Painted Hand Rail

After Alex painted the stair rails, we decided to paint the hand rail as well. I had a while to wait for the exterminator yesterday (routine checkup, no need to worry!). I decided to paint the hand rail! 
 

Where I got the idea: Myself?

Time Project Took: 90 Minutes

Shopping List:
Black Acrylic Paint
Cheap Foam Brush
Plastic Cup (to put the paint in)
Construction Paper & Painters Tape

 

Instructions:

1. Prep: I had extra construction paper, so I used that as my wall painters cloth. I thought I'd be able to slide the paper behind the bottom of the rails...I didn't have quite as much luck with that as I originally thought. But this worked quite well, and there was only a little bit of paint on the wall. 

Speaking of paint, I used acrylic, because that's what I had. The rail turned out fine, even though I maybe should have used wood. The paint is like $3 at Wal-mart. I used a plastic cup to put the paint in. With three coats, I used 1/2 a bottle. 

 This worked out just fine. The foam brush I used was a cheap back that came in a set of like 4 for $1. As I said, it worked just fine for all of this.

2. First Coating: I was worried with the first coat, because I didn't want to use too much paint, but it was a really thin layer. I painted underneath the rail and a little bit over the fixtures. The person before me had done the same, so I wasn't too overly concerned. This took no time at all to dry. Because I spent so much time getting every edge, I immediately went to paint coat two, which I applied a little more liberally.


3. Second & Third Coating: The next two coats went my much quicker (as I didn't spend a lot of time underneath the railing...its mostly black no one looks underneath your rail, so why spend a lot of time making sure it's super black!). I liked using acrylic, because when you do have spots like in the picture, a wet paper towel will clean that right up!



I let the second coat dry for for 10-15 minutes. The dog's tails had a little bit of black on them...they can't keep out of anything.

All in all it dried with a really nice finish. The third coat was mostly touch ups. All in all I'm really happy with it, and it makes the stairs pop next with Alex's other painting. We're going to do the basement rails too, but Tuscan Red to match the accents. 

Second Coffee Filter Wreath

I promised my mother in law that I would make her a wreath at the same time as my mother's. My mother in law's took a wee bit longer, and I was finally finished tonight. Rather than the earth tone colors my mother wanted, my MIL wanted greens, as that would match more things. That was actually easier to paint. So to show some of the pictures of the in between of actually making the flowers, I decided to take pictures!

I think I like the multi-colored one better. I don't like the all-green one quite as much. Then again, it isn't going on my door! 

So here's how to actually make these time-consuming flowers (that can be crushed so quickly if your car battery dies in the Kroger parking lot and the dog starts freaking out and jumps into the back trunk area (is it called a trunk in a Highlander?)....not that that happened). 



After you dye/paint all of the coffee filters (and let them dry), you'll want to fold all of your flowers. This lets you keep them organized if you do the project over multiple days (which is highly recommended, unless you've solved for the space-time continuum). Take 3 to 4 (I used 3 for all of these flowers) filters and put them on top of each other. Fold the filters in half twice so you get a cone.

As a side note, this reminded me of making snow flake chains in school. So then cut out the bottom out of the coffee filter. You can kind of see what I did in this picture. You're going to twist the centers, kind of like a figure eight. This took me a little bit of time to figure out, once you do, it's easy. Take each center and put on the end of a piece of masking tape. I found it's better to have too much masking tape then too little!

Then it's time for the ruffles. The cut remaining part of the coffee filters (just one quick snip). Then make overlapping ruffles along the masking tape, like so. I can't decide if I liked small ruffles or larger ones. I think you can do more (and if you are running out of coffee filters) with the large ruffles, but small ones are good for diversity!

Once you are done with the first filter, just pick up with the second and keep going until you've used all 3 filters to make a line of ruffles. Now it's time to roll the flowers. You'll want to start with the centers side and start rolling the flower. You can shape it however you want, depending on how tight or loose you want the flower. I found that rolling it tighter in the center makes prettier flowers. Plus if you used large ruffles, you can make the tape tighter but the flowers fuller.

Keep going and if you have extra tape on the end, either wrap it around the flower or cut it. You'll end up with a nice pretty carnationy looking flower!

While I was gluing the flowers onto the wreath, I found sometimes having the end of the flower to slide under other flowers helpful. Other times, I cut the bottom off and glued it flat. I think this gives a nice variety of flowers either facing straight up or to the side.  It's your wreath, do as you please. Although after making two...I highly doubt I'll do another one.

Side Note: HOLY CRAP Don't burn yourself with a hot glue gun. It hurts...like major hurt. I held an ice cube on my finger for over an hour and still burned. It blistered almost immediately.

I think it turned out nicely. I was a little annoyed it got smushed in the back seat, but such is life. I'm just glad to be done with the project!

Toilet Paper Roll Art

I wanted to do this from the moment I saw it. Alex was a bit anxious about it, and I think he still is. Ultimately I think it came out pretty cool. I saw two designs for this - one that was a spiral and one that was a flowerly flowy one. I went with the latter.

Where I got the idea from: Cut Out and Keep

Time: 2 hours

Shopping List:
Krazy Glue
Bobby Pins
Clothes Pins
Lots of Toilet Paper Rolls, Paper Towel Rolls
Spray Paint (I used Georgia Clay)
Nails (and a hammer)





I used 8 or so Toilet Paper Rolls, 4 Paper Towel Rolls, and a used wrapping paper roll. The problem with the wrapping paper roll is that the flowers were smaller than the others. So if you are using this, I would make sure it is a larger roll (like Christmas paper). I ended up using the wrapping paper roll for smaller flowers & the leaves.

