Can I just say summer television sucks? I'm currently laying in bed browsing the channels and am utterly bored with my options, so I thought why not update my blog, especially since I got a new laptop! woot woot! I haven't had a new computer since I was 18. So I asked my parents for one for my 24th birthday and they delivered! I didn't get anything fancy because I would have no idea how to use anything fancy, I have a hard enough time scrolling up and down with a mouse let alone a whole bunch of computer options that I don't know what they are for.

Word to the wise, if ordering something online (especially from Best Buy) choose the option to pick it up in store. I hate going to places like Best Buy where the salesmen convince me I need all these things I don't. But everything they say just sounds so good, so I just say okay and then end up like $300 over what I wanted to spend. So I chose to pick it up in store and that I would get an email when it was ready. Well I got the email 5 minutes later, no joke. So I got really excited and immediately went to Best Buy. Did I mention I got this laptop on tax free weekend? So you can only imagine how hectic Best Buy was, especially with electronics being included this year. So I walk into utter chaos and ask someone where I go to pick up an order from online and they point right past the extremely long customer service line to a completely empty online order pick up line. I go to the counter, give them my ID and credit card I used online, they printed a receipt, and handed me my computer. I stood there a second and then was like "I can just leave now? They won't think I stole this?" I was probably at the counter for 2 minutes and then out the door and on my way home. BEST TRIP TO A STORE EVER. Definitely made up for the fact that I will be in my mid-twenties August 30th, weird.Then I think how Brian will be 30 in January and I feel better :)

So anyway, moving on, I painted my first piece of indoor furniture this past weekend! And let me tell you I'm glad I chose a random entryway shelf that I didn't really care if I ruined. When Brian and I moved in together we combined all of our furniture and we just ended up with a whole bunch of random hodge podge stuff. But instead of getting rid of it all and buying new stuff I have decided to re-do most of it to save money. I am learning as I go and this was one big step for me.

So for my first project I decided to turn a black shelf that Brian used to use as a night stand into a white shelf for our entryway. Here is the before picture:

I did a lot of research on how to paint wood that is already painted and there were tons of blogs/articles that gave all kinds of options but I finally decided on the following things...

1.409 cleaner. This is what I used to clean the shelf before I painted it and after I sanded it. Worked like a charm.

2. 100 grit sandpaper. Some articles said this was necessary and others didn't. I chose to do it since I wanted to try and see for myself if it was a necessary step. I found it really wasn't since the wood I was using was already painted with a thick coat of black and I was using primer (maybe this is something I should have known, but like I said before I have no idea what I'm doing). But I know some projects I will need to do this and when those come along I'm buying a sander. My poor fingers felt they were going to fall off from sanding with sandpaper by hand and it actually became painful. After I sanded I cleaned the shelf again with 409 and found little granules of black dust in the back corners of the shelf. I just got dry Q-tips and twirled them in the corners and the black dust stuck to it like a magnet.

3. Mini paint tray. I lined mine with aluminum foil for easy clean up.

4. Wooster shortcut brush. BEST BRUSH EVER. I read on one blog (I can't remember which one) that this was their favorite brush. It is so nice, the handle is flexible and short so it's good for painting on small surfaces with lots of edges, like a shelf. And the best part, it was only 5 dollars and still good quality.

5. Mini foam roller. I got this because I read it is good to use when your brush shows paint strokes. But my brush ended up working great and didn't need to do this step. But what you do is roll over the surface with the foam roller and it gets rid of all the lines that a brush can make. It's only like $2 at home depot.

6. Zinsser 1-2-3 Primer. I got this primer in white and it worked great looking back at the pictures I definitely should have done two coats of primer because my priming job was awful, but you live and you learn right?

7. Behr ultra pure white flat paint sample is the paint I used on the shelf. I got two samples for $2.50 a piece and if I didn't have to paint two coats of paint (some places three coats) then I would have used only one little sample jar for the whole shelf. The paint is gorgeous and strikingly white..I love it.

