Office {Snail Pace Style}

Things move a little slow around here. I just got to painting the crown molding in the office. The trim has been up for, oh, about a year. I had to get lots lots of trim up quick since our hallway looked like this:

But I didn't get around to finishing out the crown in the office till just the other day. {The bedroom crown is yet to be finished}. Even though the office progression has been slow, it has come a long way.

Since then we've put in:

• A shelf above the Closet
• A photo wall
• Board and Batten
• Trim around the window
• A new fan
• and of course the crown molding

I got the crown molding for a super good deal off of craigslist. {see what else I got here}

 

Here I am painting. I don't use tape, because, even though it takes longer, doing it free hand really does a better job. Tape never seems to really leave a straight edge. And, oh yeah, those are my pajama jeans. Just FYI. They're pretty bomb.

I like our photo wall, even though not every picture/painting is perfect. But it's fun to have things up that we've made, and things that are important to us.

I still can't get over how much I love my Aslan.

You know, something I learned with this project? I love Durham Rock Hard Putty. No joke, I'm never going back to normal putty again.

Fun stuff. I'm really relieved the crown is finally finished in here. Now I just have the bedroom.... dun dun dun!

Our 7 month late 2nd Anniversary present

For our first anniversary we got each other a really nice picture of the Salt Lake Temple, where we were married. {it is fun to get ourselves one nice present since we can't think of things to get eachother}.

So for our second anniversary we wanted to get our favorite wedding picture printed on canvas, really huge-like. So we did, we just took 7 months to do it.

Finding where to get the canvas print was the trickiest. I ended up finding Uprinting.com. They had the cheapest online prices that I felt comfortable using {some places I worried about the quality}. But Uprinting has a real person evaluate your submission to make sure it looks good before it gets printed.

They have 2 options to order your canvas. Either stretched on a frame or rolled. Getting it stretched would have cost around $125 for a 24x36. Getting it rolled {and on an online sale day} we got it for $60 and way bigger 36x48.

1x2's are perfect for making the canvas frame. A little bit of measuring, cutting, and some "L" brackets on the inside corners and the canvas is ready to be stretched. (you'll want the "L" brackets on the inside corners so that you don't end up with a weird looking canvas, or end up with the canvas not sitting in the frame properly).

Stretching the canvas is not difficult. All you need is a staple gun. Start from the middle of the four sides and work your way slowly to the corners.

To build the frame I got three kinds of wood trim. One small square type that serves to hold the canvas. One casing type molding that is mostly flat that serves as the bulk of the frame. And one crown type molding to turn the corner to the wall.

The trim that holds the canvas is pretty easy. I cut it to fit as tight to the canvas as I could, and secured it with corner braces.

Next I cut the casing molding. The small side of each cut is about 1/8" smaller than the length of the canvas, so that the trim will overlap the canvas just a bit and hold it in place.

I secured the casing molding with more "L" brackets. I also used wood glue and clamps to make sure the inner corners looked good. (REALLY wipe the wood glue off of any surfaces you intend to stain, use lots of water and get it off, or else your stain will not stick)

Next came the crown molding. I didn't use "L" brackets on these ones, so I did have some screw holes to putty.  I used 3 screws per side, and wood glued the entire length {again making sure to get ALL wood glue off the surfaces to be finished}.

I stained using some left-over  Dark Oak. I did just one coat, since the wood really took to it and got dark quick. Filling the screw holes comes after staining the rest of the frame. Tint the wood putty before you put it in. The photo above points to where the putty is, and you can barely see it. To tint the putty, I just mixed it with my finger on some tin foil.

Here's the final product. Happy 7 month late anniversary my wonderful hubby.

The cost of printing a canvas this large {36x48} already stretched is about $150 - $200. Then looking at getting it framed, depending on the quality of frame, you're looking for around at least $400 - $600. At least if you look at local framing shops or Michael's. 

I am going to take a look at my favorite frame shop in Boise, Idaho, this Summer when I need a frame for my annual fair painting. I'll let you know what the prices look like there.

For now, I am pretty happy with our $110 DIY package, verses the $550-$800 alternate.

Floral Fun

I have a wonderful husband. For Valentines he sent me flowers at work. The flowers lasted quite a while, since I trimmed off the dead flowers, and new flowers kept blooming. I loved my arrangement (and so did my work since it smelled so nice). Chris has sent me flowers before, and I love to keep the vases. But I wanted to try to recreate this one. I recreated one arrangement he sent me a long time ago, and I've loved having the reminder around.

What is nice about recreating an arrangement, is you can reuse a stuff. I already had the little wood box to put it all in. And I had the cool twisty sticks. I got the flowers from Michaels   because they really have the best selection around here, plus they were having a 40% off select fake flowers.

So here is the actual arrangement sitting on my desk at work.

I filled the box with the green foam and started putting the sticks from the arrangement in. I had a picture up of the original and tried to copy it as much as I could.

Next came the snowball-ish flower, and some berry things.

The asian lilies were the most fun. I trimmed off most of the leaves from them since the original's leaves had been trimmed, but also to use as the ground cover greenery to cover the green foam.

Didn't turn out too shabby huh? I really do love it when Chris sends me flowers, and it is fun to keep a remembrance of it around. Here's the first arrangement that I recreated:

My creation sits on my night stand. The orchids are quite a bit larger than the original's... but I still like them.

The Dresser that has been done for a while

I got this dresser last Summer, and have just barely gotten pulls on it. This dresser is one our favorite. It turned out so well. And the whole thing cost about $60, since I used stain I already had from my TV stand, and I always have myself some Polycrylic around.

Here's what it looked like when I picked it up for $20.

It took a good chunk of time to sand the whole thing down good enough to stain. Most of a Saturday was spent making sure not one little piece of stain was left. I had to do a lot by hand, since my hand sander isn't friendly to curves.

And here is the dresser now. Just plain beautiful.