Two For One

I am combining yesterday and today's posts into one because in the rush to finish projects I failed to blog photos yesterday.

We have been hard at work making shelves for our living room, bedroom, and spare bedroom (which also houses my office).  Yesterday was rainy and cold here so it was an easy day to stay inside and get work done.

As paint, stain, and wood glue was drying I decided to work on a shadow box of our wedding stationary that I have been meaning to finish for a while.  I found the shadow box for a couple of dollars at a local thrift store and just needed to recover the back panel and attach my items to it.

Putting together brought back so many good memories of our wedding season.  And now I get to look at it every day as it sits on the shelves we finished for our bedroom!  The shelves are made with 1x3 for the back and base and a 1x2 for the front ledge.  We made two four foot long shelves to display pictures and memories in our bedroom.  The whole project cost $5 for lumber plus wood glue.  

Tomorrow we both go back to school which is bittersweet.  I have loved this one on one time as well as the chance to get caught up around the house, but I am also excited to get back to learning about my passion.  

Happy day 13 of 365.  For anyone going back to school tomorrow good luck on this coming semester!

Halloween Party 2012!

My heart is full and happy and I could write an entire post about it, but for today I am just going to leave you with some fun pictures from our Halloween party.  It was a lovely night of friends, costumes, food, and a toasty fire :) 

Happy Sunday!

Thrifted Kitchen Counter Table

Happy Monday!  I have a really exciting project to share that the hubby and I completed this weekend. It was a pretty relaxed weekend in the Calef house and on Saturday we stopped by a local flea market to look around.  It is one of our favorite lazy day activities, and since I wasn't feeling super great on Saturday we thought it was the perfect low key activity :)  

Within a minute of walking in I had found the counter height table I had been looking for since we moved into the house!  And it came with two stools that I desperately needed for the craft room so I looked the purchase as a win :)  $60 for all three pieces!

Since I had been looking for it since we moved in I had several inspiration pieces pinned on my Pinterest boards:

I fell in love with this island from World Market back in the spring.  They no longer carry it (sad day!), but as you can tell from the finished project it was my inspiration piece.

This beautiful furniture redo from Juniper Hill Antiques

A pretty dresser repurposed for the kitchen

This pretty island featured in Southern Living

First step was to remove the hardware from the table and proceed to sand and then clean.  After cleaning away all of the dust I sprayed the bottom a beautiful turquoise blue from Valspar.

We wanted the top to have the look of butcher block without the cost so we picked up 5 pieces of $.99 faux wood laminate.  It is the type that you just peel and stick, but we knew it wouldn't adhere the best to the curved edges so I quickly painted the edges with leftover dark brown paint from the hutch remodel.

After the paint dried we stuck the faux wood tiles in place and placed the new table into the kitchen. It brings color and functional counter space to the room :)  

Did you complete any fun DIY projects this weekend?

Mirror re-do

With my job I travel a lot and must get creative with ways to spend my lunch time in different towns.  One of my favorite places to go in Branson is TJMaxx.  They often have a better selection than the one in Springfield, and they have a really good clearance area.  This shopping trip I was looking to see if I could find some cute fall decor (which I found) and stumbled upon a fantastic mirror that I knew I had to have.  First the cute fall decorations just because I love them :)

And now on to the mirror.  It started its life like this:

I looked past its hot pink frame thanks to its $15 price tag and decided that I could make it function in our master bedroom.  I bought a can of primer and a can of sunshine yellow spray paint for the re-do.  The primer was a must with the frame being a very bright hot pink :)

I was so excited to get the mirror up and on the wall that I decided to paint it right after I got home, which meant that it was dark outside so sorry about the dark pictures to come ;)

It took about 4 coats of primer and 3 coats of color to cover the hot pink, but the finished project is amazing in my opinion :)

I was squealing with excitement when it went up on the wall!  Living in a rental presents that challenge of sterile, white walls that you can't do anything with.  I am always looking for fun ways to bring bright colors to our walls and this mirror definitely did it in our master bedroom :)  

See you tomorrow for a Friday Favorites post!