8.Then the finish I used was Polycrylic water based clear semi-gloss finish. I read all over the internet that polyurethane causes the piece to yellow over time and this finish doesn't. Plus it made it shiny and pretty :)

So that's everything I used. So here are some pictures of the whole process:

The cabinet before anything was done to it

 This is my priming job..how embarrassing. I didn't realize I did such a bad job at priming until I looked back at these photos. Lesson learned: the better prime job the easier it is to paint.

This is after my first coat of paint. In the horizontal picture you can see the gray better but I took these pictures at sunset, hence the bad lighting on my porch.

 The final product with the polycrylic finish.I let the finish dry for 24 hours before I put anything on it just to make sure it didn't get messed up. After all is said and done it came out pretty well.

 Here is the shelf back in its place. I know it doesn't look pretty and have nice decorations/knick knacks on it but unlike all those Pinterest pictures of people's homes I actually live here and need to use this shelf to hold dog collars and leashes. The cabinet is so white it makes the wall look dirty but those walls are getting painted hopefully this weekend. That should be quite an experience since I've never painted a wall before. But that will be saved for another post.

Oh and it was Izzy's second birthday on Sunday! Please ignore me in these photos, I had been painting the shelf all day. But isn't she cute?!

Until next time

Well I've been working on my crafting skills lately for decorating my new place and my latest area to decorate is my mantle above my fireplace. I found these really cute green moss covered letters that some girl on Pinterest had used in her wedding pictures and I thought that would look so cute on my mantle.

So I went to Michaels first since it is 2 seconds from my house and found the green moss in the floral area. The blog said to get a green moss table runner and that is what I thought I had picked up but I found out later I hadn't. Unfortunately Michaels did not have any letters big enough to my liking so I decided to make the trip to Joann Fabrics which is much farther from my house. In reality it's like 10 minutes away but when you live in a town where everything is within 5 minutes, 10 minutes is a big trip. 

Side note: Have I mentioned I worked at Joann's for 4 years when I was in high school? How I never got into crafts before my twenties I'll never understand, especially considering my uber crafty family and my craft store job I used to have. The big plus to working at Joann's for so long is I still remember the areas that items are in so I can navigate my way around craft stores pretty well.

So I go to Joann's and looked in their floral section at the kind of green moss they had and (of course) liked their selection better. So naturally, I bought more and said I will return the one I got from Michaels. The good thing is though the green moss I bought from Joann's was a table runner that the blog who did this craft in the first place had suggested. And I didn't like Joann's selection of letters either...none of them were big enough. And since I'm too stubborn to settle I bought a big piece of styrofoam and decided to cut my own letter. They had a nice styrofoam cutter at Joann's but after seeing it was $25.00 I decided a kitchen knife would work just fine too.

After this I headed to TJ Maxx because I am a serious Maxxinista. My obsession with TJ Maxx, Homegoods, and Marshall's is unreal. I love a good deal and can spend hours in each of the stores. While browsing TJ Maxx I found a silver metal ampersand and literally squealed out loud. I'm quite embarrassing even by myself but whatever. I had been stressing about how in the world I would make an ampersand when I'm not even able to write one on a piece of paper correctly.

So after TJ Maxx I head home to start crafting. Making the B out of styrofoam with a kitchen knife actually wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. I traced the outline with one of those sewing pencils that is like blue chalk on the end, not sure of the proper name for it and just started cutting away and this is what I came up with. 

By the time I had finished cutting the whole thing it looked like I had murdered a snowman but I was pretty impressed with myself. So next I started the gluing the moss. I took the moss table runner out of the package and placed it on top of the B and outlined it to cover the top portion of the B and then hot glued it to the styrofoam. I continued to do this until I had no table runner left. So I had to open the Michaels green moss I bought and realized it wasn't a table runner but pull apart moss you would stick in a vase for decoration. This actually ended up okay because it was fluffier than the table runner so I think it added more depth to the project but it did take longer and I burnt my fingers like 10 times gluing it on. My favorite thing about the green moss is it's really easy to cover up mistakes with just gluing more green moss over it. After about an hour I was finished so I put the finished letter and the ampersand up on my mantle and this is what it looked like...

