I'm HOOKED!

Guess what I did this weekend?!

I LEARNED HOW TO CROCHET!!!! Yay me :)

Ok, so I'm obviously just a beginner, but I've got the single stitch, and double stitch DOWN! AND...I can do a circle, so I figured if could do those things, then why not make a little beanie? And a baby doll blanket? I just finished those, and the beanie needed a flower... and thanks to YouTube, I learned how to make one. Here's how it turned out!
One thing is for sure about crocheting, it is time consuming! That's the only downside I've found in my 4 day journey so far ;) I love how I can take it anywhere and and do it at anytime. I can't tell you how excited I will be when I can make all those super cute beanies for kids you see around, I'm determined to get good at this. This will be PERFECT for me when I'm pregnant and can't get off the couch. Maybe it will give me the sense I'm actually doing something?

If I were smart, I would have asked my very talented Grandma to teach me years ago...instead I teased my sisters who she taught some of the basics to. Teenagers are stupid sometimes. I do hope she'll teach me more when I move back to California.
I have to give a huge thank you to my friend, and crochet teacher Jennifer Gossett. She just opened a facebook page here go check out her amazing skills. Maybe one day I'll be able to make some of that cute stuff!

Just like the title of this post, I'm totally hooked. I love crocheting! This is one thing I can be super proud of myself, before Sunday I had never even picked up a crochet needle, I can't wait to make beautiful things.

*Brittney*

Chalkboard Desk

I found this great little student desk at Goodwill last week, and for $5 I couldn't pass it up. It obviously needed a makeover, it was worn and had the name "CHRIS" and numbers 1-10 painted in primary colors. For one,I don't have a kid named Chris, and second, it was ugly. Perfect project! I forgot to take a real "before" picture, this is after I gave it a nice new coat of white spray paint. I decided to go white because one day I know I'll want it a color when I get to decorate a play room, but until then it's going to be a clean, indecisive white :)

After I put the white on it was pretty boring, so after a little brainstorming, and blog hopping, and knew it was my chance to finally try out chalkboard paint! Lucky for me, Walmart sells chalkboard paint (since that's the only store in this town) coupled with a box of colored chalk for 74 cents this is a big hit with my kids! I put on 3 light coats, making sure the paint was fully dry in between each coat. I bust out my blow dryer for some help because I'm the most impatient painter ever! Worked great though...


I've been looking for a good little quote to put on the back of the chair using my Silhouette with some colored vinyl. Haven't found one yet, and I left my Silhouette cutting mats in CA!!! So that part may have to wait a couple more months til we go back... I'm so mad at myself!
Hope you all had a great weekend :) Happy Monday!

*Brittney*

Buffet Makeover

I had an extended stay in California with my family, and just got back to Georgia a couple weeks ago. I was able to help my Mom with a couple projects she has wanted to do, and my Grandmother's old buffet was one of them. My Mom has had this buffet for a really long time, so long that on the inside of one of the doors, was my name in pencil that I had written when I was little. Little enough to not even know how to write my name :)I guess this project was meant for me! Of course, first step was to sand it down:Then I did spray paint coat of primer, and put the antique white finish on we wanted. After a couple coats of that, we sanded the edges to give it that distressed look:
Sanding on this project was tedious since it was really detailed, but it added so much character that it was well worth the time. To warm it up, give it a little bit more dimension, and give it a nice seal, we put a glaze on top. We used a mixture of clear glaze and wood stain, I thought it was easy to work with and really liked how it turned out! Simply spread it on, and with an old t-shirt wipe off what you don't want. It's easy to play around with the glaze to get a feel for what you like. If you wipe off too much, just apply more, and if you want less, keep wiping :)
The glaze can take a long time to dry in all the crevasses, but you could always take a blow dryer to speed up that process! When it was done, this is what our project looked like:Here's close-up of one of the doors, you can see how pretty it is :)
Isn't she pretty?! I love how it turned out, one day I plan on stealing it for my house ;)

I conquered a major refinishing furniture fear with this project...distressing! I was so nervous that I would sand the edges too much or too little, or even if the sanding would be in the right spots. Putting glaze on was new to me too, but I learned that you really can't mess it up! I can't wait to distress one of my own pieces! Thanks Mom for your help, and trusting me enough to refinish a sentimental piece!

*Brittney*

linking up to:

Train Cake

(Parker and Seth)

My little Parker had his second birthday, along with his cousin who is only 3 days older, who also loves all things trains. My sister and I thought it would be fun to dress them up (aren't they CUTE!!!) and make a little train cake. We decided on making cake-pop like box cars following a Thomas engine on a little wooden track. We made the chocolate box cars then used white chocolate chips, mixed with food coloring, for the frosting. On top we used gummy bears and M&Ms, and gummy Live Savers for the wheels. The vision was much better in my head then how it actually turned out, but the important thing was the little guys though it was great!
*Brittney*

Ruffled Apron

It's only been like, what, 5 months since the last posts?! I won't bore you with all that we've been up to... no posts, but I have been working on projects, I've just failed to post about them. This is one of those projects that I did a while back for Mother's Day. I was lucky enough to be with my Mom on Mother's Day, which hasn't happened in years! I wanted to make something nice, and since my Mom seems to have everything, I thought an apron would be something she could possibly use. I've seen so many cute ones, and have really wanted to try ruffles (I was intimidated by them before this project). I love this fabric (it's almost a vinyl, so great for kitchen use) and pattern, and I found this tutorial and modified it a little. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, and I hope my Mom likes it :)

*Brittney*
p.s. I promise I it won't take me as long to post again as last time :) I've got lots to show you!