Painting Dandelions on the Wall

It's Friday!!! But, it's not just any friday. No, no, no. This friday I'm headed to the beach with some other mom friends. No kids, no husbands, NO BOYS, just us 5 mommas! I can't wait.

But, I promised to show you the graphic I painted on our bedroom wall. I know, I teased you as long as I could.

Pretty Handsome Boys #1 & #2, can you please pull back the curtains for the final reveal?

Dandelion Seeds

 

Floating Away

Dandelion Head 

 The Pair

Gentle breeze picks up... 

 ...blowing in our bedroom suite. Peaceful restful. Ahhhh.

I painted the graphic in a few hours using a mixture of 1/3 of the wall color to 2/3 white ceiling paint. The tutorial is HERE. But, if you are hesitant to paint your own, check out Leen's graphic dandelions HERE.

Because I tortured you with anticipation, I'll give you a quick tour of our bedroom (a very quick tour because it is a very small bedroom).

 

 Our pottery barn sleigh bed (gifted to us by my sister) flanked by new curtains and blinds that I showed you how to hang this week.

 

Thank goodness for two closets! Peeking into Pretty Handsome Boy #1's room.
We painted a woodland mural in there. Some day I'll share it with you.

A photo I took of the London Eye when Pretty Handsome Guy and I had a romantic getaway. I uploaded the file to CanvasPeople.com and gave it to my love for Christmas.

Sunprints made with my boys. So fun, so easy, so pretty!

 

And on the opposing wall, is the dandelion mural blowing seeds over
the Craig's List Dresser I refinished.

Ultimately, I want to add a wall quote over the dresser. But, Pretty Handsome Guy and I are still not agreeing on compiling quotes. 

Here are a few quotes I like (notice how I said "I like".)

Remember your yesterdays, dream your tomorrows, live your todays.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Love is a flower, you got to let it – you got to let it grow. - John Lennon

Love does not consist of gazing in each other,
but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Good night, sweet friend: thy love ne'er alter, till thy sweet life end. - Shakespeare

Let your love fly like a bird on a wing.

Where there is love, there is life. - Ghandi

May the warm winds of heaven blow softly in this home.

Grow old along with me the best is yet to be.

I am all ears if anyone has any other suggestions. In other words:

Please, please help us find a quote we can agree on!

Hanging Curtains and No Iron Solution to Wrinkles

Glad you came back to see how I hung the curtains in our bedroom. If you are just joining us, I hung some blinds the other day in a mini-makeover for our master bedroom.

Then I hung a curtain rod and flanked both windows with some billowy white cotton curtains. I still can't believe what a difference this made in the room.

Here is the dark and drab before:

So, you want to hang your own curtains? I'm here to help you along with that.

By the way, if you have a Tuesday Morning near you, check out their curtain rods! This extra wide one for spanning two windows was only $24.99!

 

Start out by holding up your curtain rod (preferably with a friend holding and you looking.) And mark the height of your rod on the wall.

Take the time to check and see if there is a stud behind where your bracket will hang. If there is, check out my post HERE for hanging the bracket into a stud. All my brackets landed in locations without a stud behind them.

So, I grabbed some Toggler anchors and used them instead of the screws that came with the curtain rod.

Start by tracing the screw holes in your bracket.

Next screw the two screws that come with the Toggler anchors partially into the wall. This creates starter holes for the anchors.

Remove the screws.

Use a philips head screwdriver and screw the anchors into the wall until they are flush with the wall. Be careful not to over-tighten.

Line up your bracket on top of the anchors, and then insert the screws that come with the anchors into the wall.

As you can see, the toggler screws are silver, but not for long! Grab a permanent black marker and color them black.

Or if you are using white or brown brackets, you can simply paint them with acrylic craft paint, stain or primer. Your choice.

Next, using your level, rest it on top of the first bracket and make a mark on the wall where your next bracket will be mounted. This will insure that it is level with the first.

