A black and white story.

I bought this amazing mini chest at a "marriage" sale about a month ago.  I thought the idea of the marriage sale was pretty cute. The new couple had previously been married and were getting rid of all their stuff from their old relationship.  Great for me because I totally scored on this find and a larger chest with mirror.  I also purchased a sweet little frenchy set of nesting tables that I will be featuring soon.  So here is the before of Miss Amelia.

This chest is built with fabulous maple and extremely sturdy.  I planned on painting it from the beginning, but Soup put up a great fight.  He's all about the stain!  It did have a nice grain, but the warm rustic look just isn't what I'm goin for in Littlest's room.  Here's how it turned out!

 I am super happy with the clean chic look!  I'm sure it will look fabulous in her room! As you can see, this is not the icy purple, feminine little girl room I want for Littlest Miss.  This is in fact our sun room.  It's my photo room because it has the best light in our house and has the ONLY decently painted walls in our entire house.  Sad that there is only about 5 sq ft of nice paint, but still... :)  I'm workin on it!  I hope to have some energy to finish Bub's room this week, and then you can see some house progress! Yay!

Linkin here! 

Let there be light!

I've been itching to start this lamp since the second I saw it sitting on the table amidst the junk at the yard sale.  It painted up VERY nicely, but I knew I couldn't use the old shade because I didn't like the size.  I wanted to slim the whole silhouette.  I was wanting just a plain cylindrical shade, no sloping, so I figured I could make one-easy enough... Did I have poster board? No.  Matte board? No.  Any type of flexible plastic something? No....... Soupy finally said, "Did you ever think about going to the store to buy one?"  Where's the creative, Susie Homemaker, I did it all by myself fun in that? Well, guess what? I caved and went to Target.  And guess what else? They didn't have what I wanted.  So I settled. 

I absolutely LOVE it! I am soooo happy with the results! I hope this new lamp inspires you girls to go out and snatch up that fabulously figured but maybe not so made up find and fix her up yourself!  Here's how I did it.  First, I removed the old lampshade.  You screw off the top screw and remove the shade.  I then taped off the piece that holds the light bulb and the base of the cord, where it attaches to the lamp.  I spray painted the entire base a high gloss black.   I couldn't leave well enough alone with a white shade, I wanted to jazz it up a bit.  I couldn't find any gross grain ribbon in my stash, so I used some ric rac.  I may change it later, we'll have to see how it looks when the whole room is complete.  So, I hot glued the ric rac along the bottom and top edges and then popped on a flower with a bead accent.

Before I attached the new shade, I had to modify the lamp a bit because there was a large metal framework protecting the light bulb.  I removed that, then had to remove the light bulb to slide the new shade to where it could sit under the bulb(weird placement I know, I should have taken pictures-but you can figure it out if you need to!).  Hope you like!

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Zebra Craze

So, just had to share these photos because I am so so so IN LOVE! These chairs look so fabulous at my dining room table! If that room looked anywhere near presentable, I would show you.  I don't think you want to see photos of a room that has polka dotted walls because of removed floor to ceiling mirrors!! To do list keeps growing: texture, painting, decorating...  Anyhow, here is the before of my dingy garage sale chairs!

Here is the after!

Lovely! I have a few people interested in these, so hopefully they are on their way to a new home!

Also, I painted the lamp a chic glossy black but I'm not going to share until I've got the shade. I can't decide if I want the PBTeen one or if I want to make my own! It'll be a surprise!

Vintage

I looked up the meaning of vintage this morning because for some reason I associate the word vintage with having to be soooooo old.  Like before the 70's.  But the actual meaning is: old, old fashioned, dated.  Interesting.  In that case, I'm definitely a vintage piece collector! So, check out these awesome vintage chairs the kids and I found at a yard sale this morning!

Littlest was so proud of our find. She just had to be in the photo! My favorite find is the lamp.  As I said before, I'm trying to copy a PB Teen room for Little Miss and this lamp is exactly what I've been looking for! I'll paint it glossy black and slap a chic shade on her and call it good!

(via PBteen)

Stay tuned for these updates! If you're interested in the chairs let me know and I can cover them to your needs!

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Sew Day

My biggest Lily Jean Designs client is my Sis.  She put in a onsie order for two different friends who are both having boys.  One dad is a fireman having twins! Both boys names start with Z, so here is what I did for them!

I still need to stitch the ladder onto the fire truck!

This is the next onsie.  Just a simple initial, those are my favorites!

In between working on these two tops, I needed an extra creative boost and Little Mister needed some more shitrs, so we made this one for him!

He also wanted to share his new trick! :)

Happy Tuesday!

I linked here!

Temporary Mantle

Here is the reveal of my lovely new mantel.  I don't think this is exactly how I want it yet, but it's coming along!  Adds nice color to our dingy living room!

Remember the tragic before life of the shutters?

Hope you enjoy! That's all for today, I've got lots of projects in the works and Little Miss is in camp with Soup this week so stay tuned for some freeze tag action shots!

Linkin up!

Interiors

Before we moved into the new house, number 1 on my list was to get the Little Missies' rooms done.  I wanted them to have a smooth transition into their rooms for privacy and sweet slumber.  Well, we've been here a month and Littlest Miss only has strips of wall paper peeled off one wall.  Little Miss' room is still an 80's nautical paradise.  Soup and I still have a "camp out" style mattress that the Missies sleep on every night.  I tried once to put them in their own rooms, but honestly I don't have the strength or the heart to battle with them 3 hours a night! I hold onto the thought that if they helped decorate a precious, fun place to call their own, maybe they wouldn't struggle with being on their own so much.  Here are some of my ideas for their rooms:


I LOOOOOVE these designs from PB TEEN, but all in the icy purple color that I want for Littlest's room.



I am crazy about the puffy pom pom duvet!  I am totally loving the ruffly rose pillow in this pic below!





I am really stuck on the feminine texture of these though! I hope to figure out a way to pull it all together in an inexpensive knock off DIY way!







I have tons more ideas for the girls' rooms, but until the money tree in our front yard drops its bountiful goodness, I'll just keep drooling over these photos!

Onto my contribution to the House for the day.  It's a decor addition to our living room.  But it came from our master bedroom, which was once the family room, are you still with me? :)  When I walked in and saw these babies, I was foaming at the mouth and already planning their next life!

Since they are still drying in my front entry (where most of my painting action happens), you'll have to wait till tomorrow to see their new home!

MMM mmm mmm, delicious!  I just love this turquoise! Hope Soup does too!  :)