like any other tech issue, it was an operater error. Wrong firmware (well right firmware wrong machine). Sadly I'm suppose to work in the IT field. :-(
End of funny story!

Anywho, I played around with a couple different cartridges just to get the hang of learning the buttons. I even had the chance to purchase some Heat N Bond iron-on fusible interfacing. So with all of that being said these are the sad thing I attempted to make my first go 'round.

The two items on a black background are adhered to black cotton fabric using the fusible interface. The others are on basic card stock.

Now I know how to use the machine and the software.

THANKS JACKIE!

Poppin Tags!

Poppin Tags!!

(not sure if rights are reserved to that saying... :-/  )

I am a super fan of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, thanks to my good friend Too Real. After buying their album "The Heist" I fell in love with the song "Thift Shop". Too Real and I every now and then go 'diggin' through bins at the Goodwill Outlets to find either items for the family, ourselves or to use as fabric to craft. It's great you are not spending nearly as much money as you normally would but you are helping in return. There are some pretty awesome things in the outlet.

While I was there I found an older dress, green and cream(probably white at one time) picnic patterned dress. Of course when I saw it, I liked it for what is was, it screamed retro and that's my world. But when I got home I decided to hack it. Something simple since I am just getting into the sewing game. So I got home soaked it in baking soda water and then washed it. After dring I cut the top off, hemmed it and made it into a crop top. More than likely I will pair it with a pair of cream shorts for the summer or pants for the spring. Or maybe even a dark green pair of shorts.

yes it is a dark green,

I forgot to take a picture prior to cutting the top off!! (SILLY ME)

I may add some elastic to the hem to get a closer fit.

This craft was inspired by "Thift Shop" , Too Real and Refashionista

Sewing Beginner

Super Beginner

So here's the deal, my friend [TooReal] and I have begun to sew. Each of our reasons for sewing vary, I wanted to learn to sew more so to hem pants for the boys and to upcycle shirts and long skirts for myself and to learn to make accessories like ties and vest but anywho.... I started messing around.

First, I suck at learning things, I tend to not want to take baby steps. I want to jump right in and do complicated things knowing goodness well I should learn to thread the machine first. Cortney had to come fix my machine for me because whenever I would sew the thread would bunch up under the fabric. She definitely got to laugh at me, I had the thread on the bobbin winder instead of the spool pin! The tension was wrong, so I called the company. The sent me a PDF version of the instruction.

Sewing first

So as you may have noticed I jump from craft to craft, this time it was sewing. I made a conscientious decision to not purchase a dress from a store for my command Christmas party so I went hunting for an easy dress to make. I Google searched and looked on Pinterest and ran across SewPetiteGal.

She created this simple and easy to make dress that I loved.

But of course two things happened, it didn't come out the way I wanted it to and I had other visions in my mind of what I wanted it to look like in the end. 

I followed her instructions and made the one shoulder dress, which was fine, but for some reason I am fasinated with trains (maybe because it makes me look shorter! Sure that's what I will tell myself!!) So I added one some kind of way. (Needless to say it didn't look good)

this is the color of the fabric I chose. The blue interlock of course for the dress and the organza for the train I decided to add. This is how it turned out...

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not cute!

So I started playing around with the sewing machine (by the way the dress is only the third thing I ever tried putting stitches in by machine) and laying the fabric on my body different ways and landed a great look. So I added jewelry and took funny photos!

                         sexy huh!!                                   

But that wasn't good enough! Then it turned into this.....

 still not too bad, but there's that train again!!

But after a couple hours for a couple days I decided I can be myself. I want a sexy retro look with a new twist. All those years of seeing 1930's, 40's and 50's movies I wanted to be old school beautiful.

So I bought long black gloves, rhinestone jewelry (bracelets, earrings, necklace and rings) and pinned my hair up and under like the lady in 007 Skyfall. I even jeweled the shoes. All in all I love the dress I made and I felt beautiful in it.

 

 

   and I made a poncho style coat!!

Learned a few sewing things but all in all I was more than happy.

Thanks to my friends Kay and TooReal for putting up with the emails asking for their opinions!!