Anti-barking Collar

My Westie loves to bark. She barks at just about anything that goes past our house and since we live on a busy corner, she barks a lot. It’s annoying to ME and I like her so I imagine our neighbors were starting to hate her. Enter the Guardian anti-bark collar that spritzes lemon scented stuff and smells like lemon Pledge. I read that this is the best collar for Westies and decided she need to have one.

She hates it.

We love it. It’s been providing moments of entertainment and just like my mother used to tell me, i took a video so it would last longer. I’ve never posted a video before and in this one you get to hear my cackle. I have two laughs. The laugh I do because something is funny and the cackle I do because something is funny at someone’s expense…

She’s learning quickly and even though she hasn’t worn it long, she’s barking less. It was a pia to remove from the packaging and set up etc etc., but hopefully it’s worth it.

Edited: February 28th, 2010

Fireplace Wall

I worked on it a bit yesterday and painted the fireplace wall. It had a green square of paint that had been covered by a mirror and the rest of the wall was this flesh colored eww. The whole thing just really didn’t look good. My arms hurt though so I put it to the side for a little while. I did what I could yesterday but ran out of paint (OH noes!) so it doesn’t have its final coat on yet. Since I am painting a hallway this color too and I have to remove wallpaper before I paint, I’m waiting to finish this wall so I can paint it all at once. Until then, the wall looks like this

It doesn’t look bad, but it’s not finished either. My house is a work in progress though so I’m okay with it not being done right away. I think the giant clock looks better now but I need to put some numbers or something up so its easier to tell the time. We’ve kicked around a couple ideas but ultimately didn’t like any of them so I’m leaving it as is until we figure out what we want to do to it. We may replace the hands with an actual oversized clock. idk. we’ll see I guess.

I also have an idea for the mantel that I’m going to try out this weekend. If it’s great, I’ll share photos… If it’s not great, I’ll share photos too. Why not let other learn from my decorating errors?

I have a couple things to do before tomorrow because tomorrow is my friend’s 21st birthday and he’s having dinner with some of his friends at my house. It’ll be fun!

Edited: February 25th, 2010

Spray Painting a Chandelier or lamp

AKA lights in the living room. The living room gets a lot of natural light due to its 6 windows but when it’s overcasting and cloudy, the room can look a little dark and gloomy. I’ve been slowly working on things for it so that I have more lighting in that room. One major issue is that there are no ceiling lights. None at all. The cost of putting them in? No idea, but it’s not something we wanted to do right now. we want to settle on how to use the room before we go adding permanent light fixtures.

Enter my favorite place, The Salvation Army. They have half off sales all the time and I picked up a chandelier on a whim. It was $3.50 which was great. It was also tacky brass which was not great. I took it home and put it in the basement and forgot about it. With the recent living room makeover, I decided something should be done with it. So I grabbed a can of spray paint that Susan gave me when she moved and spray painted the thing all white. Well… I tried a couple colors. Oil rubbed bronze like the dining room one, really pale blue, darker blue…. I have a lot of spray paint. I wanted something fun and punchy but none of my colors were looking right. I went with white and called it good. It may eventually be antiqued to go for that shabby chic look, but for not it’s good and I can live with it.

I rewired the light using a kit I bought at Lowes yesterday (on sale for $2.50!). Yes. *I* rewired the lamp. I had to put it down at one point because it was frustrating, but it turned out great. The only really frustrating part was putting the pieces back together because they didn’t want to stick. I’m good now though.

I then recovered the “candle stick” tubes that make it look like you have candles in your chandelier. The final result looks like this.

It is far too close to the wall but that’s where there were hooks already. Cody said he’d hang it further out from the wall later but I’m too short to do that on my own. Luckily since I did everything else on my own, Cody doesn’t mind hanging it out further for me. I also want to make a cord cover out of some fun fabric because I think the chain is just tacky looking. I think it *may* be too small for the area. I’m not sure yet. We’ll have to think on it some more once it’s in the correct spot. I have light now though!

I also spray painted a brass standing lamp. It’s now teal and lives by the couches. The light can swing either direction so it can provide light for either couch. YAY!

