Ottoman...Fail :0(

So I had it all planned out in my head last night...

I had an awesome project that I thought I could do quickly.

I came home last night excited to get started on it, 

and was sure I could get it done and have it to show you all today...

Last week, on my Thrifty Finds Week 2 (that I haven't got posted yet...oops.)

I found this awesome ottoman at one of our local thrift stores for $4!!!

 

I was so excited because I was sure I could recover it easily and it would look fabulous.

In my head I could see my plans all laid out...

Take it apart at the main seams, cut new pieces the same size as the old ones, 

make piping, sew back together..

Sounds easy right?

Then I started to take off the Mohair top and this is what I found....

Straw!!

Needless to say I was not a happy camper...lol..

That does explain why it was so heavy though..lol

So now I'm at a loss on how to save my ottoman. :0(

I could sew it back together and slipcover it...

but there's no telling where this was before the thrift store...and I'm not up for breeding possible creepy crawlies in the living room..eewww.. So the old straw has to go.

Not to mention it would look funny (in my opinion) because of the piping to slipcover it.

I thought about refilling it with new straw, but if I take off the leather outside, 

then I will be left with just a pile of old straw since there is no inside support 

other than the wooden bottom.

Another option and probably the most reasonable is to buy foam to remake the ottoman, 

but then my $4 ottoman project just got a lot more expensive...

So no clue what I'm going to do yet...

Has anyone else ran into this problem?

Any good ideas to fix it?

Head & Footboard Bench Tutorial

I'm so excited!

I have officially finished my first piece of furniture!

I've been seeing a lot of benches that people have made from headboards and footboards and I loved them...So I thought that would be a good project for me to start with.

I grew up watching my dad take old beat up furniture and pianos and completely restore them to absolute gorgeousness! (is that even a word?? lol..If not I guess it is now)

My brother and husband are also quite handy when it comes to building stuff, but I've never had the chance to try to build something myself.

My husband probably won't like to hear this, (so cover your ears, or in this case your eyes, hunny)...lol..but I'm hooked! Already I have ideas brewing for my next two or three projects...

There's just not enough time or money to get it all done as quickly as I would like..lol

So anyways..enough of my rambling...here's how I made my bench...

The first thing I needed was a solid wood headboard and footboard. I didn't want to spend much on it so I put an ad up on our local Freecycle and within one day I had a this set  for FREE!

I did the majority of the work on the bench myself...but I have to admit I had a lot of help from my husband...He did a lot of supervising and instructing since he was completely convinced I was going to cut off a finger or a body part of some kind. lol

He also helped in drawing up the plans..This is where me and my husband are completely different...I'm more of a pile it all in front of you, scratch out a design on a scrap of paper and start working on it, type of person...He's a little a lot more anal than that..That's not always a bad thing though..

He's a drafter and a planner...so instead of my scratched out design he broke out the AutoCad and made me a 3D picture  :0)

Every bench is going to be different since the headboards, sizes, etc will be different so I'm just going to show you how I made this one and you can adapt yours accordingly.

I made a base using 2x4's, with metal support brackets in the corners

Next we cut down the legs of the footboard.

I then attached the headboard and front legs (from the footboard) to the base.

 Next I used the bottom slat of the footboard as the back bench trim and attached 1x6 to the other 3 sides to match the back and to cover the 2x4 base. I then cut and attached all the top slat pieces.

We then took the two remaining tops from the footboard and cut them here

Then I attached the tops to the front bench legs so that the tops would match the back bench posts

Then it was finally time to start sanding, priming, and painting.
The sanding was by far the worst part of the whole process...
It sucked and it took forever,
but it was worth it.
Chandler came out before he went to bed and wanted to help put on the primer, and he did a great job!
He says he wants to help every time I have to paint something..lol

Here it is finished. 

It ended up a little bigger and a whole lot heavier than I had expected it to be, but I really like it. 

  

It's currently sitting in the kitchen..lol...(please ignore the chore board I haven't updated in a few weeks..the kids are still doing chores, I just haven't been writing them down...oops :0)

This is not going to be its new home, but I still have to do some rearranging first.

I also still have a cushion for the bench and pillows to make, but that will be for another day.

Hope the instructions made sense...If you make a bench using this send me a pic and let me know!

Hope everyone has a good night  :0)

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More Bible Costumes / Trunk or Treat Ideas that I like!

I posted earlier here about the decoration idea that I'm going to use on my van for Trunk or Treat at our church this year.

While I was searching around online I found a lot of other really great ideas too. So I thought I'd post them in case anyone else needed ideas...

