The Bee's Knees - May 9

DIY White Faux Ceramic & Milk Glass Vases - The Happier Homemaker

Have you seen all of the lovely vignettes that feature the beautiful milk glass and white ceramic pieces?  Here are a couple of examples:

via Martha Stewart

via Better Homes & Gardens

Well, if you don't quite have the collection that you'd like, let me share with you Melissa's recent blog post that shows you how to take these:

and turn them into these:

You can see how she did it on her blog, The Happier Homemaker.  It's a wonderful idea, and EASY!  Now, if I only hadn't taken all those vases to the thrift store last year!  ;)

Stenciled Rug Tutorial - Creatively Living
If you've read Hello, New Day lately then you know that I'm in love with all things stenciled right now.  And I love it when someone can restore or otherwise redo something that seems like its a goner.  Like this rug that Stacie had in her basement:

Honestly, I would have thought this rug had seen it's last days.  I'm not sure I would have known that it could be painted.  Check out what it looks like now!

Seriously!  You can see exactly how Stacie performed this transformation over on her blog, Creatively Living.  It's beautiful!  And it's projects like this one, and Melissa's, that make me LOVE crafting and DIYing.  They are simply The Bee's Knees!

Kitchen Remodel Reveal

Here it is!
This is a link to our entry into the This Old House Reader Remodel Contest 2012!
Click Here to See Jon & Catherine's Kitchen Remodel

There are 6 images that show the remodel: 2 "before" photos and 4 "after" photos.To scroll through them, click the orange arrow.

At the bottom of the first screen is a place for you to rate our project.Slide that baby all the way over to 100 and click Submit!  Please?And do that as many times as your little heart desires ;)(I do think you have to exit and go back in for it to let you vote twice, or thrice, etc.)
The winner gets a 2012 GMS Sierra!  That'd be awesome!Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for voting for our project!

If You Don't Like the Weather...

     You know what they say about the weather in Utah:  if you don't like it, wait a minute.  This seems especially true in the springtime.     This morning we woke up to a bunch of snow on the ground.  Knowing that today's photo prompt is "before/after", and knowing that the snow doesn't last very long this time of year, I put on my snowboots and schlepped outside with my camera at 9:18 a.m.     Three hours later (12:28 to be exact) I went back outside to get my after photo.

 "In the spring I have counted one-hundred and thirty-sixdifferent kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours"
Mark Twain

Extreme Makeover: Fireplace Edition

     There's a window above my fireplace that used to really bug me.  There was never any window covering on it, no great view to see through it, and it always kinda seemed like a weird place for a window anyway.  Plus, I never really liked that adobe-styled mantel/border thingy.

When I took this photo I had no idea that I'd be
posting it on a blog for all the world to see.
If I had, I would've taken more care to remove
that chair and the boys' Hot Wheels tracks, etc.
But you get the idea, right?

     When we embarked on our infamous home remodel last year (I say "infamous" because you wouldn't even believe all the hassles that went along with it), I really wanted to change the fireplace.  My idea was to remove the window completely, raise the fireplace, and add a cozy brick or stone hearth and wood mantel.  But that was not to be.  Doing that was just too cost-prohibitive and would require repair work on the outside of the house as well.

     The final design and remodel of the fireplace cost much less than my original idea, addressed the window covering issue, and satisfied my desire for a more cozy area:

Today's Photo-a-Day Challenge prompt: Window

     We started by tearing out the surrounding drywall and framing and the tile floor in front of the fireplace:

     We then had our contractor line the area above the fireplace with knotty alder and build some faux columns on either side of it:

     The wood was stained to match our staircase, and since I wanted to get rid of the brass accents on the fireplace itself, we had the front painted black.

     Lastly, we had the area surrounding the fireplace tiled to match the backsplash in our kitchen and had shutters installed over the little window that used to bug me so much.

     Quite a change, isn't it?  I ♥ it! 