Next up on the list? Move the computer to Cody’s computer room. He’s taking it and bought me a laptop. Laptops are easier at conventions and my current computer is only 6 months old but his computer is like 5 years old. The computer guy shouldn’t have a 5 year old computer. Z is getting his desk back and he doesn’t know it yet but he’s also having a computer put in his room. He’ll be so excited. This means I have no desk area any more. I have like little creative spots around the house instead. I’m looking forward to sitting on the front porch this spring and being on my laptop while I people watch. I’ll also be able to lay in the hammock in the backyard while the dogs are playing. It’ll be nice

I’m also working on a chair replacement for the front living room. My Susan is right and the current chair just doesn’t match so it’s going away and something new will take its place.

Also going away? My death trap of a fireplace. GRR previous owners GRR for not disclosing that the fireplace isn’t actually vented. wtg.

Edited: February 24th, 2010

Freaking Cold

My house is freaking cold today. It was around 48 degrees this morning inside my house and eventually warmed to 54. EWWW. A part on our boiler broke and so the boiler auto shut off so that gas wouldn’t fill up the house which is a good thing but I’m cold!

So I called ahs (our home warranty) and within 10 min Carrier of Warrensburg called to set up an appointment. I explained the temperature of the house and they had someone out right away. He’s been here for about 2 hours now and I’ve had quite the education on our house. He’s been very kind and professional and didn’t make me feel stupid for all the stuff I don’t know about on the house. He even wore boot covers on his shoes so he didn’t mess up my floors. He fixed the boiler part and replaced filters on our systems. He also checked the heating unit that lives in the crawl space of the attic bedroom.

And thanks to Carrier guy, we found out the back fireplace is a death trap. It’s gas burning fake logs and apparently it has no vent hole. What does this mean? It means there’s carbon monoxide building up in my back living room, enough that it could kill a person which means my poor puppies would have died quickly. Especially the small white one since she’s only 14 lbs and their kennel is right by the fire place. /sigh And just look at my girls! It would be a pity to have them die in such a way

I hate that fireplace anyway and it’s an addition to the house but this really pisses me off. I feel like at some point we should have been told BOTH fireplaces were non-working right? The Carrier guy brought over a carbon monoxide detector and I turned the fireplace back on. We left it on for not very long because the detector reached “24″ quickly. That’s bad.

I’m not sure what to do at this point. Our inspector was not allowed to turn on the fireplaces because it was summer but surely the POs should have told us about the fireplaces. Right? I’m annoyed. It’s not like the boys’ bathroom where POs put peel and stick tile over vintage hexagon tile. That was annoying but I could fix it. THIS though. THIS is a death trap. THIS could have done a lot of damage.

I woke up upset that my heater was still broken and now I’m very happy it broke. We’ve used that fireplace off and on never knowing it could be harming us. I’m glad my Carrier guy was still here when I was using it and that he could show me why I should use it any more. I’m cheesed though that it’s even an issue and I don’t know how to fix it.

Edited: February 24th, 2010

Sweater Pillows

The local Salvation Army had a $5 bag sale which is where any clothing items you fit in to a bag are $5 per bag. Pretty easy right? So I bought a ton of button up shirts and sweaters and lugged them home.

The ties are for another projects (unless the husband steals them). Basically find a sweater or button up pillow and sew into a square. Fill it with a pillow form or stuffing and you’re good to go.

I used a variety of sweaters for mine, felt for the geek one, and a pink tuxedo shirt for the pink one. It looks better on its side and best of all? You can easily remove the cover to wash the pillow.

I love the different textures they have and how soft they are too. They’re not all staying in the living room though (of course lol). They’ve been put in various parts of the house and I won’t be surprised when my friend Udom steals the pink tuxedo one made from a child’s pink tuxedo shirt because he put it on as a joke and surprise surprise, it fit him. Well… as long as he pushed the sleeves up so you didn’t notice how they didn’t reach his wrists. No photos of that though. /sadness.

Pillows were a great learn to sew project and with cheap material, I don’t feel bad when I make a mistake and can’t fix it. I don’t like using stuffing over pillow forms though. The pillows come out looking lumpy even when I try to stuff it evenly. Perhaps I’m doing something wrong? Or maybe that’s just how I’m stuffing them? IDK but I need to figure it out.

