Creepers

Okay, since I don't have any fabulous decorating ideas at the moment, I thought I would share a story... So I'm patiently waiting at the bus stop one block from my house and this guy comes up to me and starts talking to me. I like talking to strangers and talking about whatever keeps us occupied. So we're talking about school, work, the weather blah blah, and then he starts asking me about my roommates, and I told him that I had one roommate who was a girl, and that needed to be specified because he asked if I was living with my boyfriend. Then he starts rambling about how his dad kicked him out of his house two days ago and he just moved in with some people looking for a roommate. I was intrigued by this, for one, because how do you find a place in one day?? Anyway, we get on the bus and he sits next to me and we continue our small talk. He then asks what I do for fun and I replied, "normal college student stuff". He then assumes that I mean "sleep around" and flat out stated, "so that means you sleep with a lot of men and get drunk all the time?" and I was like whoa buddy, "no". After this he continues to talk about sex! Telling me how hes not a "player" (ha, really you should see this kid) and what not, but he did have one or two one night stands (by this time I'm looking around the bus at peoples' faces to see if they are listening to this shit, while I'm trying to give this crazy kid the hint that I don't want to talk to him anymore). He continues to say that hes not "dirty" (yes he used this word) and he knows for a fact because he got tested twice. Okay, I'm so not giving this kid the vibe that I want to talk to him, this means that I'm looking around and fidgeting, and he still doesn't get the hint and keeps talking!! I'm kind of embarrassed that I'm sitting next to him, because I'm pretty sure people on the bus were thinking really bad things. So anyway, my stop comes and I get off the bus really fast. It has been a few weeks now and I haven't seen him, but last Thursday I did. I thought I saw him walking towards the bus hut but I wasn't sure so I kept waiting. He stops of course and starts talking to me (Note: he wasn't even waiting for the bus, I swear he is walking by through out the day looking for me) and then my bus comes and he wants to give me a hug before I leave. I was so freaked out and looked at him really disgusted and he just stood there with his arms open waiting for me to hug him! I kind of put one arm around him (eww I can't believe I did that) and the bus took off! I ran screaming after the bus and as the bus drove off past me I kept running; while he was yelling at me to give him my number so we could hang out sometime.

Okay, I'm so totally grossed out by this situation and I'm afraid to wait for the bus in fear that I will see him, or he will see where I live! What the hell am I suppose to do?? I was just trying to be nice to this guy that came up to me and started talking. Why does this happen to me? Honesty, why?

UGH!!

This post has nothing to do with interiors. Today was such a great day.. NOT! I was heading to the gas station to fill up my tank and then head to the library, because I have soo much homework due tomorrow. As I finished pumping my $35 bucks worth of gas, the girl next to me brought to my attention that something was spilling out of the bottom of my car. I walked around my car and saw that gallons of gas was pouring out of my tank onto the ground. I ran into the gas station to tell the guy at the cash register what was happening. He immediately turned off all of the pumps and called the fire department. I had someone help me push my car away from the spill and waited for the fire fighters to arrive. Turns out that my lovely piece of shit car has duck tape covering a hole in my gas tank, and it has proven to fail its important duties. My car is a salvage, which proves to me that the people putting my car back together, had no idea what they were doing!! Everyone at the gas station was freaking out and pushing there cars away from mine without turning their engines on, and on top of that the cashier was freaking out on me! I called my dad to meet me at the station so he could help me decide what to do. We sat and waited for the gas to stop dripping and drove it to our family mechanic, and now I am carless for at least 3 weeks, and hundreds of dollars out, including the $35 I put in my tank that is now on the ground :-( What a wonderful day!

Take a Seat

One of my most extensive projects has been re-upholstering a full sized couch. Last summer I was looking for cheap furniture for the home I was moving into and I came across a $15 couch that was just hideous. I told my mom I could turn it into something beautiful, and she was very skeptical about my accusations. Indeed, she was wrong, and I finished a beautiful couch and it looks like new!

As you can tell by reading my posts, I really like Goodwill. I found this couch at Goodwill and it was just in shambles. It was stained and the fabric was falling apart and torn. There wasn't much hope in selling the couch, until I walked in that is. I really liked the shape and style of the couch, so I decided that I was going to reupholster it, and teach myself. The process of getting the couch home, something my mom didn't want to deal with, was a hassle, and added to my mom's doubt.

I had searched and searched for cheap upholstery fabric almost for one whole month and finally I found exactly what I was looking for, and it was on sale! I spent a grand total of $140 on about 16 yards of fabric and 10 yards of cording for the seems. I'd like to see if you could find a brand new couch for any less.

