(#TBT) Power Tools are a Girl's Best Friend

Happy Throwback Thursday! Today, we're throwing it back to my first (and only, really) interior design project. This is the basement bathroom of my parent's home. 

The room was completely DIYed, but I never broke down the projects into their own posts.

I'll be re-visiting a project or two from the room over the next few months.

The vanity has quite a story of it's own. When I began designing the bathroom, I was set on using a dining room table as the vanity. I had even chopped the table in half, and cut the hole out for the sink.

As time went on, I fell out of love with the table. I didn't feel like it was the right height or style anymore. The idea of using a dresser was born. Let's just say it took a while. About a year, maybe? I'm kinda a procrastinator, and I wasn't going to settle for anything short of perfect. 

Eventually, my mom gave me an ultimatum. If you can't find a dresser in two weeks, you have to use the table. Well, day 14 came. I'd pretty much given up hope, but decided to stop by Goodwill one last time. And there it was. In all it's [perfect height, depth, and width] glory! The price tag? $25.

AHHH! I screamed! &*$@# FINALLY! Huzzah! Take that, mother. (JK, she's pretty awesome.)

Enter the power tools. Turning a dresser into a vanity isn't too complicated.
You can see a full tutorial over at DIY Network.

It mostly involves cutting out room for the sink and plumbing parts.
Sadly, this leaves most of the drawers pretty unusable.

A few coats of polyurethane later, and much assistance in the plumbing department, it was completely installed and operational!

Be sure to subscribe for a new #TBT next week! 

♥

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Hiding Behind a Sheet & Splattered in Paint? Dart/Balloon Art DIY!

Growing up, my all time favorite movie was The Princess Diaries.
The movie came out when I was 6 years old.
When I first saw it, I was majorly in the middle of my princess phase. Still holding out hope that I'm royal.

Anyways. Remember this scene?! Bucket list worthy.

Well, I decided to start ticking things off of that list!

I fell in love with the following balloon painting:

Source: My Good Morning

This is definitely a different style than the movie, and I plan on eventually making both styles.

Ok, let's get started! 

Gather the following supplies:

[I really using suggest all of these. Hint: I didn't]

-A canvas

-Tons of drop clothes 

-Lots of coordinating paint colors

-Lots of balloons (I used about 16, but suggest more)

-Darts

-Pins
- Metal Key Ring (optional)

I cut down costs by DIY-ing my own canvas. I simply put two layers of indoor wall paint on an inexpensive piece of cotton fabric. After it dried, I stretched and stapled it to a thrifted bulletin board. Not perfect, but hey! It's going to be covered in splattered paint anyways!

Next is the setup. This involved lots of sheets/ drop-cloths around my workshop to cover things that couldn't get paint on them. Even if things are far away, don't take the risk. Paint flies, people!

BUT if you do it outside, you really only need one underneath.

Outdoors wasn't an option for me at this time, but I feel like that'd be much better! Splatter prevention and all.. hehe. 

 The next step is to fill your balloons with paint. 

First, blow up your balloons a bit to stretch them out before filling with paint. 

Here is where the key ring comes into use. 

This created a bigger hole, and helped prevent paint ingestion... 

OOOO. They paint in the balloon looked pretty cool in person...

Experiment with a variety of color combinations, amounts of paint, and amount of air in the balloons.

Then, randomly arrange your balloons and pin them to your canvas.

Then comes the fun part!!

Confession time. I didn't actually use darts. I couldn't find any, and was too lazy/cheap to go buy some.

I first attempted a Macgyver dart, made with a pencil, eraser, and pin.

I don't think it was exactly heavy enough or something. It kinda just bounced off of the balloons.

 After chucking 3 random pointy things at the canvas (my mother's suggestions!), I gave up.

SO! Solution time! 

Macgyver dart was back, but not really as a dart. Prepare to be splattered, people!

This involved a bit of hiding behind the drop cloth. Didn't do much in the splatter avoidance.

After all the balloons were popped, I did a little splattering to add a bit more color.

Splatter avoidance? Eh, I tried.

After a little finger painting, it was perfect!

Macgyver dart was preeeetty afterwards :D

And so were my hands.

TADA! Finished piece.

I apologize for the lack of nice staged photos. They'll be coming eventually!

This thing was still wet when I drove back to school.

Overall, NEXT TIME, we're going HAM.
More balloons, more paint, more like The Princess Diaries, and actual darts!

♥

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Anthropologie Leather Lasse Chair Knock-Off [DIY]

 Anthropologie is kinda the bomb. I have an unnatural obsession with browsing through their furniture. When I came across this particular chair, I fell in love! The green leather and the midcentury modern lines made my heart sing.

I stopped by my local Habitat for Humanity Restore to pick up a chair with similar lines to the original. See it tucked in at the beginning of the second row? Potential! Ugly beyond belief, but potential..

My store always has a large selection of chairs, and I picked this one up for just $2.

I took the chair from dumpster worthy, to living room ready with the help of a jigsaw, drill, and electric sander. First off, I had to change the shape of the frame. After removing both of the cushions, I tackled the legs.

First, I chopped off the part connecting the front and back legs that ran along the floor.

I also used a jigsaw to taper them.

After some quality time with my sander, the legs were completely transformed!

