Tan on Tan on Tan (And Baby Ferns)

Guys. I have a tan house. With tan trim. And a tan door. That's a lot of tan.

Especially when you consider that we were working with a dirt lot with little vegetation to be found? Sad, colorless, monochromatic house. I mean, it's really a lovely house, and I still pinch myself as I drive up to it... I live here! This is my home! But all the tan hurt my brain a little bit. I wanted something that looked welcoming and cheerful...
Obviously a bright color door was just the wink that our house needed, don't you think?

So I told my husband I was going to paint our front door something cheerful, and his response was, of course, what? Why? Whats wrong with the color it is?
But I plowed ahead, undeterred. I polled my friends, I gathered swatches, I taped stuff to the door and stared at it for days... And I decided on a really nice plum color that I was quite excited about, then I made the mistake of asking my husband what he thought of my color choice and he just sighed and said, Please don't paint my door purple.
Okay, first of all, it's plum, not purple. And it's a LOVELY color!     ...but I decided to go with something a little less bold, because in the grand scheme of things a door color is not a HUGE life commitment. So I thought I'll ease the hubs into it, and then we'll punch the color up a notch next year if I need more...

So I selected a lovely green called "Baby Fern" that was somewhere between an apple green and a muted ferny color. I put on the first coat... oh man, it looked tinkerbell city. But I remembered advice of some of my fav DIY bloggers, Young House Love, when they say the middle always looks crazy. This was not the end of the vision... this was the start with only one coat of paint. So I didn't panic yet.
It took three even coats for full coverage. I painted slowly and carefully and made sure to allow adequate drying time between each coat because I wanted the door to look smooth and streak/brush stroke free. Once it was done...

(Oh, Hai Charlie!) I was pleased with the result! Much happier.
But remember the crazy in the middle part? This is still the middle. Yes the green door is happy and brighter, but just the green door on the tan house with the dirt yard was honestly not a HUGE improvement. This still the middle... it's coming, it's coming, it's coming! And the more finished the yard became, the more the door makeover made sense-- Even to the husband and my father who weren't believers in the Baby Fern magic.
Oh, but also, while I was in the business of painting doors and distributing magic, I decided the back of the house needed love too...

Because this guy didn't even have any trim to boast! Saaaaaaad. But not to fear, a few hours and a few coats of paint later....

...and he was boasting a brighter outlook on life as well. Actually, ignore the bottom right corner of that pic where there's a sneak peak of beauty to come. (this pic was actually taken a few weeks later, oops.) But I was happy all the way around with what a quart of Baby Fern exterior paint did to perk up my house.
A few weeks later I was chatting with one of our neighbors, and she commented on what a transformation the exterior of our house had been through. She specifically mentioned how much she loved the happy green door, it made her smile!
It makes me smile too!
But this isn't the last you will see of that front door... more magic to come! What about you? Anyone else painting their door this fall???

DIY Mother's Day Mugs

(I know, 3 posts in a weeks time, I'm a crazy woman!)

Soooo... are you all ready for Mother's Day? Or are you (like me) still running around getting things together? Well, here is ONE MORE gift that doesn't suck that you can definitely throw together at the last minute. Get to it. You've got 4.5 days.
(Side note: Sam's Grandmas, would you kindly avert your eyes until after the 12th? Thanksamillion)

I needed a gift for Sam to give to his Grandmas. This one includes baby finger prints... but really could be anything you want it to. Take this idea, personalize it, spin it however you want.
Both of the Grandmas are tea fanatics. Hot or cold-- but mostly hot. They always are toting around their mugs or hot tea sipping away. So I thought a personalized mug to sip their tea out of would be fantastic. I did a little searching on pinterest for some help. I found this handprint mug, and I said YES! and I found this wine glass which made me laugh, and I thought well, you can sip wine, you can sip tea-- whatever your vice is, I think it works.

I happened to have a couple white ceramic mugs laying around because we recently got some new dishes, and each place setting came with a mug. Even though we wanted place settings for 12 I didn't feel like I would ever need mugs for 12... so we kept about half of them, and put the other half in storage. But when I thought of this project, I went ooh free!!!
If you don't have plain ceramic mugs laying around... you can get these at the dollar store very inexpensively.
The only other thing you need is enamel paint. I used FolkArt Enamel in Burnt Umber and Foliage, purchased at craft supply store for about $2 each.

 

I started trying to free-hand my lettering with a tiny paintbrush... and I just don't have a steady enough hand. So I wiped that attempt off and went for plan B: a stencil. I got out my silhouette machine and quickly make a vinyl stencil for my letters. the stencil is a leeeeeetle finicky to  get it to lay correctly on a curved surface, but I fiddled with it a little and got it good enough.

