Shadowbox Baby Announcement

I bought a few of these double shadow boxes years ago for an extremely discounted price. They had some large scratches on the top of the frames but I thought they could easily be 'fixed' with paint or even better a Sharpie.

I really had no plan for them when I purchased them so they have sat in storage for until now. I stumbled upon a box of special items from when our children were born (you know the items..the baby hat, the bracelet, newspaper from the day they were born, etc.) and I thought these frames would work great to display some of the baby items.

I started by repairing the frame with my favorite technique, a Sharpie. I use a sharpie permanent market in a similar color to the wood and start to fill in the scratch. I then quickly wipe off excess marker off the part of the frame that is not damaged. Try not to get too much on the wood as the Sharpie leaves the non-damaged wood a little shinier once it is dry.

 

I then decided on what baby items I was going to frame. I selected the baby hat, ID bracelets (both mine and hers) and the little diaper. My daughter had such a huge head when she was born; you can see her hat is bigger than the diaper :) .

 I used pearl end pins to secure the items to the cloth covered side of the shadow box. I did stuff the hat a little with tissue to give it some depth.

 I then decided I wanted to add her name and birth information to the frame. Initially I was going to add black vinyl onto the mat above and below the photo but I thought that would be too much of a contrast. So I decided to use white contact paper from the Dollar Store (If you have never done this before, here is where I did it for the first time) and place it on top of the glass.

I cut her name, birth date and weight with my Cricut out of the contact paper. I do not have the transfer paper (more like I am too cheap to buy it) so I use painters tape to easily transfer the words to the frame. This allows me to keep all the letters perfectly straight and evenly spaced.

I lay the painters tape along the bottom of the letters making sure it is straight. If the tape is on an angle, you will have a tough time getting it straight wherever you are sticking it.

 Remove the entire piece of contact paper from the cricut cutting board and bend the contact paper back so you can start removing the tape. As you slowly remove the tape, make sure the letters come up with it. Here is how it looked for me.

 I then stuck the tape to the glass (or wherever you want to place the vinyl) and then press the letters down. Slowly remove the tape on a sharp angle. Be sure the letters stick as you remove the tape. I find an old credit card or rewards card works well to help with this.

 Here is how it looked:

 I then did the same with her birth date and weight.

 Here is the end result (I have blurred out details).

 

Doesn't it look great! I wish I had finished it years ago.

Have a fantastic day.
Stephanie
Linking to some great parties including: Story of A2Z, Thrifty Home

Blinded by the light - $15 Hallway light transformation

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. We, here in Southern Ontario, celebrated our Thanksgiving with amazing summer like weather. It was fantastic! Not only did we get to go outside and clean up the garden before it get cold, we got to enjoy our local craft fairs without there being rain or mud.

Since I have not been well for the past while, I missed my mother's and sister's birthdays. This is not a huge deal as I see them all the time, but I hate not celebrating it. So, my mom and I went out last week for lunch and an afternoon of thrifting. It was loads of fun and I scored a few fantastic deals.

My mom has an odd staircase lighting situation. It is quite normal to have a light generally where hers is, but the exact placement is off. the light sits above the upper part of the stairs as opposed to the lowe half. She has purchased numerous lights to fit in the spot and nothing seemed to work. Chandeliers hang down too far and you run the risk of hitting your head on them, while flush and semi-flush mounts are too small and don't fill the space well.

Well in our thrifting travels, I found an amazing semi-flush light that had great potential for the bargain basement price of $15. My mom immediately fell in love with it the shape and size of the light but feared attempting to redo it. Since I have mastered the art of spray painting, I decided this could be my gift to her as her belated birthday gift. I know...I am a really big spender.

Here is the before in its tarnished brass state (don't you love the octagon shape and etched glass):

 Here is the after in all its ORB glory:

Here is what I did. Before I purchased the light, I made sure all the glass was in good condition and that it could be removed. I love to spray paint, I hate to tape things!

 All the glass for this light could be removed by taking off two decorative screw covers located at the top and bottom of each piece of glass. So easy, I didn't even need any tools.

After it was all apart, I used painters tape to prevent spray paint from venturing where it should not be, like the electrical wires and where the bulbs screw into.

