Oh no!

I realize it has been awhile since I have posted anything. I have been so busy with work and crafting that I haven't gotten to post (ironic a bit). Okay, so....I really like the whole refurbishing thing so I found myself another hunk-o-junk. However it may be the death of me.

I purchased this totally ugly dresser that had some wear and tear at a local thrift store for a whopping $15.00. It is an oak dresser with dove tailed drawers obviously made in the 60's or 70's. The only piece that is not oak is the back which is a pressboard but let's be real, no one sees the back of a dresser and pressboard makes this piece a whole lot lighter!

Okay. Whoever owned this prior decided to attempt to stain in.......blindfolded....with the brush in their mouth. Needless to say, I sanded this baby FOREVER. After sanding I was so sick of of seeing it that I took a few day hiatus.

Went to Home Depot and bought paint. Decided to paint it a white and the sales man told me I didn't need to prime because of the type of paint I was buying. HA! It has now had 3 coats of paint and needs one more. So........guess what I did? I bought a really good sealer. Can't wait until this piece is done however I have learned ALOT.

Oh yes, and it is getting legs and handles. :)

It's a BABY!

Okay.....but it's not my own personal baby. My husband's sister and her family decided several months ago after a lot of prayer and research to adopt a baby. After having two difficult pregnancies resulting in two VERY premie babies they decided it was best to now grow their love in another way - through adoption.

Below is their cute family. :)

Adoption is very close to my heart as my one and only nephew on my side of the family is adopted. It has been such as blessing to watch him grow. What an incredibly brave birth mother he had to give him up to be loved on by another. If I could see her, meet her, I would probably just stand their hugging her and through massive tears repeating, "Thank you. Thank you. Our lives are not the same. He has made such a positive impact in our life. We cannot imagine life without him."

So.....let's talk babies. They are stink'n cute. But here's the deal, in just the United States there are approximately 129,000 children waiting for adoption. Yes, that is not just babies, but those are lost, lonely children looking for some love.

Not everyone is called to adopt and if you cannot or you are not at that point in life that's fine. But we as human beings are responsible of taking care of each other - especially those who cannot care for themselves. But please ask yourself, what CAN you do? Can you volunteer? Can you give financially? Can you pray? Can you encourage others to adopt? Figure it out and do it! Let's bring these babies home,

If you haven't figured it out - I'm a doer. I see a need and I will do whatever I can to fix it. Domestic adoption is currently about $30,000. This includes a lot of different fees and what not, but let's just all agree that it is expensive. So, when Emily and Bryan came to us and told us they were going to adopt my first thought was, we need to raise money. Emily was on the ball and making and selling bibs on Etsy so I joined her and created my own little shop. I have now added many things I sell like coasters, refurbished furniture, neck warmers, napkins, aprons, etc. Of course not all are on Etsy as many are personal custom orders. Also, I have 6 years experience as a wedding planner and 26 years experience living with Martha Stewart. (see earlier post). So, I am trying to use ANY talent I have to help bring the precious baby home.

Here are a few things I make and sell: (Not everything include. You ask, I'll try)

 I can do cakes or cupcakes for simple events like birthdays. More complicated ones like weddings I leave to my friend Vanessa who is a great cake maker!

 Refurbished piece from the early 1900's

                            Wedding Decor

                           Rice/flax packs. Can be made any size. Can be cold or hot. Great for neck aches, cramps, breast feeding, warming your feet at the bottom of your bed. :)

                                                            A wedding I coordinated

                                                                    Bridal Garter

                                                                   Coasters

                                                                   Napkins

                                                                  Pacifier Clips

                                                   Blankets and Breast Feeding Covers

                                                                            Headbands

                                                                  Coffee Cozies

                                                                  Name or ABC blocks

I don't care how you choose to help these children. Whether it is through buying crafts from an avid crafter, or bringing awareness to others, just HELP. 100% of ANYTHING you buy goes directly to the Coe Adoption Account. Thanks :)

Lean (almost), Mean (rarely), Crafting Machine (always)

Erin

My Etsy Shop
Wedding Planning
More Products
Emily's Shop

Refurbish in all it's Glory

Here it is!!!

Refurbish!

I bought a little hallway table at Goodwill yesterday for $10. More than I like to pay for a price of crap but I it kept calling to me. I carried it around the store for about 20 minutes and than I was like.....ugh! Just get it!

