Step by Step: Rocking Chair Monogram

 If you would like to make something that looks like this, read on friends. This is my step by step guide to making a see through wood monogram.

Materials needed:
Painter's tape
Exacto Knife
Cutting surface (mine is a glass one made for scrap booking)
Paint
        I used a white gloss spray paint, but I actually recommend using flat paint and finishing with a gloss topcoat because it has better wear for kids furniture and also, you don't need as many coats of paint since flat paint "sticks" better.


First I put some painters tape sort of haphazardly on my glass cutting surface. Since my design was so simple and required only straight lines and right angles, I just used the lines on the glass mat and made my cuts with that instead of printing out a picture (which I would usually do and will show you how to do in a later post)

When using lines on a cutting glass, the easiest way to make sure you are following the lines exactly is by first folding the tape to the line you would like to cut at creating a visible crease that you can then follow with your knife

This is the finished letter

Next, I carefully peeled the tape off the matt and placed it on the furniture that was to be painted. I made sure to press the edges flush to the wood with no gaps that any paint could accidentally slip into.

I sprayed the whole thing with three coats of the white gloss spray paint

I waited for the paint to dry and carefully peeled off the painters tape at a 45 degree angle as instructed. and TADA, Emma's Monogram chair is complete. All in less than an hour.... Although if I am being honest, I will probably go back and finish the chair in a few coats of polyurethane for some extra durability and ease in cleaning up the messes that are inevitable.

Inspired!

FINALLY I am inspired to do Molly's room. The chair was what did it for me! I love it so much, and I finally feel like the room needs to be a NEW room, not just Emma's old room with all her old stuff. The chair set the color palate (which is one I have secretly dreamed of doing) which is brightly colored and whimsical with lots of contrasting patterns for baby to be fascinated by. The repurposed fabric is working out perfectly. All I need to do is actually sew it, or rather, let my mom sew it. And I need to bring some of my furniture into this century. I had a few pieces that I had been saving that just didn't work in any of the other rooms. Well, they will work in THIS room, because I am allowed to be daring and whimsical in a baby's room. Who knows, maybe if hubby likes the room, he will trust me to brach out more in other areas of our home. I had a mirror that went ontop of the dresser that we gave away. The mirror itself was in good shape, and I know mirrors that large are expensive, so I didn't wanna give that up. Also the frame it was in, was beautiful.... just not for the mirror. I disassembled it and realized that the frame goes exactly with the baby furniture! I am painting it.... guess what color... WHITE! I am so predictable. I'm putting the frame up and making a 3D art piece out of it. It should be pretty cool when it's done. I'm also taking the old drawers that came out of the dresser and taking the fronts off to make a "Molly" plaque. I'm painting Emmas rocking chair with a more modern monogram E AND Im making strings of silhouette birds in different colors to tie the color palate together.

ALL that from one chair. I just love inspiration pieces! And the best part is... My hubby cant be mad at me for spending money because I don't need to spend a dime. Although I do need a lamp shade for the lamp that landed in that room and also I don't have any baskets to put under the changing table, so it looks very messy and cluttered right now... UGH cluttered is a four letter word. I hate looking at STUFF. Anyways that's my plan. I'll put up pictures showing the steps in all the DIY projects so if you like them, you can do them too!

Chair re-do reveal!

This is the Goodwill chair. You can see why it was only $5.00. It was in terrible shape and super dirty when I got it. But I had it reupholstered and got new cushions put in. Altogether I spent about $235.00 for it. I picked out a funky fabric in a thick zigzag pattern and left it to the pros to make it beautiful. 

TADA! This is what the chair looks like now. Clean, bold, modern yet a bit old school... I love it! And the best part? I can nurse in it, and read books to the girls until they get older, and after that, it still looks good enough to move it into the master bedroom or the living room. 

I will take more pictures when Molly's room is complete. Right now it's still done in light green and monkeys... which was adorable for Emma, but is very uninspiring and seems sort of dull now so I'm repurposing the conformer that a friend gave me and my dog promptly ripped up... There is still enough fabric to make a bedskirt and a changing pad cover. And the best part is my mom is coming up to stay with us soon and can sew it for me. No work on my part and re-cycled materials which cost $0. I kind of love how this room is coming together. 

Clean Sofa!

Yesterday, I finally got tired of spot cleaning my notoriously messy sofa. Emma is constantly spilling things on it, and although the stains DO come out, I'm left with something that looks like this

Not exactly inviting or clean looking. The water stains that are left after I clean up the mess are almost as bad as the grape juice stains! It just looks horrible! and it takes me forever to get it to this point. I scrub and scrub at least every other week. It takes hours and is so difficult on my fragile pregnant body. Okay... maybe not THAT bad, but still. Finally, I looked online how to clean microfiber sofas. Everyone said its machine washable, so I took the covers off, stuck them in the wash with some seventh generation detergent, and let it do its thing on the delicate cycle. Then I dried them in the drier on gentle and TADA!

It looks as good as it did when we bought it! I was so impressed! Anyone who has a microfiber sofa needs to wash it this way every few months. Its so worth it. And my sofa finally looks clean and inviting. Just in time for hubby to crash on it and spill all kinds of drinks and queso.

