Kitchen Renovation - Section 1 COMPLETE!!!

Well, almost complete, we still have to add knobs and pulls but we're going to do that when the other sections are finished.

I'm going to try to not get to wordy here and just let the pictures show our progress. Throughout the week I'll go through more of each part's step by step including cutting the counter top, making the recycling center and hanging the Café Shelves.

So without further delay, I present section 1 of our kitchen renovation.

Before:

During:

After:

We are beyond THRILLED with the way this section turned out. I've already eliminated our island cart and only filled up less than a third of this new storage.

In case you are interested in learning more about any of the above projects that I've already finished and blogged about here is a list:

• Kitchen Table and Benches
• Café Shelves
• Counter Top Selection
• Finding the Base Cabinets

I'll be linking this up to a bunch of link parties, please be sure visit the list of link parties on the right hand side to see all the fabulous parties and visit all the wonderful blogs with fabulous ideas!

Master Bathroom Vanity Redo

Our master bath is a bit dated, nothing too bad, the wall color, towels and accessories are in good shape, but the vanity and floor leave a lot to be desired.

So, I decided to freshen them up with what I already have on hand, some paint and beadboard wall paper. Here is the before:

Here are the materials I used:

• Paint (left over from the Bookcase)
• Beadboard wallpaper (also left over from the bookcase)
• Spray paint (left over from the clipart rail)

I started by removing the doors and applying sections of the beadboard wallpaper to them.

Next up - Painting the absolutely awful hardware... I'm pretty pleased with my solution for getting the screws painted... I simply screwed them into  a left over 1x2".

And here is the after for the hardware, this turned out to be the most amazing part of the transformation for me.

Next up - painting the doors and drawer fronts - here is where I messed up, I lightly sanded everything, but I should have done a MUCH more thorough job AND I should have primed. As I moved onto really painting... the paint didn't want to stick. But with persistent painting, sanding, painting, sanding... it finally took and worked out well.

The doors after wall paper and painting:

And here is everything put back together:

Total cost for the makeover: $0!!! Everything was left over from previous projects.

And the best part - as we're thinking about painting our kitchen cabinets, this was the perfect project to learn about what we were really facing.

Ruffle Scarf

Winter may almost be over, but now I really don't want it to be... well, ok, maybe I do want it to be over, but until it is, I'll be happy to wear my new scarf!!!

I was inspired by this scarf over at Make It and Love it. And who wouldn't be??? Adorable!

I decided to do mine just a bit different by ruffling the strips that I was sewing onto the scarf as well as how I bought and cut the fabric. So, or should I say "sew," here we go...

Materials:

 

• 1 Yard of knit fabric, color of your choice
• 1 spool of coordinating, or complimenting thread
• Scissors
• Pins
• Sewing Machine

Right off the bat, my scarf is a bit different, by going with 1 yard of fabric instead of 2. The knit fabric is only 56" wide, so I couldn't cut a continuous piece that was 80" long per the original instructions. I didn't want to spend twice as much on the fabric... So I found a way around it.

Step 1 - Cut 4 strips of fabric that are 8" wide by the full width of the fabric, 56". 1 strip for the front, 1 strip for the back, 1 strip to add to the length of the front and back and the last for the strips that you will be adding to the scarf.

 

(Puffy orange cat is optional, though I do find it helps most projects.)

Step 2 - Cut one of the strips of fabric into 4 equal sections each 14" long by 8" wide.

 

Step 3 - Pin the 14" section of fabric to the ends of the front and back of your scarf.  14" + 14" + 56" = 84" - 1 inch for seam allowance give us our 83" long front and back pieces for the scarf. Sew.

 

 

Step 4 - From your last strip of 8" x 56" fabric, cut 20 pieces of fabric 12" x 1.5"  - or however else you'd like to do it... this is what worked for me, I wanted a subtle ruffle. Perhaps you want to double the 8" width and go for a 16" strip, or maybe you want a narrower ruffle and want to go with 1" - that is the advantage of doing it yourself, you get exactly what you want.

 

Step 5 - Ruffle your strips. I'm going to post my method for ruffling tomorrow, everyone has their own way of doing ruffles and I figured lets not get off on a ruffle tangent here. Ruffle however you like and if you don't have a favorite method, check back tomorrow and see what I do. And if you do have a favorite method, I'd love to hear it 'cause I'm not sure mine is the best.

Step 6 - Pin your ruffles to your scarf, starting by covering up the the seam of where you attached the end of the scarf. See the seam:

 

 

 Now you don't:

 

Step 7 - space out your remaining 4 ruffles for this end of the scarf and sew them. 