I brought the piece home and started really looking at it. It was an antique. Whoever had it prior really made a mess of it which made me sad. The company that made it, Diamond Furniture, from. Jamestown, New York closed their doors in the 1930's.

Originally I was going to paint it but than thought I wanted to preserve the piece as much as possible. After enormous amounts of sanding, stain was going to do nothing for this poor guy. I decided to paint it (although I didn't paint the bottom of the drawer where it shows it is antique).

So it got painted. Here are the before pictures. The after pictures will be coming soon!

These things called babies....

A little over two years ago my family was blessed with the most beautiful baby boy who is still a joy to us everyday. Through adoption, my sister and her husband were matched with a 2 week old son. There are no words to express how thankful I am to his birthmom for allowing him to touch our lives so deeply.

That said, as cute as he was, he went through a drooling period. Most babies do, but it his was a bit more intense. My sister felt like changing his clothes all the time was just becoming ridiculous and wanted to get some bibs. (They were going through about 12 a day). So, for Christmas that year I decided to make 30 bibs. It was a lot of sewing. But it was also a lot of fun! I did all sorts of bibs. These were some of my favorite:

 

Well, now my husband's sister and her family are adopting. As many of you may know, adoption can be around $30,000. So, when a family is trying to adopt it really does take a village. If you are interested in bibs you or blankets you can check out my etsy website. OR just email me at eward0409@yahoo.com for a special order. They are quality. It is for a good cause. I love to personalize things. 

Maybe you don't need bibs......what do you need? Can I craft you something? 

Craft Happy, 

Erin

Hollywood Bed

Well, you see, I have a pretty high lifestyle. I have a lot of money being a teacher and my husband being in medical school. We actually have an entire room set aside of just $100 bills that we roll around in from time to time. It's a good thing my parents made me take swimming lessons as a kid because this money room and it's pile is deep.

I hope you know I'm kidding. We live frugally. One, because we have to. Two, because our bank tells us we have to. Three, because we do believe there are certain things that just are a wee bit ridiculous to purchase when they are children starving out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're THOSE annoying people.

This DIY project I did when we moved into our current apartment. We have a Hollywood style bed frame.

If you don;t know, these are like the cheapest thing to put your bed on besides the floor. They prove obnoxious, they enhance your prayer life (please let this hold the bed), but most importantly, the fit in small spaces. We have had this current bed frame for 6 1/2 years and it was given to us before that. So I am not even sure how old it is. It is probably an antique and I am laying on millions.

Anywho, with a Hollywood bedframe, they don't provide you with a headboard. Rude I know! :) So, I decided, give me a staple gun and some fabric and I'll make something snazzy. I went to Home Depot (I go there a lot). Got a piece of cheap wood 1" longer than either side of my bed and as tall as I wanted the frame to be. I believe it was $9.00. I than went to Joann's (where I should actually work or be the Jared of Joann's) and went to the home decor fabrics on rolls. You do not want to go to the canvas' on the bolts as they are not big enough. I found one I liked for $19.99 a yard and I knew I needed about two. I don't even pay that for shoes.....BUT luckily because I am a Joann's member I get emailed coupons. I had a 50% off one item coupon. So, I bought my 2 yards, one thing of thin batting which was 40% off (the cheapest kind) and went to pay. Oh, but you see, I am a teacher (PERK) and I have a card that gives me 15% off my whole purchase. WIN. So in all I ended spending a total of $23.00.

I came home, laid my batting fabric on the ground print side on carpet, next laid down the batting. I than cut the fabric and batting around the wood to have about 1"-2" sticking out the side. I took one side, staple gunned it on to the back. I then went to the opposite side, pulled, tight, did it again, and again, and again. 4 times total. haha

I flip the piece of wood over, was happy with what I saw, leaned it against my wall, pushed my bed against it and TADA. Done.

As for the pillows, we'll talk about those another time.

Once upon a disaster......

WARNING: LONG BLOG. READING IS ADVISED

A few things you should know about me:
                      *I am organized to the extreme. I know where everything is all the time.
                      *I color coordinate and alphabetize my clothing by which country it was made in.
                      *I am a size 0 but dress in a lot of layers so most people don't know that.
                      *I am despise coffee, chocolate and love rated R horror flick movies.

