Kitchen Upgrades

We are finally done with all of the upgrades to our kitchen, or at least the upgrades that we can afford right now.

1. We changed out the hardware on all of the kitchen cabinets.  The kitchen cabinets had dark brass handles and hinges.  They were very loud and antique looking with almost a floral pattern on them. They had to go.  We replaced the hinges with white hinges, so that they blended in with the white cabinets.  We replaced the door handles with a simple brushed nickel handle and added brushed nickel cup pulls to the drawers.

2. I added a magnetic chalkboard on the previously big, empty wall.  You can read a detailed post about the chalkboard here.

What else would you put on a giant chalkboard except the Alabama football schedule?

3. I made some cafe curtains for the window in the kitchen.  Can I sew? NOPE.  Can I use stitch-whitchery? Yeppers.

Notice the framed art?  "I love you more than college football Saturdays." Our house is very football themed right now.

4. I upgraded some barstools that were given to us by recovering the seats with the same fabric as the curtains.

5. We built that island.  You can read the detailed post about our island here.

My Home's in Alabama

We recently had to buy a jigsaw for another project that we are working on (post to come).  This jigsaw has opened up so many possibilities for me - things that I have been wanting to make, but haven't had a chance.

Well, our sweet friends Matt and Kimberlee are moving to Canada next week.  I wanted to make them something for their new Canadian house that would remind them of home.  So this is what I made for them:

I used this website to print out the shape of the state.  The site lets you choose how big you want to print the state (it also has countries and world maps and stuff too - it is a great resource). http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm

I traced the shape of Alabama onto a thin piece of plywood from Home Depot, and then Jeff (and Taylor too, I think) cut out the state with the jigsaw.  I sanded the wood lightly, just to get a smooth finish.  I painted the whole thing white.  Then, I created a chevron stencil from some cardstock, by first measuring out some squares, and then drawing diagonal lines to make the zig-zag.  I then taped the chevron stripes that I wanted to remain white and painted over the whole thing with a "crimson" color that I attempted to mix.  To give it a little bit of a more rustic and muted look, I used a dry brush with just a tiny bit of white paint to make the subtle white brushstrokes.  I bought the heart shape from Hobby Lobby, painted it grey, and hot glued it to where Tuscaloosa is on the map.

Kimberlee says that she will hot glue some ribbon to the back and make a cute bow so that she can hang it on the wall.  She will be way better at making the bow/hanger than me anyway.  (You can check out her blog, awesome sewing skills, and Canadian adventures here: http://tobefranklin.blogspot.com/)

Have fun in Canada, Franklin's!  We will miss you!

If anyone is interested in purchasing a state door hanger, a country door hanger (perfect for international adoptions, missions, etc.), Christmas door hanger, or any other holidays - email me or let me know!  I will be glad to make one for you or for you to give as gifts!

Some recent crafts...

For a long time now, I have been wanting to make a cute map so that Jeff and I can pin all of the places that we travel together.  And this week, I finally got around to it.

I printed a big map of the Good Ol' U.S. of A. from this website that I found on Pinterest: http://www.yourchildlearns.com/megamaps.htm.  You can print maps off as big as 8 pages x 8 pages.  I chose to print mine off at 3 pages x 3 pages.

I cut out the map and taped the pieces together to make a stencil.  I used a roll of cork from Hobby Lobby that cost me $8.99 thanks to their 40% off coupon.  I traced the map and cut out the USA.  The cork had been rolled up, so I left some coasters and things on the map overnight to flatten the edges out.

I currently have a collection of large frames, mirrors, etc. that I have picked up at thrift stores and yard sales along the way.  But, my map was too large to fit in any frame that I had.  But I did have an old corkboard from Wal-Mart or something that was the perfect size.  You know, one that looks all plain like this:

I also had some extra burlap from my wedding laying around.  So, I recovered the corkboard with the burlap, just stapling the burlap to the back of the board.  I used spray adhesive to glue on the map and added a couple banners and ended up with this:

Hopefully we'll get to add a few more locations soon!

I also had an ugly, gold, scratched-up oval frame laying around and decided to finally do something with it too.  I spray painted it white and added some Valspar antiquing glaze.  I also used burlap for the background of this project too.  I got a wooden "H" at a local Home Accents store and ...

I am so excited that the house is finally coming together, and I am finally doing something with all of these random frames that I have bought over the past year.

So last night I made a ottoman...

We recently rearranged our furniture in the living room, and we realized that we needed a huge ottoman in the middle of our couch and chairs to complete the look.  A few years ago some friends of our's gave us their coffee table.  It used to have broken tile pieces on the top and looked like this:

I forgot to take a "before" picture of the coffee table - this is the only one that I had.  Riggins was such a cute puppy.

I bought some upholstery fabric at Hobby Lobby, some foam, and some batting.  Picking out the fabric was a little difficult (mainly because I got to Hobby Hobby 11 minutes before they closed, so I was in a bit of a hurry) because our couch is a sage green color and we have a pinstriped chair with a million colors in it.  So I picked out a fabric that had some of the same colors as the striped chair - but in a floral pattern.

The project took longer than I expected because I decided to paint the bottom and legs of the table.  Tip: Maybe you are smarter than me and you already knew this, but it is way easier to spray paint the legs of the table if you flip the table over.  That way, you don't have to lay on the ground under the table trying to paint all the way around the legs.  Believe me - it is much easier to flip the table over, with the legs sticking up.

After I let the spray paint dry, while I watched The Vow for the 25th time, it was time to get to upholstering (- i think that's a word).  I used spray adhesive to secure the foam and then cut the foam to fit the top of the table.  Then, I pulled the batting tight and stapled it to the bottom of the ledge of the table top.  Next, I cut the fabric and stapled it to the ledge as well.  I trimmed all of the extra material and corners - and I was done! Voila!

I also decided to add some decorative fabric tacks for a little extra decoration and to secure the fabric better.  And they were only like $1.99 at Hobby Lobby.