DIY Kitchen Chalkboard

I love an easy craft project that makes a big difference :)  And let's be honest, chalkboard paint could not be easier to work with.   Especially the spray paint version!  For quite awhile now I've been meaning to buy a magnet pad of paper to put on my refrigerator so I can jot down those grocery store items I need to buy that I think about in the moment of cooking but ALWAYS forget once I get to the store.  Does that ever happen to you?  

However, I've had this empty wall in my kitchen since we moved in.  I thought I'd get around to finding art or something to fill the hole eventually, but then I came across this old tray that I got at the flea market a hundred years ago.  Boom! Let's make a chalkboard, hang it in the empty space, and now I can add items to buy as I think of them.  Ahhhh I love efficiency.

DIY Kitchen Chalkboard

Old Tray

Rust-oleum Chalkboard Spray Paint

Painters Tape

Chalk

1.) Tape off edges of tray with painters tape.

2.) Spray chalkboard paint on face of tray.  

I sprayed 3 coats, taking about a 2 minute break between coats.

3.) Wait 24 hours. (Hardest part! Ah patience!)

4.) Cure chalkboard by covering the entire area with chalk.  

Wipe off chalk and voila!

5.) List away!

I had to add a small sawtooth picture hanger to the back of my chalkboard.  You can buy these at any hardware store - I happened to have some in my tool box.  They come with tiny screws, you just grab a screw driver and screw them into the back of your tray.  Then I attached some kitchen twine to the back, and hung the tray on the wall.

The Painters tape actually pulled off a little of the old paint from the original tray.  But it ended up making the sign look even better! Unintentional distressing :)

I love how it fills up that empty wall and lets me remember what I actually need from the store!  Win, win.

xo,

Kate

Easy Peel Hard Boiled Eggs

Anthropologie Half Dozen Egg Crate

Doesn't it just frost your cookies when you hard boil eggs, and then when you try to peel them, it's like world war 3??  No? Hmmm, well I was on a mission to figure out the best way to hard boil eggs, while making them easy to peel when the time came to eat them.  See recipe below - it's no fail!

***TIP: The older the eggs, the easier they peel too. Use up your older eggs first!

Easy Peel Hard Boiled Eggs

1.) Place eggs in pot large enough so eggs can lay in one layer.

2.) Cover eggs by at least an inch with cool to 

room temperature water.  Bring water to a boil.

3.) Let water boil for 2-3 minutes.  Then turn off heat.

4.) Cover the pot and let the eggs sit in the water for 13 more minutes.

5.) When 13 minutes are up, dump out hot water and

immediately cover eggs with cold water again.  Let eggs cool in water.

6.) Refrigerate immediately, or peel to make Deviled Eggs!

Flea Market Find: Under The Sea!

There is an amazing little antique store down the street from my house.  One of my favorite ways to wile away an afternoon is to walk the few blocks and wind my way through the different booths.  I never know what I'm going to find, but I always find something!  It's a little dream of mine to have a booth there - I'd love to fill it up with all my favorite little trinkets: candlesticks, vintage barware, amazing table lamps, unique jewelry...

One of my last trips through, I found these cute little fish dishes.  They were piled up on a shelf that was completely overflowing with odds, ends, junk, and treasures.  I've probably walked past them a hundred times, but something about this last time made me notice them.  I decided to spruce 'em up with a little spray paint I have laying around the garage...silver, grey, peacock, and cream.  Totally beachy and over the top - but that's why I like them!

They'd make an adorable hostess gift.  And can be used in so many ways! Soap dish, jewelry catcher, candle holder in the guest room...the list goes on.  Whimsical and a little goofy...I love them!

DIY Shimmery Fall Wreath

What is your go-to front door decor for the Fall season?  Mine is this DIY Shimmery Fall Wreath I made a couple of years ago.  This will be the 3rd year I've decorated with this wreath, and she's still holding up.  It's an easy and fun project - now is just the time to make one for your front door!

DIY Shimmery Fall Wreath
1 grapevine wreath
fake fall foliage - berries, leaves, twigs, pumpkins
hot glue and gun
spray paint in a variety of fall colors - golds, browns, shimmery coppers
Optional: wood letter and twine

1.)  Using scissors, cut off all the leaves and berries from the sticks and garlands they came on.

2.)  Divide up the foliage and spray each group a different fall color.  Flip over when dry and spray the other side.  Spray some leaves with full coverage and others with a light misting to let the original coppers and reds show through.

3.)  Begin tucking berries and leaves randomly into the grapevine wreath. Some leaves will stay without using hot glue, others you might want to secure with a dot of glue.

