Mud Pie Reviews

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Craft Room Art Work

I’ve always liked Pottery Barn’s typography wall art from a few years ago. They offered this vintage-looking typewriter art …

and this big, bold number canvas:

I love the idea of this artwork in a crafting space, so I’ve put it in my inspiration board to reference as I create my craft room:

This week, I re-created the artwork on huge 2’x3’ canvases:

First, I painted both canvases (Sherwin Williams' Fresh Linen) and then I put down my letters and numbers which I cut on repositionable contact paper using my Cricut. Next I painted black over everything. When that was dry, I peeled off the letters/numbers. For the typewriter art, I then used a liner brush to create the light circles just inside the black circles. Once everything was dry, I gave it a light coat of glaze (Ralph Lauren’s Smoke color) to soften up the colors.

Theirs ran around $200-$300 each. I bought my canvases on a 50% sale for $12.50 each at Hobby Lobby.

A few more things to do to the room before a final reveal with lots more pics, but it’s coming along nicely!

Thanks for visiting!

Linking to
Beneath My Heart

Posted in : crafts, DIY, home decor, painted signs, paintings

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

End of School Party Favors for less than $10

As the school year winds down, I created a little gift for the Kindergarteners in my daughter’s class.

Such an easy gift to put together! I made 24 favors and each included 2 sidewalk chalks, a packet of Koolaid, and a bookmark with a fun summer tag for less than $10. (That’s only .41 cents each!) Here’s the breakdown:

The bulk package of Koolaid included 65 packets for $6, but I was able to split it with another Room Mom for another class and still have some leftover.

The bookmark stuck out past the opening, so I stapled the tag over the opening to keep things from falling out:

I created the tags myself (though you can find many downloadable ones on Pinterest), and printed them on my computer.

Koolaid … sidewalk chalk … who’s ready for summer?!

Thanks for visiting!

Posted in : crafts, DIY, school parties, summer

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Desk Chair Makeover

My daughter and I are re-decorating her room. We’re off to a great start with many new things, but today I wanted to share with you how we transformed a sad old card-table chair into a sassy pink and black desk chair.

We started with this:

Not a bad chair. When I was in college, I studied in this chair. When I was in my thirties, this chair saw many a Bunko game. Now in my 40s, this chair is my daughter’s desk chair. And daughter is into pink. Hot pink. So this dated card table chair needed a facelift!

The back of the chair only had 3 screws holding the back in place, and the seat only had five screws.

Once the back and seat pieces were removed, I spray painted the chair hot pink.

When I took the screws out and moved the backing aside, it looked like this:

I used a screwdriver and pliers to remove the bajillion staples off the back:

It’s slow going because like I said there were a bajillion:

After I removed the old fabric, I cut a piece of the new fabric marking my measurements with chalk on the wrong side so I’d know where to cut.

Next I placed the back and the foam onto the fabric and stapled all the way around. Honestly, this is where I turned over the project to my husband as my staple gun broke and he used an electric one to finish.

We used the same screws to put everything back together and now daughter has a hot pink desk chair.

Thanks for visiting!

Linking up to:

Beneath My Heart

Posted in : before and after, DIY, do-it-yourself projects, home decor

Friday, April 27, 2012

My New Porch

Remember last fall, when I told you all about the meanings behind haint blue porches? And then I inundated you with pictures of blue porch ceilings? Like this gorgeous one?

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And this one?

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And this one?

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I shared with you how haint blue, being the color of the sky, is supposed to deter spiders and such from building nests.

And I also shared with you how gross our patio had become with cobwebs, dirt dauber nests, etc. I cringe when I remember how ours looked:

And I vowed that I too was going to go “haint blue”…

Well, we finally did it! We went from this:

to THIS!

It’s even a bit more subtle than the photos show. We wanted something with enough blue tint to do the trick, but also be inviting and not too overwhelming.

We narrowed it down to four color choices (all Martha Stewart colors):

So my hubby and I talked, and we eliminated Aegean Blue first because it had a lot of green undertones. And it was a bit too intense for us. We also eliminated Forest Lichen (discontinued, but I have the formula if you want it). We thought it had too much gray in it for this project. (But, it’s gorgeous in our master bath.)

So it was between Heavenly Blue, which I read somewhere was a recommended haint blue color, and Salt Glaze, which we thought might be too light.

First, we went with Heavenly Blue because it had a bit more “sky blue” color to it. Too much in fact. After the cutting in, I told my rock star dad, who was doing the painting, to stop. I may, or may not, have shed some tears. But I knew it was not going to be the right color. =(

So, being the most. patient. dad. ever., he did what I asked. He stopped painting, and we swapped out the Heavenly Blue paint for Salt Glaze.

And now, it’s PERFECT. Salt Glaze is a perfect pale sky blue color. It’s gorgeous. I’m contemplating painting another room this color.

And, I can’t stop going out to the patio to look at its gorgeousness….excuse the ladders but I couldn’t wait to take pics!