Lumberjack Glam!

For my birthday this year I really wanted to throw a fun dress up party! I LOOOVE themed parties, last year for my 30th birthday we did a Great Gatsby theme--so much fun!

My sister and I ;)

                            My sweet friend who looked so dang cute!

I had a tutorial going to teach us the Charleston

So this year, after seeing the awesome pictures from the Glam Lumberjack Jam in Utah I decided I HAD to do it too! Just too much fun!

We had themed food to go along with it, things like sausage and flap jacks and bacon maple cupcakes--and of course lots and lots of treats!

We played games like this one--you have to pick the box up with your mouth without touching the ground with her hands or anything else, the box gets progressively shorter--very funny!

 We also had a campfire outside to roast marshmallows, I love fun parties!!

What about you? Are you a dress up kind of gal or do you hate it?! :)

Little Details

I think the little details are what make decorating special and all yours. I love collections and just happen to have a few kitchen related collections! For about five years now I've collected antique rolling pins, I LOVE them! I finally decided on how to display them and looked high and low for a wine rack that would work. I could not find ANYTHING! So I finally ended up ordering a towel rack off of Amazon for around $35. More than I wanted to pay but it was exactly what I wanted.

The only two pins that aren't antiques are the top two little ones, they're just children's pins and I got them especially to fit on the rack. :)

I also was given by my grandma her spoon collection. I have such great memories of playing with these spoons and admiring them when I was young, and now my kids do the same! Its too fun! I decided to keep the original wood on the display rack as opposed to painting it because there is so little wood left around my house, most things get painted! So I wanted to keep some wood tones around.

I also love to collect cake plates, pitchers and candy dishes--my mom gave me a cute curio cabinet to store them in:

These things make my home personal to me and so much more special, I can't tell you how often I stand by those spoons looking at them and re-arranging them and admiring them! haha (My husband thinks I'm weird...)

Whats personal in your home? Do you collect anything?

Glazing Kitchen Cabinets

Glazing the cabinets wasn't hard, just time consuming. VERY time consuming. The glaze I used was given to me, but its Valspar antiquing glaze in 'Asphaltum.' It was a little dark for me so I just added some brown acrylic paint until I got the color I wanted. To do ALL of the cabinets took very little glaze. I put it in a little styrofoam cup and it was maybe halfway full, thats it.

I do have to say that I'm pretty sure you could do the same thing with just acrylic craft paint watered down a bit.

I ended up painting it on the spots I wanted, and going over it with a damp rag, I had two rags that I switched back and forth with so I didn't have to rinse out a rag as often.

This is what it looked like when I was painting the glaze on:

I just used a small craft paint brush. By the time I got done adding the glaze it was dry enough to wipe off. If I didn't let it dry for a minute or so, it would just wipe completely off. Which was frustrating.

Here's a comparison of glazed vs. unglazed:

After I went over all of them and added to or messed with it until it was where I wanted it, I did go back over some of the cabinet with the original white, just to tone it down or to make some of it look smoother.

I also very lightly did some glazing to the red, it doesn't show up as well, but it does make a difference in person.

In the pictures it looks a lot more... dirty? than it does in person. It also picks up the colors weirdly in pictures, it almost looks like the top cabinets are kind of pinkish, which they're obviously not. But I actually really like the glaze and how much depth it adds to the cabinets and the bead board.

So what do you think? Have you used glaze before? Would you paint your cabinets?

Painting Kitchen Cabinets

I decided awhile ago that I was going to paint my cabinets. After searching and researching and finally settling, I decided to go for a two toned cabinet. Our local Sherwin Williams store was having a sale and so I went in and told the guy what I wanted to do, and he suggested a semi-gloss interior/exterior acrylic paint. I got it in Stolen Kiss (7586), and the upper cabinets I used the same as my wall color which is Olympic satin Love Bird (c30-3)--it kind of tickles me that both colors are all cutesy lovey, makes me happy!

Before I painted the cabinets I decided I wanted to put some bead board wallpaper inside the inserts. I really could have been more precise with cutting the squares but its a messy process and I was just wanting to get it done. After I put the paper in and it had dried for 24 hours, I went back in and caulked the edges to fix any edges that weren't even and also to make sure it wasn't going to come up EVER. :)

Then I started with the red paint, it was going on the bottom cabinets and up one side where they weren't separated.

Then I got started with the white up top:

  The range hood looks ridiculous now up against the white--don't worry I'm going to take care of that!

                  A better shot of the bead board:

After I finished painting, I decided I wanted to glaze them and lucky for me my cousin had some leftover glaze she wasn't using. Next update will be that!

linked up at Tatertots & Jello

Plates on the WALL?

Kitchen time!

This is just something that I think is fun to spice up your kitchen walls. Luckily for me, this project was totally free because my mom gave me every single one of those plates. Plus I had the wire and felt on hand.

First I just took copy paper and traced around each plate I wanted to use, I then taped them up on the wall and played around until I liked it.

  Then I took some wire I already had and twisted it in a hook like this in the amount of plates I had.

                                  And cut pieces of felt for each plate as well.

      Then out came the glue gun and each piece of wire and felt was attached to the back of a plate.

 Then all I had to do was leave the papers on the wall, and nail right where I wanted them, ripping the paper off after the nail was already there. Pretty simple. I wasn't worried about gluing things to the plates because I was never going to use them for eating. I wouldn't use this method on your fine china or plates from your great-great grandma.

                                          Finished look :)

You can find cheap china plates at your local thrift store and make this a fairly cheap project with a big impact! Mine are monochromatic, but I think all different colors is beautiful too!

Some examples:

                                                via

                                               via

What do you think, are plates on the wall too old lady for you? Or do you love old lady things like I do? haha

linked up here: Tatertots & Jello

Introducing the Kitchen

I've been working in my kitchen a LOT lately. Its a very 80's small outdated kitchen. While it could be a lot worse, it definitely isn't my dream kitchen. :) But it isn't in our budget to redo...well pretty much anything. I mean, this is going to have to be a cheap, super cheap update.

I'm going to do this in a lot of different posts until I can show you the total transformation (because its not done yet...) and for now, we'll just start with something easy: introducing you to the kitchen.

The kitchen is a galley style kitchen, which means basically its small, and has cabinets on either side of a little aisle type thing...does that make sense? A lot of kitchens are open, or have a 'working triangle', mine does not. It has a dining area off one side, and a sort of nook off the other. Here's some pictures for reference:

                       These two pictures above face each other--right and left side of the kitchen.



                                        This is the little nook area.

Dining room, obviously.

           This shows a little of where I'm starting now, basically I've painted the walls:

I wish the pictures did that red justice. It was truly ugly. It wasn't just a deep red, it had a very purple/wine tint to it and was just so dark and unhappy. And I love red usually, but no. It just didn't work and I couldn't believe how big a difference just putting white in there did!

Okay, I'll be back soon to show you more soon!

Christmas Decor

Just for fun, I thought I'd share some of my Christmas decorations! I try to mix things up each year--have the same classic ones but add different crafts as well. I love homemade decorations and a lot of the ones our tree my mom made when I was a little child or we've had since our first Christmas twelve years ago. Almost every year the kids bring home a new decoration they made at school so we add that as well! :)

                                  I'm obsessed with bottle brush trees! They make me so happy!

              This Christmas village my grandma gave me when I was young, it comes out every year!

                                     I love these bells jingling every time we open the door.

              Just thought it would be fun to add the Christmas picture we sent out this year. :)