Fall Wreath

This is my front door.

It is original to my house. Which means it's about 50 years old. It's not the ugliest door in the world, although it could look better if I gave it a new paint job. But it has gaps and cracks and lets in a lot of cold/hot air. So instead of painting it I just keep wishing and hoping that one day soon we can get a new one. But other than that it also isn't the easiest for wreath hanging. I feel like the only size wreath that looks good is one that fits exactly around that little window. And one of those over the door wreath hangers won't work either. So even though it's not terrible I just really despise this door.

So I have 2 wreaths that fit perfectly on my door and use them all year long. There is this white berry wreath for the spring/summer.

And then I have an identical one in red for the fall/winter. Pretty boring. So I set out to make myself a nice fall wreath this year. I looked through SouthernHospitality's fall door linky party and used some different ideas as inspiration. And this is what I came up with.

It's not the perfect size for the little window but it still looks good! I went to JoAnne's and bought the grapevine wreath for $5. Then I bought 2 yards of natural burlap (way too much for this project, but something I figured would be good to have for the future) at $2.99 per yard. The rest of the fabric for the rosettes was scraps I had plus I had a 20% off my purchase coupon, so the total cost was about $6!!

To make the rosettes I looked up some tutorials online and then just kind of winged it! I started with a burlap one, which was a bit harder to work with than the other fabric. I cut a strip that was about the width and length of a yard stick. Then I folded it in half and pinned it in place with straight pins. 

I'll skip to the next piece of fabric because this is the one I took more pics of! My next piece of fabric was a scrap I had and it was a little wider, so I just folded it in thirds and then pinned.

I started rolling it up tightly sticking a threaded needle through the bottom at times to help hold it together. Then as it got bigger I started folding and twisting the fabric here and there to make it look a little less perfect. If I didn't like how it was looking I would unroll a little and mess with it until I liked the look. ( This is my first tutorial, can you tell? ;)

Here's the finished burlap rosette. Not a lot of twisting or unfolding because the burlap was so hard to work with. 

I also made some smaller rosettes just by using some smaller scraps of fabric. No science to it, just make sure it's wide enough to fold over before rolling into a flower! Then I attached them to my grapevine wreath. I could have hot glued them on but I wanted to be able to easily remove them to transform the wreath for another season/holiday if I so choose :) So I attached them with some more thread!! I pulled the threaded needle through the bottom of the rosette and then through some of the branches of the wreath. I did it a few times until it felt secure, then went on to the next one. 

Some of the smaller rosettes I just sewed to the bigger rosettes instead.

Then I cut out a piece of burlap and it wasn't big enough to make a bow on the top of the wreath, so I made a nice knot instead and called it a day!! What do you think? Worth $6?? I think so! :)

I'm going to attempt to gussy up the rest of the entrance for ThriftyDecorChick's linky party on Friday, October 6. Hope to see you there!!

Curbside Mirror

I live in the suburbs of Chicago. I have a very hard time finding furniture. I scour the Goodwill and Saver's stores but can only find 1980's flimsy disasters. I drive around tirelessly from garage sale to garage sale finding nothing but baby gear. I strain my eyes every night looking through Craigslist finding anything worth my time is usually priced EXTREMELY high. Then I go over to the blog world and see all these treasures people stumble upon and get super frustrated!! Is it just me or do I need to move down south to start finding pretty furniture??

Well, this week I felt like I hit the jackpot. Not a HUGE jackpot mind you, but for once I felt like luck was on my side. I found a Craigslist post with 2 solid wood dressers and a desk all for $25! I didn't really care WHAT it looked like at that point. I figured I could surely do SOMETHING with it :) So after a long dentist appointment (no cavities!) I headed over to mom and dad's house to borrow their truck. Luckily mom was willing to come and help load it up, not to mention protect me from what might have been a complete weirdo or something ;) Sigh.... I have such a love/fear of Craigslist! 

