Some Lessons Learned

This has been a crazy week!  Between classes and jobs, it's been hard to juggle everything, much less update my poor blog.  Here's a brief overview:

1) Last night we made parmesan chicken and pasta with marinara for our boyfriends and had a movie night.  It all turned out well, except for the oven, which insisted on filling the air with smoke, and the fire alarm, which insisted on going off.  With all our doors and windows open, we sat down to our first relaxing dinner of the week.  Lesson: don't overwork your oven.  It will rebel.

Fire alarm: "nice meal... now let me sing you the song of my people."

2) The day before yesterday, we decided to try tea tree oil to get sticky grease stains off one of our cookie sheets.  The grease didn't budge.  The tea tree oil, however, quickly took over our apartment.  We both woke up smelling it the next morning.  Lesson: if you *absolutely need your space to smell like something other than it already smells like*, put out a bit of tea tree oil.  And if you already like your apartment smell, then don't.

Tea tree oil: "HELLOOOOOO"

3) Back at the first of the week, we were struggling with a horrible mosquito infestation.  People would come to visit us and leave covered in bites.  Deciding that violence was our only recourse, we found a cheap bug bomb to set off (only $5!).  And set it off for two hours.  After letting the apartment air out for 30 minutes, it only still smelled mildly of permanent marker.  It was worth it, however, when we started finding dead mosquitos lying around, on the shelves, windowsills (they were trying to escape!  Mwahahaha....)  We were elated with our success.  Then, they appeared.  Massive mutant mosquitos that had somehow survived.  We gave up hope of a mosquito free apartment.  Lesson: mosquitos don't die.  They only regenerate.

How I felt walking away from that bug bomb.

Ways to Hang Wall Art

So now that I have all this free wall art, what do I do with it?

My first project idea from pinterest was buying a bunch of cute frames and spray painting them the same color.  This was all well and good until I discovered that the very cheapest thrift store frame was $5, and I wanted an assortment.  So, I visited the Dollar Tree.  Once I had my five ($1!) frames and my can of $3 bright yellow spray paint, I managed to come up with the following.  The only downside I discovered was that the paint tends to wear off if something rubs against one of the frames.

My next project idea, inspired by my last RA's hall decorations, is a clothesline of prints.  This was pretty easy with some jute string, nails, and clothespins.  We put it in our dining room.

The tribute for my last idea should really go to my amazing roommate.  We were trying to do some rolled paper frames I'd seen on some blogs, but we just couldn't get them to work.  So she had the idea of just cutting the cardstock into cool shapes.  When it came to arranging the finished product, we decided to put them around a dull corner to bring it out...and the effect is SO COOL.

Apartment Pics

Sadly, I must confess that I've neglected my blog the last two days.  Since our classes start back tomorrow, we've been celebrating our last days of freedom with movie and game nights hosted in our freshly decorated apartment.  We broke in our kitchen with homemade caramel corn, red velvet puppy chow, chocolate chip cookies, and crock pot queso.  (It was also a fun opportunity to try out our nice, serving dishes!)

I'm a little sad about starting classes tomorrow, but part of me is excited for my last year.  We'll see how I feel after my first Japanese class tomorrow....  (I don't speak a word of Japanese.)

Anyway, I thought it was about time I finally posted pictures of the rest of the apartment, beyond just my bedroom.  Then tomorrow I can get into the ways to hang wall art that I mentioned in my last post.

Living room!  (Yes, our door is a TARDIS.)

Another view of the living room.

View from our front door.

Our dining area!

Our little kitchen!

Kitchen, other side.

Our Doctor Who Appreciation Wall (near the front door).

Note the twinkle lights!!

Free Printable Wall Art

I'm excited to announce that the decorating is almost done!  (This means more pics to come soon.)  Since so many of our wall decorations started out as free printables, and since searching down these printables took some time, I decided to compile my sources into one easy place so others could make use of them too.  The only ones that are actually mine are Fox Robin here and the one I made with Picasa; the rest of them are from other sites.  In the next few days, I plan to post pictures and ideas about how to arrange and display printed wall art.

Fox Robin

1.  I love foxes.  And I felt like they should be represented on my site.  So I drew this little guy (and named him after Disney's Robin Hood).  Feel free to download and use him as wall art too!  (DeviantArt is actually a good source for wall art.  My other DeviantArt drawings can be found here.)

Indiefixx

2.  http://indiefixx.com/Feed_your_soul/downloads.html
So this was my absolute favorite printable art site.  They have lots of art to choose from, the prints are nice and colorful, and the site is easy to work with.  Print theme tends to be modern and quirky.

Vintage Printable

3.  http://vintageprintable.com/wordpress/
This site is really frustrating to navigate, but it's good if you want older, truly vintage prints.  Lots of good botanical prints, some whimsical animals, and old paintings.

Graphics Fairy

4.  http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/p/search.html
This also has vintage prints, but they look more like signs and book covers.  It's a lot easier to navigate than vintage printable, but not all of the art makes good wall prints.

JandAandCo.

5.  http://jandaandco.blogspot.com/2011/11/bathroom-printables-download-working.html
This one has several colorful bathroom-themed printables, as well as the "you are my sunshine" seen above.

