Friday, September 21, 2012

Super easy fall decorating

I'm always on the lookout for crafts that are easy enough to do with my daughter.  Today I went to BigLots and bought a few decorative pumpkins for $1 each.  They were pretty cute on their own, but they did look a little cheap, and when I brought them home I realized that I didn't love the colors.  That is when I remembered that I had this paint.  As you can see by the price tag still on it, it was not expensive.  And I think I got it when paints were 40% off (craft stores have sales like that all the time.) 
And painting them was easy enough for Violet to do.  

 Here are the two I did; I applied a pretty thin layer because I liked the different colors to show through. Also, they were much more metallic than they look in these pictures.  They didn't photograph too well.
 Violet applied the paint much more liberally, as 2-year-olds noramally do.
I have used this metallic paint on a couple of different projects and I will say that I am a huge fan.  They also have several different colors, and it would be cool to see how silver or bronze ones turn out.  Happy Autumn!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

A non-commital makeover

Remember this fabric dressing room that I made for my parents' play room last summer?  It actually turned out really well. Unfortunately, kids under the age of 6 don't really care who sees them in their underwear and they think it's fascinating to pull apart PVC joints.  So it was short-lived.
 
But yesterday I bought a new bookcase for my living room and almost immediately decided that it needed something extra.  I had seen bookshelf makeovers where people put wallpaper on the backing, so I decided to try out fabric.  The fabric from the dressing room happened to fit it exactly, so I decided that it was meant to be.  I did have one dilemma, though: I wasn't sure if my husband would like it. I know that most people's husbands could care less about home decor as long as they don't have to sleep in a pink bed.  I do not have a typical husband. 
 
Then a light bulb went off.  I laid the fabric over the back of the shelf, put the backing over it, and nailed it down on the sides but not the top or bottom. The backing held the fabric in place but since the fabric wasn't actually attatched to anything, I could slide it out in case my husband decided he didn't like it. 

 I then stuck it against the wall. Nobody has to know that there is a mess of extra fabric behind it.  Now my toddler can take it over and put all her crap on it.  Wonderful.