4.)  Optional final touch:  Spray paint a wooden (or cardboard, or chipboard) letter a deep chocolate brown.  Tie onto wreath with rustic twine for a more personal expression.

Below: wreath without letter

I personally like the wreath with the letter.  It fills up some empty space and makes it feel more personal and homey - just what Fall should feel like!

What do you have adorning your front door this year?

xo,

Kate

Linked to: Top This Top That
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Before/After: Gold Bar Cart

Happy Thursday amicis!  I'm back with another Before and After project.  We've all seen the gorgeous bar carts that adorn Pinterest's hallowed halls, right? Let me just refresh your memory:

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Ahhhhh...true love.  As a direct result of what you just saw, I've been pretty much obsessed with finding a bar cart for our sun room.  After running around antique stores, flea markets, big box stores, and the Internet I came across these beauties:

The above 3 are at Wertz Brothers Antique Mall in Santa Monica, and all are a couple hundred dollars.

This gold bar cart is perfect and for sale at Open Sky - $275

 Let's put it this way - I had to keep looking :>)  These were all just a tad out of my price range - ha!  And just as I was losing hope, I walked right by this guy at Stars Antique Mall in Hermosa Beach:

Seriously.  I walked right by it.  But then some strange, internal tug forced me to turn back around and unearth this piece (under dishes and frames and art and glasses and you name it, it was sitting on her)...and I looked at the price tag.

$39.

Seriously? Thirty nine DOLLARS!?!?!??!!?  Sold!  With a little tender loving care (using the same process I posted here), she turned into.....

I used Rustoleum Metallic Spray Paint in Gold Gloss after priming her with Zinnser Cover Stain Spray Primer.

I could not pass up this gorgeous bottle of Pimm's we saw in London.  It's one of the 2 souvenirs I brought home for myself from our Europe trip a month ago.  Isn't it gorgeous? I'm such a sucker for anything "Union Jack".

Recipe for easy Pimm's Cup Cocktail

Mix 1 part Pimm's No.1

with 3 parts chilled lemonade.

Add some mint, cucumber, orange

and strawberry.

I love her.  I plan to style her up a little more, but she's so pretty now!

Side note: I stumbled across this super fun quiz over at the Homegoods website.  It's helps define your home decor style using different photos...check it out!

xo,

Kate

Before/After: Nightstands

I think most people would agree that moving into a new home (and out of an old one!) is one of the most stressful activities around.  The packing and unpacking, purging and storing decision making is a lot to take on.  But the one thing that makes all that backbreaking work worth it?  

Decorating!  

Decorating a new home is so much fun.  I've been loving the process - looking at pieces we've had for awhile, determining how to use them in different ways.  Should we donate to Goodwill? Or paint this a new color? Something bright and risky and fun? Or perhaps we play it safe and leave it as is?  The options are endless, bound only by how creative I can be...or by how inspiring Pinterest is!

As a result, I've been on a spray paint kick for the past few weeks.  And while my hands are temporarily dyed winter gray, hunter green, and primer white...the results have been worth it.  We've been needing nightstands for...oh several years now :>)  I've used mismatched side tables for much too long, so finding 2 matching nightstands has been a priority for me.  Our bed is fairly feminine with it's curvy shape and tufting.  We also recently purchased a new dresser from the flea market.  It's a distressed cream color and has an antique feel to it.  I knew I wanted the nightstands to add a contemporary layer to help balance out the other elements in the room.  

Brand new nightstands are not in the budget at the moment, so I've been searching flea markets and thrift stores high and low, keeping an open mind toward color and finish.  As long as the shape fit my modern parameters, they were in the running!  And the winners are....

Gorgeous, right? Ha! Oh these cuties needed a lot of love, but at $20 a piece at the Salvation Army store, I couldn't leave 'em behind.  And fortunately, they weren't hard to doll up...see below for the step by step process:

1:  Wash completely.  Inside, outside, take the drawers out, and clean clean clean.

2:  Remove hardware.

3:  Sand off unidentified sticky residue (I don't want to know.)

4:  Prime with Zinsser Cover Stain Primer Spray Paint (it's the best.  No need to sand or remove previous stains - it literally covers everything).

5:  Spray with color of your choice - I used Rustoleum's Dark Gray in Gloss Finish.  Buy at Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon.

6:  Seal with Minwax Water Based Polycrylic Protective Finish in Clear Gloss using a foam brush.  

7:  Reattach hardware.

I LOVE how they turned out!

What do we think?!  Have a fabulous and stylish Thursday!

xo,

Kate


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