Then I just dabbed my paint over the stencil-- waited about a minute for it to dray a smidge, then dabbed on a second coat. I peeled the stencil off while it was still wet... there were a few places where it had bled a bit, but that cleaned up fairly easily with a cotton swab, or if it has already dried too much, you can use an exacto knife to carefully scrape away the unwanted paint.

You can see my lettering is not perfect, but I felt like it looked good enough. Again, if you have a steady hand and good penmenship, you could free hand the lettering and it would likely be much much faster. I waited for the lettering to completely dry before adding the baby handprints on the side. It took my husband and I wrangling the toddler to make the handprint happen, and even still it was chaos, and somehow the dog ended up covered in paint-- so i don't have pics of that part. But... grab a small hand, paint on a thin coat of paint, press straight down and pull straight up, and wait for your hand print to dry. Try to block out the screams of childhood trauma from your *willing assistant. (*and by 'willing', I mean a toddler horrified that his hand is dirty and he is being held down, and hates craft time with mommy even more than he hates naptime.) Oh, I also freehanded the little heart on the 'tea bag'.

To cure the enamel paint (make it permanant) the bottle says you can let it air dry for 21 days (um, right, because you planned ahead and have 21 days to sit on this project) OR you can let it air dry for 1 hour, bake it for 30 minutes and let it cool. Um, I'll take door number 2 please. So here are my mugs sitting in the oven (please don't judge my dirty gross oven). As per the instructions, I placed them in a cold oven, turned it on to 350 degrees, once it had heated I set my timer for 30 mins, and when it went off, I turned the oven off to let them cool. I came back a couple hours later and everything was cooled and looked great!

 And there you have it! These will be stuffed with some tea, tied with a ribbon, and should be in the mail today on the way to Sam's Grandmas for Mother's day. I hope they love them, I think they turned out cute.
This was another pretty inexpensive gift-- you know me, gifting on the cheap! I only paid about $5 for the paint. If you didn't have mugs, you might be in the project more like $8-10, but still that's only $4 or $5 dollars for a nice personal mug, with leftover supplies (paint) for more projects.

So that's it! I hope you have been inspired to make something handmade for your mama or grandmother, or any special women in your life this mother's day! If you didn't see my other gift ideas (with tutorials!) check them out here and here.

Energy and Plans and Questions

Trimester 1 = UGH.
But I have had some hopeful moments this past week that help me see the light at the end of this dark first trimester tunnel. I've been a bit more energetic this week, feeling good more than I felt nauseous, and I even made dinner twice!
PLUS I finally completed the baby gift which will soon be headed to friends in Korea... AND! I began Baby P quilt #1. This one is for Grandma P. Grandma S has yet to decide upon a fabric, and so her's will be 2nd. Yes, I am pregnant and trying to pump out 2 baby quilts for my child's grandmothers. Why? I don't know. I cave easily under pressure. Or I like to take on more than I can handle. Or I am a people pleaser to a fault.
One or all of those.
But the Grandmas requested baby quilts and who am I to say no, or set healthy boundaries and expectations of myself. You see? I really had no choice.
The good news is I am finally feeling some motivation and inspiration... and I hope that lasts. I am a little afraid it might wane as quickly as it developed and I will be left with a pile of incomplete projects and subsequent guilt, but we will cross that bridge when we get there. Right?
Right.
In the mean time...


Photo source: E Tells Tales

I saw this nursery today, and swooned a little. Clean, simple, lovely, interesting, fun... and the wiener dog night light on the floor? Could you just die? I wouldn't be able to help myself, I just might gank him for my own room!
I've started thinking a little bit about nursery design. We went shopping this weekend and Grandpa and Grandma S bought Baby P a crib (ooh... add that to the list of reasons Grandma's get quilts). It's a pretty simple and solid design, espresso wood finish. To save us some money (well, maybe...) we are using my childhood dresser and bureau that currently resides in our spare bedroom (soon to be nursery). The only problem is... that stuff while still solid is a little banged up and janky looking, and it's not real wood. Also it it light oak.

Photo source: Nebraska Furniture Mart
This is the crib we ordered... in the 'sienna' finish, ours is 'espresso' finish

SO!
The plan is to paint a close enough match... so everything is pretty and matching-ish. I am also counting on that second trimester energy boost to get me through this project. And some nice weather. (Cross your fingers for me, okay?)
But I do have some questions about painting furniture, as this will be my first time.
For all you purists... it's fake wood, so I am not destroying heirlooms or anything.  My plan is to paint a dark chocolate brown (maybe darker...) and then use an espresso or even black glaze to give it some depth and dimension. But here's my question, because google research has yet to answer it: After painting fake wood-- can you glaze it? Will the glaze stick to anything if there is no wood grain or bumps or divots to settle into? Will it look good or will it just be a waste of my time-- in which case I should just paint it a flat color of paint and call it a day???
Thoughts? Comments? Tips? Advice?