Up

     Last year we remodeled our home.  We considered buying a new house but concluded that we love the location and neighbors too much to leave.  We decided that updating and remodeling would be a worthy investment.
     One thing that my husband and I had trouble agreeing on was whether or not to remodel the staircase.  I remember when I first walked into this home 11 years ago during an open house when we were house-hunting: the first thing I saw was the staircase and I fell in love instantly.  Over the years, as designs and ideals changed, I grew tired of the oak banisters and wished for the "new" style of staircase with wrought iron balusters and large wooden newel posts.  After much deliberation, I won we finally agreed to redo the staircase.  This is the finished project:

     Now, when we sit in the living room and look up at the new staircase we both agree that changing it was a great decision!

     One structural change that we made to the staircase was at the top of the stairs.  In the photos below you can see that at the top of the stairs was a little rounded nook.  We had that completely removed which not only opened up the upstairs hallway area, but also allowed for a wider railing at the top landing (which is easier to detect in the very first photo of this post).  A side note: that oak cabinet in the hallway upstairs?  We had that painted to match the baseboards/trim!

     I am participating in Fat Mum Slim's Photo-a-Day Challenge for March and today's prompt is "up". I really wanted to photograph the house that we have here in Utah that is modeled after the house in the Disney-Pixar movie, Up.  It's such an adorable house.  It was purchased by a couple who are self-described Disney fanatics.  How fun is this?
  

Source: The Disney Blog

But, alas, the weather outside is frightful today so I will submit this "up" photo instead:

     Thanks for stopping by!  Check back tomorrow to see what I've come up with for the photo prompt: "fruit".  Have a fantastic day,

Like Night and Day

     I love to take pictures!  But I'm not a photographer, at least not in the sense that I know what I'm doing when I take pictures.  I've always used a point-and-shoot camera and, until recently, NEVER adjusted the settings.  I would simply point.  And shoot.  Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't.

This is the camera I use these days:

     Lately I've become obsessed much more interested in photography and what all the buttons and settings on my camera mean.  It's extremely satisfying to take a photo that has some thought and planning behind it and see successful results.  Gee, it's like photography's an art or something.  ;)

     Today's Photo-a-Day Challenge is "night."  I wanted to photograph the city lights of the Salt Lake Valley here where I live.  I see them all the time and their beauty and vastness never cease to amaze me.

     Since I wanted to be able to post my picture today, I planned ahead and went out Thursday night to capture my night photo.  I took my camera and tripod to a location that I pass everyday when I pick up my daughter from dance class.  It was night.  I had my camera and my tripod.  So I photographed what I saw and the results were NOT satisfying.  When I uploaded the photos to my computer, this is a sampling of what I saw:

Yuck.  Not exactly the beauty I wanted to capture.

     So, disappointed but not disheartened, I turned to the one resource I can almost always count on: Google.  There is so much information available about how to take photographs at night.  I weeded through the sources and got some very helpful tips that led to my expedition last night.  Armed with my camera and tripod I set out to test my newfound knowledge.  Here are my results:

     Much better.  I was amazed as I took the photos to see how much of the city lighting I could capture even though it wasn't completely dark.  And I LOVE the silhouette of the mountain range - those are the Oquirrh Mountains that line the west side of the Salt Lake Valley.

     The photos from Thursday night compared to the ones I took last night are as different as night and day, wouldn't you say?  For both photo shoots I had set my camera to the "night landscape" scene feature and I used my tripod.  The difference can be attributed to these two tips that I gleaned from my Google research:

1.  Use your camera's automatic timer to take the shot.  Even though you're using a tripod, the camera's shutter will be open for a few seconds and you need to make sure there's absolutely NO movement.  Using the timer ensures that you don't move the camera at all during the shot.  Then once the shutter clicks, wait.  And wait.  And wait some more.  You want to be sure that the shutter has closed before you move the camera.

2.  Timing!  Take your night photos during late dusk, that period of time when the sun has set but there's still a bit of light in the sky.  That way you'll have less black areas on your photo.
     I hope that these tips are helpful to you as well.  Have a wonderful day, and thanks for stopping by.

