girls bedroom

finally my girls bedroom is making progress:  this week i took these barstools and chopped off the bottom half.  I mean really when i ordered these 18 years ago, i gave the guy the measurement for the length of my counter in the hope of getting barstools with larger seats, with tears in my eyes i tell you my toosh was never gonna be accomodated on the minute seat.  None the less thats what we ended up with and they were OK i geuss.

so this is what they looked like once i chopped off the bottom half, exactly like a childs chair, i mean since i got them my toosh has doubled in size.

so turned them into two little benches to go at the bottoms of the girls beds.  I made a padded cushion to match the new headboards that i made,

then once that was done i had a little ipiphany and made a little stool to go in front of the small dresser they have, amde from the bottom half of the stool.

I also decided that the ceiling fan was looking rather sad since there isnt a cover for the centre light fitting so i made a little garland to drape from that to detract from looking at the ugly bare globe.

thanks for stopping by, just to let you know that this girls room has been a constant pain for me, never felt quite right with it.  Everything in the girls room has been an upcycled project from junk that i have reconned into what you now see, except for their beds.
I am finally starting to feel better about this room and so are the girls, next i wanna hang their pink mosquito nets, but will need hubster to hold the ladder, lol
smiles
Paola

new headboards

My girls bedroom is one of the sadest rooms in our house right now and sorely in need of attention.  So i thought i would share with you the headboards that i made this afternoon.

these are not the greatest pictures since its already dark and all i am really showing you are the headboards, i have admired padded headboards on the net for some time now and kept thinking it would be really hard to do.  Well these two took me a total of three hours to knock together the hardest part was putting the fabric over the board and foam, then of course while threading the buttons i lost the needle inside the headboard, lol.  There are gonna be great things happening in this room in the next couple of days so will do a proper reveal of the finished room before the end of the week.
So proud of these padded headboards, came out far better than anticipated.

side table

this poor side table was missing two legs, but for R20, i had to have it, i think the two legs it had and the top are some quality wood

the top did need a bit of love, but never mind that, it was so easy to cut two new legs and attach them i was in diy heaven

After making the two new legs of course the wood i used wasnt the same as the original, no problemo, i just stained it with wooden Ebony and now it lives in a corner in my craft room and i have some of my vintage flowers in the jar.

 these owls i found at the hospice too and they were so ugly i almost passed them up, i mean i really dont like birds, but once i got them home and gave them a spray of rustoleum anique white, i kninda like them

pallet bench

I got a bee in my bonnet the other day and decided that i had the brawn and the brains to knock a bench together from scratch

you see the pallets in the post below that i got from my neighbour, thats what i made this bench from.  After breacking them apart and deciding on how big i wanted this bench, it came together in an afternoon

 I really am pleased as punch that this worked out so well.  Wasnt sure if i should paint it or just seal it, then after asking a few people, including the hubster i decided to go with different shades of grey.

 My mum came for a visit and of course she is a whiz with the sewing machine so i told her she had to earn her keep and make the cushion.  We went to the fabric store and i was about to buy some canvas but while waiting at the till i noticed these tablecloths, wow i had a lightbulb moment and decided to go with it, so my mum sewed up the cushion from a tablecloth that only cost R115 and then i still had enough fabric for a little talble runner.

sorry about the mess in the background, this is kinda where i do all my diy stuff so there is a lot laying around, lol.

Oh Yeah!! i love junk

My son and dil are finally moving into their new house, hells bells its taken them long enough.  all the designer furniture, and painting to their satisfaction, etc etc etc.
Well my dil wants her house looking the best that it can before she would move in.  We went to have a snoop look around, very ice indeed!!! all be it still a little sparse, do you remember when you got your first home.  all i had was a bed and a refridgerator, lol.
Well after having the tour she turns to me and asks me to make her a peg hanging thingy for her dishclothes, well sure i will honey, right away, ha ha ha.  I am busy making her something, she wants dots on it, so look out for that later.

first off though, they had horrid plastic chairs out on the deck which is at the front of the house, whats up with that?  So i made them these two darling recliners out of pallets!

