You & Me Pinterest knock off

My Version

Pinterest inspiration

I saw this You & Me idea inside a frame on pinterest and copied the idea for my master bedroom.  I bought the open frame at good old Hobby Lobby for 50% off it was 15.00 and made the cut on my vinyl machine using black vinyl.   My frame is a 16x20 and i made the words 2 inches smaller length x width with my machine.  If you don't have a vinyl machine email me for a price quote for the size frame you are working with {hasitngs.katie@gmail.com}

How to Faux paint

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Faux painting looks great when done, but its a lot of work, and more expensive than painting a solid color Wall.  its a two step process and requires one and a half times as much paint, plus glaze.  Having said that its definalty worth the little extra cost and work to me. I didnt faux super heavy on my wall, i like it a little more blended, but to get a more exaggerated faux look than i did you just apply a second coat, or heavier coat of glaze once you are at that step.  Here is how you faux paint. First use paint tape to tape off the area you are painting.  next you apply your base coat-this is the darker color of the two colors you are using. roll it on like you would normally paint a wall, covering all the wall and corners in an even coat.  Let that completely dry.  Then take your faux layer paint and mix it with a faux glaze.  I like the Behr brand that comes in a quart.  Mix your faux paint color and glaze in 1 to 4 parts mixture, 1 part glaze, 4 parts paint.  I usually take 1/4c and do 1/4c glaze and 1c paint to make life easy :). Then apply it in about a 12x12 area at a time with a paint brush going in different directions to get a faux look and immediately rub off/pat areas with paper towels to get that faux look you desire before moving on to another 12x12 area.  If you wait too long to rub off the paint begins to dry and is hard to rub off.  This is where i stopped with my faux, but if you want a heavier faux look wait for your first coat to completely dry, then go over the area again using the same technique to get a heavier faux look.  The colors i used here were Behr brand, Saddle brown base and Chocolate faux.  A tip for choosing colors to faux with is to choose your base color that you like and the top code 1-3 shades lighter for a pretty contrast.

DIY Refinish Your Cabinets

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When we looked at our house, it was something most people thought "oh, nice house, nice lot, but TONS of work." The ironic thing is one of my good friends said she walked through the house too when it was on the market and they loved the house--but thought it was a lot of work and didn't think twice about it. Well Scott and i were up for the challenge and on a hunt for a forever house with a good price tag, and shockingly enough one that was a fixer-uper! Yes, we are certifiably crazy, especially considering i was pregnant with twins at the time we were looking for a fixer-uper!  The house was bank owned--enough said foreclosures are always trashed.  Well, i loved the huge kitchen with tons of cabinetry and storage and stand up/sit in breakfast bar, loved the island, and the granite counters...but i HATED the cabinets.  Not my style.  So i decided to refinish them.  Everyone always asks me how i did it, so here we go, you score with a tutorial!  I wanted to go with an old world antique look, and wanted two-toned cabinets.  I still love the black and white combo but i may surprise myself and go all white before long, but needless to say i do love the way they turned out.  So to tell you how i did it.  I did a prime, paint, seal method.  My cabinets were in good shape, there wasn't any areas that needed smoothing out so instead of using an electric sander, i used liquid sander which took me only 45 min to wipe down all of my cabinets compared to several hours of electric or hand sanding.  I bought it at Home Depot its "Klean strip" brand and called liquid sander deglosser.  Its in the paint supply section.  I think one bottle was $18 and i have used it for several projects including my kitchen table redo {of course ill share that project too}.  You just rub it on your cabinets with an old rag for a few seconds all around to get the glossy finish off.  I used a high density foam roller to paint the cabinets, it would be much easier and quicker if you had a paint sprayer, but at the time i didn't have one {sigh i do now, would've made life easier} these are small rollers and are great for painting furniture too! So, i taped off my cabinets to protect the walls from paint, and started painting. I used a foam brush in hard to reach areas, and did about 2 coats of black on the upper half of my kitchen, and 3 coats of white on the bottom half.  I wanted the oak color to show through in some of the black spots for an old world look so did less coats of black.  With the black cabinets i just used a fine grain sheet of sand paper and hand sanded to distress along the edges and grooves only.  For the white cabinets i tried a few techniques until i got the look i was going for-first i tried a glaze and brown paint mixture-hated it, then i went with glaze and black paint mixture-hated that too.  I ended up taking a small art paintbrush and brown color of paint and hand painted to distress the edges how I wanted them.  I personally loved the all white clean look  before distressing on the white portion of my cabinets, but...I saw my two year old rub his Cheeto covered hands on those white cabinets and realized my sanity would not last if i kept them pure white.  I was so glad i distressed them after having done it a few months later I was wiping down my cabinets and realized there was lot of peanut butter smeared on my island which i didn't even notice because of the distressing.  WIN!! Anyway back on task.  After i painted the cabinets I sealed them again using foam roller/brush combo-only one coat with a water based polycrylic semi-gloss finish to ensure the cabinets wouldn't chip.  I did them 5 months ago and no chipping still.  This was such an easy method and realistic for me to do SLOWLY over time, thank goodness for a patient hubs who put up with multi-colored cabinets for a while before I finally finished!  The colors i used if you like this look were cottage white from Dunn Edwards, and premixed black Valspar paint from Home depot. Use exterior grade paint on cabinets and doors, it adheres better and doesn't fade.  If you want a mahogany look stain you will have to use an electric sander to sand the cabinets, then take a rag with your color stain and rub on evenly until you get the look you want, and of course seal after with polycrylic.  I'm still on the hunt for the perfect hardware, and have yet to find it...if you have any suggestions let me know!