Starting in on this project wasn't as difficult as I thought. I started taking off all of the old fabric, labeling it, so I knew where it came from, and so I could use it as a pattern. Once I got everything torn off, I started cutting my new fabric in pieces to match the patterns. I used a heavy duty stapler to put all my new fabric on (not hard at all). The only hard part about this project was the sewing. I had to sew all the seems together with the cording I bought. You don't have to use cording, but I thought it would sharpen the seams, and make them look more or less unnoticeable. I had a lot of help from my mom and grandma in the sewing department, I could have done it myself, but I have a short fuse when it comes to sewing.

I had huge expectations for this project and thankfully it turned out great. There are a few flaws, but you would only notice them if you were critically analyzing every seem and tuck. I'm so proud of myself for finishing this project without taking any classes and just going by my own instincts. Thanks for my mom and grandma the seams looks wonderful with the cording I just had to have :-)

Bright Idea

Walking through Goodwill I came across a very unique lamp. I thought it was the coolest. Turns out it was only $5, and all it needed was a shade and a few little repairs. I took my new lamp home and started debating how I was going to spiff it up.

The bottom of the lamp is attached to a very solid base made of marble, which was really scratched and unattractive. I began to take the lamp apart so I could re-finish the base. The taking apart process was not that hard and actually beneficial, because I ended up wrapping the whole entire base in a complementary fabric.

Making a few little repairs to something that suits your needs and is additive to your personality is great when you come across such things. Goodwill is the best place to search for unique pieces, I'm so glad that I walked in that day and found my new lamp.

Bathroom Business

I have one roommate which is a she. If anyone knows how much stuff women need to have to get ready in the morning than you would understand the basis of this problem. We have one tiny little bathroom with absolutely no storage space except for a shallow medicine cabinet, which clearly will not hold all of our products. This was a major problem.

The only solution to this problem was going to consist of us investing in a storage unit, and lets face it, who wants to spend money on that, and a lot of it I might add, storage units are expensive! Of course I wanted to go the cheap route, but I also wanted something that was pleasing to look at.

I invested in a wire rack that you have to assemble by using circular connecters and square planes that can attach to eachother to make separate boxes, and ultimately a cheap storage unit. The contents of the box would make 10 to 12 separate units, but I used only two and stacked them on top of eachother. I use the rest of them as well to hold jeans and sweatshirts and other junk.

To make this storage unit more pleasing and just a little bit more interesting I bought some folding storage boxes that are made with fabric to place in the wire storage unit. There were lots of colors to pick from and they weren't very expensive at all. I got two for $11. I went with the neutral colors so it would match our other bathroom decor no matter what color it was. To top this project off I bought a nicer, heavy duty, wicker basket that was lined with the same color used in the folding boxes. I placed this one on top of the unit and we have our radio in there and the things that we both use often, like our blow dryer and flat iron.

So pretty much this unit solved all of our problems for the bathroom situation. We each have a box that we can put all of our products in and it keeps our bathroom tidy.

Fingerpainting

The day that I was moving I stumbled over my old acrylic paints and decided to take a break from packing and play around with them, nothing special, just wasting time. I then decided what my next project was going to be.

Once I got all my stuff moved (into my parents again, I was waiting for my new lease to start) I went down into my mom's wood working room. (My mom enjoys making little nic-naks out of wood and then painting them. She makes a lot of seasonal things like scarecrows for fall, easter bunnies for easter, and lots of other stuff.) Anyway, I went down into her room and found some wood dowels and solid wood spheres and some rope. I then got some posterboard and just started smearing paint in all different directions using the rope, dowels, and spheres. I then cut out two matching frames out of the same posterboard, kind of like a view finder, and scanned over the mess I just made to find a creative composition that I might not have found without it.

Once the paint dried I traced around the frame and cut out the rectangle I traced. I did this again so I had two unique compostions of smeared paint. I then just taped the painted posterboard to the posterboard frames that I already cut out. My plan was to get matching frames somewhere that weren't too expensive and hang these masterpieces in my bathroom to spice it up a little bit. Lucky for me ( I'm usually lucky when it comes to bargins, if you haven't already noticed) I found two matching frames at goodwill, that were exactly what I wanted. I wanted something on the modern side, metal was what I was looking for. They were stainless steal. Only dilemma was that one frame had glass and the other had nothing :-( I borrowed a plastic insert that came with a frame my mom had and wasn't using. It didn't fit exactly but I just taped it in the frame so the viewer wouldn't be able to notice, and from the pictures, you can determine if you can tell or not.

Hello! I have yet another creative home decor idea for all of you.

This idea was something that I just pulled from somewhere... and many people ask what are those, and what is the purpose?? I just smile and enjoy what I made.

So your probably wondering what it is that I thought up and here it is.