Edited: February 22nd, 2010

Decorating for less than $500

I had a party at my house for my friend Udom to celebrate him coming home from deployment (my house because it’s bigger and he wouldn’t have to prepare or clean up) and we had several people over that had never been to the house before so I gave them a tour. I realized while giving tours that most of my furniture is thrifted. Last night, I realized my entire front room has been purchased via Those Were the Days (a thrift store in Warrensburg) or the Salvation Army (also in Warrensburg, MO) with the occasional other thrift store or auction item thrown in. Running through the numbers, I did the entire room for less than $500. One friend kept asking where I purchased things and eventually told me if I said “Those Were the Days” one more time, she’d murder me…

So I thrift… a lot. I find that vintage items last longer. They hold up better against my kids and pets. Vintage pieces don’t make me cry if they’re ruined because they didn’t cost me an arm and a leg anyway. And finally, if you buy vintage items, everything has a nice aged look to it already and goes together easily. I don’t have to worry about the tiniest sign of aging on a brand new piece of furniture like a lot of my friends do. If something gets a little scratched or has a worn spot, it’s okay because there were probably already spots or scratches on it anyway. I wanted to break down the room for you though because I think the room is lovely and I wanted to show that you can have a pretty room without spending an arm and a leg (No really mom, you can!). It just takes the willingness to wait for the right pieces to come along and the willingness to go out and look for them.

Here’s a before shot from the listing of the house. trust me when I say the floors didn’t look nearly this pretty after we moved in. Funny how nice floors can look when you’ve just mopped. Anyway… This is by the front door. We removed the heavy drapes (which were left here) and all other things belong to the previous owners. I HATED the wall color. It was way too fleshy.

The other side of the room had a mirror that was too small visually for the fireplace and a bench that was unsafe. Everything else was the previous owners.

Keep in mind that this room is 28 x 13 with tall ceilings. So it’s not even a small room. Huge thanks to Sara over at The Steampunk Home for helping me figure out what direction to take this room. Although my final result isn’t exactly what she recommended, she was a huge part in why we decorated this room the way we did. I made the art wall based on her recommendation. The wall and floor color were taken from a playing card and the giant clock was also from her post. I’m still searching for a white rabbit or a moss bunny to add to the space (and with easter coming up, I should find one soon) and some heavy drapes for winter, but we never would have taken the room this direction without her.

First we’ll start with the art corner. My sewing machine table was bought at auction for $15 and the auctioneer even delivered it on base to my house because I couldn’t get it to fit in the car. How’s that for price and service? The chair is one I found at SA for $1 and Udom and Cody removed the staples holding ugly fabric on to it and found the original fabric still intact. There’s a vintage copper trash can being hidden by the chair that was $5 at TWTD. The glass fishing buoy was found in Japan and was free. The table holds a vintage typewriter that still works and was picked up for $1.50 at SA. The flower specimen was made by me and is on a stack of SA books that were $2. The vintage squirrel on nut was also SA and was $2.

Above the sewing table, we have some art. The Ace of Spades picture is one I painted, supplies were $15 (on sale). The White Rabbit one was $8 at Visioncon from artist Russel Dickerson and is in a $5 frame. Panda Party is $18 from Red Velvet Art and is also in a $5 frame. The key was $1 from the SA. Butterfly was $2 from SA. The mirror was $3 at SA and I spray painted it with leftover spray paint. The Alice art was made by me and supplies were $22ish. That includes the framed pen we used to buy the house (the pen was only used to sign documents for the house and was the only pen used to do so. neat huh).

On the other side of the room we have my wall of knobs. It was a whole $6 ish because I bought the knobs at a salvage place. The mirror is the one thing in the room I don’t remember how much it costs and is the only thing in the room not purchased since June. It’s one of the few things in the house that Cody and I bought at our first house and it has lived in every single house with us (all 5 now). He bought it for me as a gift because I really liked it but we were dirt poor at the time and I remember thinking it was really expensive. He surprised me for our anniversary or my birthday (I can’t remember which) and gave me the mirror. I still heart it

The plant was $3 at Lowes and is in a $6 container. The vintage luggage was $2 at SA.

