Pennant banner garland

I had the best intentions this year of decorating my house like Christmas spirit threw up all over the place. But it pretty much ended with a couple wreaths, and mantle and my Christmas tree. Baby steps I guess.

I did make this pennant banner for my Christmas tree though. I absolutely love how it turned out. And it took about an hour.

I used double fold bias tape from Hobby Lobby, cut out the triangles, and hot glued them into the binding. Easy peasy. 

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. Between my clients, kids, cooking and cleaning I haven't had much time for my own projects. I'm almost finished with one clients kitchen and dining room though so I'll have pictures for you after Christmas!

Thanks for not giving up on me!

Sweater wreath

This is the post I said I would do. On Sunday. Unfortunately fate has brought me a wicked cold so I've been meeting my kids basic survival needs the past couple of days and that's pretty much it.

I still don't know how I feel about it. I love the sweater base. I love the burlap ribbon. I love the berries. All together though, I'm not sure.

Oh well, I'll want to change it out in January again anyways.

Feature and Katie

I was featured at Knock off Decor today for some Christmas pillows I made a couple years ago. You can check it out here.  Thanks for the feature!

I finished my textile class this past Friday. Here's a pic of my final project. I was assigned a "coastal bungalow". I really enjoyed everything about the class except staying up till 3am finishing huge notebooks full of fabric samples and images.

I can't for the freaking life of me turn this picture around. And now I want to karate chop my computer so I'm just going to move on. Turn your head to the right. It'll help stretch your neck. Very ergonomical and stuff.

I've also been working on a new project. I was contacted by a client a couple of weeks ago to redesign her kitchen, dining, and living room. I'm almost finished with it, the cabinets are being refinished as we speak! I can't wait to show you all next week!

Katie is gone :(. We did one last horrah project that I'll show you tomorrow. Here's a before picture...

Check out that sexy sweater! She tried to class it up as much as she could but it looks way better as a wreath on my front door. Also, come back Katie. I miss you. Oregon is cold and full of vampires, Arizona is the place to be!

A few Christmasish pics

I've been getting in the Holiday spirit lately. I'm usually kind of a grinch about Christmas decorating. In fact, this is the first year I haven't complained about putting up a tree. Here are some shots of the minimal Holiday decorating I've done.

I'm planning on making some mercury glass ornaments to add to my tree. The tree is a pencil tree my friend Jamie let me use. She moved into a house that had a lower ceiling so she traded me for my short fat one. Little did she know, only half my lights worked. I'm real sorry Jamie. Sucker.

I picked up this door at the last barn sale. It used to be in an old school house and is a beautiful gray color. I wanted to use this gear wreath on my front door but it sounds like a freaking car accident every time my kids open and shut the door. So here it will sit until I install a doggie door for my kids. Just kidding. Or am I...

3 Christmas mantles

Katie and I were playing around with my mantles this week. We came up with 3 different mantles that I liked for different reasons.

The first had a simple, fun, vintage and COLORFUL theme.

I used some letters I bought at the last barn sale to spell noel, and used vintage Christmas lights I found at Goodwill in Mesa. It was a little too colorful for me though.

The second was all white and green.

I ran by Home Depot last week and picked up some Christmas tree clippings from the garden section (they give them away for free) and stacked some white frames in the back to give it a little depth. Still wasn't really feeling it...

The third hit the spot for me. It's more romantic/ antique.

I had a beautiful antique ceiling tin I was trying to find the perfect spot for. I got the garland from Hobby Lobby and found some other goodies from around the house to put on it.

 I made the stockings out of rugs from Ikea. They're $3.99 per rug and got 3 peices (1 1/2 stockings) out of each. I used burlap ribbon for the top. I have to warn you though, if you decide to do this, the rug frays like crazy so either use no fray, surge the edges, or zig zag like crazy when you sew them. Or a combination of all of those just to be safe. It's a great inexpensive way to get nice thick stockings though. They had them in multiple colors and stripes as well.

