Da Bears

So over the weekend I got to go to a Chicago Bears Game!!! =]  

 Trust me I was super excited, especially since I didn't even have to pay for the tickets, I won them in a fantasy football league.

So in the spirit of my bears-ed-ness (yes that is now a word) I have decided to share some pics of my very awesome Chicago Bears Themed Office. Just let it be known this is a WORK IN PROGRESS! I am no where near done with my perfect office.

One Blue Wall

One Orange Wall

There will be blue and orange stripes added to the white walls.

My very awesome desk. Painted it all myself! Going to add "Chicago" and "Bears" to the endzones and a Bear Head to the middle of the field.

Made those super awesome curtains out of sheets!!!! I know you're jealous

Added "Bears Football" to one of my walls. Plan on making a bookshelf underneath it.

Bears blends in with the wall for now but adding more around it later

And here is an awesome pic I snapped during the game!

I had such a fun time at the game, hopefully going next year again! & as I add more to my office I'll add more pics to this blog just so you know how amazing my office is! :)  Oh and I'll give you some tutorials so you can do some of the cool things I've done (like my bears field desk!!!)

Holiday Decor

The past few days I have been a busy, busy girl! Getting ready for my family to come for Thanksgiving means I need to clean my house and most importantly decorate my house! I used to not be big on Christmas but since I started doing all the decorating at work I think I've gotten into it a bit. So naturally I wanted some Christmas-y things in my house and I knew I didn't want to really spend money on it all. So I went to pinterest and started looking at holiday decor and I got a few ideas that I turned into my own versions. Here are a few simple and cheap ideas for you to do!

First off is my very awesome Winter Wine Bottles! They are SO INCREDIBLY EASY to make! I bought some Epsom salt, spray adhesive, and white spray paint and set to work. I already had wine bottles so I didn't need to go on a drinking binge to empty some. I scrubbed off the labels on the bottles (soak wine bottles in the sink in hot water for 15 or so minutes, scrape off the labels with a knife or scissors. I used scissors so I wouldn't accidentally cut myself.) Now we get down to business one bottle at a time. Spray one bottle with adhesive and then roll it in Epsom salt (you're going to make a mess so be prepared) make sure you cover the whole bottle in the Epsom salt. Do this with the rest of the bottles one at a time. Then take then outside or somewhere well ventilated so you can do the spray painting part. Spray all sides with the white spray paint and let dry for several minutes then add another coat. Let the spray paint dry over night, after that the bottles should be good to go! Some of the salt will fall off if you continue to move them or bump them or touch them so out them in one place and leave them there if possible. I then added some little extras to the bottles to make them more festive.

Here they are drying.

Here is the finished product! I must say they look pretty awesome!!

My second idea (which I love) is a window with ornaments. I had four windows laying around awaiting me to hang them and add pictures so I just used those windows for this project. All I bought for this project was ornaments and fishing line. Hang your windows on your wall however you like then add the ornaments. Cut the fishing line to various lengths and tie the ornaments one to each piece of line. To attach the line to the window just use masking tape, cut any excess line off the top once you've decided on what lengths you want. Really this project was super easy!! Oh and super cheap!!!

Here are my windows that I intended to add pictures to

Here is one window done!!

All four windows done, although I'm still contemplating adding some tinsel garland to the top of each.

So there are just a couple of my Holiday Decor ideas. As I think up of more things I will be adding them, I promise. But for now I'll leave you with a sneak peek of my Christmas Tree, oh and my adorable pup!

My Bri-zy looking cute in her Holiday Collar

My Christmas Tree All Done! (for now at least!)

The totally AWESOME ornament I found! (I'm obsessed with Mustaches!)

Upholstering Chairs

So I've been procrastinating, well in all honesty I have been putting this project off for as long as possible. It's not like I thought upholstering chairs was going to be difficult or time consuming I just really had no ambition to do this project. But as my luck would have it I HAD to finish my dining room chairs because my family is having Thanksgiving at my place and well they need to be able to sit at the dining table! So here are my chairs after the paint but before the actual upholstering.

Chairs after paint but before upholstering

Awesome, I know!! My color scheme for my Dining Room (along with my Kitchen) is Green, Black, White, and Grey, I painted my dining room table white and my chairs black and green, my walls are grey so it all ties together!

