Lydia's Dresser

Theron's grandparents rescued five of these dressers from the apartments they used to own. Until recently, this one was sitting in their garage storing odds and ends most people wouldn't consider saving. I have been waiting for the renters to move out so I could go and save it.
The hardest part about refinishing old dressers is the non-standard hole centers on the drawer pulls. I decided (a little late) to fill the holes and drill new ones so I wasn't limited to one style of pull. I also filled the center hole on the top drawers because knobs aren't cheap.

First coat of primer. I ended up priming at least twice and then three coats of paint. I meticulously sanded between every coat. The top could probably use another, but its good enough for me.

Logan wanted to paint, so I gave him the awesome responsibility of painting the back. He loved it!

All finished with the new hardware. I ended up going to eBay for the knobs and pulls and am happy with the result. I think I should have sprung for two more knobs, but Theron thinks it would have been too much. Really he just doesn't like me second guessing myself. :)
What do you think? It's for Lydia's room and I'm going for a shabby-chic look. Should I sand down the edges? Add two more knobs? Or just leave it alone?

A desk & a quilt

Here is the desk we refinished. I had great plans to stain the wood, but it turned out to be somewhat damaged and not that pretty. Theron was quite happy to paint it Eagle's colors and is going to get a vinyl Eagle head for the top.
Here is the quilt. I bought the fabric forever ago (a charm pack) and started it when I was pregnant with Logan. I wanted to stipple the quilting, but decided just to do a grid. Once I went one way across the quilt it took me two weeks to work up the courage to try the cross way. Its not perfect, but I love how it turned out.

Barrettes

In February my cousin Alexie tought us how to make these fun hairclips. One of the girls out here is expecting a girl any day and two others have daughters already, so we all got together and had a little party. It was fun to see what everyone came up with!

Buttercup Bag

I found this awesome outdoor fabric at Walmart and bought it before I could stop myself. Luckily I found this cute tutorial for the buttercup bag over at Made by Rae. My new machine is in the shop so I have been using my mom's retired Pfaff. It had a hard time with some of the top-stitching because of the heavy fabric, but if you don't look too close its not too bad.

Random Crafts

This past month I have been on a crafting kick. I found a couple of blogs that post cute crafts along with simple tutorials and I have been hooked. It all started with these:

Valentine table runners. Sadly, the first two projects I started are the only ones left unfinished. I bought the fabric on sale after Vday and I am almost finished with the lower one, but I don't like how it turned out.

The couches in my living room are large and blue (and free), and I haven't really wanted to decorate my room around them. Recently I decided I could do some tan on tan neutral pillows to maybe soften the blue, but throw pillows are so expensive! So, last week I was shopping at DI and saw this awesome fabric! It was a little scary buying fabric at DI, but I think they turned out perfect. I think the whole project cost me less than $14 and I can still make another pillow.
This chair was another DI find. I want to repaint it, but for now I just recovered it, added some extra padding, and put it in my foyer. A $15 project.

This one isn't really crafty, but kind of. I had an extra piece of wood hanging around so I made this sign for Logan's room about a year ago. Theron always called Logan "our little guy". I just found the font online, printed it out on regular paper, cut it out to make stencils and painted in the letters. It looked lonely on the wall so I painted some picture frames white and randomly hung them below.

Another cheap project: a hooded towel. When I was at my aunt's Bear Lake condo a few weeks ago, she had all white towels with a few bright blue ones to add color and I thought it was so pretty. I found these blue towel sets at WalMart on clearance for $4, hung one set and made this hooded towel out of the other. I just googled "make a hooded towel" and found these directions: http://infarrantlycreative.blogspot.com/search/label/Hooded%20Towel

I've seen a lot of homemade baby shoes recently and I didn't think they could be that hard, so I googled. I found a couple of patterns, but this one made the most sense: http://www.family-centered.com/needleworks/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/babyshoetutorial.pdf. They can be really cute if you add embellishments, buttons, straps, bows, etc. I also added fabric paint on the soles for a little traction.

Latest Projects

I finally found a new duvet cover that would go well with my brown walls and black furniture. I found it online and it was such a great deal I bought two so I could make a dust ruffle and maybe curtains. I thought it would be a bright, rusty orange color but it turned out to be barn red. Luckily it still works in the room and I love it. It has some grey/tan and light blue in the paisley design so I got some blue sheets and some blue fabric to make a throw pillow. I also make the bolster.

Also, I got my pictures up. It was quite the ordeal involving stairs, a huge ladder, and a bumbling husband (nothing a bandaid and some spackling can't fix), but it is finished. Can you tell I haven't found the level yet?