New paint and chandeliers

Thanksgiving weekend was a productive one here. My lover hung a couple chandeliers over my dining table, we finished painting the great room and we only had one casualty! My four year old fell off the 3rd step of the ladder and broke his arm. I am, as we speak, trying desperately to keep him off the trampoline until we can at least get the hard cast put on. I'm sure it's just the first of many broken bones with 3 rowdy boys.

Here's a picture of the new color in our great room and the chandeliers. I absolutely love how much light it brings into the room. The paint color is a perfect grayish tan. It's called wheat bread from Behr.

My bestie Katie is here for a couple weeks. We've been busy breaking up fights between our kids and crafting. Her visits always go by way too fast. Today we're working on a fun Christmas mantle posting for later this week today and heading out to Ikea for a client. Should be a good day!

How to get that vintage look with fabric

I've been wanting some red cross pillows for the boys room. I thought a pop of red would look great in their room. My sister pinned these a couple days ago and I decided to go for it and make them.

Here's the link if you want to just buy them

I bought 3 oatmeal colored linen look pillows that Ikea just came out with. They were $13 a piece. (They also have them in white :) They're 24'' x 24'' which was just the size I needed. I wanted my pillows to look like I actually used vintage fabric, instead of sewing on a felt cross so I decided to paint the crosses on.

I experimented a little this time though. I taped off the crosses onto the front of the pillows and stuck a piece of cardboard behind them (so the paint wouldn't bleed through). Then I mixed paint medium into 3 different containers, 3 different ways.

This is the first pillow. I added the least amount of paint medium into the paint for this one, a 2 part paint, 1 part medium, or 2:1. (this is what the bottle tells you to do) And I let it dry the longest before I washed it. I washed all three at the same time so the one I finished with first had the longest to dry. The color was more vibrant and didn't wash out as much in the wash.

This is the second. I added 1 part paint, 1 part medium, or 1:1. When I washed it out, more of the paint came off but it still had a lot of the vibrancy left.

The third pillow was 1 part paint, 2 parts medium, or 1:2. It had the least amount of time to dry and the most amount of medium. It came out of the dryer with the most amazing complete vintage look that I didn't think could be replicated.

So, in conclusion my dear friends, my hypothesis was correct. (that's a direct quote from my 6 year old) The more medium you use, the more your paint will come out. Adding the medium also softens the paint and makes it appear printed on the fabric. You could never tell that I used simple craft paint. I love them.

Great buy

I went into Anthropologie the other night. This is absolutely one of my favorite stores. But on a realistic budget, I can only shop there for ideas.

I love love love the bedding there too. Well, it must have been my luck night. Because I found this king sized duvet...

On clearance for this much...

I also got 3 euro shams for $11.95 each. It's EXACTLY the same color as my walls. Lucky me! I loved my all white bedding, but I love it mixed in with the white too. SCORE!!! I took a quick pic of it on my bed.  It's a little too much gray now though, I'm thinking of doing some paint treatment on the headboard wall. Any ideas would be appreciated! I loved the stripes in my old master, I'll probably do something like that.

Painting chippy furniture

I got a crazy hair the other day and decided to paint the light pink hutch that used to be in Paysens room white. It was a hard decision because it had original chipping paint. How do you feel about painting furniture with great patina? I used to not be able to tell the difference, but now I can spot a fake from a mile away.

I didn't want to take that great patina away, but I'm glad I did. It just wasn't the right color. I like it WAY better white. I should kick myself for waiting so long to do it. I painted the back a light grey color. I also knew I wanted to hang a couple wreaths on the doors but when I went to Hobby Lobby, they were huge and way to expensive. So I ended up getting 3 sprigs (I think that's what they're called) and wiring them together into a circle. Each sprig was $2, so each wreath ended up being $6 total. 

Check out my new dining table. I got it and two chairs at the barn sale for a whopping $40. I refinished the top immediately so I could use it but I still need to paint the base the same white as the hutch and reupholster the two chairs that came with it. The color on the walls will also soon be painted a lighter, grayer tan. That's why I haven't hung anything on the wall yet.