I thought at the time maybe I could just leave it "B &" rather than "B&B" cause I thought "B&B" would take up too much space and both our initials are B so I thought maybe it'll look okay. Brian, being oh so kind, was like "No one is going to understand." But I left it like that for about 2 weeks until finally one night I looked at it and told Brian that it looks so stupid. And he was like "So you're finally adding another B to our Band (combining B and &)...gotta love him. Anyway, so I decided I didn't want the B's to be the same size but I still wanted it to be bigger than the ampersand. This is when I could not find a B I liked anywhere once again. I feel like I looked everywhere, until one day my mom called me from Tampa. She was at the Joann's I used to work at and was like "they have a paper mache B here that is 12 inches, do you want it? And I just decided to say yes cause I had pretty much given up at this point and really didn't want to carve another B out of styrofoam for some reason. She sent it in the mail and it was PERFECT. At this point I decided not to do the green moss again and instead wrap it with twine so it wasn't too matchy matchy. Here is the B

I remembered that twine was in the beading aisle at the craft store and went to look for it there. All I could find was something called Jute that looked like twine (they could be the same thing, I have no idea) so I bought the bigger size that was 500 feet even though I knew that was too much I just didn't want to have to go back to the store.

Wrapping this twine took FOREVER. Like I thought it would never end. Thankfully ABC family was having one of their Harry Potter weekend marathons so I spent Saturday and Sunday afternoon watching that and wrapping twine. I think it was more difficult because the letter B has so many sharp corners that you maneuver around. Here is the letter when I first started...

But finally, Sunday around 5 I finished and was so happy with the outcome. It took a lot of patience though. 

 I think it turned out great, it's not perfect by any means but I like the imperfection of it. I loved it on the mantle as well.

Now all I want is a big mirror to place up there and it will be complete. I'm still searching for the right mirror though and I still need to paint the walls, but that will all happen eventually. Hope everyone is having a great day! Guess what day it is?! It's hump day! (Love that commercial)

Hey guys!

 So I'm finally moved! And of course just my luck it was the rainiest week in Tallahassee history, well in my opinion. The sun finally reappeared yesterday and I'm hoping it doesn't rain for a long time. My Nana said Good Morning America reported that Tallahassee was the rainiest place in all of the United States last week but she also said 300 people died in that plane crash in San Francisco when only 2 did...so I'm unsure about how accurate her facts are.

But anyway, the first day of our move Brian and I woke up at 6 am to get started. He went to get the U-Haul around 7 and I went to our new place to vacuum the carpets one last time before all the big furniture got there with the dogs. So the dogs are sniffing and smelling around and Izzy goes to the door which signals that she needs to go out, and of course its raining. Our front door has a screen door and then the wood door behind that, so I open up both doors and close only the screen door behind me. Izzy and Ryder do their business and I turn around and a snake is going under my screen door into my nice and newly vacuumed house. I just start screaming and freaking out, and let me remind you this is at probably 7:15 am on a Saturday, its raining, I'm in a new neighborhood with new neighbors and I'm screaming bloody murder. I mean honestly, what the hell was I going to do with a snake that was like 2 feet long and had black diamonds on its' back. So here I am standing in the rain with two dogs and can't go inside because a snake could come out at any moment. So naturally I call my wonderful boyfriend and tell him to turn around immediately and get this snake out of our house. As I'm waiting the snake starts to slither across my dining room and I was able to snap this shot of it

Yeah..not okay. Like why does this stuff happen to me? Anyway, so the snake is heading towards my kitchen and I'm just praying it doesn't go under the stove or the fridge. I'm pretty sure I started talking to it at this point to turn around. My neighbors probably think I'm completely insane. It ended up going in the pantry and in comes Brian to save the day. He gets a moving box and a metal sign that says "Seminole National Championship 93 and 99" and gets the snake into the box with it only lurching at him once to bite. He put the entire box in the yard and didn't touch it until his friend Brent came and opened it up and the snake had gotten out somewhere. I've never been so thankful to live with a guy. So in all, it was a great way to start moving in.

