Projects Around Home

I've been conquering many tasks around home, all of which result in me having something new that makes our apartment feel more like home, but also leaves my home in ruins. But the better outcome of the two makes cleaning my mess worth it.

Now, we shall proceed with the projects (in no particular order, except to save my favorite for last)....

Lamp Shades


When Grandpa Fernandez began the process of moving from his home in Fremont to live with my parents in Gridley, I came to the rescue for a week to help him and my mom pack all of his things into boxes, load them onto a truck, and move them to Gridley. When I arrived in Fremont, Grandpa made sure to inform me that if there was anything in his home that I would need in my home, that all I need to do is ask and it would most likely be mine. I'll try to make a long story short; I came back to Santa Barbara with a car full of stuff (little things like kitchen knives, banana split dishes, a drill, etc.) minus the organ that he insisted I accept because of my new calling in church (Yes, that's right. I am officially the ward organist..... in case you didn't already know. The organ is at my mom and dad's until Garrett and I have room for it). Along with dishes and knives, I also brought home two black lamps with off-white lampshades. The lampshades were stained in some places and a little more plain than I had hoped. So, instead of buying new lampshades, I bought few yards of burlap and ended up with this.....


At first I wasn't so sure if I liked them and thought I had made a huge mistake. But now I love them. The two of them sit on both sides of our bed on our nightstands.

Moving on to....the Owl Cookie Jar.


For Christmas I had asked for an owl cookie jar. "An owl?" you might ask. Yes, an owl. For the past couple of years I have grown quite fond of them, an affection past down by my Aunt Jocie, I'm sure. I only have a collection of owl necklaces, so I chose to venture out to bigger and better things, like a cookie jar. But no, I didn't get a cookie jar for Christmas. Garrett and his brother both claimed that all of the ones they found were either too creepy or homely. The only one we found that I liked was ceramic (which is great), but it wasn't painted or glazed, and we had no idea where we could do that. For my birthday, Garrett decided to take a chance and bought the unfinished cookie jar for me. After making only one phone call, I found a place downtown which allowed me to bring in my own project, paint it, and they would glaze and fire it for me, only charging me $5-15, depending on the size. So Garrett took me downtown and I painted the jar green to match all of my other green dishes (If you've ever come inside our home you know about all of my green dishes and bowls. If you don't know, you'll just have to come visit). Before I left the store I went up to the cash register to pay whatever it was that I owed. The girl looked at the owl for a moment and said, "Since you brought in your own project I won't charge you. Don't worry about it." SCORE! I'm pretty sure that she just didn't know how much to charge me and whatever the price was, was insignificant enough that it wasn't worth the time to find out. That's just fine with me. He (the owl) still awaits to be filled with delicious treats, but for the time being he is nice to look at....


Isn't he cute?! I love him!

Next...pillowcases.



There isn't a cute story for this project. I bought a new foot for my sewing machine for various sewing projects, which is called a ruffler foot. You send your fabric through your machine and it comes out ruffled, to your specifications. And then I saw a tutorial online for the pillowcases, loved it, so I did it. They look so simple (Key word: LOOK. Not so simple to make) but have just enough detail to make me love them. They make a great addition to our massive pile of pillows on our bed.

Last, but not least (for now) is the hutch for our dresser.


Garrett and I got the hutch on craigslist for free! But it didn't look like this when we got it....I forgot to take a before picture (I tend to do that). Before it was painted it was dark wood. First I removed the back of the hutch. Then I painted the shelving to match our dresser that we finished just days before with leftover paint from one of our past roommates (perfect color!). While the paint was drying I covered the back of the hutch with black and white damask wrapping paper. But the white of the pattern on the wrapping paper was too white. I needed an off-white. So I took about a teaspoon of taupe colored Rit Dye and a cup of water, and brushed the mixture onto the wrapping paper-covered backing. The dye changed the white to the perfect shade to match the paint. Once the dye dried, I Mod-Podged the dyed wrapping paper and nailed the backing to the hutch after the Mod-Podge dried. From there it was finished and took its place on top of the dresser.



I am in LOVE with the outcome of this huge project that Garrett and I took on! In the morning after I wake up, I like to sit on my bed and just look at it. I love the fact that I actually have furniture that matches the decor of my bedroom. It makes me feel like a grownup.

So these have been my projects as of lately. I have many more to come. I hope that you've enjoyed them as much as I have! :)