I gave the entire thing a quick cleaning and then I took all the metal pieces, including the decorative screws, into the garage to my formal spray painting location. Do you like it? What a fancy set up...a large piece of cardboard on the ground. Can you guess what my favorite color of spray is?

I primed all the pieces with white primer. Normally I would use grey primer but I ran out after my last project and I wanted to get this started. I am not a patient person. I then waited about 2.5 minutes and pulled out my favorite Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. I did probably four or five really light coats to prevent any dripping. Here is what the first coat looked like:

I only wait a few minutes between each coat, so it really doesn't take too long.  After I let it dry for a few hours, I flipped it over and did the spots I missed on the underside.

Question for everyone out there reading this: It did take a full can to do this, only because my spray paint can got stuck while spraying. Have you ever had a can of Krylon spray paint get stuck before? I have never had the nozzle get stuck. I turned the can upside down to see if it would stop it but it just emptied out. I could maybe expect it from an old can, but this was brand new. I couldn't figure it out. Thank goodness I always have another can on hand.

After letting it dry for a full day, I reassembled the lamp and was amazed at how beautiful it was. It weighed a lot with all the glass, so my husband cursed me the entire time he was risking his life leaning over my mother's staircase trying to hang it. But it is now hanging and it looks perfect.

 

 

What do you think? Not bad for $15 and a can of spray paint! Would you be happy with this as a Birthday gift?

Now I just need to find something for my sister :)

Stephanie

P.S. Have you ever had a can of Krylon spray paint get stuck spraying before?
Linking to some great parties including: Story of A2Z, Thrifty Home

Rope knot doorstop - a Ballard Design knock off

I have hoped to find an attractive doorstop (at a reasonable price tag) for our office for quite a while...well actually I wish for them ever time I open windows in our house. We have beautiful double french doors leading into our office, that unfortunately slam shut every time we open the windows.

After dreaming about many beautiful things on Ballard Designs website, I stumbled upon a great rope knot doorstop that was ridiculously priced at $45. I thought it didn't not look too difficult to make, so I recruited my husband to create two of them for me.

Source Ballard Design ($45)

As I was still sick and on the couch when I was dreaming of these, my amazingly wonderful husband ran to Home Depot and bought the rope for under $10 (20 feet of 3/4 inch was enough for 2) and then found some videos on YouTube detailing how to make the knot. The key to this was to find instruction on how to create a 'monkey fist knot'.  It took a while for us to figure out the name of the knot but once we did, a simple google search produced many different instructions.

 

My hubby practiced with some plastic rope from the dollar store and after about 5 minutes was ready to give the real thing a shot. At first we tried a rock as the weight in the middle, but the shape wasn't perfect. So while I was outside looking for a perfectly round stone in the garden, I found a tennis ball our dog had left behind. I knew it would be exact shape I wanted but it needed some weight. With my husbands advice, I cut a slit in the tennis ball open with a sharp knife and filled it with little stones from the garden. The stones gave the tennis ball enough weight to hold the door open while being the perfect shape.

After 10 minutes of twisting and tightening the rope knot, my husband produced the perfect doorstop that even had a convenient loop so we can hang the stop on the door handle when we close the doors.

Now I just need him to make 2 more for our master bedroom!

What do you think?

Stephanie
Linking to some great parties including: Story of A2Z, Thrifty Home

Framing a builder grade mirror that is not between two walls

I promised quite a while ago that I would give directions on how to frame a builder grade mirror that is not tight between 2 walls (like my first post here).

My daughter's bathroom has a mirror on a long wall and we needed to find a way to conceal the mirror when looking at it from the side (since the frame sits on top of the mirror).

In my master ensuite bathroom our mirror is fitted tight between two walls, so we adhered the frame directly onto the mirror.

We used the generally the same materials and mostly the same method to create this frame. For detailed instructions on how we made this mirror frame, please refer to this original post.

I am only going to show you how this frame differs from the original post.

This frame was much more difficult for my husband to create. We could not just create a frame with straight cuts and not have to worry about how the molding was finished on the sides. Since the frame is adhered to the mirror, we had to determine a way to hide the mirror when looking at it from the side and we also had to finish the crown molding and flat trims (making it into a 90 degree corner) so that it was finish nicely.

We used a smaller crown molding for the top because the bathroom light was tighter to the top of the mirror and we did not think we had room for a large, detailed piece of molding.