The rest of the day went semi-smoothly with me only getting mad at Brian once. I expected to get  mad more times  because I have a tendency to be very controlling when it comes to tasks, such as moving. I like it my way or no way at all. I'm working on that but it's hard!

I have been decorating and crafting up a storm but I will leave those for another post because I am still figuring out where everything is going, because honestly I feel like the decorating never ends. But first I want to show you what my wonderful mother did for Brian and me. Remember how I said she can make flowers out of a burlap sack well here's what I'm talking about...

Here is a dining room table she found for $99 at a thrift shop

 And here is what she transformed it into with chalk paint and new fabric

(Izzy photo bomb)

I couldn't be happier with how it came out! The centerpiece is still a work in progress. But the table is beautiful and fits perfectly. I can't wait to paint the rooms and decorate more but that will have to wait until another day, aka my next pay check.

Until next time,

I have officially finished my first refinishing craft and I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself for not stopping half way through and saying "Let's just buy new furniture." There were a couple times I wanted to, like when I first began and sliced my finger open on steel wool, that was fun, I'll get to that in a second. So let's begin with the supplies I bought..and the supplies I returned. Let's just say me and the Home Depot paint guy on the weekends are on first names bases after this project.

My first trip to Home Depot, I walked in acting like I knew what I was doing. You know the saying "fake it till you make it" well that was me on my first trip. Me and Will (the paint guy at Home Depot) first met at this trip and I blew him off thinking I knew exactly what I was doing. I started with the basics..paint brushes (I only bought one, big mistake), steel wool, primer, 2 cans of spray paint color, and spray paint top coat and that was it. I went home and was talking to my mom on the phone about how I am starting my craft project and I asked her "Is the steel wool going to cut me?" And she was all like no silly its too thin to cut you. So I go outside to start sanding down the furniture with the steel wool, literally 5 seconds in (not an exaggeration), I cut my finger open with the steel wool. Being a nurse my first reaction isn't oh crap I cut my myself it was when was my last Tetanus and do I need stitches. The stitches thought was definitely not needed since it was like a paper cut except a little deeper and my last tetanus was in 2010 so I was covered there. This was the first time I thought "Lets just buy new furniture" but Brian stopped me by saying he will go to Wal-Mart and buy me some gloves, at the time I was like awh how sweet but when he came back with Taco Bell, I figured out his real motive for wanting to go to Wal-Mart. But none the less, I call my mother basically like what the hell mom I cut myself and she goes well what grade of steel wool did you buy? WHO KNEW THERE WERE DIFFERENT GRADES! And naturally I had bought the thickest and coarsest steel wool on the market (Grade 3) and I needed Grade 000. Good one.

But anyway, my lovely boyfriend went to Wal-Mart and got me gloves and grade 000 steel wool. I made him search the store because I have very small hands and those one size fits all gloves do not fit all hands. So I needed a size small and he comes back with these...

and says," I got these because I figured they would be extra absorbent." Hence the brand..good one babe. But they did do the trick and I managed to save my manicure (obviously very important ) and my finger from anymore cuts throughout the project.

 But moving on, I finally get the right steel wool and my gloves and I sand down my first chair and then clean it off with Windex, and I open the primer jar of paint and I found out I bought gray primer rather than white primer, another rookie mistake. But this ended up okay because the gray primer was light and made the metal look silver again so it was still easy to paint over the green. This is the chair primed

So once this dried, I went to spray paint the chair, this was a disaster for many reasons.
#1: Spray painted our back porch off white
#2: So much spray paint was wasted because of all the little holes in the metal (the reason for #1)
#3: After 2 cans the chair still wasn't completely spray painted and this kind of spray paint was $5 a can so that would be 3 cans per chair plus like 5 for the table. I'm not spending $85 on paint. This was the second time I thought we should just buy new furniture.

