Easter Card Freebie

I do work. At home. If you call it work. I own and operate Bayberry Announcements.com, a photo invitation and announcement company. I haven't been able to get any designs for Easter up on the site yet so I'm going to offer this freebie instead. Just copy and paste a photo of your choice into the design and email or print for all to enjoy!

Happy Easter!

Faux "Crown" Moulding

Right now our garage is jammed packed with garage sale crap treasures and it will stay that way until next month. So I don't have a lot of room to work, not to mention I have no idea how to do a spring angle and really hang crown moulding. So to put a finishing touch on my walls in the dining room I just used regular base moulding...I think (from what a neighbor told me) it's baseboard moulding flipped upside down. Whatever. It looks good and it was so much cheaper not to mention easier to do then crown.

Before (with the old paint and no moulding):



After (new paint and moulding up):




On a side note, I was out shopping with my youngest this morning and it was about time to pick my oldest up from school, I arrived in the parking lot of the school and realized I had left my purse in the shopping cart at the last store I was at. Needless to say I FLEW back there and of course it was gone. I got home, in tears, and called my husband to have him cancel my credit cards when within 5 minutes I received a phone call from the lady who found it. Instead of turning it in (to possibly dishonest people) she took it home with her and contacted me. I went right away to get it and everything was still in there, what an angel. It's so nice to know that there are such good people out there in the midst of all the global chaos. Sigh.

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It seems like the new thing is using painter's drop cloths for slipcovers, curtains and more so I'm trying my hand at curtains. I picked out a stencil at Joann's and grabbed some black fabric paint and here's what I have so far...



I'm not doing the entire curtain, only 3/4 of the way up and in a staggered, upside down "v" pattern (kinda reminds me of that video game Tetris). Anyway, I'll be sure to post pics when I get them up on the wall.

One Night Stand

I mean...one nightstand. Here she is before...



And now, the after....





She wasn't easy that's for sure.

I bought oil based, black paint by mistake (what a beast to work with) and my roller left lint all over. So I let it dry (which takes fer-eva) and sanded the lint off. Another BIG MISTAKE. It dulled the finish horribly and there was no fixing it. So I ended up back at ACO in town to sort through a handful of black paint tints to have a black latex paint mixed. Who knew black came in such a wide range of shades?!! So I painted her again and sanded the edges to accentuate the detail, popped on a new knob and voila!

I learned a lot on this project.



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Back Online!

Wow, my PC's motherboard blew last week and it's been a struggle to get back online. I ended up ordering a MAC and now have to adjust to the new shortcut keys and more. I've been exploring the last few days trying to figure everything out...I'm gettin' there. It's an awesome machine that's for sure!

In the meantime I've been working on quite a few projects:
- redecorating the dining room (paint, moulding, curtains, accessories)
- refinishing MY old headboard and foot board (from when I was a child) along with a $5 table from Habit for Humanity Restore for my daughter's room
- finishing touches on my kitchen makeover



I'll be posting on each and every one of them shortly, I just need to get my after pictures. :)

Here and there

Well, my computer is 'there' at the computer Dr. and I'm blogging on the hubster's laptop. On the other hand I found this cool signature tool for bloggers 'here' and wanted to try it out! It's free and makes things a bit more personal...



Pretty cool huh?

Deal of the Day!

Okay, so I know not all Walmart stores carry fabric but the one by me does and I always find what I'm looking for (even though the selection is a quarter of what Joann's is). I found this awesome fabric for my kitchen makeover for $1.50 a yard!!!! I picked up 7 yards and a couple of grommet tops and will be fashioning some curtains today! Yippie!

Chair Makeover

This beauty was sitting pretty at the local thrift store when I stumbled across her. Clad in mustard yellow vinyl (and only $9), I thought it would be the perfect addition to my room, with a little work.




To recover the seat I flipped it upside down and unscrewed the screws from the bottom and the seat lifted right up. I pryed the staples off that were holding the vinyl to the seat base and the cushion was still in puffy condition and didn't smell so I kept it. I didn't want to have to sew so I laid my material on the floor right side facing the floor and placed my seat bottom on top of it and began to pull taunt and staple. Within minutes I had a great looking chair! Now the question is whether or not to paint the wood white...any thoughts?

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Friday Funny

Watch the boy on the left....

Oh My Sticky Stickers!

Yesterday I picked up some new glasses from the dollar store and of course they each had a huge sticker stuck to the bottom. I used an old trick my mom had taught me, to soak the stickers in window cleaner for a few minutes then scrape it off.



Once you get the sticker itself off there will be a little glue left but it easily pulls up.




There, not so bad huh?! I hope someone can use this trick!

Salmon Patties

Our favorite and most frequently used recipe is our Salmon Patties.

Ingredients:
2 packets of Pink Salmon by Chicken of the Sea (skinless & boneless)
1 egg
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1/4 cup of mayo or miracle whip
1/2 cup of old fashioned oats or cheez-it's or even goldfish crackers ground up
2 tablespoons oil

To make:
-heat oil in large frying pan and mix all of your ingredients (it's a fairly wet mixture but don't let that scare you, they turn out deliciously moist)
-spoon out a tablespoon of your mixture and plop it into the frying pan, repeat until you've used all of your ingredients
-flip after about 3-4 minutes, cook on the other side for about 3 minutes
-dish it up

Quick, easy and relatively healthy!

Blind fix

So I found these awesome, cheap blinds at Target. For $14 ea. I couldn't pass them up. And they had them in the width I needed, 31". It wasn't until they were completely installed that I found out they weren't LONG enough! Yikes! So instead of tearing them down and taking them back I used the extra slats I had left over from my shorter window above my sink to extend them. Wow, what was I thinking?!!



So I took the left over slat strings that I had cut off of my kitchen window blinds and began sewing, yes sewing, them to the my too short blinds.



The extra slats to be added...



And here is the after, it still needs a little tweaking but I'm just thrilled to have them hit the window sill now. :)



You can see the stitching if you look close but from a far it's not noticeable thank goodness!

DIY Wall Art

I first saw this idea on My Sweet Savannah's blog. The concept is stunning and to have it personalized with say, your own children or pets makes it even more meaningful. So while I was at our local Dollar Tree I came across these beautiful off-white plates and knew exactly what to do with them. I pulled out my black paint pen from JoAnn's and went to town.

First I took a picture of my girls from the side (against a solid color background is best). Then in Photoshop I clipped out the silhouette and printed it on a regular piece of paper the size that I wanted. Then I cut the silhouette out and used it as a stencil to trace the face onto my plate and then I just painted it in. I suppose you could just take a picture and print it out in the size you'd like and cut it out that way, skipping the Photoshop step if you're not too familiar with it.

I let that dry (which was pretty quick) and I added a caramel colored bow using left over ribbon I had laying around and popped the plate into a plate hanger and up on the wall it went. Piece o'cake.



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Patiently waiting for warmer weather

so I can refinish this bad girl.



I picked it up at the local Salvation Army for $60. I just have to figure out what color it's screaming at me...any thoughts? My dining room is going to get a fresh coat of taupe/gray paint and my table and chairs are black and cherry. I was thinking a mustard or a distressed white, or should I play it safe with black? Hummm, decisions decisions.