Goodwill Goodluck

Emma loves her care bears! She loves the show, and she takes her stuft animals everywhere. The problem is, those stupid stuff critters are EXPENSIVE! It really is ridiculous. The normal sized ones are $75-85 and the little ones are $25-30. But that's only if you get a generic one. The care bears that are new or popular (which are of course Emma's favorites) can run even more!!! But look how she loves them

This particular cheer bear can sing songs and is wearing a bib, 2 necklaces, and some of Emma's shoes. They are snuggling in to watch... you guessed it, care bears. I have no idea how much this bear would have cost if we bought it new. We found it an a second hand store, so it wasn't too bad. But THESE delightful guys...

they cost 50 cents each! And since Emma is notoriously rough with her care bears, we have backups for when we take them out shopping or something. But that isn't all I found... I got a wingback chair for $5.50!  The fabric was floral and dirty and just gross looking, but the chair itself as in good shape, so I snatched it up, got some graphic fabric (50% off)  and am having it professionally re-upholdstered! 

Before

When it is done, it will be my own custom dream chair. And all for $260.00! I know my wonderfully price unconscious husband will have a heart attack when he hears that number... but any new wingback chair (that would still need to be re-upholdered to be considered my "dream chair) would go for around $500-600. The first quote I got for upholstering it was $450! Which is about $1,000! Granted I could have got a simple wooden rocking chair and payed around.... $100-200? But I really hate the look of rockers. I could do an outdoor one on a porch or something, but since we don't have a porch and I know I would just get rid of it as soon as Molly stopped needing to be nursed... IDK I would rather save up for one nice thing, instead of settling for something that just works for now, so that later we could get rid of it and THEN get the nice thing. I feel like I'm rambling... But I'm really excited for the new chair and will definitely post pictures once it is complete! 

Army Fix-it!

This house that we are living in, I have been trying to make a home for about two years now. I have really put a lot of thought into what needs to be done now, what can wait, what is worth it, if we can take certain things with us or not... it has become a big ordeal for me to be able to style my house in a way that makes both my husband and I happy, with paying as little as possible... BUT also keeping everything child friendly and coming up with solutions for adult looking toy storage.







...Adult friendly, but no sharp corners. Lots of cushy surfaces and....











TOYS!

Bookshelf that I think is pretty "adult"... but....

Reachable toys for toddlers? wow! The other blue box on the left has diapers in it...

Okay... so it's still a work in progress... but I DO have plans for the child mess. Ana-white again has saved my life with plans for a wooden and oh-so-cute toddler table for drawing tea-parties, dinner... whatever. That will go here. and the ATV is actually an outside toy, but due to the ant infestation in the shed... we are saving it indoors till further notice.






 It really is quite difficult in any normal home to balance kid and adult, but when I know that I am going to be moving this stuff around a lot from house to house and not sure how many rooms I'm going to have in the next house, if we will have a backyard.... and we need to take into account weight, break ability, size so that we can get it shipped AND add that we are living on an army budget while trying to save up for a new vehicle... it's no wonder that I have come up with so many money saving hobbies!

The point I was trying to make was that I work so hard on this house, but nothing works! I always have the maintenance guys over here! I am a very DIY kinda girl. If something reasonable is broken, I can fix it myself. I don't need to call them here for every little thing... but this house is so messed up! We have had our A/C out 4 times. Our fridge has pooped out five times. We are on our third one right now. Emma's door didn't close. A few lights switches don't work, the dishwasher stopped working, we had a leak under the kitchen sink, we still don't have an ice-maker, the seals on our doors are crap so we always get mice and flies,  and we are one of the only units on the street that doesn't have a flagpole and the steps up to our house are very treacherous.... I could go on. It's just embarrassing to have to make a call to maintenance every other week. I get the houses are old, but this is just ridiculous!

Apparently it's like this at every base, so I guess I better get used to it. And really... there are worse things. But it is definitely annoying and it makes me feel like all the things I'm doing to improve the house are pretty much worthless. Like I'm putting lipstick on a frog. But I can't live in a dump either. I guess I will just annoy maintenance some more.

Before and After Nook

My husband is coming home for R&R soon, and my home is still full of half finished projects. I don't want to be embarrassed by sights like THIS atrocity....

...when he gets home. YUCK! I eventually cleared off the tools, but the painters tape and cut up dresser remained. It was a conversation started for sure, and actually pretty functional, but very unfinished and just didn't match the rest of the house. So today I hauled the dresser outside (yes I did that 37 weeks pregnant and I'm still alive. HOOAH!) took down the drawers and put together my new console nook.

What do you think? much better ehh? I built the console table myself (note the un-flush edges... oops) I got the plans here from which is a wonderful page by the way which I use quite often in my home making adventures because that Ana White is a smart lady! Anyways, I spray painted all the frames white, and stuck some favorite photos in there, but if you will notice one photo is missing. That is reserved for the fabulous family picture I plan to get while my wonderful husband is back home for two weeks.

Honestly, I doubt he cares if the house looks nice, but I don't think he would mind hearing that this lil nook cost me $30....and, and AND, all it needs is a few bar stools and we have a laptop station, bar, or extra dinning space! Yup the furniture, paint and all cost $30! And I even had some leftover paint that was the Perfect Color to go in the bathroom upstairs.

You can't really even tell on the table, but I think it's a really pretty blue (which is called ocean breeze my olympic paint) and I was glad I got to use the color somewhere more noticeable since the lighting downstairs just makes the table look white. Anyways, that is my completed project today. Hopefully tomorrow I will have another one for you, that has been in the works for almost a year and a half! Lots of trial and error on that one, but now I know how to finish a tabletop.