Vintage Book Page Fan Garland

Happy Monday! It's been one of those days that this is the first time I have sat down and it seems like I have a million things to do and one thing leads to another to do and it goes on and on and on. And I am sure I will be up out of my chair another 50 times before I get this post finished. But I suppose that's just a typical Monday! I have been gradually getting the house ready for Thanksgiving with little things here and there. Getting decorations made and put up, menu planning, making sure there's enough bedding for our guests, cleaning the house, etc. This is a fun little project I have always wanted to try and it is a cute decoration for pretty much any occasion. Not just Thanksgiving. How cute would it be for a book club party? I thought it would be the perfect thing to hang on my old window frame in the front entry for Fall.

For this project you will need:
Vintage book pages (I didn't have any books that I wanted to rip apart. It feels almost sacrilegious, books are too special to me. So I bought my vintage pages on Etsy.com for a few bucks. Like buying ground beef instead of killing a cow! lol)
Craft glue
White thread or embroidery floss
Mini clothespins (optional)
Buttons
Hot glue gun
Ribbon or twine for hanging

Step 1. Take 2 pieces of vintage paper pages, roughly the same size and fold them into fans. You know, grade school style. Princess brings a new one home from school almost every week.

The paper I bought for this project was old Gone With the Wind book pages. I love that book so much. I couldn't help reading some of the pages as I worked. Made me want to read it again.

Step 2. Pinch the fans together in the center and tie a piece of thread around to hold them together.

Step 3. Then spread the fanning out and glue the ends together so that your fan makes a full circle. I used regular craft glue for this and then held the edges together with clothespins so they could dry.

Repeat until you have as many fans as you want on your garland.

Step 4. Once they are dry, hot glue buttons or other embellishments onto the center of the fans and then glue the fans onto some pretty ribbon. I just used some lace ribbon.

Hang wherever!

Here is a new chalkboard sign I made for the front table. I am thinking I will keep this chalkboard here so that I can change the sayings out seasonally.

That's all for today, hope you are all having less frazzled days than I am!

A New Kitchen Hutch!

A few weeks ago I gave you a Sneak Peak at a big project I have been working on and today I'm finally going to show you what it is!

A new hutch for our kitchen! Anyone guess right? I had been searching craigslist for quite some time, searching for the perfect kitchen hutch and I kept having issues. It would be too far away or too expensive or not quite the right look I was going for. Or I would be too slow to jump on it and someone else would swipe it away from me! NO!!! And I have to say, people are way too exuberant in their pricing on craigslist! Like so high, they are never going to get rid of it. Ever. It's pretty ridiculous. Sometimes I'll look at a used piece of furniture someone has listed and just think, "Now why wouldn't I just pay an extra $50 to get a brand new one?" It's crazy. Anyway. Sometimes, you can luck out, but it's hard work. I had to bargain hard for this one and I almost lost it to two other sellers. I even tried trading Sounders tickets to this guy! (Don't worry, I asked permission first) Well finally, he caved (I think because he just wanted it out of his garage already) and let me have it for the price I wanted. I had a budget and I was sticking to it! All I had to do from there was get it to my house (which was an adventure to say the least) and then figure out how I was going to make it look pretty. I painted it with Martha Stewart's Vintage Decor Chalk Paint in the color Smoke and then added a few coats of clear wax to protect it. I was originally thinking I wanted to paint it white, but after seeing a few gorgeous light grey hutch re-dos online, I decided to go with that. I'm really happy that I chose grey. It fits in very well in our kitchen and it is a little unexpected. It is also nice to have it that color because now all of my white plates and dishes stand out more! I replaced the glass windows with chicken wire and I have to say, it is one of my favorite features of this piece. Finding pretty knobs was a little bit of a hassle. Home Depot failed utterly, and what Lowes had was just so-so. Finally I found a Builder's Hardware store and ordered some specially through them. Obviously it cost more than just getting some basic one's at Lowes, but this way the whole piece is more unique and fitted to my taste. Anyway, enough talking. Here it is!!!

BEFORE:

I apologise, I had to photograph the top and bottom separately because we brought the bottom piece in the house first so that I could paint it before we set the top on it and I wasn't going to have my husband bring the top in just for a few photos only to have it hauled back to the garage....so consequently the before and afters won't be as great. But you will still get the idea.

This is the bottom of the hutch.

And here is the top of the hutch.

DURING:

Here I was testing out the paint colors to see if I wanted grey or white. I can't even tell which one is which! I told you they were close!

Painting the whole thing took awhile and I ran out of paint twice, but it was actually a really fun piece to work on.

As you can see the previous owners drilled 3 holes (!) in the two drawers and so we had to fill them in. But you can hardly tell now. 

AFTER:

This lil' Peanut thought that I was taking pictures of her and I wasn't about to say I wasn't. Look at that sweet face.

The best part about having this new piece of furniture is that finally, after 5 years of marriage, I can finally, FINALLY move my china INTO the house! It has been packed away in boxes all of these years because we simply did not have space for it and now it finally has a place to call home! Which means, we can use the china for Thanksgiving! And aside from that, it is going to be such a fun place to decorate for holidays and parties. I love it so much.

I was a little nervous after I ordered to knobs because I wasn't 100% sure that they were the right size or that they would go with the color of paint, but they ended up being perfect.

And this old girl I found at HomeGoods. Right when I saw her I knew she was coming home with me and I had the perfect perch for her. 

And some more Before and Afters for effect....

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

That's all for today. Hope you enjoyed seeing my latest big project and hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Finishing Touch to our Farmhouse Table

Last month I showed you our new Rustic Farmhouse Table that my husband and I made for our dining room, which we absolutely love! But there was something missing. Something that somehow both my husband and I thought of to add to it. Obviously I probably found the idea on Pinterest, but where did he come up with it? It's a mystery. Anyway, we both thought it would be cool to carve (or actually burn) our initials onto the table. It will be a piece that I am sure we will keep for years and it adds a special unique-ness to it. So after quite a few practice runs on some old boards (there's no going back on this one!) he carved our initials onto our table with a tool called a "Creative Versa-tool". It's like an engraving tool that literally burns the wood to make stamps and letters, etc. Pretty cool. And he just happened to have it. But I am sure you can buy one either at a hardware store or a craft store.

Without further ado, here it is!

2009 is the year we were married.

See you!