Repeat the steps to install the second and third bracket (if you have a wide span of windows like I do.)

Assemble the brackets per the instructions that came with them. And hang your curtains!

You may have noticed how far the rod extends beyond the window. This is a design trick to make the windows appear bigger, plus it allows for the maximum amount of natural light to enter the room.

 

Okay, less you think that everything I do is perfect – remember how I said to have a friend hold the rod when you first decided how high to hang the rod. Well, I didn't! I was too impatient. So, I ended up having to re-do the first bracket and was left with this.

No biggie. I just patched the hole and applied some touch up paint. Good as new!

Except, I was too lazy to iron the curtains before I hung them. (Yup, I'm an instant gratification kind of gal, couldn't you tell?!)

So, I have for you a two-fer post. Two posts in one! Wow, your lucky day right?!

A No Iron Technique for Removing Wrinkles!

This is my favorite technique for removing wrinkles. I use it on everything! Slipcovers, curtains, sheets, and clothing I am already wearing.

You will need one of these:

Just a squirt bottle with plain old H2O in it. Nothing fancy. Set the nozzle to mist.

Spread out your curtains.

Then go to town spraying your wrinkled areas. When it dries the wrinkles are magically gone.

Sometimes they might need another spray and some smoothing with your hands, but ultimately they usually come out.

Only the stubborn wrinkles get to meet my iron.

As you can see below, most of the wrinkles came out, but we had party guests arriving in 15 minutes, so I left them as is and will iron them another day. Maybe.

And one more look at my new curtains and blinds.

Hey! Are you peeking at my new wall graphic I painted? You cheater, you'll have to wait until my next post where I will show you how to paint a wall graphic. In the meantime, I posted a picture of me working on it on my Facebook fan page.

Laundry Room Makeover

 Wash...Rinse...Dry...Repeat...Wash...Rinse...Dry...Repeat...

This is the story of my life. We are a family of four and yet, I wash three loads of laundry two times a week. That is six loads per week! Or broken down, it is 1.5 loads per person per week. Is this a lot for a family of four? Maybe I'm too clean? Regardless, with all the time I spend in the laundry room, I wanted it to be attractive.

Our My laundry room looked like this right before we bought the house:

 

If you look up "blah" in the dictionary, you'll see that picture.

So, I set to work and painted dark blue on the bottom 2/3 of the room and the same color with some white mixed in to the top 1/3 of the room. I also painted the windows and trim a glossy white. It is amazing how much easier it is to dust a newly painted surface (a definite must in a lint-filled laundry room.)

Next, I bought several sections of peg racks and painted them the same color as the trim. I screwed them into studs, or

if there wasn't a stud to screw into I used Toggler anchors:

Then I set forth to cloak the biggest eye-sore in the room, the utility sink. All I did was cut a curtain down to size and used double-stick velcro. Then I hot glued some roped cording to the top. Abra-ca-dabra, it was sufficiently hidden.

Next I cut a piece of 1" x 6" pine to the length of my two windows. I rounded the corners with my jig saw and then used a router to give the edge a decorative finish.

After painting the shelf to match the windows, I mounted it to the wall with metal shelf brackets.

This gave me a sunny spot to rest my plants...

...and laundry supplies (Oxy clean powder, liquid laundry detergent and water spritzer for ironing wrinkles).

I also hung some drop cloth curtains that I painted stripes on (tutorial to come);

added a few letters above the windows;

and now I have a laundry room that I want to spend time in!

This makeover was very low budget. I had the paint leftover from our master bathroom. And the sink cover was one panel on clearance at Target for $3. The letters were $1.50 each and the drop cloths were $5 each. The curtain rod was stolen from another room in our house. And the shelf was from my wood pile. So, all-in-all, I spent about $25.

Some day I'd love to install cabinets with doors on them to hide all the supplies. But, until that day, I'm happy with the transformation.

So, am I the only one doing loads and loads and loads of laundry?