Okay.......None of those are true. I'm a mess. My mind is a mess. I forget things. I never know where things are. I do color coordinate but not my closet, and I don't care what country my clothes are made in as long as children are not making them. I am not a single digit size, I do dress in layers though because I like to. I live on decaf coffee, I have a small basket of chocolate Hershey kisses in my craft room and I refuse to watch R rated horror flicks.

I'm not a hoarder. I'm not dirty. I'm just........cluttered. So, one of my resolutions this year was to break out of the cluttered shell and enter the throne of organization that many of my family sit upon. Also, being cluttered does not help my anxiety and I do everything I can to help control that....so BRING ON THE CLEANING!

I'm ashamed to show you before pictures......but it must happened......for the sake of lesson learned....

You may be thinking......that's not so bad! You know how they say photo's add on 10lbs? Yea, well they also make things look not as bad as they really are. Sorry I can't rotate that last picture. Just go old school with me and tilt your head to the right.

When I enter rooms like this I think......where do I even begin?! So I did what I knew I had to.....I got a coffee. Because fabric is the thing I have the most of, I started there. Okay.....I really didn't.....I went to Target and spent $50 in storage....than fabric.

I understand a lot is going on in this picture. First I bought shelves....organized my fabric by color....put them in the shelves. Genius level work. Than I decided that I don't like my paint in a box. I can't see it and I love color so I wanted it displayed! I took two old skinny pencil boxes and flipped them upside down to give the tower look as I was not going to pay for that. The green basket I had in my house in another room, I re utilized the orange box and bought the teal and pink one for a whopping $1. The magnetic strip on the wall is from ikea. I use it for my scissors.....which apparently I need to seek help for my collection.

I do not have a medical condition like my sister-in-law K.H. who has A LOT of ribbon, but I do have some. I needed it stored where I could see it and where it would stop unraveling and driving me bonkers. So, for $2.99 I bought a spice rack and ikea, painted it and glued a flower on it. Mostly because I love bright colors and am I girl that likes flowers too. I'm happy with it.

This is a vase I bought at Michael's 80% off because apparently it was a Christmas vase. If white and rhinestones is Christmas may house is Christmas all year! The whatever you want to call it sparkly things were also 80% off of 1.00.....do that math. So, This project.....AWESOME. Oh, and for a place mat I had an unused dish cloth so I cut it in half.

I had a standard ugly cork board that I got for free at a garage sale a few years back. I painted the trim, covered it with fabric and hung it with an orange ribbon. I put a tack in the wall to hold it and glued a flower to the tack. Voila.

I needed somewhere to put my paint brushes, so I went to the Dollar Tree and bought this vase. Guess how much it was?! Than.....I wrapped a ribbon around it, glued on a flower and some rhinestones and called it good. So much cuter than a lot of other things.

I needed a thread holder but I'm cheap and the "real" ones are $29.99. Yea, no thanks. So, I found a piece of salvage wood, painted it and hammered nails into it. There you have it. It may be ghetto....it may be cheap....but it does the job and it is cute in all it's tealness.

Alright this was the biggest challenge -  I have a beautiful chocolate/black lab, however, living in a smaller two bedroom apartment can become a challenge as his kennel is GINORMOUS! That is not an exaggeration. It is 48" by 32". I have been fighting with my over the door iron for 6 years now and thought....I'm doing something about this! So, I decided since his kennel is so big and he is not in it very often I would turn it into a giant craft space/reversible ironing board. This was probably the smartest thing I have done all year. Not even kidding. It is SO perfect for my quilting. Here is the huge ugly kennel....

I bought a piece of cheap wood $6 and had the fine gentlemen at Home Depot cut it to size, than I painted on side. I wanted on side painted so if I was not sewing and working on other crafts I could use it and have a hard service. I may have gotten carried about with bright colors and glitter......but....I'm female and it was 1:00am and I freehanded it.

Most of the time this will not show, but when it does, it will make the room a bit brighter. After that, I flipped the board over and smoothly glued down a large piece of felt to cover the whole thing. Next I took a piece of canvas material I LOVED and paid $5 for and pulled it tight staple gunning it to the back after I folded a nice hem. Next, I added a pink ribbon and flower. Because......why not?! So here it is.....my craft table/ironing board/dog kennel!

Alright, you have made it this far....I'm impressed. I made several other things. I am not going to explain. Organized, cleaned the closet....here are pictures.

Thank you. Now my posts will be shorter as I share ONE craft project with you at a time!

Go Craft,

Erin