Monday projects and Goodwill finds

Monday projects are simple, easy, and quick to see results.  Monday always sneaks up on me because Jason works Tuesday-Saturday, so the real "weekend" in our house is Sunday/Monday.  But still, it is the beginning of the week for everyone else, and I want to start it off right and get things done!
The other day I ran into Goodwill and of course spent way more time there than I planned to, but I scored this mirror for half off the $2.99 price tag.  I don't really need it, but it was $1.50, so I figured I ought to take advantage.

So, I gave it a simple coat of gold spray paint, and ta-da!  It goes with the gold frame and square picture I have hanging on the wall on the way out of our bedroom.

It goes with the other Goodwill gold mirror I have in the bedroom, this gem I found for another $2.99 at another Goodwill a while ago and loooove above the bed.  See it in the reflection?

Except it has a great caning/woven texture to it.

At Goodwill the other day, I also bought this fabulous electric clock for $3.99.  It's so old, it has a power cord!  It still works just great.  The second hand slides around, rather than ticking, which is different but kind of nice.  I has a shabby chic Anthropologie-ey look already, with the chipping paint that someone obviously applied after-market, so I figured, how much worse could it look if I paint it?

I taped up the face carefully to ready it for spray painting, and then gave it an even coat of bright yellow and a speckledy coat of white.

What about you?  Have you done any easy, get-it-out-of-the-way Monday projects today to get your week started?

Recycling a tank into a trendy ikat pillow

I love ikat.  Don't we all?  It is everywhere these days (except JoAnn's... they are a little behind the times).  So without spending oodles on designer ikat fabric to make home dec goodies out of, I did a little upcycling and transformed this $3 clearance tank into a cute pillow for the bed!
First some inspiration.  Madeline Weinrib, anyone?

And Fabricadabra (via MadebyGirl)

So I found this tank on clearance at Marshall's around Christmastime.  It sort of fit, but not really.  So I scrapped it for raw materials!
Here are some pictures on how I (without wasting) cut apart the top to reuse the fabric.

This tank was lined, so I turned it inside out without the lining and investigated.

I ended up being able to reuse the zipper!

I wished I had had enough fabric to make a square pillow, but I didn't (well, it would have been really tiny).
So I made a rectangle, and it goes well on the bed!

Ta-Da!

White spray paint solutions: lamps

I am in a lamp phase right now.  I love lamps.  My eye goes right to them in magazine pictures, stores, design blogs... siiiiigh.  Unfortunately, on a tight budget, it's hard to get the fabulous lamp look (especially if you want things to match).  I'm still working on two pretty-much-matching lamps for either side of my bed, but through lots of Goodwill-ing, I acquired a funky 60's glass lamp base and a cute modern bubble lamp.
Inspired by this Serena and Lily lamp, Crate and Barrel, and other lovely places, I wanted all-white lampage. 

So I took this:

And gave it quite a few very light coats of white spray paint.  I bought two white shades from IKEA (I wanted a drum shape but this was the closest I could find, and they were only $10 each), and put this cutie on the dresser next to the bed.

There are a few imperfections, and spray-painting something super smooth like glass is generally a dumb idea (there are cracked places already, but I tried to cover them up by scratching them off and painting over):

But oh, well.  In general I looooooove it!  I wish I had another just like it so we could have matching lamps, but I doubt that's gonna happen.  I will try to find another similarly shaped base, spray paint it, and give it the same shade (I mentioned I bought two).
While I was thinking about white lamps, I remembered a cute-shaped lamp I got at Goodwill Outlet ages ago:

I topped it with an Urban Oufitters (circa 2003) shade I had lying around, but it has little scratches and dents in the paint and the black is so not me right now.  So I spray-painted it!

I also tried it with this clearance IKEA shade:

Which shade do you like better on it?  It's not going to go in the bedroom (I don't think) either way.  I can't put the plain white shade on it because it takes a lamp harp and the bubbly base doesn't.  Unless I somehow rig or electrical-tape a lamp harp on! (Uh, this is not above me..).  So for now, no matchy-matchy lamps.  But I am so excited by what white spray paint can do to a tired household fixture!

Cheapest. Art. Ever.

This is the cheapest art project I think I have ever done, and it looks pretty darn good nonetheless.  My bathroom was feeling too empty with just the one decor art piece I did a while ago (also pretty cheap... just the cost of the canvas, really), and I wanted to continue the black/white/taupe theme, so these silhouette print-outs from BHG were perfect!!
I just printed the image out from the PDF (I chose three that sort of went together and worked in the space), cut the paper to the size of the frame, and framed them in these $1 Dollar Tree frames!  Total cost... $3 plus the paper and ink, but I actually already had the frames lying around, so... $0.

I couldn't find the exact page on BHG that had the printables, so here they are below if you want to print them out and make your own super easy, super cheap silhouette art!

Sweater makeover, easy ruffled vest tutorial

Here's a tutorial on how to make over a boring or unflattering sweater into a cute, ruffly vest!

I started out with an old sweater from Old Navy--it's a little too snug, too short, and sort of boring.

 

• I started by turning it from a pullover into an open-front.  Cut down the center.

• Next, I cut off the sleeves below the shoulder "seam"--this way the shoulder stays intact and won't ravel.

• Now, you have two sleeve pieces.  Cut them open down the long seams.

• Even the sleeve pieces out by trimming the wider part off in loooong, skinny triangles.  These two big rectangular sleeve pieces will turn into the ruffles around the collar.

• Cut the sleeve pieces into bias strips.

• Sew the bias strips together and press the seams flat.

It looked to me like I wouldn't have enough of the bias to make it ruffly all the way around the neck and collar, so I cut my bias piece longways in half.