So here's some of the other ideas I found:

Guitar Hero - God's our hero - This could be a really cool theme...Dress up as rockstars, and carry guitar hero guitars, but with a God's our Hero sign

D.O.G - Depending on God - Could be done like my F.R.O.G idea but with a dog theme instead

The Bible

Books of the Bible:

Numbers -Carry a book, and attach a bunch of cutout numbers to your outfit
Romans -Easy to make with a sheet and some leaves. Carry a book
Hebrews -Have a man carry a book and a coffeepot...He-brews..get it?
Embarrassing to admit, but it took me a minute...lol

Noah and the Ark - I loved this one!

Jonah and the Whale - really really loved this one!

You could also wear a bathrobe, look really messy, and stick clumps of “seaweed” (green yarn) all over with a fake fish or two thrown in.  Hold a sign that says, “On my way to Ninevah!”
and you’re Jonah thrown up from the whale! lol

 Lords Army -You could all dress in army outfits and go as the Lords Army - This would be really cool idea for a youth group or a group of friends

Delilah - Dress as a glamorized hair dresser.  Make a big pair of scissors cut from cardboard and wrapped
in aluminum foil.  Stick some sparkly jewels on the scissors for added pizzazz
Walk around all night going after the boys’ hair!  Judges 16:4-21

Lot’s wife - Go as a pile of salt .  Genesis 19!

Queen Esther -Wear a crown and a beautiful queen’s outfit. Her story is in the book of Esther.
What a great role model for little girls!

Put on your coolest spy gear,  and you are Joshua and Caleb.
Read about their ultimate spy mission in Numbers 13-14

Wear a red shirt with a big letter ‘C’ on it!  You are the RED SEA! - Great simple idea!

Egyptians

 

Daniel in the Lions Den

 

Veggie Tales...Very cute!

Rock and Roll- Either of the below would work great, dress up as Rockers

Reach
Out
For
Christ’s
Knowledge
&
Receive
Our
Lord’s
Love

or

Rely
On
Christ’s
Knowledge
&
Receive
Our
Lord’s
Love

Last but not least is the other one me and Tyler debated on doing...
The Gates of Heaven
We still possibly could do this one, but I really think we are going with the FROG idea since it'll be easier and cheaper to throw together....We can always this one next year. :0)

The plan was to remove the back van seat.
Hang a shimmery gold piece of fabric from the ceiling behind the first row of back seats, and shine a light from behind so it would make it appear to glow to the trick or treaters.
We were going to get styrofoam balls and paint them with a pearly paint and use wooden skewers to make a set of "pearly gates"
On the floor was going to be pillow stuffing and our fog machine to look like clouds
Sitting in front of the gates was going to be Tyler dressed as Saint Peter (an old man in robes, carrying keys) holding a huge book (The Book Of Life)
Then I was going to be dressed as an Angel to pass out candy
I LOVED the idea, but the main problem I see is not possibly having access to an outlet to run the lights and fog machine..

Hope someone can get some use out of these great Bible costume/ Trunk or Treat  ideas!

(The pictures above are not mine, and are not being represented as my own. They are pictures I found throughout the web last night while searching for ideas. I do not have referencing sites for the photos so if you are the owner of these pictures and want them removed then please let me know. Thanks!)

Trunk or Treat Idea - For My Van This Year (tentatively)

I have to say this year I am getting really excited about Halloween! 

I love the Holidays, but I usually don't get this excited about Halloween. 

You still won't catch me going all crazy with decorations for my house (cause I hate to have to take them back down..lol), but I can't wait to get started making costumes!

One of the biggest things that has me excited(and nervous) this year is the new church we joined, Keck Avenue Baptist, is holding a Trunk or Treat on Halloween this year. 

I honestly didn't even know what this was.

I had heard of them, but I've never been to one. So when they announced in church that they needed decorated trunks with candy, I assumed they meant small wooden or cardboard box trunks....

Boy, was I wrong! lol

They meant car trunks! How completely awesome is that?!?!

From what I understand we are partnering with another neighborhood church and we are blocking off a section of road and lining the church members cars up the road with their trunks facing the road. Everyone then decorates their car trunks and passes out candy to the neighborhood kids as they come by. They are also going to be having food. Last year they said they went through 600 hot dogs and they ran out! That's an amazing number of people...

What an awesome way to reach out to the families in the surrounding neighborhood!

So I decided yesterday I better start planning out how I'm going to decorate my trunk so I have enough time(and money) to get it all made and together...So here's the plan I'm tentatively going with...

I am going to use the acronym F.R.O.G
Fully
Rely
On
God
I'm going to freezer paper stencil that on a sweatshirt for me to wear. I'm also going to throw on jeans, a cute frog hat similar to the picture below, and some form of cute frog shoes/boots that I come up with.

