Vintage Trash to Vintage Awesome...

For those of you not familiar with the North Coast let me tell you one thing that will set it straight for you. We do not have a Target. Therefore I am left to browse a very select few stores. One being a giant Goodwill. I love treasure hunting and who knows what you might find. Well the other day I found a comfy, ugly, fringed ottoman for $7.99. I knew I loved it right away and took it home to where I could love it more.

 Hurley was being a bit of a camera whore that morning.

 See I wasn't lying... $7.99!!!

 Check out those legs. I love the nobby little brown curvy stubs! Cole helped me by removing them and the staples that held the fabric securly in place.

Then we tore off the old fabric and laid out the new. God I love Ikea... I got this awesome upholstry fabric for $7.99 a yard. I love the bold classic lines.

 I cut the fabric sparingly but gave myself several inches to play with for staples.

 Then I started at one side, pulling the fabric tight and began to staple away like a mad-woman with my beloved staple gun.

 Stripes really can blow when recovering a piece. I am not anal but just lazy and really into instant gratification so I did not take the time like most would to really line it up to make it stunning.

 Final product! Well I guess it did turn out stunning after all. Lucy loves it. I think she figured I made it just for her..... and Lola?

 Here it is all nestled in and ready to be loved. Since these photos have been taken the ottoman has taken up permanent residency in out breakfast nook where Lucy loves to dine on it. As a new mom I forgot to take into account white strpies. I have gotten a lot better at stain removal lately.... Thanks to Baking Soda! Go to Goodwill and find a treasure!

 P.S. I made the burlap pillow above for Cole several months ago. I have never been good at song lyrics as you can tell... oops... Love it even more now.

Burlap-ness Tree Skirt

The Holidays are definitely well under way and we are very ready for them in this house. As I had mentioned earlier, we recently made a trip south to get our tree from the beach house. Mark started planting trees around the property years ago and now most of them are huge. Too huge in fact to fit in our houses accordingly. However, Cole and Lucy found a tree that would look nice all decorated and lit up. Above is a picture of the crew trimming the tree so that it would fit in our house. After the tree was up and all decorated I realized that I wanted something better for our tree. I wanted a nice tree skirt to really make our tree amazing. You see for the past several years I have been using curtains from my college years. I knew exactly what I wanted to make and after several discussions with my friend Chelsea we decided that we were going to craft the ever popular ruffled tree skirt off of Pinterest. If my directions throw you for a loop you can follow these directions and images here from Done over Decor.

First I found an old duvet cover (my childhood duvet cover actually, which I could never part with but now I feel better knowing that it will be a magical part of our lives for years to come!) then Chelsea traced around it with an old Christmas tree skirt I purchased from Goodwill. Which I am totally returning for $3.99 I know that makes me sound cheap but really I mean every penny counts here.

Then we collected our fabrics. I used burlap from leftover coffee bags I had and Chelsea used green and cream burlap from our local Joann's store. Then we started cutting it into strips four inches wide.

Then we put on gardening gloves because working with burlap and hot glue is a sticky hot mess. Then we started gluing away leaving room for a ruffle fold every five to six inches or so.

 Then we added a second layer. This project took a lot of fabric. I would estimate several yards of each color or around three to four coffee bags.

 Then my little monster woke up and wanted to over love on Chelsea's beautiful brand new baby Jack. It was quitting time then.

Several mornings later during nap time I got back in the saddle and started gluing away on mine again.

 After several hours of hard determined work I was finished and very happy with my results. I feel like our monstrous tree takes away from the skirt but until next year when we can downsize all I can say is .... I am pretty damn proud of the outcome.

 And my kid looks good in front of it.

 And I love the simple burlap-ness of it.

 Here is a picture of our tree. I know what your thinking ... But it is ours and that's all the matters.

Do it, Make it!

Rosemary Wreath

Several weekends ago we went to Pacific City to the beach house to get out Christmas tree. I was feeling overly ambitious that weekend with many holiday crafts dancing in my head. When we were outside of the house walking the perimeter, we came upon the Rosemary bush I had planted several years ago. The bush was huge and was in need of trimming. My mom and I decided that we should make wreaths from the Rosemary and adorn them in our kitchens to cook from for the month.

1st we purchased plastic Dixie bowls and cut out the center. Then I took some natural jute and started tying on sprigs of Rosemary, over and over again.   

Each wreath took me around twenty minutes or so to make. Needless to say my hands smelled amazing!

Earlier that day we had purchased some cute ornaments from a local mercantile in town for two bucks each.

After I went around maybe all of two times and added the ornament this is what I ended up with...

I pretty much thought they were great. I looked up what a rosemary wreath would retail at online and it was like 65 bucks. I made it for pretty much nothing. Granted the one online was trimmed and perfect looking.

 This is not a great picture but here you can see that we went on a wreath frenzy because we had so much leftover rosemary and I didn't want to waste any.

 I also had to add this photo. I mean hello cuteness. They were picking out the tree!

 Making these is a messy undertaking so be sure to work in an area that can be swept up easily.

 One last glimpse of the final product! So if you are looking for a way to use that Rosemary in your yard here you go. PS if you give them as a gift they dry up pretty quick so give them fast while they look nice and full. We sent one to my sister in Vail and between probably freezing and drying it looked a little sad by the time she got it. But she still loved it. Love you Sis.