• Next, you'll gather one side of the bias piece with a large stitch and tight tension. (No pic).
• This next step is optional: for more interesting shape, I trimmed the bottom corners of the center front of the open vest.

• Back to the bias strips: pin the gathered bias cut ruffle onto the front of the vest and get ready to sew it down (wrong side to right side).

• Sew it down, going around the curve/angle of the collar.
• I wanted some ties, so I trimmed off the extra triangle from the other side of the long sleeve seams and sewed them down at the point in the front:

And then, here it is!

Before and After: 60's curve-front dresser facelift

I got this dresser when we first moved into our apartment, and I love the classic 50's/60's lines--those little feet, the curved front.  It was $20 at the Goodwill Outlet (quite a splurge for their prices, actually).  It has a Bassett Furniture stamp on the inside of one drawer, so I know it's quality!
I love the shape but haaaaaate that wood color.  I bought it planning to paint it (white, heirloom white, black, or brown?) but it was a pretty daunting painting project.  Anyway I finally did it!!!

I used the same dark brown I used for my chairs and table a few months back.  It's also the same color as my night stand (opposite the bed).  I bought a whole gallon of it, so all my furniture will match at some point... Anyway, the dresser looks much better now!

I used a 4" microfiber roller to apply the paint so there are no brush strokes.

My last yellow and grey post for a while

What fun it has been to be on the lookout for yellow and grey projects for a while!  I got out a pile of my yellow trims and some grey tees that need embellishment, but haven't done anything with it yet... but I did get a cute shirt made out of an antique yellow linen tablecloth.
This tablecloth is from the Goodwill Outlet ($1 or so a pound), and had stains all over it, but I picked it up because I'm a sucker for antiques at that place.  I didn't know what I would do with it, but the linen is sooooo nice and the color is interesting!  Not what I would pick out normally, but I'm so glad I bought it since it was the perfect material for a knock off of this top that I took a picture of at Forever 21 a while ago:

I forgot to take a pic of the tablecloth in its unaltered state, but here are the scraps:

It was a medium-sized tablecloth but there were stains to work around, so I only barely had enough fabric.  I used this pattern, and added gathered floops on the front:

Here it is!

Because the linen has so much body, it feels a little too 3-D... I tried it on with a sweater.

I copied this from a Forever 21 shirt, and we know they copy everything from someone else, so this is sort of a three-steps down copy.  I know Forever 21 is cheap (the original probably was $19.80 or $24.80 or something), but mine cost... less than $1.  And I bought the pattern for 0.99 when McCalls were on sale.  I am cheap.  And eco-friendly, to reuse fabric!
It has been really fun jumping on the Week of Yellow and Grey bandwagon... thanks again, Natalie!

Frumpy shirt makeover--super easy tutorial!

Take a look at this super easy tutorial for refashioning a storebought garment.  You can totally do this!
I bought this cute print top at Old Navy last week--darling yellow and grey print, but awful shaping.  Look at the dumpy sleeves and baggy shape.  It was on clearance and all the clearance stuff was 50% off, so it was like $6.

The flutter sleeves made my arms feel fat.  And there's no shape in the bodice!  Hello, waist?  But I love the fabric and the collar/yoke detail.  So here's a tutorial and some simple tips to alter storebought tops.  With all the nice finishing they do, it can be hard to make changes to garments without making them look off.  I've seen some pretty bad home alteration jobs on things at Goodwill, but those mistakes are avoidable!  Check out my pictures and tutorial:

• I'm going to get rid of the sleeves on this top and finish the edges.  Leaving enough fabric to be turned over with a clean edge (I did about 3/4 of an inch), just cut the sleeve off to the yoke.

• Trim the 3/4" back toward the sleeve/bodice seam, at the yoke.

• Cut exactly at the seam of the yoke.  Yes, there will be a raw edge, but it will be exactly on the seam that used to attach the sleeve to the yoke (and it will be covered by the 1/4" bias binding on the yoke).

Here's what the inside will look like:

• Press the seam allowance flat at the same edge as the armpit. (This top had partial sleeves, so the underarm of the armhole was already finished.  I'm not going to change it).

• Turn under 1/4", to match the binding on the armpit of the sleeve.

• Sew with a scant 1/4" seam allowance, attaching the folded part.
• ***If you don't have a sewing machine, no problem!!  You can do this by hand with a hidden whip stitch.

So simple!
Of course, this is specific to this type of raglan sleeve, yoked top, but the lessons to learn from these techniques can be applied to almost any storebought, finished item--sometimes it's okay to leave a (hidden) raw edge, and try to leave existing style elements (like the underarm seam) and work around them.
Anyway, here it is.  I thought about adding elastic to the waist to cinch it in more, but I really think that the 60's retro yoke style is meant to be straight up and down (not loose, with dumpy frumpy sleeves, though).  I may still take in the side seams just at the waist.  Ta-da!

And it fits with the Week of Yellow and Grey!!

Anthropologie inspiration in yellow and grey

As I've mentioned, I've been collecting yellow things for about a year, so now I have all kinds of pretty trims and I don't know what to do with them.  I went to Anthropologie for inspiration and found these lovely things, some helpful, some not so much...

I could totally make my own version of those tank tops, and the sweater... it kills me, I used to have a yellow sweater in that color and that style (without the crocheted trim) from BP in Nordstrom that I got on clearance when I was... 13?  I never liked the color and rarely wore it, now I wish wish wish I still had it!!
I looooove the lemon sheet set but their sheets are SO expensive!  And how pretty would that grey doily rug be in a room with some bright colors?

Darling vintage aprons for the Week of Yellow and Grey

In the spirit of the week, I just added these to my Etsy store!

And

Lovely vintage yellow to go in a domestic lady's kitchen... makes me want to drink tea and eat things with powdered sugar on them.