Crafting: My Dream Red Buffet Table

If you read my post about my dad's auction find, you would know I had been on the look out for the perfect buffet table to re-finish for our dining room.

My dad is really into antiques and auctions, so I had him on the lookout for the perfect buffet table for me. 

He came across this beauty for a whopping $60. 

My inspiration was this amazing peice of furniture. 

 

I'm crazy over the pop of red against the dark wall.

I wish I had the guts to paint a room that color!

I decided to go with Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Emperor's Silk. 

 It took three coats to completely cover and give it a good solid color. If I would have antiqued it, I could have stopped at 2 coats. The picture above is only with two coats and you can see how there is some patches of dark still peeping through.

This is the finished product with the updated hardware. I found these knobs at Hobby Lobby for 50% off.

 Score!

I'm loving the transformation!

 This picture doesn't do the red justice. It's really much brighter in person.

I'm just really excited to have another surface to decorate!  

Linking up with Polkadots on Parade  and Artsy Fartsy Mama and  Organized 31 and Craftberry Bush and Young & Crafty and Rain on a Tin Roof.

Birthday Week Recap

Wowzers! 

This lady feels like such a lush after this weeks shenanigans. I have drank maybe 5 times this whole year, and three of those were nights this week. 

 All day Wednesday was our managers retreat, and then we had a whole work meeting followed by pizza, booze, bowling, and go karts! 

 This is just a select few of the awesome ladies I work with.

 I needed to mark this day in history. I beat the G = the greatness = CT! 

I won't ever let him live it down. 

 Thursday was my 24th birthday!
May 30th. The perfect day for a birthday.
 It was a fast day at work with lunch at one of my faves with the med team ladies, and then an evening with my man.

When I walked in from work, CT surprised me with this beauty. 

He started off spoiling me at the beginning of our relationship and it continues! 

For dinner, we went to Playa Azul for some margs and the usual, and then headed to the circus. 

My favorite part was the animals and the crazy motorcycle drivers in this huge metal ball. 
What blew my mind was that the circus crew was maybe only a total of 20 people that performed all the stunts, music, and dancing. 
The guy driving the motorcycle was the same one on the tight.
 They are very talented people!


On Friday, I stayed late at work and then went over to Miss Evie's house to have a triple date bbq. 
I am trying to hook my sister up with her brother. =))

Jenna was in town for the weekend. 
On Saturday, we went and got a manicure, did a little shopping, and then went to Old Chicago for some pizza.
 I had to get a paint brush and some new hardware for my buffet table I'm redoing. 

  This was after 2 coats. I'll do one more coat tomorrow and then showcase the final product. 
I love it!

Workout gear from the sis. 

When anyone asked what I wanted for my birthday, I sent them to my previous blog posts and it worked. =)) 


I have a feeling 24 is going to be the best year yet!

Mothers Day Weekend

I love the weekends! 

 Lounging. Cleaning. Sleeping in. Naps. Catching up on DVR. Loving on my husband and pupperz.

 Yesterday was most definitely a Friday. It was such a CRAZY busy day at work. I think it mostly was due to our cosmetic clinic director only having 3 more days left with us. I'm already feeling the repercussions of her leaving. I got triple the amount of emails that I normally do. Things are about to get even more crazy. All I can do is take one day at a time and continue to check www.indeed.com in the meantime.   

Last night a group of us girls got together for a going away dinner + drinks and then they all came back to my apartment.

We went to Mikes Wine Dive.

It was the best meal I've had in a really long time. 

I got a fried egg sandwich, a spicy oyster appetizer, and some gourmet deviled eggs. I was going to get the smores for dessert but I was too stuffed by that time.

This is where CT and I will be going for my birthday dinner [in 19 days!] because it was so delicious.

Speaking of my birthday, we also got tickets to the circus! I can't wait. 

 

 

Welp, it's mothers day weekend! 

I hope ya'll did something special for your mom. My mom was able to come up to Wichita yesterday to be a training model for us at the clinic for injectables.

 One of the many perks of my job!! 

 In the last month she has got more then $1500 in free product. I'd say that's quite the mothers day gift. =)

 

 

My mom also brought to town my new buffet table. Now I'm just needing to go find some red chalk paint and get to work. 

There are so many apartment projects on the to do list.

 

1. paint buffet red

2. paint mantel white

3. add tile around bathroom mirror

4. paint bathroom

5. find a better fabric storage for hobby room

6. refinish kitchen table 

 

 

     Still on the agenda for the weekend: Wichita Wild football game, church, our nieces soccer game, and a dance recital. 

 

 

 

 

 

Auction Find

I have been on the look out for the perfect buffet table for my dining room. 

I've been looking on craigs list and in the paper, and I've been having my dad look at auctions and antique malls. 

He stumbled across this beauty at an auction and purchased it for only $60! 

I want to change out the hardware as well as give it a fresh coat of paint. 

I am thinking of painting it either a bright yellow or red! 

 

via 

I've heard great things about Annie Sloan chalk paint. There is no need to sand the piece of furniture and usually only one coat is needed!

  

 I'm also thinking about removing the bottom middle door all together. Maybe get two cute baskets that will be seen. I don't know yet. Ill need to play around with it. 

I LOVE the middle doors on the red buffet though. It looks like it's one of those decorative ceiling tiles painted and added to the wood.

I may try and find something similar! 

Stay tuned!

Weekend Recap + Shabby Spring Bunting

This weekend started a little early on Friday. I picked up a few extra hours throughout the week and had to stay late for an open house one night, so I was pushing over time and decided to leave early Friday.

Saturday was a hang at home all day kind of day. 

