DIY Faux Pallet Wood Headboard

 Thanks to Pinterest and other blogs, Steve and I fell in love with the pallet wood headboards. So we  planned this out back in February. The decision was to use various size wood planks and multiple stains. But Steve was nervous to use pallet wood, since you never know what was used on them he didn't want it that close to our heads. That means we bought new wood from the store and instead.

Once we got all the wood together, Steve and I laid it out in the pattern we wanted. Then marked the backs for color and location. This was a life saver in putting it back together.

 Steve had fun! The life of a blogger, dealing with photo bombing husbands. I was really trying to go for a random pattern in wood and stain.

We decided on a darker warm stain, a light wood stain, a gray drift wood stain and a blue stain. The blue shown here was a bit dark so I gave it one quick coat of the gray stain. The grey took four coats to get it to the color I wanted. 

Once the stain dried about 12 hours just to be safe we flipped them over in order of how it should look on the front. To keep it together we used four 2 x 4 along the back of the pieces. This is where we connected the small pieces and stabilized it.

I wish I would have taken a pictures of how Steve hung it on the wall. He made these wood wedges; one on the wall and one on the headboard. The two wedges came together and held up the boards to the wall. He also added L brackets to the base of the four 2x4 coming down the back to the wall.

Seriously I love it! I am soo excited about it and it fits perfectly with the look we are going for. And the blue brings out the frames!

Check out our links page to see wher we've linked our newest project.
~ Cassi



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Learning to Paint

A while back I talked about deciding to paint my own artwork. Yes I know it was a long while ago, but the point of the story is I finished it.
My Dad is an amazing artist (painting, sculptures, drawings, you name it he can do it) so I had a bit of help from him. He walked me through what kind of paint to choose for the style of painting I wanted. We decided on oil paints.

Then he showed me how to work with the paint the brush strokes. With lots of reminders to brush lightly and not to over brush.

With the base of the blue down, we had to take a break to let it cure (dry). Though oil paints never completely dry they do need time to cure before you continue adding colors over other colors.

And this is where I stalled out for a year. Minnesota has so few nice months that I didn't want to be stuck indoors painting during the summer. Then with my photography business I didn't get back to the painting this fall either. But Minnesota winters are always a great time to paint.
So back to it I went. Dad walked me through how to added and blend the colors I wanted to finish the background.

At this point I had to let it cure again before I could add the final piece. It takes a couple of weeks to get a decent enough skim over the paint to not blend with the new paints. A couple of weeks turned to a couple of months but finally I was ready to add the finishing touches.

I mapped out where I wanted the birds to go and traced around my birds with a pencil. Then I filled in the pencil with a dark grey (almost black). The black wire I free handed on to the canvas with a thin brush. After that I was done. I can't believe I finished and that it turned out how I wanted it to!

Now I just have to wait till it cures enough to put on my wall. It will go in the living room to round out my gallery wall, more on that later.

~ Cassi

Check out the links page to see where I am linking up this week.

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Mother / Daughter Letters

Thank you Pinterest for the great idea. The Pinterest pin talked about writing letters back and forth with your daughter. I just loved the idea to start a dialog with Mouse that we could continue through high school (or at least that is my hope). 

This weekend Mouse and I headed to Achiever's to pick out a journal. We wanted it to be a mix of letters and Smash Journal. This SNAP journal fit our needs perfectly. The journal comes as a three ring binder with journal pages, dividers and photo holders (kind of a Project Life/ Scrapbooking / Smash mix).

We couldn't just leave the cover blank now could we. Mouse picked out a packet of quotes for the book. I chose this one for the cover. Then we mod podged a vintage photo, lace and tag to the cover.  

I started off the book with a letter to Mouse. I started the journal as more of scrapbook page with a letter written on the white parts.  

I loved that I got to use this old picture of Mouse. She has always loved writing. We have notebooks, journals and scrap paper all over the house with her stories in it. So far we've written a few letters back and forth (she is a little excited right now). I hope as time goes on the length of time between letters will increase, while the thought involved in the letters increase. 

I also hope that this gives her a space to voice hopes, dreams and fears that she may not be able to say in person to me but feels more comfortable writing. 

~ Cassi

* Check out my link up page to see where this project has been linked *

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Space-tastic Party

I've mentioned that Mouse is completely fascinated with the galaxy and I may have mentioned it here too. And thanks to Pinterest Mouse was inspired to have the solar system at her party.

I am so proud of her planets. She worked hard on them with Grandpa, he taught her how to use an airbrush.  They even made the rings!

We strung them up around the living room with some hanging stars.

No Mouse birthday can be complete with out some kind of craft this year's was sun catchers.

Then we stopped for some cupcakes and ice cream.

 Mouse added her sparkly new hat for the party. She sparkled just like the stars.

The girls also played some galaxy bingo. Which I thought they would get bored with but they loved it.

Here's to 10 years Mouse!!

~ Cassi

Please check my links page to see where I have linked up this post

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Baby Headband Tutorial

This past week friends of ours had a baby girl. This gave me a reason to make some baby clothes and accessories. I was really excited to finally be able to make a rosette headband.

You know the ones were the baby is all cute and girlie with pretty rosettes on her head, like this one

Source

Thankfully, I have a large stash of fabric and colored elastic (which is hard to find outside of a website). I started the headband with a length of red elastic and a heated up glue stick.