The furniture on  the other side of the room consists of the blue damask couch $85 from TWTD and a vintage couch $50 from the SA. Eventually I want to recover the bigger couch because the floral thing is not my style, but the base itself is lovely and in good condition. I just have to find someone locally to recover it because it’s not something I feel I can do myself.

The lamp is a $1 auction lamp  (I have two of them and they were $1 each). Cody and I are looking for a new lamp though because neither of us are really digging this one. The chalkboard lamp was $1 at SA and I spray painted it with chalkboard paint. The lamp’s shade was $2.50 ($1.50 lamp shade from SA that I put $1 of fabric on). The tall blue lamp was also $1 and I spray painted it light blue instead of tacky shiny brass.  Couch pillows were all made by me for less than $10. The clock above the fireplace is my only not used purchase. It’s normally $30 at Hobby Lobby and I picked it up on sale for $15. I used left over spray paint on it to change the color of the clock hands. I need to paint numbers on the wall still and finish painting the wall but I haven’t done so yet. I’m tired of painting!

The luggage table was $5 from SA (again) and the plant on top of it is in a container my friend Susan gave me. The metal tray was $11 at auction, the clock was $15 at TWTD, the elephant was picked up in Iraq when my husband was there. The rug was found in our attic and so was free. The candle holder was $1 at SA and the stack of books were $2.

The little table was $3, the flower specimen was made by me, the little train belonged to my grandfather, and the metal case in the middle of the table was $2.

Window treatments were $11 per roller shade from Lowes and Lowes cut them to fit my window measurements. The white fabric curtains were here when we moved in so they were free to me, but I believe they’re from Wal-mart. If not, Wal-mart has really cheap white curtains that look the same and are something like $3 a panel. The curtains are on tension rods that were also here but you can pick up for $2ish at Walmart.

Paint was a huge part of this room. I spent $40 on 2 gallons of floor paint during a sale at Lowes. The color is “Lincoln Cottage Black” from Valspar and is in a floor and porch paint. I still have enough to do the landing at the top of my stairs too as well as a small bedroom. The wall color is “Fairmont Penthouse Mosaic Blue” also from Valspar’s historic preservation series. I used 1.25 gallons at $18 each (also during a sale). We’ll call it $36 though since you can’t buy .25 gallons of paint. Paint total is $76 and I have leftovers to do other projects too.

So there you have it. Add it all up and it comes to a grand total of $471 for an entire room from top to bottom including furniture, wall and floor paint, accessories, window treatments and art. Pretty freaking amazing imo. and proof positive that you can have a pretty room without it costing and arm and leg (See mom, I told ya!). It just takes some willingness to search for a deal, taking your time on the room, and not having to have everything brand new.

And the break down goes

sewing machine table $15

chair  $1

vintage copper trash can  $5

glass fishing buoy free

vintage typewriter  $1.50

The flower specimen $5

stack of SA books $2

vintage squirrel on nut $2.

The Ace of Spades $15

The White Rabbit $13

Panda Party is $23

key $1

butterfly $2

mirror was $3

Alice art was made by me and supplies were $22ish.

wall of knobs  $6 ish

mirror unknown

plant – $13

stack of books $2

vintage travel case $2

Total: $471

Edited: February 22nd, 2010

Card Guards

I’ve been working on new card guards for the store. I’m going to have them all framed and I started making them slightly different. They’re not done yet, but I’m at least started on them.

There are two new ones that are almost completed and several in process of being painted and framed. I’ve also been working on my singing flower specimens and making them in more than just the red rose variety. I’ve been challenging myself to either craft or decorate every day. Just do something every day that is crafty or decorates my house. Sometimes it’s something little like moving the tv to another location (which we did yesterday) and sometimes it’s something bigger like making 10 pillows. I’m trying to push myself to actually make new stuff all the time though and then list it in my store.

I have quite a bit of new stuff to list soon and most of it is not Alice in Wonderland related. Necklaces, polyclay charms, teapots, luggage, cups, pillows and other things are all going up in the store soon. I’m also bringing a batch over to my booth at Those Were the Days in downtown Warrensburg, MO (on Pine Street). Hopefully I’ll get to do this update sometime this week. Until then, I’ll just keep making stuff  and decorating

Tomorrow’s post? My less than $500 living room redo. And when I say redo, I mean everything from furniture to paint to accessories to light … every single thing in the room was priced out and accounted for in my under $500 total. I broke it all down and wrote out a big long post. Now I just have to take photos tomorrow morning so I can show you everything in the room. It surprised the husband and I though when we tallied it all up. Can’t wait to share.