As for decorating my van we're going to pop open the hatch, and cover it with a green (or painted green) tarp and add huge cardboard frog eyes to it similar to this pic...(just without the teeth and waves)

Then we are going to make a tongue similar to the one in the picture below, but a lot longer to stick out from the floor of the van out onto the ground...inside will probably be covered in black, or maybe like black and pink like a throat...like tonsils? Do frogs even have tonsils?? oh well... Haven't got that all figured out yet...lol...Somewhere there will also be a poster with the FROG acronym and meaning on it so the kids understand the message behind it

My oldest son Tyler got all excited along with me last night and we were up (way to late for a school night...oops) bouncing ideas off each other...We finally decided on the FROG idea, then he decided he wanted to dress up as a fly that's stuck to the frogs tongue. That's my boy!  :0)...We are either going to have him setting in the back of the van on the tongue, or on a stool in front of the van with the tongue wrapped around him...possible holding a sign on a stick that says something to the effect that he's Fully Relying On God to help him out of his "sticky" situation...lol

So that's the plan as of right now..We found so many others that we liked too, but I'll probably post them in a separate blog post since this one ended up a little longer than intended..lol
I can't wait to get started on it all! Now I still have to figure out what my other two boys are going to be this year...

UPDATE: I did end up writing another posts with some other ideas I had found and the other idea that was a maybe to do this year before we decided on the FROG theme...So click here if you want to check out the other page also. Thanks!  :0)




(The pictures above are not mine, and are not being represented as my own. They are pictures I found throughout the web last night while searching for ideas. I do not have referencing sites for the photos so if you are the owner of these pictures and want them removed then please let me know. Thanks!)

Thrifty Finds - Week 1

I woke up Saturday morning in need of some serious retail therapy...

but unfortunately the budget wasn't going to allow for it.

So I decided to hit the thrift stores and see what I could find.

I couldn't be happier with everything I found!

To make it even better spent a whole whopping $6.21 !!!

Here's what I found:

I found this small glass cake dome with a wooden base. Very nice and heavy...
The base needs some help though..It's solid wood and in good condition, it just has quite a few scratches.
The plan for now is to sand down the base and refinish it.

 I couldn't resist this little pumpkin..I need more fall decor,
just not sure yet if it's going to stay orange or get a coat of spray paint

 LOVE all of these pans...
and as you can see I couldn't pass any of them up.
The really funny thing was I picked them up at 3 different Goodwills in town.
I'm guessing they were all donated at once then split between the stores
for $25-50 cents a piece I couldn't resist!

Love this basket...I'm thinking it's going to get a coat of spray paint, and maybe a cute ribbon around the middle...then I'll probably use it for craft storage...maybe for my patterns?

I think these were my favorite find of the day! Vintage patterns! I usually don't use patterns, and some of these will need to be modified but at 10 cents a piece there was no way they weren't coming home with me!

I think it's amazing how the styles eventually seem to come back around...My favorite is the Butterick woman's pattern ...I LOVE longer sweaters with front pockets for winter!

Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!  :0)

Yarn Wreath Tutorial

I love seeing all the Fall wreaths floating around in blogland...
I've honestly never been much of a wreath person, but I have loved the yarn and felt ones I've seen this year...so I decided to dig into my stash and see if I could find the stuff to make one without me having to buy anything...and I succeeded!

I started out by hunting around for something to make my wreath form out of...I ended up using this old basket weaving kit...

Looking back now, I probably should have just went and bought an actual wreath form, but It was late and I didn't feel like going into town...lol...so this did work ok in a pinch.

I cut and wrapped pieces until I had the shape like i wanted it...

Then I wrapped the entire thing with duct tape..I did this so I wouldn't have pieces of wood sticking out in odd places, and it just made it easier to wrap with the yarn since the surface is now smooth...

In this step you can see the problem I ran into by not using a wreath form...There's a big bump where I had to join the two ends to create my circle...I almost stopped working on it, then I decided that's just where I'll put my flowers..lol  :0)...Problem solved!

I used this Vanna's Choice yarn in Color 13 Dusty Green

To wrap it start by tying a knot around your wreath form.

Then just continue to wrap, and wrap, and wrap...be very careful to line each row up to the next so it stays nice and neat. This step will take a while...It took me a little over an hour, and I wrapped it while I was watching tv...The bigger your form though the longer it will take and the more yarn it will use.

Here's what mine looked like when I was done wrapping it. Make sure and knot off your yarn on the back of your wreath and tuck in your yarn ends.

The next step I did was to hot glue on my felt flowers.
I haven't made a tutorial yet on how I made the felt flowers, but I will link it to this post once I have.

Here's my finished wreath...I have to say for the first wreath I've ever made I'm pretty happy overall how it turned out.  :0)