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)