It was all painted to match each other but is not actually any kind of set. Which makes me happy, now I can do something completely different to each piece and not feel guilty at all for breaking up a nice set of furniture. The owner turned out to be a wonderfully nice woman who was moving into a smaller place. She also directed me to her curb where she had left a beautiful oak dresser that had completely fallen apart. It was a little too much of a project for me, not to mention I had ran out of room and it was way too heavy for mom and me to load. But with it was a lovely antique mirror. It didn't seem to match so I have no idea what type of wood it is, but it's HEAVY. I grabbed it right up and rearranged the truck to make sure I could get it home with me.

I just cleaned her up nice. The wood is so beautiful I can't imagine painting it. Wouldn't it be beautiful in a bathroom above the sink/vanity?? I wish I had any kind of reason to keep it for myself, but I just don't. I put it up for sale on Craigslist. I dream of one day having a little shop to sell my finds and crafts, but for now there's craigslist :)

This girl is going to be the first one to get beautified. The bottom three drawers don't slide well because they are all cramped in there. Not to mention one of them is completely filled with mold. Why??? Who knows. So I have visions of some open shelving down there with antique quilts folded nicely and some wire baskets holding this or that. I don't know what color she'll be, but it will be chalk paint. Maybe a gray? Maybe a blue? Antique white? So many wonderful options!!! 

Annie Sloan Primer Red Dresser

Making over furniture is my favorite kind of project. I searched and searched for an affordable dresser to put in my entry way that I could paint and distress to my liking. Finally I came across this one.

Sorry it's missing the drawers! I had already painted them before getting a "Before" pic!! You'll understand how I could let this happen in a moment.... So while this dresser didn't have the long skinny legs that I long for it did have great measurements. Especially the depth, only 17 inches! And it was tall enough to get all the way to the top of the wainscoting behind it. 

So I took it home and lived with it for a few months. The color of the wood was pretty nice, although beat up. But the drawers were just hideous.  This is why I SO wish I had a picture with all three drawers. That upward arrow type wood grain also went sideways on the middle drawer and then downwards on the top drawer. It was incredibly distracting. So eventually my birthday came along and the hubs agreed to some Annie Sloan chalk paint as my bday present!! Of course I also would need clear wax and dark wax and 2 wax brushes....quite the present. Thank you sweets!!! 

So after months of daydreaming about trying chalk paint the day had arrived. I drove to a warehouse, picked it up, raced home, and IMMEDIATELY grabbed a drawer, took it to the basement and painted it! Who could bother with a before picture when there's Annie Sloan chalk paint in the house?! 

I definitely enjoyed using it. I loved the coverage and the lack of sanding needed. Also the fact that it doesn't leave brush strokes. Brush strokes in latex paint drive me nuts, nothing says "did it myself" like terrible brush strokes all over a piece of furniture. I chose Primer Red because it would go nicely with my rug and pillows and things in my living room. But honestly my style is more of a soft and muted pallet. I like the way the color turned out though. I used the dark wax all over to darken the color a bit to more of a maroon than red. It worked perfectly. I think it looks great for fall too.  Oops! Almost forgot to say that I also used a gel paint remover to take off the old stain on top. Then I sanded it and restained it with a jacobean colored stain. Then I polyed the top with 3 coats. Hope you like it! :)

Linking up to:

Knick of Time Interiors

Miss Mustard Seed

Perfectly Imperfect

Too Much Time on my Hands

The Shady Porch

I did it!

Well, I did it. I made a blog. I'm only a decade or so behind the times. I'm not a writer, not at all. But I'm pretty good at talking, so maybe there's some hope for this new adventure ;)  And as long as I don't tell anyone about it for awhile hopefully I can get some practice in before anyone sees it!

I've started this blog mainly so that I can start joining in on all the linky parties I enjoy so much on other blogs such as perfectlyimperfect and The Lettered Cottage. I hope to feature all of my furniture adventures as well as some of my cooking and basically anything else in life that brings me joy, hence the name ;) So wish me luck!