So let's get started! First step is to take off the seats of the chair and dispose of the fabric and cushion (I already did that before I painted them.) Then lay out one of the seats onto cardboard or anything handy really (I used a heavier paper that I had laying around) and trace around the seat (add an extra 1/4th inch on each side) after that cut out the template of your seat. Use this template for all your foam cushions, trace it and cut the foam to size.

 This is how to make your template

 Here are all FOUR of my cushions waiting to be cut out.

So cut out all your cushions and gather all your seats because now we use spray adhesive to make the foam stick to the seats. I used Loctite and I'd say it worked great but you can use any brand you'd like. I followed the directions on the can though, spray the seat and then spray the foam and wait 1 minute before applying them together. After the minute I stuck them together and honestly, I jumped on them to make sure they stuck! I also did all the spraying on a plastic sheet that way my floor wouldn't get sticky (my socks unfortunately got sticky,) I already had the plastic sheet down because I am painting my dining room table. 

Foam, Spray Adhesive, and Seat.

After that process I measured out each cushion to see how much fabric I would need, I measured across the top and added two inches because of the thickness of the foam. After that I added 3 inches to each measurement I got and cut the fabric. My measurements were 18x18.5 plus two inches for the foam part so it was 20x20.5 I then added 3 inches for 23x23.5. Looking back I wish I had added one more inch just so I wouldn't freak out that I didn't have enough fabric (which I had enough but it was close.) Now here is the super easy part STAPLES!!! Lay the fabric down and then the seat on top of it and pull the fabric over, tight but not too tight and then staple, staple each side once first then from there staple one side then the opposite side then one side and then the opposite side.

Then you get to the corners, trickiest part let me tell you. Cut off most of the excess fabric from the edge leaving just enough to staple to the chair. Corners are really up to you how you want to do them just remember the method used so you can get the same corners on all your chairs. After that just screw the seat back to the chairs and you are DONE! Now pat yourself on the back like I did! Hopefully you now realize how SIMPLE this really is, I'm not sure why I procrastinated as much as I did with this, I really dreaded this project and now I think it was one of the easiest crafty/home-maker things I've done so far! Good luck with your chairs and hopefully this helped you!

I know it looks like ripples in my fabric but once I ran my hand over it the ripples disappeared!I know it looks like ripples in my fabric but once I ran my hand over it the ripples disappeared!

Beer Cake

Have a man in your life that is hard to shop for? Here is an idea of a SUPER EASY present that you can make for birthdays, christmas, baby showers, any special occasion really. A BEER CAKE! Most men like beer and cake so they get the best of both. You can do as many layers of "cake" as you want, I've always just done three. You'll need: Ribbons, Round Cardboard (I used pizza discs,) tape, and beverages of your choice. Just a heads up if you plan on taking this beer cake with you anywhere it WILL fall apart! I have tried to figure out a way to get all the beer to sit on the cardboard in transit but it doesn't work. If I figure it out I'll let you know! So I recommend setting this up in the place it needs to be in. Start with the biggest pizza disc on the bottom and start to add your beverages, enough to cover the disc without going over the edges. Then add a smaller disc on top and add your beverages, finally add the smallest disc and add your beverages. Then just cut your ribbon to desired length and tie it around each individual tier. Ta-Da! You are done! Here are some examples of the beer cakes I have made.

 Birthday Miller Light Beer Cake

Baby Shower Alcohol Cake

As you can tell the Baby Shower Cake I made is a little more complex than the Miller Light Cake. Instead of all cans I used beer bottles on the second layer and mini liquor bottles on the top. I also added "It's a Girl" cigars on dowels and stuck them to the cardboard. I then added a big bow to the top and some curly ribbons all around. (This is the one I took with me and it fell apart in the car and we didn't really get it set up the same when we got the event place. So once again be careful if you decide to make this and take it somewhere.) That is all for now!