 I also decided to move around some light fixtures in the house. I'm getting not one, but TWO chandeliers above my dining table. Then I can really smack around some friends when we sit down to play monopoly deal. Have you ever played that? I highly recommend it.

Lastly, I don't know if you noticed, but I added some features to my blog on the right. You can now subscribe to be notified via e-mail when I update, search my blog for key words, and view my most popular postings! All so I can make looking at my blog user friendly enough for my mom. Just kiddin. I love you mom.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

So I have a winner. I realize this giveaway is open for another hour but I figured if you procrastinated this much, you're probably not going to find out until like next month even if you do win.

Onto the winner. I used my best friend in Texas as a number generator. Don't worry, I already made her two of them. She has no interest in cheating so she would win. Anyways, she said..... 18. I almost made her pick a different number because I got this e-mail from the winner and I didn't know if I wanted to break her losing streak.


"Ok, I NEVER win anything, I'm a total loser.  Seriously, we used to have drawings at my work for Christmas, and they would have 152 tickets and 150 prizes and I wouldn't win.  I'm not kidding."


It made me laugh. There you have it Shireen Olsen. I broke your crappy curse. I'll e-mail you with more info.

And thanks to all who participated in the giveaway! I'm thinking you all deserve a super easy tutorial on how to make one yourselves!

Veterans Day

I don't talk here very often about my real life. But since veterans day is coming up, I thought I'd share with you a little of why it means something more to me now.

I always thought of a veteran as someone all old with a leather vest that has lots of patches. But turns out, a veteran is anyone who's gone to war. Which means I have my very own veteran now. My husband flies Blackhawk helicopters for the army and he deployed to Iraq for a year. Here's a picture of him in his tiny room.

This is how I spoke to my husband for an entire year. I would like to personally kiss the person who invented webcam.

There were so many times during my husbands deployment that I questioned why he was gone. Why did he leave me, pregnant with our 4th child, to go to some base out in the middle of nowhere for an entire year? What was he fighting a war for? Was it all worth it?

I'm sure that for my husband, he had known those answers for a while. I honestly believe he has always had a deep pride for our country and he is the perfect man to lead our soldiers in war. But it wasn't until he got home that those questions were answered for me.

It wasn't until I saw this.

My husband, the love of my life, marching in formation home to me. I knew that no matter how many sleepless nights I had, no matter how often I cried from missing him so much, it was all worth it. I felt my heart swell with pride for my country, my great state of Arizona, and my family.

This is what I remember every veterans day now. I remember the hardest year of my life and the sacrifices that so many amazing men and women make to fight for our freedom. I hope on veterans day you can take the time to think about a young soldier in his little metal box in the middle of nowhere who is there to fight for you.

Chevron Frame Give Away!

I had so much interest in the chevron frames I made for the barn sale this weekend that I decided to give one away on my blog! All you have to do is become a follower if you're not already, and leave a comment with your preferred color (black, pink, yellow, light gray, red... heck, it can be pretty much any color).

If you post about the giveaway on facebook or your blog, it'll give you extra entries, just make sure you let me know in your comments.

P.S. the frames are 24" x 24". They're HUGE! Good luck, I'll pick the winner on Friday!

* I've gotten a few e-mails saying they can't make a comment on this posting. If you can't, just shoot me an e-mail at nikki_grandy@yahoo.com with your entry*

Barn sale pics

Well, another barn sale has come and gone. I unfortunately came home with more than I went with because I kept buying other peoples stuff! That was hard to explain to my husband ;) It was a huge success, thanks to all that came. Thanks, most of all, for braving the giant Haboob that came through Friday afternoon. Curse that mother nature for sending us a storm!

The next sale will be the first weekend in March. The historical district in Mesa puts on a weekend event called Lehi days complete with a carnival, great food, a rodeo and other activities and we're having it the same weekend! It should be great fun! And more importantly, the weather should be B-E-A utiful!

Here are some pictures of my favorite booths from the sale. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!