Will you marry me?

On this day last year my sweet hubby asked me to marry him :)  It was a good day!

To commemorate the day I wanted to share with all of you one of the Valentine's Day gifts I made for the hubby :)

When searching for a Christmas gift for Cameron I came across a love coupon book at Barnes and Noble and thought it was a really cute idea, but not all of the coupons were really "us" (for lack of a better way of putting it).  Even though I didn't like all of the coupons I still thought the idea was really cute and stored it away to use at a later date.  When Valentine's Day rolled around, Cameron and I decided not to do big expensive gifts, but rather cute, inexpensive gifts that made us think of the other person.  And in comes the stored away idea of a coupon book :)

To make his coupon book I used 3 sheets of Valentine themed paper, a coupon template, rubber cement, and some ribbon to tie it all together.

I started by making a coupon template in Word where I could right what the coupon was for.  I used Word because I am not computer savvy, but if you have photoshop I'm sure yours would look way cooler ;)  I wanted the coupon part to be able to lay on top of the fun Valentine paper and have the paper visible around the edges so I was able to get four coupon blurbs (?) on one page.

Once I cut all of the coupons out I simply wrote fun activities and ways to serve him that he would enjoy.  This was the best part of making the coupon book on my own!  I was able to really think about the hubby and what would brighten his day :)

I attached the coupon blurbs to the paper, whole punched all of them on one end, and secured the together with a cute bow :)

The hubs thought it was really fun and he's excited to use all of them :)  I may just have to make him another one for a different occasion!

How is it hanging?

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I wanted to share with all of you the jewelry hanger I made for my wall and how I did it :)

After seeing this jewelry hanger on Pinterest I knew that I wanted to make one for myself that fit in with the decor of our bedroom.  I started with a plain wood plaque, 4 decorative knobs, lace, and wire and set out to create a way to organize my jewelry.

Cameron helped me drill holes into the wood plaque and then I applied a few coats of pewter gray paint.

After screwing the doorknobs in to the holes along the bottom of the plaque I set to work with the wire and lace to create a place to hang my earrings.  I wove the wire through the top of the lace and secured the wire in the back by wrapping both ends around a nail.

Now I have a personalized way to hang my jewelry and keep it organized :)  

I fail...

So remember back at the beginning of January when I made the commitment to blog more... yeah about that.  Sorry it has been a month since I've blogged and shown you some of the projects I have been working on in our house :(  My bad.  I also said that I would show you guys the remake of a file cabinet when we finished it, so this post is going to be that unveiling!

Cameron and I were driving around looking at houses for rent one day when we happened upon two file cabinets sitting on the side of the road with a big sign stating "FREE", and I immediately told him to pull over so I could take them home and have some fun.  Almost a year ago I found a tutorial on-line for updating file cabinets by covering them in fabric, but at the time I was planning the wedding and was busy enough with projects for it, that I did not give much more thought to trying it out.  Now that I am what seems like constantly in the mode of trying to make our house more homey and "us" I thought I would give it a try for our office/ guest bedroom.

When we got the two file cabinets home we discovered that only one of them was in good enough condition to cover and use, but there were aspects of the "bad" one that I wanted to use on our final product, so I stole the handles label plates from the unusable cabinet before we pitched it.

Here is the file cabinet at the beginning of the project:

Not the prettiest thing at first, but I really needed a file cabinet for work paperwork so I was determined to make it look fabulous :)

We started by picking out a fabric that we wanted for the front door panels and then moved on to picking out a spray paint that coordinated with the fabric.  Here are a few fabrics we looked at:

Ultimately though we chose this one:

We really liked the neutral background with the pop of purple.  The weight of the fabric is also really important, because if it is too thick the doors will not shut properly so take that in to consideration when choosing a fabric.  We decided to make the purple in the fabric pop by picking a purple spray paint.  With spray paint and fabric in hand we entered in to the project.

I started by covering the doors of the file cabinet (all of the old wedding magazines are finding another purpose).

After covering the doors we used a gray primer followed by the purple spray paint.

I really like Krylon spray paint.  The coverage and consistency are good in my book :)

Once the spray paint was dried, we moved on to covering the doors with the fabric.  But first the hubby drilled holes for the handles I stole from unusable file cabinet.  We just measured a few inches up from the space where we were adding the door labels and centered the handle between each of the sides.

I used a recipe for homemade modge podge from pinterest, roughed up the doors with a light sanding, and went to work.

*Side note: I mixed my modge podge in an empty mason jar which has worked perfectly :) *

It is not a clean process by any means so I recommend doing it outside and being willing to get your hands sticky.  I applied a liberal base coat of modge podge, laid the fabric down, smoothed out the bumps, and applied a liberal top coat.  On the edges I made a crease coming out from the corner, folded the fabric all to one side, and applied more modge podge (and held it in place for a bit) to get the corners to lay as flat as possible.

And here is the finished project:

Up close shot of the handles and labels along with a good look at the fabric.  I love the little gold dots on the neutral background.

It is a fun addition to the guest bedroom/office, and it has provided the storage I need for paperwork while also fulfilling the role of end table for our guests :)