 

Ta-daaaaa!

 

Repeat steps 6 & 7 for the other end of the front, and then both ends of the front and the back.

Step 8 - Lay one side of your scarf right side down:

 

Step 9 - Then place the other side of your over the top so that you've got your wrong sides together... I know this flies in the face of all sewing projects, it is always right sides together, not wrong sides together but we are wild and crazy like that. Then pink all the way around the scarf - making sure that you've got a lot of pins, this sucker is 83"x 8"...

Step 10 - Sew all the way around and you've got a scarf!!!

(In my case you've got a scarf that you are going to spend the next 2 months snipping the threads off of.. but that could just be me.)

 

  

  

  

I think if I had it to do over again, I might have shortened the scarf by about 4-6" per end and tightened up the spacing between the ruffles... But then again, that might have been too cute and this scarf is already way too cute for me. I'm not cute, I have a hard time pulling of the "cute" look. You can't be 5' 10" and cute, at least I can't be 5' 10" and cute... it doesn't work for me. 

But I'm sure going to enjoy my cute scarf, for however much of winter we have left.

(Oh and by the way, total cost for this project, $7... sweet!)

My Budget Book

I'm a big fan of the Envelope Budgeting System. Where you use cash and have envelopes for each of the line items in your budget and keep the cash for each item, in each envelopes. I used the system for about 6 months last year and it was amazing how on budget I was each week.

Then life got busy and just like my workout intentions everything goes out the door around July when life kicks into high gear.

Well, I'm ready to get back into it, which is why learned how to make my own envelopes last week, so I could make a book of envelopes. (Sort of like Megan did, though I went about mine a little different.)

Here is what I started with:

Materials:

• 6 Envelopes, 1 each for groceries week 1, groceries week 2, Target, date night, "bonus*" and receipts. (These are the items I pay cash for in a 2 week pay period.)
• Pretty fabric
• Pretty paper
• Chip board 
• Glue
• Straight edge
• Box cutter
• Letter stickers to mark the purpose of your envelope
• 2 pieces of ribbon, cut to 6-8 inches

You don't need to make your own envelopes as I did, that was just me being a freak... well, because I'm a freak. And please, there are other tutorials for this online, which are likely better than mine, but I couldn't find some of the supplies that Martha Steward called for... my AC Moore doesn't carry book binding tape. So this is how I did it, feel free to look to someone else, or make your own way.

1st step - Cut strips of fabric about 1.5" inches wide by the height of your envelopes.

Step 2 - Take 2 of your envelopes and place them side, one facing up, the other facing down.

Step 3 - Coat one of the strips of fabric with glue, first I used regular white glue, that took forever to dry. So then I moved onto a quick drying craft glue from 3M that I really ended up liking.

 

Step 4 - Apply the glued strip to the envelopes butting them very close together.

Repeat step 4 until you have all the envelopes bound together. I first bound 3 sets of 2 together, letting them dry. And then bound the 3 sets together...

Step 5 - Cut 2 pieces of chip board .5" taller than your envelopes and .25" wider. Then cut a strip of chip board that is equal in height to the other 2 and the same width as your bound envelope. (No picture of this step, but you'll see in steps 6 and 7 what they look like)

Step 6 - Lay your pieces of card board down on your fabric and coat the chip board with glue. Note the slight .125" gap between the front and back covers and the spine of the book. This is important to allow your binding space to bend.

 

(Brush the glue, don't just leave it swirly like my picture... you couldn't really see the glue once I'd brushed it in so I took the picture while it was swirly like.)

Step 7 - With all 3 pieces of chip board glued to the fabric, slip the fabric up to the corners of the chip board

Step 8 - And then glue and fold in your fabric.

 

  

Step 9 - Time to bind the envelopes into the binding. Using 2 more strips of fabric, attach the last envelope to the back cover and the 1st envelope to the front.

 

Step 10 - Cut 2 lengths of ribbon to 6-8" inches, and 2 pieces of paper to .25" smaller than your front and back covers.

Step 11 - Glue the ribbon half way down the outside edge of the back cover.

 

Step 12 - Glue the pretty paper to the inside back cover of the book.

 

Repeat steps 11 & 12 for the front cover.

Step 13 - Label each of your envelopes... I decided just to use the initials for each of my categories. And I also labeled them on the front and back... just because I could.

And here is my finished budget book.

 

 

And of course, use of these isn't limited to a budget book, I can see making these to hold any variety of things. Favorite cards from the holidays, pictures, treasures from special trips... all kinds of wonderful things.

I'm thinking of coating the outside of my book with a bit of mod podge, not sure about it though.