It was showering and thunder-storming all day, so it was the perfect opportunity to do a little spring cleaning and spring crafting! 

I mainly organized and cleaned out the hobby room. It's crazy how quickly it can turn into a hot mess! 

I still have an abundance of black feather boas from our wedding that I need to find something to do with. 

I'm thinking probably a Halloween wreath and maybe some garland on the Christmas tree? Any other ideas?

I'm also looking at doing something with these beauties! Besides these colors, I have a ton more grey, brown, and black buttons. I'm thinking about spray painting some metallic silver and incorporating them into our bedroom decor somehow.

After a little organizing, I joined the hubby in the living room with some fabric while he watched the draft. [Go Cowboys!]

 

I cut 4"x 2" blocks of some 'springy' fabric.

 Then I cut them into various shapes and left them with a raw edge which gives it a more shabby look. 

My complete Spring mantle!

I don't know how I feel about the leopard and I'm wishing it had more pink in it, but other than that I'm loving it and I'm impressed with how easy it was. 

We ended the weekend at the zoo with CT's little cousin. It's insane how crazy Kansas weather is: freezing during the week, rainy on Saturday, and 75 and sunny on Sunday! 

We had a really good time! 

It's even better when you can return the child to their parents and then come home and take a nap. Oh the joys of not having kids and borrowing them for the afternoon!

Linking up with Sami.
Linking up with Jamie
Linking up with Jamie.
Linking up with Cheryl.

Crafting: Colored Glass

While scrolling through Pinterest, I kept seeing really cool colored glass: mason jars, wine bottles, everything! I knew that they would look perfect on my mantel for Spring. 

I went thrift store shopping to find the perfect peices to freshen up with some color. 

I ended up going to two different Goodwill's and spent a total of $20 on all 4 glass bottles. I love the vintage-ness of all of them!

I came across a tutorial by Lucy at Craftberry Bush on how to make colored glass. I followed her exact directions and came up with these beauties! 

I used McCormicks neon food coloring in purple, green, and blue and used the ratio of 1 tsp of elmers glue : 3 drops of food coloring : 1.5 tsp of water. 

Since I was only doing one glass object in each color, I had a lot of mixture left over after. I used the method of painting the mixture on the glass from bottom to top. The tutorial says to brush it on top to bottom, but when I did that it would gather at the bottom and not look good. Brushing it bottom to top made it easier to get excess mixture off the glass. 

What's nice about this is if you don't like how it looks you can always wash it off with water and start over! 

Just a reminder, try not to go over it that much. One/two coats is the best to keep it from clumping together. Also, less mixture on your brush is better. This way there is less of a chance of having it run down the glass causing streaks.

Linking up with Young & Crafty and Skip to My Lou and Coastal Charm

and It's Good to Be Queen 

Crafting: A Nail Polish Holder

I envy women who have long, strong, amazing fingernails that are always freshly painted.  In my opinion, biting your nails is such an ugly habit, and it is something that brings unneeded attention to my already not so pretty hands! That is where one of my new year resolutions came from.

Resolution #6- completely stop biting my nails.

So far, this resolution has been the most difficult to keep. I actually started this resolution back in November and was going strong up until New Years Eve. I have heard many different assumptions, but the most common seems to be that it takes 4-6 weeks to break a bad habit. I have tried applying 'stop the bite, kick the habit', but it tastes absolutely horrible (which it is suppose to). Until I applied stop the bite, I didn't realize how much I ate with my hands or how often my hands came to my mouth. Even putting vaseline on my lips, I would taste it. I realized this issue was only going to go away if I had a lot of will power.

Throughout this whole process of trying to stop biting, I realized I had less a tendency to bite my nails if they were painted. This was really the only thing that worked for me. Before you knew it, I started to accumulate quite the collection of nail polishes, because I was changing the color of my nails almost every other day or as soon as there was the littlest chip in the polish. 

Proof:

I now had all this nail polish and didn't know the correct way to store it or how to show it off. While on pinterest one afternoon I found this really cool nail polish holder made out of an old spice rack. 

 via

I loved the simplicity of this look and how easily all the colors were organized and shown off. I knew this would be the solution to how I was going to house and store my nail polish. 

The next step was to head to goodwill's in the area to see if I could find an old spice rack. Fortunately, after some digging, I found this beauty at my very first stop. 

 

Wow! What potential this bad boy had! I knew that I didn't have a specific spot that I wanted to hang it on the wall, so my plan was to remove the door, remove the hooks on the bottom, cut off the legs so it could sit up, and paint it. 

I'm not a fan of using lots of color, especially since we are just renting and I know when we eventually do move everything will probably change. For this reason, I usually stick with neutrals, black, and white when decorating. I ended up removing the door, unscrewing the hooks, using a hand saw to remove the legs, and then I painted it. I used a black gloss on the wood, and on the metal bars I used a silver sparkle. Who doesn't love a little sparkle! 

Tada! I love the finished product, and I'm so glad I decided to go with the glitter. In the store I was really debating it, but I love the way it turned out. It adds something a little extra.

Now this bad boy is currently housed in my bathroom.

I walk by it a few times a day and I'm so proud of what I accomplished. It is such a great feeling when you are able to re purpose something old into something you can benefit from. And look, another re purposed item got in the picture. The white candle we used in our wedding, got spruced up with a little double sided tape and glitter. Thanks again pinterest!  

Today starts day 1 of my challenge, and I have 6 brutal weeks of resisting to try and break this habit! My goal is to take hair skin & nail pills to help my nails grow, apply sally hanson: hard as nails to make them strong, and apply paint to keep them covered. Wish me luck!  

Ps- I'm linking up with Positively Splendid!