Silhouettes on a Budget

I started with simple profile shots of the kids. I had them printed as 5x7 prints because I knew I wanted to use 8x10 frames.
The next step was to use a sharpie marker to color in the parts I wanted to cut out. Then I used fine pointed, very sharp scissors to cut out the darkened area.
I flipped the image over onto black cardstock, and cut it out. I was planning on just tracing around the image and cutting it, but my friend Jennifer felt more comfortable gluing the image in place and cutting around it. It also added more thickness to the silhouette .
Once we had all those done, I cut white cardstock to size- to fit in the 8x10 frames. Glued the cut out image to the center of the cardstock, placed it in the frame and......
TA-DA! Oh, I also wrote each child's full name and current age on the back of the white cardstock. Just in case ;)
So here's a breakdown of the cost:
Pictures-$5
Frames-$2 each ($8 total)
Cardstock- $1.25
Grand Total: $14.25

Total time: 1 hour.

As a reminder- I cannot take credit for this idea! I got the idea on how to do this from my friend LD's sister.

Small Display Case- Take 2

So after two coats of Glidden Crisp Linen White, the case has made its way back into my house. Its home by the window will be changing soon as another project gets on its way to being completed, and we can start rearranging things more to my liking. I love how the white brightens it up so much, its much easier to see what I'm displaying. ;) (yes I'm one of THOSE people)
The only bad thing about its new location is it will make the difference between my freshly painted white furniture and the HUGE undertaking the main living room project is going to be. But its going to be exciting and amazing no matter how time consuming its going to be ;)
How's that for a teaser?

Oops I forgot!:
Total Time: 3 hours
Total Cost: $0

Small Display Case- Take 1

This little shelf was a freecycle grab. Its been a DVD case, a bookcase, and now its a little accent display shelf in the living room. It used to have sliding doors on it, but those are long gone. With all the redecorating, it was time to transform it.
The first step was to take sandpaper to it, smooth out some of the knicks and rough it up a bit.
Second step was to add primer. This was time consuming as there is much more surface area than the table I worked on last weekend. I also had to do two coats of primer in some areas to make sure I got good coverage.

Here it is all primed and drying, waiting for paint. I will be using the Glidden Crisp Linen White again. Stay tuned tomorrow for the finished project!

Repurposing the left over piece.

Remember this table from yesterday?
The one that turned into this? Well I didn't want to just throw out the top tier that I removed, so I got the creative juices flowing and....
Primed and painted, tore open an old pillow to take the batting out,
Covered that with an old T shirt
And then added some fabric I had laying around the house. This fabric was actuallly valances that I made years ago. I never had another window they fit, but I couldn't stand to part with them because I loved the fabric so much! I'm so glad I held onto them! Now I have a lovely footstool.

Total Time: 1 hour
Total Cost: $0

Taking a tiered table from drab to fab!

So this is the before. Totally blah. Functional, but drab. I picked this table up at a garage sale a few years ago, and it served very well as a bedside table. I got some free paint in the Glidden sample give away, borrowed brushes and primer from a friend, and dug in to remake this into something fab.


First step was to take the entire thing apart. Simple to do, just used the handy dandy power drill, carefully as to not strip the screws.
Next I primed all the pieces. And used putty to fill in the holes where the top tier set.
Brushed on the pretty Glidden paint in Crisp Linen White. Put the legs back on (again carefully as to not scratch the new paint job with the drill. And tada! A very nice, clean side table for the living room. Stay tuned to see what I did with the top tier!

Total Time: 2 hours (give or take depending on how fast your paint dries- its triple digits here, so I might as well have been painting in a kiln!)
Total Cost: $0