Printable Monogram

6.  http://forchicsake.com/printable-monogram/
This is really cool.  It lets you download the monogram template in a color of your choice, then type in your own initials.

Make your own wall art.  Mine features a quote from the musical, Chess ("Anthem").

7.  http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com/2012/04/make-your-own-quote-wall/
This is a good tutorial on how to make your own wall art using Picasa.  The print above is one that I made following these instructions!  Right click and save it to print and use it.

Finding Nana

8.  http://findingnana.com/?p=5376
This site has printable chevron patterns.  It doesn't necessarily have to be wall art, but I used it that way.

Everything Etsy

9.  http://www.everythingetsy.com/2012/07/live-a-colorful-life-free-printable-in-5-color-schemes/
Several versions of this same print in different colors.

Fruit of the Spirit - see upper left.

10.  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh-SqC2O4R_FylezAH_guPkaUOUBtu9cnZi2FkSQ8ZpxgoAO8VyWRZxA4JDWZefDP2FuOGdtdvnaliiAk5IfnZ4Q7gxlFxftWf9qV-rKqx_FXVeKjhPLxJcFiT8aTvBPZlQqzsTQOYKtoE/s1600/FruitofSpirit-Rainbow-detail.jpg
Link to the Fruit of the Spirit print.

DIY Hanging Racks

So the other day my mom pulled the following article out of her cabinet and told me she no longer needed it:

Apparently it's a French bread pan.

My mind went through this whole thought process of, French bread?  I love French bread.  Making bread is hard.  I would never make French bread.  Wait, this has nifty holes in the middle....

And so my first hanging rack was born.  Since it came in this sort of dull dark grey color, I spray painted it silver.  Then, I added three decorative doorknobs from World Market ($1.99 a piece - not bad, and they're pretty).  It was nice because the knobs went right through the holes in the middle, so I didn't have to drill any.  We also used these same holes to drill it into the wall.

Finished product.

 My next hanging rack also features World Market knobs, but this time with hooks attached (same price - I'm a big fan).  I started with a board that I salvaged from an old bed my neighbors were throwing away.  After cutting it down to size, I sanded the rough edges.  Then, I used some of the leftover turquoise paint from my desk and splashed it on sort of roughly, so you could still see the bare wood around the sides.

This way my scarf collection can double as a decoration.

A closer view of the knobs

In the end, since I got the board and pan for free and the paint and screws were stuff I already had, the total cost for both of these was really just the cost of the knobs: about $10 for the bigger one and $6 for the smaller.  Not bad, if I do say so myself....

And Thus It Begins

So the day has finally arrived, and I am finally here and moved in!  I've been trying to hold off on the posts until I actually got here, so now I can start updating more regularly.  I have a lot more about individual pieces and projects that I'd like to post later, as well as some pictures of other rooms, but for now I'll just post a few pics of my bedroom.

I've been really pleased with the apartment as a whole so far, and my room has turned out even better than I'd hoped.  We went grocery shopping today and made an AMAZING slow cooker tomato basil parmesan soup (find the recipe here).  We've also made a lot of headway in the kitchen and living room, so I'll be excited to share those pics in the next few days.

Painted Desk

So as I mentioned in my last post, I recently acquired a really cool old desk from my grandparents.  Since it was looking a little beat up, I decided to try my hand at furniture painting.  As an ex-miniaturist and dollhouse renovator, I'm a pretty big fan of the transforming power of paint, but this was my first actual life-size project.

Before picture - isn't it a neat desk?  I just want to hide the chips.

I started off by sanding off the top and ended up scraping off a layer of some shellac-type stuff in the process.  Since I want to use the desk for writing, I made sure to sand the top extra well, but for the rest of the desk, I mostly just sanded enough to rough it up.  I also removed the drawer pulls, which were all this cool warn-off bronze color - definitely holding onto those.

For the next step, I used some powdered soap my dad had for washing walls pre-painting.  After scrubbing it down and wiping it with a clean rinse rag, I used the dry-time to go pick out some paint.  Walmart's Color Place Interior ended up being the cheapest (around $10 for a quart), and I chose a semi-gloss turquoise called Shimmering Summer Pool.

I put on a coat of primer that same evening, and voila, here we are.

Primed and ready.

With our current 100+ degree temps, I painted early the next morning.  Even so, toward the end, the paint was drying as soon as I slapped it on.  Total it took about two hours for two coats, so not too bad.  I've been listening to my new Regina Spektor album, "What We Saw From the Cheap Seats," on loop lately (I'm a little obsessed), so between her and the cat, Bon, keeping me company, it didn't seem to take that long.  The whole project was done in less than 24 hours and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Time well spent.

Close up of the drawers - aren't the pulls lovely?

There were no real mishaps during the project.  I had to chase kitty Bon off at one point, as she became intent on rubbing all over my sticky, freshly-painted surface.  (Don't worry, after a bit of a sulk, she got over it.)  The color also turned out a bit lighter than I expected.  I'm usually more of a brights than pastels person; as I explained to a friend, "When they turn me loose with paint, it's always gonna be...memorable."  But in this case, I think it'll be a nice change.  And as my friend joked yesterday, "Well, you can always keep it and reuse it in a baby room one day."