I started using rubber cement then switched to Krazy Glue. Use Krazy Glue...it dries much much faster!

My Final Note: I started using clothes pins. I didn't get the tight flowers I wanted, because clothes pins are thick. The Cut Out & Keep website suggested bobby pins. So I grabbed a pack of bobby pins and used them. They were much better, and enabled me to keep most of the flowers aligned. When I was gluing pedals together (rather than the individual flowers), I used clothes pins, because they were easier to grip & pull off. 

Instructions
1. Prep: To start, cut all of the rolls into thin strips. Maybe 1/2 an inch? This all depends on how thick you want it. They don't all have to be the same size (although you want them close). To cut them into strips, you can flatten the toilet paper roll (this gives the flowery look). Plus I'm not sure how you'd cut them easily if you didn't!

2. Making the Flowers: What you'll want to do is make several flowers (if you end up going with the spiral, only do one flower and then glue pieces spiraling out). To make a flower, take five toilet paper strips. Put a little bit of Krazy Glue near the edge of one roll and hold together another roll like so. Put a bobby pin on them to hold them in place. Continue on with the remaining petals.

3. Glue together: Glue together the flowers in a winding pattern. I used the smaller pedals as leaves pushing out. It's really up to you.

4. Spray Paint Once you are finished, Put your creation on a drop cloth & spray paint. You'll want to move around in a circle to be sure you get all edges. I did one thick coat which took about 30 minutes to dry (it was about to rain so I didn't have the benefit of that wonderful Georgia sunlight).

5. Hang: I suggest putting in two nails first then hanging your art. This will help ease the strain on the artwork as you are hanging it (it is after all painted cardboard paper...). You can manipulate it to give the curve/whatever you would like.

For being a really inexpensive project, I think it's definitely a high impact! Now back to that old wreath for my mother-in-law that I have to finish...

Painted Rails - Update

So Alex wasn't done with the rails we did. I got home and he decided to further paint! I kind of like it!

Adding Color

Mission: Add Color to the Living Room

Our living room is kind of dark and dull. You see a lot of movies filled shelves and dark furniture. Don't get me wrong, I love me some black & brown, but it got a little obsessive. We wanted to liven it up and add some color to the living room. We've rearranged the furniture several times and I think the missing piece was always color. I think we're on our way. 


We've moved the room around a few times (will show later), and we were procrastinating, and the best thing to do while procrastinating is...do something productive so you don't feel guilty for procrastinating! 


So we decided to move the furniture back to the way we had it originally, but with an ottoman rather than the giant coffee table, we moved the little end lamp, and changed things around. 


Here are the changes:

 

1. A few years ago, Alex painted the fireplace red & brown. You can kinda see in this picture, it's your standard white fireplace...as you can see by the fan next door...it gets hot in Georgia! 


The walls are the same color, just different lighting. I'm now slightly wishing it was black not brown, but we have some brown furniture pieces so I guess it matches!

2.We changed original window treatment to brown curtains to nothing and then as of yesterday to a nice red! We're still missing something on the walls, working on the toilet paper art (although Alex thinks we're doing a chalk board sorta thing). I think the red is rich and warm (and provides a bit of sun protection). We spent more than we wanted too on curtains, but getting them at Target was cheaper than nicer curtains. The material is burlap which makes it a little thicker. 


As you can see, the cats enjoy it! In one of the previous room reiterations, we had the TV in front of the window. That worked well unless I was outside and Gus had to be near me, or the cat walked behind it carefully switching the TV switch off every time...yeah that was fun...


Oh you can also see we removed the blue window treatment from the door and added brown blinds. This was a Gus separation anxiety issue as he ruined quite a bit of the blinds. I did learn how to restring the blinds though! It was surprisingly pretty easy!

3. We gave back the nice coffee table to my in-laws basement, and got an ottoman which Alex painted. The coffee table we had before was great & big. However it was a giant 2.5'x2.5' foot glass giant sucker that took up a lot of room! I semi-wish we would have purchased an ottoman that had two sides (you can flip just half of the top). But this one works. The cats like to lay on it (of course they do). It works well for what it is and I like having the extra storage space for blankets, etc.

4. We painted the fan yellow & red. 
This poor fan needs to be cleaned more often, the dirt was nasty! Yuck...come to think of it, I need to dust my fans more often anyway. Alex kept saying, Oh it's LSU colors. I had to keep telling him LSU is gold & purple, but what do I know! 


It does kind of look like a Gryffindor scarf, but I really like it. I can't wait to have kids so I can paint their fan! I like the rings on the end too. It just helps to add that little bit of color to the massive amount of white on the ceiling!

5. Alex took a blanket and tucked it into the back of the couch, giving the couch an accent wall to speak. I'm not big on accent walls, but I actually don't think this is that bad. 


 It's just a large blanket we got from Target (that I frequently use, and thus can no longer....). He just tucked it under the cushions on each side and boom an accent couch! He tends to do this sorta stuff while I'm away...that'll learn me! (Yes that was said wrong as a joke).

 6. Sixth, we changed the cushion pillows, I'm not sure what happened to the original ones...I'm going to blame Gus on this one (we had a rough coming of age with him)...Plus they aren't really comfy anymore. So we have two yellow & a red one!

Final Before and After Pictures

 We still have a few things left...mainly the spot between the shelf & the window. However, all in all, I think I like the new layout! The original layout is on the right. I couldn't find clear pictures of the middle format where we rotated everything one wall. But I think these improvements are good anyway!  I'm still surprised that darn couch is hanging around...it was a hand-me-down from my parents, so it's probably 12-13 years old? Yikes!