Dreaming...Formal Living Room

Ever since I have moved into this house I have had such a hard time figuring out my formal living room. Note in this picture I have separated my sectional that I have in my family room so I could at least get a picture of the room with some furniture in it. It usually is empty. This room is an odd shape. (Skinny rectangle since I have a huge walkway through it) Making it kind of difficult to deal with. I think I have finally decided what I want to do. I am going to turn it into a library/reading area. I have looked at several different stores online and have come up with a plan.

 Here are the items I would love to have. I couldn't fit 2 bookshelves in this picture, but I will have at least 2 of them so I can line the whole wall with shelving. Of course these are the dream items. If I get these exact items I will have to pay around $4500. I don't have that kind of money to spend, so I will be doing some serious bargain shopping. Maybe a little refurbished 2nd hand stuff? I know for sure my husband will be building me this bookshelf instead of buying one. That already cuts the price down tremendously considering that was the most expensive item I had on my list. But at least I have my idea sketched out and ready to go. I know exactly what I need to be looking for. Time to go shopping

Pillow Cover

My sister in law gave me her old pillows she made when my husband and I got married. That was about 7 years ago, not including the time that my sister in law had them. That is just how long I have had them. I would say that it is about time for a make over. My girl's room needed some throw pillows so I thought I could put these old ones to good use. Follow along to see how I made these pillow covers.
First take your old pillow and measure all the way around it. If your pillow is rectangle you will need to measure horizontal and vertically. Mine is a square so I only needed to measure once. Which my pillow is 34". Now when you take this measurement to your fabric you will need to add about 1 1/2 inches to the length before cutting. So my new fabric will be 35 1/2" long
Next, fold, pin, and sew all the way around the edges. This seals your fabric so it won't fray latter on.
Now fold one end of your fabric over to the middle. Make sure you are doing this all inside out.
Then fold the other end of the fabric over. Making sure to overlap your 2 ends a little bit. I overlapped mine by about 2 inches. Once again you are going to sew, but this time your not going to go all the way around. You will only need to sew down the 2 sides that are open. Don't forget all this is inside out.
After you sew your 2 ends you will flip your fabric the right side out. As you can see you are left with a little pocket to stuff your pillow inside.
Here it is stuffed. Can you see the old pillow? You can also see why it was important to overlap your 2 end pieces. It creates a nice little covering so you can't see the old one.
Yay! For about $3 I have some new throw pillows for my girl's room. That sure beats spending $30 for some new ones from the store

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Fire Planters

I am a little slow on posting my tutorial. If you remember my Christmas party that I did for my church, then you might remember these fire planters that I had for our table centerpieces. Our theme was "Give S'more", but you can't make s'mores without fire...right? I did promise y'all a tutorial for them. So here it is...

First, I had to draw out my vision on paper, and submit them to my husband. I don't trust myself with the table saw just yet. For each box you will need
2- 2' x 3" (sides)
1- 2' x 3 1/2" (bottom)
2- 3 1/2" x 3 7/8" (ends)
He mad all the measurements and cut the scrap boards that we had lying around.
When he was finished then my part came in. I nailed 2 of the 2' x 3" boards on top of the 2' x 3 1/2" board
Then nail your 2 end pieces on and paint whatever color you want. I had some left over brown paint from when we painted my living room. So we used that to paint our boxes. So far this project has been FREE. When you do activities for church you are always working on a budget. Its always fun to test your creative side and come up with something that doesn't cost a lot of money. Thank goodness my husband has an obsession with wood work and always has scraps lying around.
Now for the fire! I took red and orange tissue paper. Cut in 1/4 sheets. These boxes are very shallow so you don't need a whole sheet. Just a little will do.
Lastly stagger in color. Red, orange, red, orange. Voila! You have a fabulous fire pit for your S'more centerpiece. The Best part... it only cost $1 (for the tissue paper) Now thats what I call working on a budget.
We even had cheap labor...my son! The school bus dropped him off right as we were assembling. Dad let him throw on some headphones and help with the cutting. It definitely made Little Man's Day

Fo-Etched Glass Door

Want to know how to get this beautiful stain glass door look for really cheap? Here's how...
Originally I got the idea from At Second Street, but her directions said to find a sheet of decorative paper and exacto knife out the pattern. Ouch, my hand hurts just thinking about cutting out all that detail. So when I went to A.C. Moore yesterday I found this paper. That is pre-cut for you. Hello Genius invention! I snatched it up for $1.99. I also got some etched glass spray paint for $3.00 and some Elmer's spray glue ($2.50) for adhesive.First, you spray some glue on the backside of your decorative cut out paper. This will help hold down all of the little scrolls into place. Once you have placed it on your window where you would like tape up some newspaper to avoid spray painting into your other window panels. The tape gives you a nice clean line as well. Now you are ready to spray paint. Once you are done simply peel away your paper. Keep repeating these steps until you have done all of your panels. You will need to keep reapplying the spray glue on after every window panel to make sure it sticks well. You don't want any little flaps coming up. Voila! You have a nice Etched glass door. Here is from the insideAnd from the outside. Note to self...I thought it would be best if I spray painted it from the inside, but after it was all said and done. I should of sprayed it on the outside. Its darker on the inside and harder to see out. If your looking in from the outside in it is very faint and is very easy to see inside. Oh well, to late now, but you can learn from my mistake. I will be your guinea pig. I still think it is pretty.

I also should have picked a pattern that revealed more that way it would have been more frost instead of glass. The pattern I chose didn't cover much. You can still see through the windows very easily. I wish my paper pattern was reversed on the positive/negative. That would have been awesome

Drum Roll Please......
Total Cost for Etched Glass door: $7.50
How much it would have cost: $300

I'd say that's a BARGAIN! and it only took about 30 minutes to do

Chandy-basket

Brassy Apple is ingenious. She made a elegant chandelier perfect my little girls room out of wire baskets she got from the dollar store. Brilliant. I'm telling y'all. Y'all are going to have to stop coming up with so many cute things, because I am way behind on my crafting. I can't keep with y'all. You all are just too good.

Airplane

I don't have any directions on how to make this, because it was bought. Luckily my husband is a handy man, and I know he will be able to make a replica fairly easy. This book shelf would look AWESOME in my little boys room. Hello, my husband is a pilot, therefore I had no choice but to decorate my sons room in airplanes. Here is a picture of my little boys room. Don't you think it would go perfect.