     

The Mushroom Kingdom

     This is what my boys' bedroom looked like for several years (the decor, I mean.  Not the cleanliness and order):

     It was a pretty cool room for two young boys: one wall was a mural of the planets and sun and there was a Moon in My Room light and glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.  I had picked it all out myself when the boys were little.

     Then my oldest son (10 years old), the one who already knows more about the mysteries of outer space than I ever have or ever want to know, informed me that the mural had to go.

     "Why?", I asked.

     "Mom, it's not an accurate depiction of the Solar System [insert a bunch of technical jargon here that I didn't understand...something about how the courses of the planets are off] and besides, the wall isn't big enough.  Look--Neptune is cut off!"

     Oh-kay then.  Who am I to argue with that?

     So we brainstormed some ideas for their bedroom redo and came up with a theme that we were all excited about:

Super Mario Bros.!

     It's not just my boys who love this video game.  My husband and I do too.  I have terribly fond memories of playing Super Mario Bros. with my husband when we were in college.  We would stay up until the wee hours of the morning playing that silly game.  

     The setting of the game (in case you've been living under a rock for the past quarter century) is the Mushroom Kingdom.  With some paint, some really cool wall decals, and some new accessories, we created our own Mushroom Kingdom:

     I ordered the wall decals from Amazon.com.  They're excellent quality, restickable images that were super easy to put on the walls.

     For the paint color I took a picture of the Mushroom Kingdom (from the decal instructions) to Sherwin-Williams and had them color match the sky in the picture.

     The framed pictures above each bed are jigsaw puzzles that the boys put together this past summer.  We just applied Mod Podge over the finished puzzle, let it dry, coated the other side, let that side dry, then framed them in frames from Hobby Lobby.

     To make the question mark block shelves, I started with this ClosetMaid Cubeicals® 2 Cube Organizer shelf that is available here from Target.

I wanted the backs of the shelves to look like they were made out of bricks so before I assembled the shelves I used black electrical tape to outline brick shapes on the back piece of the shelving unit.

     For the question mark blocks, I found yellow Cubeicals Fabric Drawers at Lowe's (my Target didn't have the yellow drawers in stock).  I used Microsoft Word to create a large question mark that I printed and cut out to use as a pattern (font: College/size: 900).

I traced the pattern on a piece of white canvas fabric that I'd gotten at my local fabric store, cut it out and glued it on the front of the drawer with fabric glue.  The four dots on the corners of each drawer are circle shapes created the same way in Word (size .8 circle).   

I really wanted some fun lamps to put in the room, so I made Bob-omb lamps.  For non-Mario aficionados,  this is a Bob-omb:

I found these black lamps at WalMart and simply cut out white vinyl ovals for the eyes (I used my Silhouette but you could just as easily cut them out by hand.)  Easy peasy and oh so cute!

     And last, but not least, the Super Mario Bros. Pipe Wastebasket!  I knew that the pipe from the game would be a perfect garbage can, but how to make it?  I experimented a bit and this is the result:

Today's Photo-a-Day Challenge prompt is "green"!

Here's a little tutorial on how to make your very own Super Mario Bros. Pipe wastebasket:

Pin It

I found the black garbage can at WalMart (I can't find it on their website to show you, but it was $5.88.)

The first thing I wanted to do was remove the top part of the top because I wanted to have just the lip around the top of the can when it was finished.  To remove this I used my X-acto knife to slowly "saw" the top part off.  I would caution you to keep the blade pointed away from you when you're sawing.

Cutting this part off wasn't hard; I simply took my time cuz I didn't want to cut myself.  

Then I set the ring on the top of the wastebasket and cleaned up the little plastic pieces that were sticking out. I used the X-acto knife to shave them off.

The final step was to paint the wastebasket green.  I used this Krylon Fusion spray paint (color: Spring Grass) which is made for plastics and it was AWESOME!  Easy application and excellent coverage.

If you're new to spray painting or would like some great tips on spray painting, check out this informative post by Centsational Girl.

     And that's it!  The Goomba that you see coming out of the pipe is one of the wall decals.  If you decide to make your own Super Mario Bros. Pipe Wastebasket, leave a link in the comments below - I'd love to see it!

I'm linking up to: