Silhouette Mustaches

Do you remember last May when I got a Silhouette Cameo for my birthday?

I am ashamed to admit I haven't really used it much since I got it. Most of that is due to the fact that my laptop crashed last summer and my desktop can't handle the program. But now that I have my new fancy laptop, I've started to figure out how this bad boy works!

First project I worked on is cutting a vinyl phrase to put on the wall at work. It look me a super long time to figure out how to do this and I definitely made some mistakes, but my photo manager got the saying she wanted and she's happy with it.

Super awesome cell phone picture too! The hardest part was cutting out the little Mary Poppins!

Even though that saying didn't work out all nice and perfect, it gave me the motivation (and extra vinyl paid for by my boss) to create something I've been wanting to put in my house for a long time....

I love it! It's right above my closet in the entry hall. We have vaulted ceilings and that huge empty space was screaming for some attention!

And then last weekend, after a little vodka, I felt silly and made these...

I mean really, who doesn't need a mustache on their outlets?!?! I seriously walked around my house and put them on random outlets. They make me giggle every time I see one. I made some for my friend at work and my sister, who's totally obssessed with the stach!

For those of you who have a Silhouette, here's a tip for you....
The mustaches and the fancy scroll thingy besides my last name are both fonts. Go to dafont.com and look under the wingdings section. You can find TONS of cool shapes and things to use on your machine without having to pay for the graphics. Just download and install with your regular fonts and type away!

Now that I'm getting the hang of how this machine works, I might just start putting vinyl on everything! Haha

Hope you are having a great week!

Trunk Table

The project I have to show you today was almost an epic FAIL! It was super frustrating and I almost quit and cried in the middle of it. I didn't end up sitting and crying about this, but I did walk away from it for a day before I came back to finish it. Sometimes that just what you have to do to prevent yourself from hitting things with a hammer.

See this trunk....

Let me give you a little back story on this thing. When I was around 13ish I needed one of these trunks to take to girl scout camp. My parents bought this trunk and let me decorate it. They were both trying to convince me to stain it so I could use it after camp and wouldn't ruin the wood. Did I listen to them? HA! Does any 13 year old listen to their parents??? Not me. I wanted to paint it. So they let me. {Love my artistic skills? lol}

Fast forward 10 years or so -------> The trunk now lives, abandoned, in my parents basement......where their cat goes to puke. See where this is going?? Yeah, she puked on the lid. Right under the "M" towards the front edge. My dad did his best to clean it off, but there was still a slight stain. Um, gross.

Fast forward another 6 or 7 years ------> Dad brings this trunk to my house because he doesn't want it in his basement anymore. Great, just what I need. A child painted, puke stained trunk sitting in my spare bedroom.

And there is sat for months. I've been wanting to turn it into a little table. It's been on my project list for a long time, but it just seemed like such a pain. Plus I wasn't really sure how to add table legs to something. Anywho, I went for it anyway. First I had to sand all that paint off. Thank goodness we have an orbital sander!! I would not have made it through the sanding without it. Here it is all sanded down. Looking much better!

After I sanded it down I stained it with some stain my dad gave me. Lucky for me, the stain wiped right off the hardware so I didn't have to remove any of it. Win!

Then I added these cheap 6 inch table legs I bought at Home Depot.

Here is where my project went down the crapper in a hurry! I should have googled how to do this before I started. I must have lost my mind that day! I'm going to spare you all the details, but warn you to google this, or ask an experienced man or something before trying to attach table legs to anything!! Seriously.

{Insert pity party for 1}

Day 2:

Figured it out/rigged it to work my way. And now I have this cute little table to set in my front window with my chairs. So happy :)

Slowly but surely this room is coming together. Now if only I could remember to water that plant....

And if you are new here, here's some other projects in this picture you may have missed:
DIY Faux Nail Head Trim
Bow and Flower Pillows
Tea Dyed Curtains
I thought I had blogged about that little magazine bowl, but I can't seem to find the post...hmmm...

Have a great hump day!!

DIY Faux Nail Head Trim

Happy Wednesday!!

Remember last week I showed you my new pillows for the living room chairs?
And I asked you if you saw any other DIY projects involving these chairs??? Do you see it yet???

I put a little faux nail head trim on them!

We bought these chairs on craigslist about 6 months ago. I've been thinking they needed a little pizzazz....something to spice them up. So I was walking through my favorite Dollar Tree one day and the silver thumb tacks caught my eye and my genius light bulb went off! Nail head trim was what they needed. Only I don't know anything about nail head trim or where to buy it....so thumb tacks it is!

How to:
Buy cheap thumb tacks from the dollar store.....I used 2 boxes
Press in with thumb to get each one started
Then lightly tap with a rubber mallet

And that's it!

Look at that sweet baby sunning in the window!!

My lines aren't perfectly straight. I had the occasional tack that bent that I had to remove with a staple puller. And my thumb was killing me so I did this a little bit at a time. But overall, I think it spiced up the chairs just enough!! I thought about doing it across that section under the cushion, but Mr. Perfect thought it would be too much.

Moral of the story......$2 {the cost of 2 packs of thumb tacks} can make a huge impact. Don't overlook dollar store finds :)

{How Pinteresting} #13

Ever so slowly I've been decorating my living room. I'm pleased with the progress and I'm super excited about the ideas I have for some upcoming projects in that room! So, obviously this week's Pinterest project is something in my living room, duh! Here's the inspiration:

I pinned this picture of these super cute bow pillows from Rae Gun Ramblings. Aren't they just so adorable??

I have these three really cool chairs I picked up on craigslist in my living room. They are a little boring without any pillows so I spiced them up!

Pillow #1 got the bow treatment

Pillow #2 I made a little appliqued flower

Pillow #3 is a basic pillow made with this beautiful fabric I picked up at Joann's

They all kinda perked up the room just enough. The room is slowly coming together :)

See if you can spot my other DIY project on these chairs..... if you follow me on Instagram (meredith_hautetosew) you may already know what it is. I'll share it with you next week! Stayed tuned peeps!

Tea Dyed Curtains

Blogging on a Monday......I feel like I haven't done this in FOREVER! Well I think I've finally gotten out of my little funk and I have the motivation to show you what all I've been working on. Hooray!

Today we are going to talk curtains. My living room curtains to be exact. If you remember, or if you are new here, let me refresh you with what curtains I made last winter.....

In December I had just painted my living room white with an orange accent wall and an orange alcove around my bay window. Then I got the idea to paint ombre striped curtains for the window. It didn't turn out the way I wanted but the hubs wouldn't let me take them down because I had "worked so hard on them". Whatevs. I've pretty much hated them all along. Here's what they looked like....

Ok, not the worst in the world, but they haven't grown on me. They now reside in my fabric closet with other fallen projects.

To replace them I thought something simple would be better. Something crisp and clean. I thought about plain white, but with the white walls around that little alcove and all the trim being white I just couldn't go ALL white. I needed a little contrast. So I tried something new that I haven't done before and I dig it. Tea dyeing! Here's how the window looks now...

You'll see better pics in a sec. They didn't turn out quite as long as I wanted because I hemmed about an inch too much, but seriously, once you've done all the work, who would change it? Not this chick! Besides I have a pair of chairs that sit in front of that window that I moved for these pictures.

So, how do you tea dye? It's pretty simple, so if you don't already know I'll give you a quick run down of what I did.

I started with a bedsheet from Kmart. They're cheap and big and the sides are already hemmed {bonus!}. I think I used a queen sheet for this window.

Now on the the dyeing....

Step 1: Boil water in a large pot {This is about all I can do in the kitchen btw lol}
Step 2: Add about 20 tea bags

Step 3:  Let the bags stoop for about 20 minutes
Step 4:  Remove bags, well, the ones that didn't fall in
Step 5:  Put whatever fabric, or portion of fabric, you want into the pot
Step 6:  Let it sit for, I don't know, about 20 minutes

Step 7: Remove sheet from pot and let air dry

I don't really have that many crazy weeds in my yard. I did in this picture, but things have changed in that area recently, so don't judge.


After the sheet dried, I cut it in half and hemmed the cut edge. Then I had to hem a little in length. I hemmed it on the top end so there was a little extra fabric at the top for my hooks to hold on to. Give the whole thing some ironing and that's it!

Whatcha think? Oh and go back at look at the old picture again......notice anything else different? The wall color maybe? I just wasn't loving the first orange color I painted, so I changed it up. This new orange is a little darker and not so "don't shoot me in the woods" orange.

And just for fun.....

I seriously can NOT get over how stinkin cute she is!!! She melts my heart every day. I <3 her

{How Pinteresting} #12

I'm am so so so so so so excited about showing you this project!! It was super quick. Not permanent, if I ever decide I want to change it. Super cool. Makes a huge statement. And I'm so excited about it {did I say that???}

I pinned this amazing desk covered in PENNIES from Epbot

source

Gorgeous! They're final piece is to die for!Around blogland I've seen other people cover small walls, floors, and countertops with pennies. So one day I was sitting watching tv and the little project light bulb went off in my head and said "put pennies under the glass on your coffee table". Woot! That's what happens when you have a mind that never shuts off and constantly thinks of more projects to do :)

Lucky for me, my dad throws all his change in these giant jugs and cashes them in like once every 10 years. My sis and I once took $40 in silver to buy a video game and he didn't even notice, if that tells you how much he has. So he brought over 11 pounds of pennies for me and I got to work.

Some of the lines got a little jacked up, but oh well. If it drives me that crazy I'll pick up the glass and redo it. They aren't glued down so they can be removed if I decide I don't want it anymore. It definitely takes a brown coffee table from boring to fabulous! Dad approves, and because he's a little math oriented he figured out how many pennies I used......1860. Not the cheapest project I've done, but not too shabby either. I dig it.