Our neighbour brought over a gazzilion pallets for me to recycle, i cant wait to whip up a few more things.  Gotta tell you though i am finished, exhausted from head to toe after making these today, plus a huge blood blister on my baby finger so i am off to bed!

headboard bench

In case you dont know, i run another blog for card making and it was never really my intent to get started on any other hobbies.  I used to own a largish scrapbooking shop and teach aswell, then the cardmaking took over my life, i also liked to dabble in a bit of sewin however not very good at that.  I then stumbled across a whole new dimension of diy bloggers and often thought "when i start on my new home, i wanna be able to do this that and the next thing that i had seen these amazing diyers do"
Well one of them is Gail, hell what can i say about this amazing diy G"dess, she makes it all look so easy, when in fact i am sure that it is just cos she is SO CLEVER!!!  you have to see what she makes so head over i will see you in about two months, lmbo
She inspired me not to give up on my dream of being able to do the things i dream of doing.  Go and check out her amazing tutorial on Headboard benches and you will understand why i am in such awe of this lady.
So last week while my sister was visiting we decided to unpack my new mitre saw and table saw.  I gotta say, these are scary ass machines.  Nonetheless, we took the bull by the horns and tried our hand at making magic.  unfortunately we didnt follow the turorial done by Gail, we just did our own thing on a wing and a prayer.  Oh yes lots of prayers cos as i said those power tools can be very scary, you may read in future of a few missing appendages from these i gotta remember to always be careful.

So we started with this headboard, knocked together a box that we attached to the headboard and now i gotta make cushions for the seat.  I LOVE IT!! i am still in shock that i managed to actually make something that one can sit on without it calapsing, lol.

wheelbarrow planter

The same friend who gave me the side table that i gave a new lease on life was gonna throw out this wheel barrow.  As you can see it was full of cement and one of the arms was badly rusted, in fact while revamping this sad old guy, it fell off.

Never mind i told myself, just keep going its gonna be fine!

I hammered most of the cement off, gave the rusty ol devil a coat of rustproof to try and prevent any further rusting.  Once it was half way there, my husband said "you not putting that anywhere in our garden"
what?  i sure had news for him.  I gave this ol trusty a bit of love with some paint, and made a trip to the nursery, and i have to add here that green fingers i do not have!!  I added two and a half bags of potting soil and all these flowers that i bought at the nursery, i am now pleased to say that the flowers are flourishing and my wheel barrow that i brought back from the destined for the dump takes pride of place in the very front of our house, with the welcome sign that i placed in front of it.  the welcome sign i made from the back of an old chair that missed the same fate as the wheel barrow.  I havent made anything out of the ol chair yet, but believe me i do have plans for it.

 sorry about the glare, it was late afternoon when i took these pics and my camera doesnt like the afternoon sun for picture taking.

If you decide to use an old wheelbarrow for a planter, dont forget to drill additional drainage holes in it, some plants dont like being water logged, the luck i had was that the bottom was already quite damaged, however i did add additional drainage holes.  Yes i know it still looks a little sad with the missing arm, but i am overall pleased with it.  Hubster is still uncertain as he says "Its purple and doesnt match the house"  i had to laught at that, KWIM. 

a Rail into a blazing MS trail

I found this cot rail, what to do?  it was so cheap i thought i will find a use for it.
I did too.  I turned it and mounted it onto my studio wall and now it houses all my Martha Stewart craft punches.

A repurposed cot rail, so pleased with it, now i dont have to scratch in a drawer for a punch!

from junk to funk

A friend of mine was gonna throw this little table out, i mean she had left it to rot in the rain for who knows how long.  The top was warped and had popped off the sides, the drawer no longer worked, it sure looked a sorry sight.

i have this weakness for wood, so i brought it home, glued and clamped it, restained the top, removed the handle, gave that a touch of paint.  It now has pride of place in my sons room.
I cant believe that i lost the before pictures, grrrrrr!!!!!

 All of the this was accomplished in one day!!!  I still need to do the new desk chair, maybe tomorrow.
I'm sharing this little tit bit on the Shabby creek cottage

Glazed

this is my first post for my diy blog and i am so thrilled to be doing it, hopefully one day i will look back on this and be able to reflect on having grown.

I found this fabby telephone side table at one of the junk shops, lol, thats what my kids refer to it as.  Its one of those places that my kids say smells like granny, lol, old people!!  Its the place i like to go to most, on good days i can leave with my boot of my car filled to the hilt, seats down and the kids teetering on the edge.
I brought this monster home not really knowing what i was gonna do with it, until i emailed Gail from My repurposed life, this girl is the DIY Goddess.  In my dreams i will ever make the things she does.  Oh well i can dream.

Anywho, she sent me in the right direction and sent me lots of encouragement, finally i took the bull by the horns and dived in head first.  I primed and primmed this monster, and finally today i started the glazing.  Not sure if is a bit of overkill, but my husband liked it and it now resides in my dining room so that has to say a lot for him liking it as if it was that bad he would have put his foot down.
I am gonna be linking this up to