Next, I took strips of fabric in varying colors. Don't know how to make the rosettes check out this post it's the process I follow.

 Once the rosettes were made the rest was easy. I just hot glued them to a piece of fabric then cut around it. Lastly, I took that piece with the rosettes and covered it with hot glue then laid it down over another piece of fabric with the elastic sandwiched between the two. (I should have taken a picture of this step, sorry.

To finish it off I just knotted the elastic, this way they can change the size if they need to.  

I am happy with the way it turned out. So is Mouse she wants one now too and you know what I think I may make one for myself too.

 Check my link up page to see where I share.

~ Cassi

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Tops from 2012

This past year has seemed to fly by. Looking back through the post of this last year, I must say it's been a fun one.

My favorite part of last year was a family trip to here. 

I love that we can take these trips and experience all that there is. So looking forward to our family trip to Jamaica this year.

We also managed to get a lot of projects completed this past year. My favorite one being our new door.

Seriously the difference this made to the look of our house is incredible. Still months later this makes me smile when I pull into the drive.

Another remake we did that I love is our thrifty bench find.  

 I can't wait to get some pictures taken using this bench. Which brings me to a huge thing from last year. I started my own business. That has been challenging and fun all at the same time.

Thus being said my picture taking in general has increased a lot this year. And I have been looking at different ways to document those pictures. That is when I stumbled on this thing called Smash Journal / Art Journaling. So I combined the two (though this one is much more just a smash journal).

I hope to work on more of this in this next year.

 I haven't forgotten Mouse. Her and I did some fun knock offs for school this year. No Mini Boden budget here but you couldn't tell with the shirt we made. I had so much fun planning these out with her. We will have to do move of that next year.  

 So what else do you our readers (and us) have to look forward to next year. I am hoping to get our project page done. Then you can see all that we have been working on in one place. I am hoping to do more recipes. I cook all the time I need to post more. We have one more room in our house that needs to be finished and a few more outdoor projects. But for now it's New Years and we have a party to get ready for. So see you all next year.

~ Cassi

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DIY Tent

For this years family pictures I wanted a stylized camping session. These pictures are for our main living room and wanted to express something our family loves to do. But I also wanted it whimsical in away. When I saw this tent on A Beautiful Mess I knew it was exactly what I was looking for.

I showed the design to Steve and then told him I wanted it a little bit bigger to fit the three of us in it. He got to work and did a fantastic job!

First he picked up four 6 foot 1x2 and three 3/4 inch dowels. At the ends of each 1x2 he drilled out a 3/4 inch hole for the dowels. Then we put it together.

Here is what the frame of the tent looked like, before I added the fabric.

Next I picked up a bunch of lace curtains from thrift shop and some white fabric.

Once we started placing the fabric over the tent we realized it wasn't going to be big enough so I had to make a little sewing and draping magic. This matched it more to the style on the blog.

I am so happy with the way it turned out. It made for the perfect backdrop for the pictures.

More of the pictures with us in them to come.

~ Cassi

ps. Check out my links page to see where I have linked to.

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Chair / Photo Prop

In our search for vintage dining room chairs I found this chair with great lines!

I knew I had to have it for my business.

Steve painted the chair a olive green color.

Then I got to work on redoing the seat. First note to those trying to recover a seat.

Since the pad I bought was obviously not going to work, I came up with a new idea. I had some fleece that would stretch all the way around so I staple that to the back leaving a spot open. I then filled the space between the seat and the fleece with batting. Once filled I stapled the fleece closed.

After that I took this pleated material and started stapling that. When recovering a seat you want to staple once at the front center and then back center pulling the material tight with each staple. Then repeat this step as you move to each side of the center staple. Then repeat set one as you move to the sides. I leave the corners for last. Finally fold the corners and staple.

Then you are done and can screw the seat back on to the chair. I am so excited with how this chair turned out I can't wait to use it.

~ Cassi

Please check out my links page to see where I have linked up to this week.

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Birthday Present for a little Teacher

This weekend my daughter was invited to a friend's birthday party. When we asked the little girl what she likes to do she said play school.

Mouse and decided to put together a teacher gift for her. This same little girl loves to wear one of Mouse's aprons when she is at our house. So we planned a teacher apron and some school gifts.

Mouse's only requirement was that the apron had an A on it. The friend's name starts with A and it works for A as in Apple.

I took some plain muslin and cut it to size for a half apron. We picked out ruffles in primary colors and then added them to the bottom. Mouse wanted the apron to have a pocket for her too. That was added using the same fabric as the base. Then I ironed on an apple. To finish the front I hand embroidered an A just to the apple and the pocket so she could still use all of the pocket.

For the ties I used some vintage binding I had taken from my Grandmother's stash. I was quite excited to use this up.

To finish off the gift we added a small white board and easel, a pointer and dry erase markers. It went over great the friend loved and was wearing when we arrived to pick up Mouse.

~ Cassi
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Finished DIY Smash Journal

Back in May I featured my DIY Smashbook inspired journal. I made this journal before we left for California, then during the trip we wrote in it every night. I thought I would show all of you some of the pages we finished.

Here is the fancy cover we bought.

We actually had so much fun using the Instagram photos that we thought we'd keep it going with our camping trips.

~ Cassi


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