Invites for little C's 1st

My Sons invites turned out so cute :) Since it was his first birthday I killed myself to get these done along with all the other house projects I am working on. I am crossing my fingers I finish painting the half bath by his birthday Just had to have a new color...whats wrong with me? Don't answer that :)

Washi Tape :) My new obsession

The first circle was altered to not show my sons name, it doesn't really look that crazy :)

DIY Grip Socks

I recently upgraded little C to bigger socks and found that they were way more slippery than his old ones. Having wood floors made it hard for him to walk around....so I busted out the puff paint.

Do you call it puff paint? My husband has no idea what that is and thinks I made it up. 

I opted for the tulip slick glow in the dark paint. It was slick enough to still be able to get his shoes on but also have just enough grip to be able to walk around.

A simple and easy fix. 

Update on Cabinets

Remember way back when I posted on refinishing my kitchen cabinets?! yes about a month ago now. Well.... I am sad to say I am still working on them. Gasp!! I know it is taking forever. I attribute it to needing to wait for things to dry and a baby boy that always wants his mommy. I am hoping to have everything done by thanksgiving, then I will have a kitchen to be thankful for. :)

Here is our bathroom that I did before the kitchen... It went a lot faster.

So I figured I could at least give an update for now and some tips for those of you that are trying out the same thing.

Tips:
1. Use a liquid sandpaper (Citristrip gel) on the drawers and doors. I found that it was a lot better at striping the wood than just sanding. I really want to get a good even smooth stain on the most noticeable parts of my cabinets. I did not use it on the frame as I didn't want to deal with the mess. Just did it on the large sides that were built in and sanded the rest.
2. Use the mineral wash recommend to get all the leftovers off the wood before and after sanding. It helped just to make sure the all the citristrip was off before the stain. It was also very helpful to get stain and topcoat off my hands.
3. Use larger tape then 1". I use 1" painters tape to tape off areas and I still got paint on the walls. It was hard to get my tools in the small areas.
4. Use a smooth sponge. Now there are others that say to use a sock but I found that a smooth sponge worked so much better to get a smooth coat on the wood. The sock wood leave marks where the toe stitch was and was hard to get an even coat.
5. Remove all hardware (cabinet hinge's) and appliances. I asked mt husband to do this for me and he said it would be fine and I may have gotten stain on stuff ...oppps I know you may not care about stain on your hinges but I kinda wish I had taken the time to do it cause it isn't very clean of a look.

Baby Boy Boots

I really want something for my little mans feet during the semi cold season. I know that when I have just socks on my feet are still cold so why would he be any different?!

I have a box full of old clothes that are no longer wearable and decided it was the best place to go for fabric. YEP! that old flannel shirt from high school is perfect!!

After taking off the sleeves and cutting out my pattern I pinned my inner and outer fabric together.

I am not the best at sewing so I try to make things a little easier when I can. The proper way to do this pattern is to sew the inner fabric all together to form the liner and then sew it to the top of the outer liner..I have tried this before and I find my two pieces didn't fit well together and it was very difficult because of the size of the shoes.

I sewed the inner and outer pieces together and then sewed the boot/slipper together. I decided I wanted the fabric seems on the outside of the boot to make it a little more rugged for my boy.

I didn't want him to look like he was wearing girlie shoes.

Add a little elastic to the heal to keep those bad boys on and TA DA ... done

The stretchy jersey fabric on the inside is nice and soft on his skin and the flannel on the outside will help to keep in the warmth.

Next I shall make some for when it gets really cold. :)

**We have carpet in most of our home right now but hope to upgrade to all wood very soon. When that happens I am going to add a design in hot glue on the bottom of all the shoes I make so my little one has a some grip.

Kitchen Cabinet DIY Part 1

I hate my cabinets!!!! Yes HATE is a strong word and I mean it.

Nope!! My kitchen is not clean..... sigh... 

Since we moved in I have not liked my cabinets but you don't buy a house for the cabinets (or at least I don't). After doing extensive research and BEGGING my hubby I tried out a gel stain on our bathroom upstairs.

I fell in love and so did Hubby :) He was the one to say I should start on the kitchen right away, thank goodness.

It took me a week in total with dry time and I had a beautiful bathroom ... well bathroom cabinets. I still am not a fan of the rest of it. We don't use it yet so it is low of the list of things to do.

I am sanding away at the kitchen cabinets right now. It is taking a good amount of time because I work full time and my baby just want me to be with him once I get home. I maybe get 2 done during his evening nap time.

The worst part in the sanding process so far is scrubbing down my above stove cabinet doors. The grease film on them had to be scrubbed off with Dawn soap and then scraped off, and finally sanded away.

The shelves that were not preserved by grease took no time at all. I am using a 120 to sand just the top layer to help the gel to go on better.

I of course am cleaning the cabinets first to make sure that any dirt is off.

Once everything is sanded it will be time to tape off the base/frame and then get to staining.
More to come...........

Bathroom Towel Hanger

I made this when we first bought our house and never was completely happy with it. It was one of those quick “Let’s get it up and move to the next project” things. Now with a little less things going on I just have to go back and update it. I made it buy first putting scrap pieces of wood that we had together and drawing a design on the top. I then carved out the image and weathered the wood using wood carving tools. This part was hard as I used scrap wood and some of the wood was very hard and difficult to carve into. The wood was free and on hand so it was worth the extra work. Then I gave it a light sand to smooth out any rough areas and using wood glue glued it all together. I first spray painted it with black spray paint then painted everything but the center image in blue.

 FAIL! I hated that coloring, so I added some white paint that we had and decided it would do. I hate it now and especially the fact that the white is glossy. It looks very keep and not rustic like my first idea was.

 

Redo Time! I started by sanding the entire thing and only leaving little parts of the paint behind. (During this process I broke my piece in half so it would be easier to sand.)

 

I then used a Jacobean stain to darken up the wood, applying it with a sponge and removing it with and old sock. After it had set for 6 to 8 hours I made sure that all the stain was off the wood with a Clorox wipe. The places where the paint was not sanding a lot didn't absorb the stain.

 

 

I don't have pictures of it on the wall yet as I need to put up the wainscoting first :)