DIY backsplash

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During installation-cut around outlets

up close of the pattern

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I have slowly been remodeling my kitchen myself.  Between taking care of my 2 yr old and 3 month old twins things have been slowly rolling, once i finish ill do an entire kitchen reveal, but for now you can just see bits and pieces.  First Ill share my backslash, it looks beautiful and the best part is it only cost me $25.00...and i had supplies to spare. I used a paintable wallpaper that looks and feels like ceiling tiles, everyone always says they thought they were ceiling tiles {before i tell them the truth}.  So lets begin with supplies.  I bought the paintable wallpaper at Lowe's in the blinds and wallpaper section for $18.00 {it comes in a white color, ready to paint}.  I used copper valspar brand paint that is premixed at Home Depot, Lowe's may carry it too I'm not sure i just had seen it once at Home depot and thought up a project to do with it!  This wall paper is prepasted so no need to buy paste, just buy a wallpaper squeegy-theyre $.99 and razor blade if you dont have one, and you're ready to go.  I read the instructions that came with the wallpaper, and consulted good old Pinterest for wallpaper hanging techniques since this was my first wallpaper attempt.  Follow your directions for hanging, but i basically measured out the area i was going to hang in, grabbed a tape measure, scissors, and ruler/lever combo to draw straight lines for cutting and trimmed the paper down to fit the area i was hanging it in.  Next i decided to save a little money and not buy a water dipping tray at Lowe's and instead just wet the wallpaper in my bathtub for a few seconds, then carried it carefully so i wouldn't rip the edges to my kitchen counter where I folded the glue sides together and let it set for 5 min.  Next I hung it on my wall space i had measured out, then hung it on my wall smoothing as i went to ensure there were no bubbles.  Wallpaper is very forgiving, you don't have to hang it in the exact right spot when you first place it on the wall, it gives you some room for error and slides easily while its wet and not smoothed in place, once you have it in the right spot, begin smoothing it down for air bubbles.  The trick is to line the pattern up correctly so there are no errors in your pattern.  Last i used a small razor blade to trim the edges where they met my granite counter and to cut around outlet spaces.  The directions say to wait for it to dry, but i did this when it was still wet.  I found the paper didn't tear this way, and wallpaper residue didn't stick to drywall in places you don't want it to.  Last wipe down the area with a wet rag to remove excess glue and let it dry.  When its all hung i waited to paint for 5 hours--being impatient like i am i didn't wait the 24 hrs the direction said to let the wallpaper cure-i could tell it was dry only 5 hrs after.  Copper paint is an oil base so its super fumy compared to most paint and sticks to ALL surfaces so be sure to wipe it off your counters right away if you accidentally spill instead of wait til your finished to try and chip it off like i normally do-lesson learned, no need to fret it will come off counter surfaces with goof off if needed ;).  Here is how mine turned out.  I still want to add a little trim on the edges just to finish it off and add a little something more, and plan on putting some on my ceiling in spaces I will share those projects when completed ;)  I had so much left over that i placed some in wainscoting I installed on my breakfast bar--ill share the wainscoting tutorial in a later post!

Hall Signs

Everyone is always asking me where I bought my hall signs, when I tell them I made them everyone wants to know how.  So here's a Hall sign tutorial!  I cant take credit for the original idea.  I saw hall signs like this on a blog once (I cant remember where).  This blogger shared her secrets and I'll share mine too.  I made mine a little different than she did-but pretty close.  For supplies, I bought the wood plaques and metal brackets at Hobby Lobby. I spray painted some of the metal brackets black because Hobby Lobby didn't have enough black ones and I came out of the store with mismatching black and brown brackets half off for $3.99 each!  I think the wood plaques were $1.99 each reg price but I also got those half off.  I already had some acrylic paint at home in mind for painting them.  First, I sanded the plaques lightly by hand and painted them using acrylic Folk Art brand Warm White color and distressed the edges with black and a chocolate brown acrylic color.  Then I sanded the edges for a little more distressing.  Next I created the words I wanted with my vinyl machine using Script MT bold font in black, and placed them right in the middle of the plaque.  (If you don't have a machine email me with the size of the plaques you are going to make and I' ll quote you a price for your sayings: hastings.katie@gmail.com). Then I screwed a craft hook on the center of the signs for hanging.  Last, I centered the metal brackets over my doors and screwed them in, hanging the plaque using ribbon threaded threw the brackets and the craft hook.  I absolutely love them and this was a very easy craft and cheap way to spruce up my pace.  It cost me about $5.00 per plaque if I figure in the cost of paint and ribbon I already had, plus vinyl.  I made signs over every door in my hallway plus my office, guest bath, and closets, for a little added prettiness.  I don't have a pantry {i would love if I did} but have made pantry signs for friends or simply a "kitchen" plaque too.  The signs I made read: Laundry, Mr & Mrs, my kids names: Dalton, Dax & Dawson, Guest (my guest room), Bath, Closet, Play (play room) and Office.  There are so many possibilities!  Look at hobbylobby.com for sales on craft wood for the plaques, and metal wares for the brackets.  You can also always download a 40% off coupon from hobby lobby on your smart phone and just show it at check out, or print one at home from your computer to save too!  I love me some pretty decor and some good deals!