Let's play catch up!

I know I know, it's been a while. Here is a brief update of what's been going on.

While it was still cold, I made an ear warmer headband from this tutorial by PrudentBaby

I found a great deal on more wooden crates to add to the collection.

We've gone to see this cool bluegrass band called Off the Wagon at the Station Inn. That made me want to learn to play mandolin. 

I made a kinda-sorta costume for Read Across America day. It's supposed to be Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Basically I sewed ears onto this fluffy white jacket I found for $8, and I made a crown.

One of my neighbors lost their kitten so I got to hang out with this cute guy one afternoon.

I got this awesome wreath made from wood shavings that I'd been eyeing at Target, and I found it at TJMaxx for cheaper. Also, you may notice I hung the drop cloth garland above the bed. 

My man had a birthday. (And my Max crown got some extra use as a birthday crown!)

We have been doing some spring cleaning/sorting/simplifying.

The mantle got a spring update.

But the most exciting update is our urban garden that is thriving on our back patio!

We went to Lowe's and stocked up with strawberries, bell peppers, cucumber, zucchini, spinach, romaine lettuce, and a tomato plant. We also got this beautiful anemone flower and a plant called sea pink. 

Luckily we already had most of the pots we needed. We repurposed an old kitchen island what we no longer had room for as a plant holder. (You might notice it was on the far side of the bed as an ugly side table)

Now they are getting so big! It's been great since our patio gets full sun, and that's exactly what they need.

And we have evidence of our first fruits!

I tried my hand at tea dying. My first victim: a pair of lace curtains.

One found a home behind the ladder. The other is on the lone window in our bedroom. It is lovely to wake up to each morning. 

My next victim was our new set of sheets. Hopefully I'll do a full post about this process. 

Oh, and I collected a bunch of those little pink helicopters. They will now and forevermore be known as "fairy wings." Because that's what they look like. And I'll tell my kids that the fairies shed their old wings at the beginning of each spring and get a new pair. Or not. 

So yeah. Now you are up to date on my life. Kinda. 

Tomorrow I start working as a young toddler teacher at the preschool. I have been explusively in the infant rooms since November, and you better believe I'm going to miss holding those itty bitties and hanging out with my infant coworkers. The plus side of moving rooms is that I'm getting awesome hours! I'll be off at 4 every day. I hope that helps me be more productive this summer.

We'll see.

Stay tuned,

Haley

DIY Mantle: Warming up the Naked Fireplace

Sorry for the lag, guys. I got a little caught up between a weekend at home and a weekend of pure fun and relaxation (and a week in between).

 Quite a few changes have occurred between our playground adventure and now. 

The biggest change is our new mantle. It has added such a sense of homey-ness to our little old apartment! 

For some reason, the fireplace in our apartment (big selling point for us, btw) is just on a blank wall. It has a nice white frame and painted black insides, but it just exists. Which is a crying shame considering it is such a nice feature, and it is on one of the huge vaulted-ceiling walls. It just felt.... naked

(This is the only picture I have of the wall pre-mantle. I guess it was shy because it was so naked)

And here is how we did it. 

-We bought a length of 1x6 from Lowe's (And they cut it to size for us, of course)

-and 2 decorative L-brackets.

-We already had stain from the coffee table project

Here are my raw materials 

(On our new balcony furniture, but we will get to that in another post)

We intentionally got a board that had lots of knots and "character" to it.

But as straight as we could find. Lots of jokes were made.

This time I used an old towel instead of a paintbrush. It was equally as messy. But I work at a preschool so I am totally over caring about messes. Wood stain on my hands is much less of a concern after snot and poop.

I love the color that it turned out to be! More than the coffee table, really. I didn't use the ebony undertone.

And I stained the L-brackets. (No pictures. Just use your imagination)

Here it is again "Before" with all sorts of project materials in the way of what could be a beautiful fireplace.

I made Josh hold this at a dozen different heights. 

In the end, about 3 inches above the fireplace frame was the location that won our hearts.

The brackets have a receiver built in, so all we did was unsuccessfully look for the studs and drive in a screw. We then decided to include an anchor and felt much better about the life expectancy of whatever ends up living on the mantle. (So it wouldn't fall)

So it looked like this for a few days. 

You know how patient I am?... well the stain wasn't even dry at this point. But I was so anxious to get it on the wall that I just covered the edge that touched the wall in painters tape. Worked like a charm, by the way. 

Remember that big ole frame? Yeah... We had plans for that. More on that later.

Now for a detail pic:

See the swirly L-bracket?! So purty.

 Budget Breakdown:

Lumber: 1x6.........$7.00

2 L-Brackets.......$12.74

Stain.......................Free

Total..................~$20.00

And what became of that frame? Well, I'll show you!

We spray painted it (The pictures above were already sporting a cream colored spray paint. But I wasn't diggin' it.)

We moved on to a light blue (A nice accent for our very tan-brown-cream living room)

It was looking awfully "Baby Boy"ish, so I made sure to distress it lots with our handy dandy orbital sander. Better. 

Then we wrapped the whole thing in chicken wire.

I'm really lacking on pictures of this process, but basically we 

1. rolled out some chicken wire, 
2. used all-purposed snips to snip a line we thought was approximately the correct length, 
3. put the frame face down
4. (carefully) wrapped the wire around the edge (pulled it tight)
5. and staple-gunned it on the back

Except we under-estimated a tad on the length, so on one side it didn't reach the back. We just decided that would be the top and no one would see it anyway. Except you. No big.

And here is the front: (bad lighting for all these... I apologize)

Before

After! Nice and level... YAY!

So now to decorate that behemoth sucker.

I have a feeling it will have many different faces throughout its life above my mantle.

Here is the birth of the first one.

Anyone remember these?! I made these moss letters for our wedding. 

Here is proof:

So I removed the orange ribbon and added lace in its place.

Naked mantle

All situated. 

Left details

Right details (I love my felt birdie)

 Josh picture of details

A very fulfilled couple.

(oh, and this was all after we took a hike through Percy Warner Park...)

So we are allll ready for autumn to roll back around so we can utilize our now-beautiful fireplace. And Christmas so we can finally hang stockings!

A couple other changes that deserve a nod are our new lamp shades from Target

Once we (I) saw these, we (I) was hooked. We (Josh) promptly returned the plain jane ivory shades to Lowe's and we fell in love with these burlap drum shades.

And the ladder found a home!

I'm still open to ideas on how to spruce it up. Please comment below if you can think of something!

There are a couple more projects to fill you in on, but that will have to wait for another day.

Stay tuned!

Haley