Somehow, I found the motivation (after a nap) to go back to Home Depot and keep doing this project. This time Will recognized me and I swallowed my pride and went through what happened. I returned the spray paint top coat I bought and bought a can of the clear top coat and a can of paint that was similar to the color of the spray paint. I also bought a variety pack of brushes. This trip to Home Depot was much more successful. I did have to go back the next day to get paint trays to pour the paint in and a canvas drop cloth but other than that I was good to go.

It did take much longer to hand paint everything but I'm happy with the outcome of the furniture and the money saved in my pocket from not buying new furniture. The whole project in total with returns cost me around $60 and the furniture is now as good as new.  Here is the before and after:

Given the after would look better if I raked the back porch and put some decorations out there and removed the canvas drop cloth from underneath the table, but like I said on my previous post I am moving July 1st and this seems pointless right now.

On Sunday, we went out on our friend Ian's boat with his fiance Christi down the Wakulla River. It was a fabulous time full of alligator searching and vegas bombs. Here are a few pictures of the day

Ian and Brian covered in sunscreen

Take one

Take two

Take three

It was the perfect start to the week. Nothing like spending the day with good friends and in the sun. Hope you all have a great Monday!

Hello World,

So I wanted to start off with explaining my title. I DON'T blog, like ever. I think I had a Xanga account in 9th grade when I was really tech savvy and had music playing in the background and everything. All that knowledge of the blogging world has left me, I have no idea what I'm doing and yet I woke up one day and decided I am going to write a blog about my life because I feel like it. And so here I am trying to figure out this whole blog thing, I am still unhappy with my layout or template (whatever it's called) and can't figure out how to move bars around and barely understand what I have done so far but it is a work in progress and one day I will get it down.

But anyway,  here I am...blogging. Who woulda thought? Not my mom, that's for sure. My mom and sister are both creative and can pretty much make a bouquet of flowers out of a burlap sack, I would instead go to a flower shop and buy a bouquet and have them wrap it with burlap. I've always been that way, until recently. Now I have this creative itch (mainly due to my obsession with Pinterest). I have even begun refinishing some old patio furniture Brian's (my boyfriend) mom gave us. I will post photos once it is finished, it has been postponed because of rain (Thanks tropical storm Andrea). But now I'm addicted to blogs that refinish furniture, all I want to do is thrift shop and refinish things. Unfortunately, I'm moving in a month to a new townhouse so I am having to put a lot of my refinishing dreams on hold until I find out what I need to put in this new place. Booo.

Now that I've explained why I am blogging let me tell you a little about me. I value my family above everything else. My parents have been married for 35 years and I have an older brother, Adam, and sister, Ashley. I'm the baby of the family and I'm also an oops baby. I like to think I am an oops that came at the right time (we are all 3 years apart). But I was definitely an oops because my mom cried for 2 weeks when she found out she was pregnant with me. Now she says "she wouldn't trade me for the world"..typical mother response. I live in Tallahassee, Florida with my boyfriend, Brian, and our 90 pound American bulldog, Izzy, and 10 pound pomeranian-yorkie (porkie as I like to say), Ryder. Izzy is originally Brian's and Ryder originally mine, but now that we share bills I consider them "ours". I am very sarcastic and sensitive at the same time. I have the biggest sweet tooth around and love wine of any kind. In the past year, my happiness and contentment with life has increased significantly and I just like to have a good time whether its going out or eating popcorn on my couch with Brian. I love this life I'm living and am excited for whats to come

                                                       

My babies Ryder and Izzy

 Adam, Ashley and Me

Brian

That's all for now, until next time,

B