I really have no justification for this project, I don't know if I saw something like it somewhere or if I really just made it up. But okay here it is:

I was thinking about the new house I was going to move into in about a month, and all I could think about was how I was going to fill it up with decoration. I came up with this grand idea of making wooden square frames covered in funky fabric that would look nice hanging on the wall. They don't have a purpose at all, purely aesthetic.

I ran this idea past many people and they just couldn't understand what I was talking about and why I wanted to do something like this. So I just had to get someone to stand by me and help with the cutting and I would tell them exactly what I wanted them to do.

I got my helpful sidekick (a boy who is a friend :-) ) to help me cut and nail my boards the way I wanted them. I didn't have to pay for the wood again because my dad has a bunch of this stuff laying around in the garage. I used four pieces of wood on each side to make three identical square frames.

I couldn't get my cat to leave me alone while taking the pictures, so I guess she gets to be famous on the internet.
**These pictures show the back of the frames to give you an idea on how they were put together and how I stapled fabric around the wood frames.

I then went to the fabric store to find some cool fabric to staple around the frames. The cool thing about this was that the store was closing and all fabric was like 75% off. I spent like $3 on my fabric. Awesome I know. I found a cool floral pattern that I wanted to use for two of the squares and then a mustard yellow to use for the third. The only pain with the floral pattern was when it came time to staple it to the frames. I wanted to pull the fabric tight enough around the frames so that it wouldn't sag or show any waves or wrinkles. When I did this without turning them around to look at the final square, the pattern was disstorted because it was pulled too tight. So then I had to redue it a few times to make sure it looked right. Other than that this project was so fun and I love what I made, even if other people don't appreciate it like I do.

Final project. I have them hanging in the entry way of my house. Lovely.

Headboard vs. Bookshelf

Hello again! I hope you enjoyed the picture of my tapestry that I finally posted :-)



This post is going to be about another little project that I did, but for this I didn't spend money on something new because I re-created something that I already owned.



When I bought a bed frame for my new mattress it came with a headboard that I wasn't going to use. I figured I was just going to throw it away or give it to someone that needed one. Before I threw it away or gave it away, I came up with an idea on how to use my headboard in a way that I would like. I'm glad that I decided to keep it around long enough to come up with this.



What I decided to do was turn it into a bookshelf.



The only thing was that my headboard only had one shelf on it so I was going to have to add two more boards to make a decent bookshelf. So I went out into my garage and found some left over wood that my dad had laying around. We didn't have to do much cutting because it turns out the pieces of wood I found were just about perfect. Lucky for me this was a big price cut because I didn't have to spend any money on wood. Also my dad is pretty handy for all the little projects I want to complete. Dads are great.



So once I got the boards cut to the size I needed them to be, I ran across town to the local hardware store and bought some sandpaper and varnish to make the wood match in appearance to the existing headboard. After this was done I got help to finish the project by nailing the boards in place. I decided to use an air powered nail gun so I wouldn't split the wood boards. Thanks again dad.



After the project was done I was so pleased with the results. The woods matched almost perfect and I was actually going to use this piece of furniture in my home. I have it now in my dining room holding books and other random things that don't have any other place to go.

I thought this was the best thing I could have done with the headboard, and if you have materials like I did this would be something fun to do with your spare time and if you aren't already a handyman, I would suggest setting up some bonding time with dad :-)

Tapestries??

Traditional tapestries are woven by hand on a vertical loom. If you were to buy a tapestry you would hang it on your wall like you would a poster or painting. They usually depict a famous painting or interesting pattern. If you were to shop for trapestries you would find them to be very expensive. The pictures I have included are pictures of traditional tapestries, and as you can see the one is of a famous painting and the other is just a unique piece of art. I think that tapestries are a very exciting way to have art in your home because of the unique way they are presented. My less expensive alternative is just as exciting.

About two years ago I stopped at Urban Outfitters and walked on back to their home and decor section. I came across a pile of sheets (like flat bed sheets) with colorful patterns on them, and I thought to myself that this would be great as a wall hanging. I bought a floral printed sheet for less then $20 and went home to try to find a cool way to hang it. Since this sheet is like a normal bed sheet it is really large, and I found that nailing it to my wall would be my best bet. The traditional tapestries usually come on a hanger so its easier to install, but I found this way to work just as well. I draped the sheet in many directions to find a good way to hang it, and I finally got it just the way I wanted it. So now I have a bed sheet on my wall. Sounds funny, I know, but it looks really cool. I have found an inexpensive alternative to a traditional tapestry and I think it gives a lot of charcter to my bedroom wall.

Even if you don't want to spend $2o on a sheet, you could use an old table cloth that has a print on it that you like, or even an old bed sheet that was once used.

Here is the picture of my tapestry that is in my bedroom.

p.s. I had to make my bed to take this picture....