Welcome, Come In

I've been looking at the empty front door for over two months now and decided it's overdue for something to welcome everyone in.  So after gathering up a few odds and ends I had laying around, this is what I came up with....

The grapevine wreath was in the garage (since who knows when) and I found the burlap in the ribbon box leftover from a past project.  The little wooden bird houses were in another box of miscellaneous craft supplies picked up at a garage sale last summer that I spray painted with whatever colors of paint I had on hand.   The moss was purchased last year for who knows what - and never used - Do you have lots of purchased and unused items in your craft supply???  I forgot I even had some of these things!! 

Anyway, I thought it looked rather blah.  It really needed something else... So, I added the welcome banner and this is how it ended up...

The banner is made from paper scraps that were left from the happy spring banner project, and sparkly letters I had in my scrapbooking supplies were added. 

I think it all came together nicely, considering I didn't have to purchase any of it!

Do ya think it's Luvly??

Now I think I'm going to paint the front door.  Maybe red!?  Hmmmm....

Thrifted Chalkboard Makeover

I've seen all these super neat chalk boards lately and decided I needed one too.  Sooo, I was at the Goodwill store recently and found this beauty.  Does anyone remember this lovely picture from Home Interiors???

And for only 1.99 (yea!), it was the perfect frame for my project.  :)

After removing the picture, I painted over the entire picture with chalk board paint using several coats.

I want to hang this in the kitchen so I decided to paint the frame red -  Because that's the color I'm wanting to accent the kitchen with when I start it's makeover later this spring.  Plan a kitchen makeover around a homemade/goodwill/$1.99/red chalkboard - makes sense, right?  Well, it does to me...  :)

As everyone knows, it's been a brutal winter and it was about 15 degrees outside when I decided to do this project (and that's withOUT the windchill), so spray painting outside was not an option.  

Now, this is not AT ALL recommended (do as I say, not as I do) but, I decided to spray paint this in my basement - because I thought spray painting would be "quicker and easier".

I probably haven't told you this yet, but I'm the queen of impatience.  And impatience usually kicks me in the butt, and this time was no different.  The paint would not dry and it started to crackle, but not in the "crackle good" kind of way.  I don't have any closeup pictures of this "mess", but trust me - it was not pretty!  I'm sure this happened because it was too cold in the basement as well.  Anyway, out came the sand paper. So much for quick!  After sanding the areas that were crackled and getting a smooth surface to work with again, I got out the Annie Sloan chalk paint in Emperor's Silk.

                                     

I should have done this in the first place, as chalk paint adheres to anything and always seems to work out better in the long run.  It certainly looked MUCH better.  I used dark wax to finish it off and I think it finally turned out Luvly! All for less than $5.00 when you include the cost of the paints and the amounts used.  What do you think?

Love You More....

Love You More...

Words that are used often....  a sign to remind him everyday....

A quick and easy project as well as another great example of using up Junque from around the house....  and getting to use my Cricut - LOVE this machine!!

The board was a scrap from somewhere (who knows???), maybe even a door, that I found in the closet of my craft room in the basement.  After I cleaned all the cobwebs, dust and dirt off, I gave it a fresh coat of white paint for the base.  Then measured my board and made letters to fit using the Cricut Craft Room, and cut the letters out of vinyl on my Cricut...

Placed the letters on, painted over it all in a charcoal black craft paint and after the paint dried, carefully peeled all the letters off.  Okay, I'll be honest...  I'm SUPER impatient so I used a hair dryer to speed along the paint drying process.  Makes getting the job done super duper QUICK!  :)

Have I ever told you? - patience is a virtue I was NOT blessed with.

I think it turned out just LUVLY!!

What do you think?  What signs do you have and love?  Leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts....

Have a wonderful day LUVLIES!