Edited: February 21st, 2010

Hello REMsters!

If you’re here because I met you at the REMster game night, HELLO! I’m Amanda and I had the button making activity for the kids. It was lovely meeting you all and I particularly enjoyed the game of Fluxx I played with some people whose names I didn’t catch. Anyone that plays Fluxx though is aokay in my book

It was also lovely to see what things the kids would draw to have turned in to buttons. They came up with some neat stuff and asked some really out there questions about the button making process that I wouldn’t have expected from kids. That was awesome!

And if the lady I was talking to about button making, handmade, and Etsy wants to talk more about it, I really did mean it when I said you could email me any time with questions, comments, whatever. I like discussing that type of thing and haven’t found people here (yet) that are in to handmade as a business or that know what Etsy is

Thank you Ms. Larson for including me in the REMster newsletter

Edited: February 19th, 2010

Recovering vintage chair

One of the style school projects was to reupholster a chair. I happen to have a chair that I have put off redoing and decided to finally tackle the project. Cody and Udom helped ripped out the staples of the fabric and we discovered another layer of fabric under it. We all agreed it was actually a not bad looking fabric so I put aside the fabric I was going to use and decided to leave the green on green vintage fabric on there and added a doily on the back. Doily pillows were another project but I don’t have enough of them to do what I have in mind just yet. I searched high and low for a before photo but couldn’t find one so you’re stuck with just afters.

These photos are taken in bad lighting (night lighting in my house sucks still) but you get the general idea. I loved the vintage fabric and like the little bit of girly doily on there too. It’s not permanently on there yet because I’m still playing with where I want it to be, but it will be on there at some point! What piece of furniture are you putting off redoing?

Edited: February 18th, 2010

Painting wood floors

I did it again and decided to paint our front living room today. Cody and I have been going back and forth on what color to paint it. We thought white would look really good but with two boys, two dogs, two cats, and a ton of friends that visit, we decided to pass on the white. I can only imagine the cruddy way the floors would look in winter! I discovered today that Lowes can mix any Valspar color in to their porch and floor paint. What luck! I had a lovely paint lady at my local Lowes help me pick between several shades of black and we both gut instinct went for Valspar’s “Lincoln Cottage Black” which is a historic preservation color. I love it! It is looking great with the white trim and blue walls. The blue is “Fairmont Penthouse Mosaic Blue” also from Valspar’s historic line. Here are the obligatory before shots

It’s hard to relay just how damaged these floors are. They should be a solid brown color from the stain but they weren’t well cared for over the years and they’re scratched up and damaged pretty badly. I’m fairly anal retentive about the house and I loathe having my floors look this way. I really like the way painted floors look and since it worked so well in our dining room, I wanted to do it in the front living room too. My friend Udom said he’d come over and help while he’s on free leave after a lovely sandbox vaycay.

He flaked :-p So I started doing it myself and sent him a photo. He showed up a short time later and helped me finish

And after waiting all day for paint to dry, we moved in furniture late tonight. The room now looks like this

Obviously I’m not done putting everything back where it belongs, but it’s a start. The dogs will no longer be by the front door because they track mud everywhere and it is driving me nuts (yar). I have a piece of furniture I may put over there though because I really liked having a table area there. Plus my vintage typewriter needs a home! Did you see the neato pillows on the blue couch? I made those out of old sweaters and I love them. They were super easy to do too.

Aside from Udom and Jordan, most people I know IRL and online are all aghast that we’re painting the floors. You know though? It’s my house and I think the painted floors rock. We keep hearing “resale value” and all I can say is PTH. Once again, life is too short to worry about resale value. This is my home *now* and I will do things to it to make it something I enjoy *now* without constantly thinking of how someone else might like to enjoy my home when I sell it.

And frankly, my floors turned out frelling amazing.

Edited: February 17th, 2010