The back of the chair was rounded, and I needed it to be straight across. Once again to the jigsaw. The curve was cut off of the back and screwed into the front to square off that side as well. 

Last step: arms. Screw on a simple 1x4 and voila!

After that, it was ready to be upholstered. I stopped by my favorite fabric store to pick up materials. I actually did a post just on that store! Fabric for miles, people. Check it out. It's amazing.

I matched the green leather, and found black and white 

chevron fabric for the cushions.

So, once the frame was done, I covered it with batting and was ready to upholster.

Then the upholstering began. This being the second chair I've ever upholstered, I am not going to do a tutorial. I really had no clue what I was doing.

With the price of fabric and foam coming out to $82, the total was $98! That total includes $2 for the chair, $12 for upholstery tacks, and a $2 board that was used on the arms! A far cry from the original, which rings in at nearly $1,500!

♥

Geometric Moravian Star Light {Tutorial}

Ok. Here we go. You see this thing? You like it? Well make your own then! Here is how I did it.

I apologize for the lack of actual pictures. But think of it this way: You get to see how talented of an artist I am. ha. ha. ha. yes. It's on notebook paper.
 Like in most cases, I didn't really know what I was doing until I was done.

First off! 

Supplies

Cocktail/Coffee Straws. 
Lower (Stronger) Gauge Wire. [I used 16 gauge.]

Higher (Weaker) Gauge Wire. [I used 24 gauge.] 

Thread. [Optional. You could use wire if you desire.]
Clip. [Optional. See step 5.]

Brass Fasteners. [You'll need 17 in total.]

Hot Glue Gun.

Spray Paint. [I suggest one formulated for plastic.]
Pendant Light Thingy. [I have no clue what they're called. I think I'm close?] 

LED Lightbulb. [or any low to no heat producing bulb.]

Preparation.

First order of business, cut your straws! 

The lengths I used were about 5" and 2.5". This doesn't have to be exact, but they do have to be the same as each other. I've seen tutorials on cutting straws with a roller cutter, but this didn't work for me. So, I cut one and trimmed the rest to the same length with scissors, using the same first straw as a guide/reference.

Cut out 48 of the 2.5" straws and 68 of the 5" straws.
[If you're not in a rush, I suggest gradually stealing these from your local coffee shop. Or, if you're me, you find an enormous bag of them in your mother's car trunk. We don't ask questions.]

1.

This step, string 8 short straws onto your strong/16 gauge wire.

This will create a straw hexagon. You'll need 4 of these. 

2. 

Now, we're attaching these four hexagons to each other. Cut 8 short pieces of the thinner wire. Tie/wrap this around the intersections of the four hexagons.

Hopefully the drawings explain where they attach to each other. This going to be the frame. 
We're starting to form a geometric ball shape. 

3. 

Keep the thin wire out for this step. We'll be finishing off the frame. See how the tops create squares where they intersect? You will be making the entire ball/frame into squares. Attach all of the intersections. You will end up with 8 triangular shapes and 18 squares. The points/spikes will stick out from the squares. 

4.

Here is an easy step. Take your thread (or wire) and cut 4 strips around 14 inches long. (Basically, the length of two longer straws put room to tie them to the frame at the end. The longer, the easier.). Tie the four strings together in the middle. Now repeat this 16 times, until you have 17. One for each point.

5.

This step is tying on the points to your star. Separate out two strands of thread, and attach a clip at the knot area. [To be honest, I just used my teeth] String these two pieces of thread down one long straw segment. Take the two ends and tie them around any corner of a square on the frame. Repeat with the opposite corner, pulling relatively taught, but not enough to snap the thread. Finish off the other two corners, and VOILA! One point down! 16 to go. Sorry. This will probably take you a while.

At the end, you'll have one square without a spike in it. I recommend tying some string through the square before you put too many spikes on, so you remember not to put one there. Pick one of the squares that was created by the hexagons with stronger wire through them.

6.

Now it's time to take out your glue gun.
I used a small amount of glue on every intersection of straws. This is to eliminate any shifting, and unite the structure. The points are especially important, as you want them to be lined up nicely to look professional. 

7.

(Did I mention my horrible spelling skills? You'll need Pliers. Not Plyers. I'm ashamed.)

Pull the little legs of each fastener away from the center and chop them off with a pliers, wire cutters, pair of scissors you don't care much about, etc. Just get them off. 

8.

Take the Brass Fasteners and hot glue them to the end of the points on your star.

The ends look so much nicer covered, rather than having the straw ends showing.

9.

Spray painting time! Hang your star outside, or in a garage. 
[I know it's cold outside. Trust me. I live in Minnesota. But still, skip wearing your nice winter jacket during this step. Learn from my mistakes. ....It's actually kinda sparkly and cool now.... But don't!]

I also spray painted the top of my pendant light, which I recommend doing for aesthetics. This is taking up the visual space of another point, and uniform color makes sense.

10.

This part is kind something you need to figure out for yourself. Attaching the pendant light. My light was round, and twisted onto something, so I took a small piece of plastic, cut a round hole in it, punched holes in the corners and used wire to string it into the remaining/non spiked square.

And, you're: 

You can see more pictures over in this post

Yay Geometry!

Did you make one? Planning to make one? Questions? Tell/ask me below!

♥