Pottery Barn Placemats to Pillows

DIY Pottery Barn Fall Pillows from placemats for under $7

 

I love shopping Outlet malls for the discounts but when shopping at the Pottery Barn Outlet, swooning over all of the great fall pillow covers, I was a bit shocked that they were still $30 for just the cover and then you had to buy the insert separately.

 

I'm just too cheap for that though so I continued to look around for other great deals and when I came across the table decor and saw the gorgeous fall placemats an idea came to me. I could open up the seams and stuff my own pillows with the placemats!

 

I quickly grabbed a mat and flipped it over to check the price $6.99 each!

Much better than $30 but even better, they were all 20% off!! Now I can get down with that :) I grabbed a few and made my way back to the pillow section to check out the pillow insert prices, ummm yeah, wasn't in the budget, so a trip to Goodwill would be next on the agenda.

 

So after running through Goodwill for some $1 pillows I got to work...

 

I cut open a little seam

 

 

Then cut open the Goodwill pillow and removed the stuffing

 

 

Shoved that stuffing into the opening in the placemat

 

 

Looking good!!

 

 

Now I do know how to sew so I just ran that little corner through the sewing machine, if you however do not have a sewing machine or don't want to sew, you could always buy some steam-a-seam and iron that seam closed.

 

Here they are in all their glory on the front porch

 

 

Not bad for under $7 each pillow!!

 

 

 

 

 See you back tomorrow for the full front porch all decked out for Fall :)

 

 

Linking up with some great parties

 

Birthday gift

It's my party and I'll skydive if I want to, skydive if I want to ;)

For my birthday gift this year the hubby decided to take me skydiving!! On our mini vacay to Pigeon Forge TN we went to an indoor skydiving place and I absolutely loved it so it and was definitely ready to take the real jump.

We went to a place in Cedartown GA called Skydive GA and it was an amazing experience!

On the plane ride up, I was a bit nervous...

 

The hubby, on the other hand, seemed calm as a cucumber

 

 

Once the plane reaches the right height, the instructor stands up with you attached to his chest and jumps, there is no turning back LOL

 

 

 

 

The hubby

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phew. Wind blown but safe and sound back on the ground :)

 

 

It was so much fun and such a great experience. We jumped from just under 15,000 ft and we chose this place to jump from so we could see the Atlanta airport arrival traffic pattern (He is/I was an Air Traffic Controller, we live for planes LOL)

 

Not sure how the hubby is going to top this next year ;)

 

Framimg our master bathroom builder grade mirrors

Frame those boring mirrors with no 45 degree angle cutting required ;)

 

I think that this quick and easy fix made a huge impact in the master bathroom and I'm totally digging it!!

 

Supplies I used:

 

Fluted trim

Miter box and saw (purchased at Home Depot for about $12)

measuring tape

 

Square rosettes

Liquid Nails Heavy Duty adhesive

First step is to apply the Liquid Nails to the square rosettes like so:

Tip: Make sure to keep the adhesive away from the edges or you will see it reflected back on the mirror.

Then set square pieces in each corner held in place with tape

Let that set for a few minutes while you measure the space between the square pieces to know how long to cut the fluted pieces

After you have all your pieces cut

Apply the Liquid Nails to your cut pieces (making sure to stay away from the edges again) and adhere to the mirror and hold in place with painters tape until dry

Once it's all dry, removed the tape and caulk all seams

Doesn't it look so pretty with the new painted countertops and the ORB spray painted fixtures?

Makes actually tolerating liking the white laminate cabinets a litte easier ;)

Thanks for letting me share another one of my home projects

And because I love seeing Before and Afters I'll share where it all started

 

 

 Linking up to

Painted faux granite countertops! Master Bathroom transformation continues

I Painted my countertops and lived to tell the tale ;)

 

Well first a quick apology for the LONG delay from the last post to this one! I had grand plans to blog while on our relaxing TN cabin in the mountains vacation,,,I did not however take into account that my computer wouldn't hold the connection to their internet long enough to even check facebook!!

I have seen quite a few painted countertop tutorials online and decided to try to tackle this project in our master bathroom.

Our countertops started out as basic builder sink/counter faux marble that seems to be ever so popular in these parts.

 

But ended up looking like this:

 

 

No really!! That's my actual painted counter top

 

 

 

I started by covering them with Kilz primer

 

This wasn't too scary because it didn't change the look all that much.

 

And then came the scary

 

You may want to cover your eyes if you frighten easily

 

No, really, cover up them eyes, maybe just peek through a few..

 

 

Using a sea sponge I dabbed on my first color, at this point I almost cried.

 

I thought I royally messed up trying this.

 

They looked absolutely horrid.

 

 

Hey I warned you :)

 

It's going to get worst before it gets better...

 

 

Now I know I warned you at the beginning, that was really just a courtesy to prepare you for the next picture so if you get even a wee bit squeamish at the sight of absolute ugliness, please scroll fast LOL

 

 

 

 

 

Uh, yeah, not much I can say, it was U-G-L-Y

 

I had to force the hubby to stay out for fear he'd run away and never return.

 

But I was not about to let these countertops beat me, oh no!! I was going to forge on and just keep on adding colors.

 

It really couldn't get worst

 

Right? I mean RIGHT?

 

 

Alas, my heartrate was starting to come down.

 

Adding the metallic paint seemed to help calm it down, but still wasn't 'there' yet

 

 

Went over with the lightest color to tone it all down

 

That's what I'm talking about!!

 

 

The hubby's side

 

 

Now to topcoat.

I used Envirotex Lite

Purchased at Michaels with 50% off coupons (used 2 boxes)

 

It's sooooo shiny!!!

And you can see I may have overdone it on the sparkles. Not so obvious in real life.

Thank goodness ;)

 

 

Here you can see how I covered up the cabinets to protect from the topcoat, not the easiest material to work with but definitely do-able even for a novice like me.

 

 

A close up of the 'granite' look

 

 

Not bad for about 36 bucks of material eh?

 

I'll admit the first, second and even third coat I sponged on had me a bit terrifed, I thought I had made a HUGE mistake taking this on but the end result is totally worth those gray hairs I grew freaking out stressing about it ;)

 

A quick look at what it looked like when we moved in

 

And after painting...

 

 

Bought new cabinet hardware and that made a huge impact as well for low cost.

 

 

 

 

I love how it turned out and can't wait to share the next project I tackled in here.

 

Framing the basic builder mirrors with no miter cuts!!

 

Linking up to some great parties: