Game table

Almost two years ago I found an old side table for $5 and two ladder back chairs for $1 each at a yard sale. They were too good of a deal to pass up. These items have sat first in the basement of my rental and then the basement of our new home. I finally decided what I wanted to do with these little treasures....

I painted the chairs and table a sandy color and distressed them. I added padding to the chairs and covered them in the paisley fabric I used in my dining room. I love how they turned out.

Since my house has a beachy/FL style I went with blue/white instead of black/white. The exterior edges are "perfect" with the interior lines done free hand. Being that it's a distressed peice I though perfectly straight lines would take away from the "perfectly imperfect" table.

Build Your Own Fire Pit

 We recently hit the one year mark of living in our new home. On our list of projects has been a backyard patio and fire pit. We recently had a 300sq ft cement patio poured and decided to build our own fire pit. This idea was born from a local nursery trying to sell us a fire pit kit for a cool $900!! What ?? They sell the same bricks at walmart for $2 each. A little old school math skills, a shovel, good old elbow grease and we successfully built our own for less than $150!

 My hunky hubby had plenty of leftover dirt from our patio to create our fire pit area. We used a stick, string, and a little shovel to mark the circle.

Spray paint to mark our circle.

Next, we went round and round the circle offsetting the bricks until it was three levels high. The bricks are pretty darn heavy so we decided not to use any mortar or adhesives.

 The finished product!

Decoupage Map Trash Can

The kids bath has a map theme and the boring white plastic trash can was really getting on my nerves. Since we now live in the DMV area I thought covering the trash can with a map of D.C would be fun.  I'd never worked with decoupage before so this is my inaugural project!

Here's what you need...



I cut out specific landmarks such as the national monuments that I wanted to be clearly displayed and adhered them first...


The next step is sort of like doing a puzzle where you actually cut the peices to fit. The "Roseanne" puzzle. If you never saw that episode it's a hoot!

Here is the final product after filling in all the gaps and giving it three coats of decoupage...

**Tip- Inbetween coats of decoupage, wrap your paint brush in plastic wrap. This will prevent the glue from drying and the brush from getting hard.**

No Sew Window Treatments

The before picture...

I snagged these sea foam window panels at Target. They were too good of a deal to pass up even though I knew the length was a little short... $6.97 each!!  I've seen a few different "no-sew" window treatment projects on other blogs and decided to give it a try. I picked up some iron on adhesive when I bought my fabric for the bottom.

This stuff is AMAZING!! Easy to use, cheap and super strong. I highly recommend it. With just a hot iron t0 seam the edges it really gave a professional looking finish to the curtains.

Here is the finished product!

 I fell in love with this paisley print. It went perfectly with the panels and I'm excited to make a coordinating table runner for my dining room table. Plus, it was on sale for $5 a yard!(I only used 1 yd) This means that I basically ended up with custom panels for less than $10 a panel!! Yay me ;)

Pelmet Boxes

Do you know what a pelmet box is? Don't feel bad, neither did I. In my search for window treatments I came across an adorable blog...little green notebook.  On her blog she provided a tutorial for pelmet boxes she'd made for her daughters bedroom. Although I wasn't brave enough to try anything other than a plain old rectangle shape I was inspired to at least try. Here is my finished project.

This was quite possibly the easiest and most cost effective project I've ever done. To create these I used...

• 3 sheets of foam board
• 3 yds fabric( including the extra for the accent pillows and lamp shade)
• white duct tape
• batting
• photo hangers
• staple gun
• hot glue gun

Just cut the foam to fit your windows. Build the box by duct taping the sides together. Wrap it  in batting and fabric and staple along the underside til it's smooth and taunt. Epoxy or hot glue photo hangers onto the short sides of the box and mount.

Yes. It's really that easy!

Please feel free to share your boxes by emailing me pics at shknitsandgiggles@yahoo.com

Window Treatments Project #1

Actually, this post should be titled window treatments project 1, take two. My original plan was to create a roman shade for my sons bedroom window. I had already hung two magnet boards on either side of the window so I needed something that would fit inside the window. A regular roll up shade did cross my mind but that seemed very plain and not my style. I went out and bought a pattern, fabric, ring strips, nylon cording and whatever else the pattern called for. Once I got home and read through the pattern I changed my mind immediately. Lesson learned- step 1. read the pattern first!

I spent the next evening searching the internet for inspiration. Simple inspiration. I found a very cute blog with a link to tutorials on how to spruce up a plain roll up shade. Here it is http://www.myhomeideas.com/decorating/design-ideas/1-window-shade-3-ways-10000001101597/fabric-shade-10001390931008/
So now my plan was to try and cover a simple shade with fabric. I thought this would be a perfect project for the boys room and instantly thought of a starry night or planets fabric. I went out and bought all the supplies and picked up some spray adhesive to try in place of the E-6000 since I've used it before and I know what a sticky, toxic mess it can be.

My adventure begins...


First I rolled the shade out to make sure I had ample room to lay my fabric and "work".

 I ironed the fabric very well so that smoothing it down on the shade would be smooth and flat.

 In place of the E 6000 I sprayed the shade with this spray adhesive. Here's where my troubles appeared. I don't know if it was my lack of patience or if it really didn't stick. In the end I went with the E-6000 glue and it worked well. If I were to do this project again I would spray the shade heavily before applying the fabric and once the fabric was down I'd let it sit and set for an hour or two.

 The yard stick came in handy for smoothing the fabric on the shade. Sort of a scraping motion.

Before....                                                                                         After!

I used the left over strips that I cut from the edge of the covered shade to add a little accent to the basic valance. Overall I'm very happy with how this window came out and am planning on trying some other ideas with roll up shades for a few of the other windows I still have to do in the new house. There's 11 more windows and a set of sliding glass doors still to go!!