Spackle, paint, glue, and... glitter?

Those are all things that covered my hands at some point today. And I broke a nail. Before you get scared, the glitter wasn't for a house project. I decided to multitask today. I spackled the nail holes in the door frames to prepare them for painting. I began painting the baseboards and did a first coat on one of the doors I just installed. See the difference!!!

The glue and glitter were for my new Christmas wreath. I started putting this wreath together in January using after-Christmas sale ornaments and a clothes hanger. The ornaments still needed to be glued or the balls would fall off. I must admit, the superglue didn't really cover my hands or I'd be in big trouble right now (nor would I be typing this blog), but I did have a few short moments of fingers being a little stuck together. The glitter on my hands came from the sparkly purple and red ornaments. I plan to get more silver ribbon so I can make a fuller bow, but this one works for now.

My broken fingernail happened when I was removing a screw from a drywall screw that I needed to reinstall for my curtain rod. What happened to my curtain rod, you ask? Well, my dog gets a little carried away when the mail carrier comes to my door and one day I came home to the rod, curtain, and one of the rod mounts on the ground. It would have been a good dog shaming post because he was super guilty-looking when I got home, but I didn't take a picture that time. Anyway, I spackled the hole, which had been stripped and let it dry/cure for a while. I finally got around to bringing my power drill upstairs to drill a new hole and my curtain is back up!

More Christmas decorating today and more painting tomorrow!

New shelf for a complete look

I was inspired by the original subway tiles to do a black and white bathroom. Besides, the towels and shower curtain can easily add color to a bathroom. I figured that a black and white bathroom could also be helpful for resale value of the house (says the girl who painted other parts of the house orange haha). My pop of color is purple in the towels. However, I got a black and white shower curtain, so I needed to incorporate my accent color elsewhere. The spot that needed color the most was on the right side of the bathroom, but I didn't want to just have purple stuff sitting on the top of the toilet tank either. I decided to add a shelf that would withstand the weight of a purple diffuser and a purple beta fish (and container)!

I found fun swirly "scroll" brackets and was given a nice board that friends were getting rid of to cut for the shelf. [Sidenote: They had used the boards as part of a TV stand but got a cool electric fireplace TV stand as a replacement... and it's really cool!] Some paint, measuring, drywall anchors, and drilling later, here are the results.

My purple beta fish was added on Saturday! I'll call him CG for "cutest grape" because this commercial makes me smile.

I found a purple glass container to use as a reed diffuser, so my bathroom is vanilla scented.

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The black and white sheer handkerchief holds my assortment of earrings

Before

After

Wall Decor

My friend, Nicole, got me these awesome plates for Christmas and I've been meaning to get plate holders for a while so I could use them to decorate the blank wall in my dining room.

It works out well that I didn't get to it right away so I could incorporate these similar herb prints I got from someone discarding them at a craft night my friend, Michelle, hosted. For $3.75 I got a picture frame for three of the four them thanks to the 25% off sale at a thrift store.

As soon as I got home I grabbed the measuring tape to find the center of the wall and laid out the design I wanted on the wall. I'm pleased with the result.

Kind of makes me want to grow herbs and other plants in barrels.

Headboard done!

Ok... So when I left off, I had 4 more steps for finishing my headboard. I decided to do 2 rows of 5 buttons. I triple- or quadruple-measured my marks for where the buttons would go. Then I drilled small holes so that I could thread the buttons through the headboard. I used the drill depth gauge since I only needed to drill through the thin plywood.

The next step was to attach the foam and fabric to the frame. In case you didn't know already, craft store foam is expensive. I ended up getting a 1 inch mattress topper and cutting it in half in order to double it over so I'd have 2 inches of foam over the plywood. I easily saved 50%. I glued the two pieces together to make it easier to attach to the plyboard As I mentioned in the last post, I left extra plywood on the bottom so that it wouldn't be as top-heavy. Because of this I had to completely attach the bottom of the foam/fabric first. Since the foam was technically 2 pieces glued together, I stapled the bottom layer of foam and the fabric to the plywood. That kept the top layer of foam plush.


Then I flipped it over and stapled the centers of the other 3 sides. I pulled everything taut as I stapled from the center to the corners. I cut off extra foam and fabric (especially in the corners). I used a lot of staples.

With some of the extra foam and fabric I covered ten buttons. I bought one kit for covering buttons and then other "refill" cover button packs. They were surprisingly easy to do: fabric, foam, button top, press and fold fabric, button back, and press again. Voila! covered buttons!

Attaching the buttons... much harder. There are a couple of tricks to add buttons to a headboard so that they are inset into the foam a little. I had read that you could cut out some of the foam. I didn't want to risk messing up the foam, so my trick was just to pull the button really tight and in order to do so, I had to use yarn instead of thread. I needed to attach the yarn to something on the back side of the plywood so I used another trick I had read about - using chopsticks or bamboo skewers. I used 3 inch pieces of skewers to keep my yarn from pulling through the headboard. I attached the button to the front and threaded the yarn back through the drilled hole. After pulling tight, I wrapped that end of the yarn around the skewer and tied it off.

Here's the final product along with mirrors my brother gave me for Christmas. 

Trips to Hardware store - 1 (for staples)

(add that to the last post and this headboard took me 3 trips to hardware stores and 2 trips to fabric stores and I tracked down the foam at Ross... phew)

Headboard halfway done

Ok ok, it wasn't listed as a resolution goal, but I've been wanting to make a headboard for quite a while. The large pillows I have kind of mimic the effect of a headboard, but it's not the same (see old blog post). Everything fell into place to do it: I had a Living Social deal for a fabric store, so a friend helped me pick out fabric and buttons for 1/2 off. And I had some friends visit with a large vehicle to help me get a big piece of ply board. All I needed was foam, which I bought on Sunday.

Many of the DIY headboard tutorials are for headboards that attach to the wall. I didn't want to drill into the wall, so I built a frame with wheels that attaches to the metal bedframe. For my queen bed I had the ply board cut to 60 inches long. I decided to leave it 4 ft tall so that the frame wouldn't get top heavy. That will make attaching the fabric and foam more difficult, but I'll tackle that challenge next weekend after the foam has had 5-7 days to expand after being rolled up.

I cut 2 sections 55inch long pieces of 2x4. I drilled holes and attached a plate caster wheel to an end of each piece.

my observer is pretty darn cute

After the wheels were attached to the 2x4 I measured the height for drilling holes for the bolts (I should have measured the width apart from one 2x4 to the other, but luckily it worked out ok... this time Lesson Learned: Measure Measure Measure!) I used 4 bolts on each 2x4 to attach the frame to the metal bedframe.

Then I attached the plywood to the top part of the 2x4s using wood screws.

I drilled the holes for the bolts, including a place for the head of the screw.

The bolt holes should have been a little closer to one of the sides... had I measured.

I attached it to the bed and here's the half-done look.

Up next:

1. measure and drill holes for the buttons 
2. attach foam and fabric
3. cover the buttons
4. attach the buttons

Trips to hardware store - 2 - (1) plywood and 2x4 (2) caster wheels.