My husband and I spent a wonderful weekend at the beach. We had such a nice time walking by the ocean, perusing little shops, and eating a lot! Love the beach!
Want to see just how outdated our house is?? Here are some lovely lights hanging in the family room. I don't see any possible way that these lights can be updated! I think we are probably off the hook with these babies. Anybody have ANY ideas? Or is it to the goodwill for them?

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Please go to A Soft Place to Land http://asoftplacetoland-kimba.blogspot.com/2009/08/diy-day_26.html? = the coolest blog ever!

Candlesticks and Frames

I got some candlesticks at Goodwill for 99 cents. They were this crazy gold color, but I spray painted them black. (Of course!) Here is the before:

Here is the after:

By the way, the two frames in the back with the pink flowers I got on clearance at Michael's and the frame was originally a very nice gray color. We used them in our wedding. But, I painted them black to go in our living room. Now I need to find somewhere to put this:

Spray Painting Recessed Lights

All right! We wanted to replace our recessed lighting in our living room, but we had a hard time finding something we liked. I of course kept saying to my husband, "I could just spray paint these old ones and they would be good as new!" But he thought we should just buy new ones. Well we went to a specialty lighting store and a couple different department stores, and we could not find what we wanted! Either the trim wasn't quite thick enough to cover the hole in the ceiling, or it wasn't the right color. So, Jake gave me permission to give spray painting them a try and see what happened. Here is the before picture:

And here is the after picture:

I sprayed the inside of the lights (which I now realize you can't even really see) with High Heat spray paint. Anyway, we love how they turned out! They complete the living room!

The project I'm working on right now...

Of course it is a spray painting project! That is all I am into at the moment. I am spray painting our old recessed lights that go above our fireplace:



I am not sure if this will work exactly right. When I get home from work tonight, I am going to give them one last coat of paint, and I will post pictures then. We will see!

Our almost 6 month puppy

Over the weekend I did NO projects! I meant to get a start on several, but it just didn't happen. Boo! But, I wanted to share a couple pictures of our beloved dog, Raptor. He is almost 6 months now and we have been having such a blast with him. He is a big sweetheart. As I am typing this blog, he is sitting contentedly at my feet, taking a snooze. Anyway, enjoy the pictures of our cutie!

Brand new mirror!

Okay here is the before again:

And here is the after!

A tip that I learned this time around:
Put some cardboard down underneath whatever you are painting! You are probably thinking "Duh!"but last time I just set stuff down on plastic, and then whatever you are painting sticks to it, and when you pick it up, some of the plastic sticks to it! It is very annoying, but easily solved by simply putting cardboard down.

Here is the paint I used:

Two coats of Valspar Porcelain Satin and then one coat of Rustoleum Almond Satin. The reason I did that is because I happened to have a lot of the Valspar spray paint, but I really like the Rustoleum color better (more of a cream), so I put that on for the final coat.

I love it!

In Process

Check back later this evening to see how I re-did this old mirror. (Right now it is drying)

I got it from Goodwill yesterday for $6.00! I actually think it is ok this color, but it just doesn't match anything in our house. So stay tuned to see how it turned out!

Check out Transformation Thursday at http://www.theshabbychiccottage.net/
Also

TONS of great ideas!

Here is my latest project:
Before:

After:

I just spray painted the glass candlestick white! I love it.

DIY Wedding Invitations

For all you brides out there, you know how expensive invitations can be! When we were planning our wedding last year (on a budget) we were shocked much they were. I found a place that was within our budget, but the only invites they could do were plain white. I wanted some color, so I decided to do them myself. I made 200 invitaions, RSVP cards, and Save the Date cards for less than $200.00! Here they are:



We printed our own address labels to put on the back of the RSVP cards. (above). Sorry about the picture quality. Here are our Save the Date cards that we printed out at Walmart (150 prints for under $30.00!)We sent these out about 4 months before we sent out the invitations.

Photo Wall

I saw this article on Martha Stewart's website and loved the idea:

So I decided to give it a try. Now, this was a couple months ago, and I could have saved a heck of a lot of money if I would have bought used frames and painted them. But, at the time I didn't even know that would look good! So I bought all these frames on clearance at Michael's. Anyway, here is the finished product:

What do you think?

Painting Frames

One of my favorite blogs did a posting on painting a frame: http://asoftplacetoland-kimba.blogspot.com/2009/07/big-ugly-painting-makeover.html. I had to try it! I was looking for a painting for my dining room, and it had to be cheap! I went off to Goodwill and returned with many things! Besides finding a picture for our dining room, I found 4 other things to paint to put in our newly remodeled bathroom. Again, I wish I had before pictures, but just imagine terribly ugly, and really old wood and that describes these frames. All of them were different wood colors as well. This is how they turned out: (We still haven't hung them up yet!)

This is the one that will go in our newly painted blue-grey dining room. I just covered the picture with tape and newspaper and did two coats of black spray paint. I know you are technically supposed separate the frame from the painting, etc, but who has that kind of time!

These last three will go in our bathroom. I don't know if you can tell, but in the bottom picture, those are two identical mirrors. So all of this for under $30.00! (not including spray paint, which I spent $8.00.)

Making Candlesticks new

Can you tell which candlestick was only $4.00 from a thrift store? The little one on the right. When I got it from Red White & Blue, it was an eye-scalding, scratched silver. I brought it home, spray painted it, and put it up on my mantle. Now what I really wish is that I could return the other two from Pottery Barn and Target and go get some more at the thrift store to save myself A LOT of money! There are TONS of candlesticks like this at Goodwill and other thrift stores. Granted, most of them need a little help with color, but that's easy! Here is my next project:

I am spray painting a simple glass candlestick (left over from our wedding) white. We will see how it goes!

Updating Light Fixtures

All you need is a little spray paint! Both of these light fixtures were an ugly brass color that looks so dated. I wish I had before pictures, but trust me, they were a very shiny brass! All I did was two quick coats of black spray paint (no sanding, no primer) and there you go! Total time (not counting drying time) 30 minutes!