Pretty Pots

I had several ideas for dressing up these pots but I couldn't decide which I wanted to do. So I thought, why not try them all?

I started with a few ugly pots that have all been used before but new plain terra cotta pots are usually pretty inexpensive.

I gave them all a good scrub in the sink with dish soap before getting started.

The first one I worked on was the little one in the middle. I'd seen this idea done before (link listed below) and I had a decorative oven mitt with great patterns to use for it.

<-- Scissors, fabric scraps, & mod podge

>> CLICK HERE <<

FOR THE ORIGINAL PATCHWORK POT TUTORIAL

I started by cutting the fabric off the mitt and then cutting the patterns apart.

APPLICATION

1. Cut each piece to desired size. I used strips for this pot but you can do random squares, circles, whatever you please!
2. Lightly brush small area on pot with mod podge and press fabric piece down
3. Brush mod podge on edges of each piece applied
4. Repeat until bottom portion is covered
5. Coat bottom pot with mod podge and let dry
6. Repeat process for lip
7. Let dry 24/48 hrs before use
8. Either use a pot liner or keep your new plant in it's original plastic container to prevent moldy fabric.

The second one I played with was the brown one. I like the whole ombre/two tone thing so that's basically what I was going for. I used the khaki paint I used for the tiny tables project and the same kind of paint(I ripped off the label) in blue.

I painted the top half of the pot with the khaki paint and let it dry overnight. Then I painted the saucer and bottom half of the pot blue. 

For the pot, I first tried this..

It worked at creating an even coat but the edge wasn't straight. I let it dry and tried to use painter's tape but because of the angles, it was too much trouble so I just eyeballed it with a sponge brush.

The last one I worked on was the gnarly pot on the left.

First, I tried this..

Looks nice, right? It turned into a thick drippy nightmare and I ended up using a sponge brush to paint the whole thing.

I wanted to add a little frill so I cut a piece off of a top that was about to go in the trash anyway. 

I used a hot glue gun to attach the fringe and called it a day!

This was fun ^_^

Sofa Skirt Snip

It was last summer and we were looking to replace our couch. I saw this one at a habitat for humanity store. We were there to look at lighting fixtures but I checked it out anyway. It was $80 and I loved it but my husband didn't think he could deal with a pink couch.. 

I don't blame him either. It's hard to judge anything at places like that. Even though it was obviously a treasure, it was surrounded by a bunch of bad couches, faded rugs and knick knacks everywhere. It was hard to imagine it at home.

Over the course of 2 months and 3 more trips (we did a lot of home improvement projects on our last house), the couch was there getting cheaper and cheaper. $40, $30 and finally $18. The price was on my side so he finally went for it. 

My selling line was "If you hate it when we get home and we toss it right away, we only wasted $18." 

Like I would ever let him toss it..

It looked like that until right after Alex redid all the floors. We were in the home stretch and had a ton of free space we don't usually have in the living room, so I used the opportunity to do something I had been wanting to do since we brought it home. I had no idea how I was going to get rid of that couch skirt but I was set on doing it. We had too much going on to spend much time or ANY money on it so I got creative :)

I flipped the couch on it's back (and later the front) to make it easier for me. I held the skirt tight with my left hand and stapled it down with my right. I just eye balled the spacing, cut the fabric pretty crooked and left the corners for last.

This was the front middle leg. I just cut it as close as I could and tucked it in.

The corners got a little tricky. I just used a ton of hot glue and folding skills. Looks a little silly from the bottom.

But from a normal perspective I think it turned out pretty good!

I'd like to paint the feet something awesome like gold (don't judge me) but I haven't gotten Alex on board with that one... yet ;)

And here she is all done!

No Pain, No Gain

Sometimes life is awesome and hands you random treats. When Alex started at a new job last february the first thing that he had to do was clean out a warehouse that had been through a fire. The warehouse didn't actually burn, just a machine in it. But the fire caused everything to be totally covered in ash. A lot was wasted but among the rubble was a perfectly good (and seriously dirty) weight machine. Boss man saw Alex looking at it and asked him if he wanted it. Of course he said yes and when it came home it looked like this...

Impossible to see in pictures but not only was it covered in black soot, but it also had a scary amount of metal shavings all over it. (They make metal parts in the shop it was sitting in) Yeah, I went ahead and let Alex take care of cleaning up and putting together this one.

I did my part by recovering the pads which were all cut or torn a few times over. I used the same fabric Alex used when he recovered those bench pads for me.

CLICK HERE to see the bench project

They look a little silly from the back.

I could have put fabric backing on it but I don't have any and didn't think it was worth the money.

And here she is all fixed up!

I use this machine a lot and it still looks like it did the first day I covered them (5 months ago). Winning!

House Hunt

I know this is so late but I had a few pictures from our house hunt back in march that I wanted to share!

We started looking to move in february, hunted through march and moved in april. When we were packing to move out of our old house, I snapped a few "last second" pictures.

Wish I had some before pictures of these flower beds. We totally redid them.

Alex's mom laid the first few rings of bricks down around the tree a long time ago and while we lived there, I used a bunch of random bricks to lay down the rest. I also extended the back patio on the other side (not shown) including a red/yellow checkered BBQ area.

Alex and I loved sitting on this porch to watch the sunset.. Quiet dirt road in a little farm town, a million colors and then a million stars :)

Adieu 1705!

Pretty parks

The pictures of these houses online were NEVER what the real deal was like. This house was small but pretty online and completely trashed in person. The realtor told us that though this was one of the worst she'd seen, it wasn't totally uncommon. A lot of people were angry when losing their houses back during the real estate crash and before getting evicted, after getting foreclosed on, they would trash the house. Everything was broken. Even the wall mounted ceramic soap dishes were smashed with a hammer.

This house said "minor repair needed" and when we got there, the roof was caved in.