On a side note...

Tatertots and jello, one of my all time FAVORITE blogs, is giving away a silhouette machine! These things are amazing! I have wanted one since I found out about them. They are just a little (ok a LOT) out of a semi- newly married college student budget. The possibilities for this thing are endless! Keep your fingers, toes, eyes, whatever crossed that I win!

From me to You

Hello there readers. It has been a while. The hubs is down to one crutch and should be back to normal soon. I couldn't be more excited, especially since we just got dumped with snow in our neck of the woods. Seasonal colds have hit here as well which has kept me down a bit. But now that we are feeling better and some big papers are done it's time to have get some crafting done. This project was for my sister and bro in law. My sister told me that she can't seem to figure out what to do with their bedroom. They know that they want to incorporate their favorite colors, blue and green. They just can't figure out what to do. She came to me and I was ecstatic for the opportunity to help make their space a home. The first thing it needed was some color. So I thought of doing some cute and personalized wall art that will add a spring feeling. This was one of those ideas I actually thought of myself. I feel like such a smarty pants when I do that. So I headed to the Hobby Lobby (that place can be dangerous) and Home Depot to get some tools.

DIY Art Work
canvas
blue spray paint
tape
hot glue and glue gun
small silk flowers
small silk leaves (optional)
distressing ink
brown paint

I started by taping the trunk of the tree on opposite sides of the canvas, like so:

Now for the branches. This one goes to my awesome sis. I was going to just put strait pieces of tape on for strait branches but she thought of something much better. When you tear the tape it gives it a nice natural edge. LOVE it!

Now for my favorite part... SPRAY PAINT! You could paint these with traditional paint but 1: spray paint goes on nice and smooth and 2: it's a lot faster. Here's my sis displaying the lovely paint we selected.

After the paint dried we took off the blue tape and starting placing the flowers. 

I  gave the tree a little brown definition and distressed the edges of the tree. Now I decided to add some leaves to bring in more of the green but you certainly can opt out on those. On one of the trees I had my sister who is an art major make an M+J in the tree (their initials, cute huh). It turned out a little bigger than expected so I would recommend making a smaller one in the very corner but the bigger version like so also looks great as well. What ever floats your boat.

We hung them up above the bed and they are a welcome burst of color. And the best part, my sis LOVES them. The room is far from finishing its face lift but its a great start.

Now I'm going to curl up in some blankets and study. Good night all!

I'm Looking Through You

Hello you stunning readers you!

You know how I said that my hubs and I were working on an incredibly amazing project? The time has come to show it off the the world! In my last post I introduced you to our newest family member, the lovely Lucy. She is soooo much fun! She loves to play and digs sliding on the kitchen floor (it kills me every time). From the moment we brought her home we couldn't figure out one very important thing... where do we put the liter box? As my blog title indicates, we live in a one bedroom apartment so we don't really have an abundance of space. We decided that we needed to get creative. So we headed to the local thrift store and found this:

This end table has defiantly seen better days. But this project was all about thinking out side of the box... literally. And at $3, if we trashed it we wouldn't feel to guilty. With some spray paint, power tools, and a lot of elbow grease the side table now looks like this:

Yes that is the same table. And I LOVE it!

The new handles are a HUGE improvement. It gave the end table a huge leap out of the early 80's.

I spray painted the whole thing black and antiqued it with sand paper. But it was missing some thing. So I added some lovely stencil designs to the front and top. It gave it the color and definition that I was hoping for as well as contribute to the antiqued feel I was going for. Here is a shot of the front:

And here is one of the top:

Now you may be thinking "Well that is a great looking table, but how does this tie in with Lucy and the liter box?". Let me show you...

This is the kitty door on the side. The kitty door leads to the hidden liter box inside the end table. That's right, I said inside:

This is where the hubs and the power tools come in. He was sweet enough to cut a hole in the side for the kitty door and vent in the back (we had to give her fresh air in there- sorry, didn't take a picture of the vent). He loves using power tools.

We placed a mat on the bottom so that it was 1: softer on her little paws and 2: collect a little liter. There is a good 4-5 inches between the door and the liter box so she has a little room in there.

I wish that I could take credit for this genius idea but I can't. I found it here:

http://www.remodelaholic.com/2010/05/cat-astic-old-cabinet-transformed-guest.html 

Our version is not as big as hers because we have a smaller home and a smaller cat. But we also added one other addition. Because our table did not have the cracks in the wood for light we had to find some way to add some light in that dark little box. So we got a little light and placed it on the door:

This little light makes for one much happier kitty. 

Well folks, it's time I go get dinner started. Plus I think some one is ready for me to get off the computer:

Have a safe and happy week!