New House Tour

Buying a house was a HUGE step for me, I knew what I was getting myself into financially but I don't think I realized what I was getting myself into designer-wise. When I bought my house all the walls were blah! They were all the same color (except for my guest room which was the previous owners kids' room) and that color was a tan which is BLAH! So I painted EVERYTHING (but you will have to wait and see what that looks like another time!) I have sooooo many projects to do with this house, every time I finish one it is like a new one is right there! But right now I will show you what I like to call my Blank Canvas, which is the bare walls of my new house. Stay tuned to see what I've changed, added, designed, and made more personal!

 Spare Room

 Living Room & Dining Room

 Living Room

 Kitchen

 Office

 Office Again

Master Bedroom

Bathroom

Laundry Room

DIY Behind-the-Sofa Table

So I bought a sectional, yeah that was a big purchase and took forever for me to find the perfect one. I had it delivered and realized wow that sectional is huge!! I pretty much had no more room for any type of end table or coffee table or anything. After procrastinating on Pinterest I came across the idea of a behind-the-sofa table, I however could not find any blueprints or tutorials of how to make it. It can't be that hard I thought to myself so I measured out the couch and how tall I wanted the table to be and headed off to Menards. I bought a 2x10x12 because the length I needed was 11.5in. Then I bought a 2x10x8 for the table legs, I cut it into 3 pieces that are 31in. I bought wood screws and L brackets to keep the legs attached to the table top. It is super easy to attach the legs onto the table top, make sure you have two people though because someone needs to hold the legs and someone needs to run the drill. Unfortunately I forgot to take any picture before all this......onwards and upwards though, staining the table. That was so dang easy and some what messy but easy!!!! I used minnwax ebony stain because I wanted a darker table. I brushed the stain on and waited about 15 minutes then I used a clean cloth and wiped excess stain off. Now it's sitting outside drying.

Before the staining 

Another before. 

The stain drying. 

 Up close of the stain. Love the look of this!!

  
This table is going to look awesome in my living room! I haven't decided yet on two coats or just one. So stay tuned!

Carriage Fit For A Princess

My niece recently celebrated her First Birthday!!!! I knew I wanted to get her or make her something totally awesome that I know she would use and love. I found a little tikes cozy coupe for like $10 on an exchange site and I instantly bought it! I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it exactly but I knew it had possibilities.

Here is the cozy coupe before!

 After getting it home and really looking at it I decided it looks a lot like Cinderella's Carriage, with that in mind I got to work drawing out some sketches. I then went out and bought spray paint, I decided on Rustoleum Light Blue, Dark Blue, and a Metallic Gold.

The car and paint colors.

Okay so after a TON of research on spray painting Little Tikes items and a some what failure before I decided to "prime" it with Krylon spray paint! The Krylon was just plain white, I followed the instructions to the T. I painted it one night and then repeated the process the next night, I used TWO cans of the Krylon paint. Now here's the sucky part, I waited 7 days, yes 7 days, until I started to spray paint again. Krylon recommends 7 days of drying until its supposed to be tough and hard to chip.

After the "primer"

So after a full week of the waiting game I started the blue :)  I used TWO cans of this blue and once again followed instructions. I painted one coat of blue then after about 20 mins I painted another coat. I originally was going to paint the inside chair part dark blue but I was on a time crunch and decided to just paint it the light blue.

The Blue Coat Drying

Ok so now things get tricky! I was going to spray paint the door edges gold and add something to the license plate area but I knew that would be difficult so I bought gold paint and hand painted those parts.

Hand Painted Gold Accents

So after that was all done I decided it was too much blue!!! It was then I decided to tape off and cover up any parts of the car that I didnt want gold. I then proceeded to paint the top gold.

Getting The Gold Coat

So after that dried I clear coated the whole car a few times. Once again following instructions, I did small coats a few minutes apart. And here is the finished product:

I even spray painted the gas tank black and added two small circles above it to make it look like Mickey Mouse ears! I also added an old english style C to the main door. (All of this done before the clear coating.) My niece loves this car! I literally pushed her around in it for at least a hour the day I gave it to her and since then she's gotten a lot of use out of it. I won't lie to you though it does chip :(  Nothing too terrible but parts of the inner door have chipped off due to the door rubbing against it and anytime my niece bumps into things a little too hard it starts to slightly chip. I expected all of that though and honestly she doesn't notice it and loves it so it works :)