In order to hide the side of the mirror, we measured the depth of the mirror and purchased a thin piece of molding that was the exact depth of the mirror. We painted it to match the frame, cut 2 pieces to be the exact height of the mirror and secured them onto the wall on both sides of the mirror.

Using the same techinique as we did in the first post, we created the rest of the frame.

Once the frame was secured, we used some filler (like DAP or caulking) to fill in the seams between all the pieces used to create the frame. This gave the frame a nice finished look. It made the frame look like 1 piece and not a bunch of little pieces stuck together.

The hardest part by far was getting the angles for the crown molding and flat trim. If you search online you can get the exact cutting angles needed to achieve a perfect corner. Remember though, the caulking can hide errors :) ...this we know first hand.

Please let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy!
Stephanie

I'm back...well sort of

Thank you to everyone who emailed me with questions and comments over the past couple of months while I was AWOL. I am sorry for not replying to anyone; I have not lost interest or forgetting about Full of Great Ideas. I have had a few things come up that have taken 100% of my time.

As you know, I went to San Fransisco for two and a half weeks at the beginning of August for a family vacation. We had a fantastic trip and got to enjoy my brother's beautiful outdoor wedding while we were there.

Unfortunately, while I was away, I managed to catch a lovely 'bug' and get really ill. Thankfully I made it home (100% medical coverage) when the symptoms decided to knocked me down for the count. After many tests and 4 days in hospital, I was diagnosed with a horrible case of bacterial pneumonia. This was the best diagnosis I could have hoped for because when I was hospitalized, they thought I had a blood clot in my lungs. So far I have been in bed for over 2 weeks with at least another week ahead of doing nothing.  I am starting to feel better but can't sit or stand for too long.Therefore, no blogging for a few more days.

I have to say staring at my house for hours a day is inspiring me to make some huge changes. Unfortunately, I just need to wait until my body will cooperate.

Have any of you ever had this? I hear about people with pneumonia but never expected it to be so severe.

I hope to have something to share with you soon.
Stephanie

Drum roll please...I made my own drum lamp

When we purchased our house it had all of its original builder grade materials still in place, including all the builder lights. We thought most of the lights were funny because they were perfect replicas of an upside down mushroom. We tried to replaced the majority as soon as we moved in but others, like the spare bedroom and closets, remained as reminders of what the entire house looked like.
Here is one of the mushroom lights from when we bought:

 I have seen all over the blogging world people making their own drum lamps out of various materials and thought this would be a great idea for our spare bedroom. I was at Habitat for Humanity's restore a while back and they had a beautiful golden chandelier for sale. It kills me to say this but it is just like the one I had donated to Habitat a year ago when we replaced our other lights. So I had to buy back almost the exact same light that I had already donated. Proves that I should not throw anything away...just kidding.

This is what I purchased:

 I easily took it apart by removing a few screws. I donated back to Habitat the beautiful glass cover since all I wanted was the light base.

I taped all the vital parts and ventured off to the garage to paint the gold metal with oil rubbed bronze spray paint. I also spray painted the plastic covers at the base of the bulbs white. I don't think they were suppose to be the horrible tan color.


Once everything was dry, I reassembled the lamp but replaced the glass with a new and inexpensive drum shade I purchased at Walmart.

For those of you wondering how the shade is sitting on the candelier, this is what the top of the drum shade looked like.

The drum shade has a small opening on the top that I threaded the wires through and sat it on top of the chandelier post.

I then reassembled the chandelier the same way it came apart. So the decorative bolt (with the loop attached to the hanging chain) was just screwed back on top of the chandelier post thus securing the shade.

Really easy and not too expensive.

 

 

I purchased the brass chandelier from Habitat for Humanities ReStore for $7.50 (it was on sale for 1/2 the ticketed price) and the drum lamp shade from Walmart for $14. I had the Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint on hand (of course). So the grand total for my home made spare bedroom chandelier was $21.50. Not bad.

I debate whether or not to spice it up a bit with a little ribbon around the top and base of the shade. Or perhaps put some vinyl flowers on the inside of the shade, so when the light it on you see the shapes through. What do you think?

Have you created your own chandelier/lights before by piecing various items together?

Stephanie
Linking to some great parties including: Story of A2Z