Tufted Headboard

One minute you find yourself cleaning poop off the wall, a lil' bum, and a lil' hand (TM I? Just another great benefit of being a mom!) the next minute you're knocking off a Ballard Designs headboard! They call me supermom crazy! 

(Woa coloring! I promise it's not neon green!)

I love the result, but think twice about making your own.  I started thinking this would be an easy project... ha! I laugh at myself now.  It's pretty time consuming and my forearms and fingers are killing me today!  Thank goodness the hubby came to the rescue with a 2nd pair of hands or I would still be tufting today.  Maybe I should clarify, upholstering the headboard- pretty easy, tufting the headboard- pretty ridiculous! Would I do it differently next time? No way! Love how it turned out, but it was definitely not the easiest project on the block. 

Sadly, I was not feeling the snapping pictures along the way.  So there's no tutorial, here's a couple others I found online.  Ticking and Toile, Centsational Girl, Green Your Decor.

Here's the break down on my cost and a few extra tips...

• Sheet of plywood cut down to size at Home Depot only $10 because I had to wait a little while and didn't take the whole thing home. LOVE that store- they are so helpful and generous!
• Cheap Mattress pad cut in half and doubled up- $15 (This reduces the cost drastically and worked great!)
• Fabric- $5 (I used a cheap twin sheet from Walmart and just doubled it up. This also lowered cost)
• Package of Batting (which I used for other projects as well)- $5
• Spray glue- $5 (already had on hand, and will use in the future)
• Loooong heavy duty needle- $1
• Upholstery thread- $2 (already had on hand, and again will use in the future)
• Washers/Screws/Nails- $2ish (already had all on hand)

Tools used were...

• Jigsaw- To cut out the design.  I free handed one side, then used a piece of large paper to duplicate on the other side.
• Drill- To drill the holes in the back for tufting.  Make the holes LARGE, it will make finding the hole so much easier when you are coming back through- learned that the hard way. :)
• Staple gun- for attaching the batting and fabric to the plywood.
• Ruler- To mark all of the spots for tufts. I actually found a quilting ruler/guide worked wonders!

Now we just need pillows and wall art! 

Nightstands Turned Shelf!

I found this random junk pile in a soon-to-be neighborhood near us while looking for blackberry bushes one day. 

No wonder people put up signs like this!

I really don't get why anyone would just dump their things on someones property, there are so many places to drop off unwanted goods.  Sadly I found this hot spot after it had rained for a couple days, so I missed out on a couple great and fun chairs that were water-logged. :(

But I did find this beauty. 

Ok really I didn't find it like this I found two nightstands looking much like this only way dirtier and with weird flying bugs crawling on it! Seriously the things I will do for a free item- I question my sanity sometimes!

To turn it from 2 of those to this...

Recruit some free labor...

1.  Prepare the furniture- Clean and Sand.

The pieces that I found were nightstands with drawer units.  I couldn't find the drawers in the mass mess, so I had to remove screws and drawer stoppers. 

2.  Assemble your shelf.  Stack the 2 pieces, use wood glue and glue the top to the bottom, then attach the 2 pieces with a flat metal bracket, see a similar one called a Flat joining plate.  (sorry I didn't get a picture of mine!)  I used one bracket with 4 holes placed horizontally between the 2 nightstands.  2 screws going into each nightstand.

3. Glue 4 wood shelves into place.  I used 1/4" plywood found in the scraps section at Home Depot and had them cut down the scraps to the size I needed.  I paid $1.00 total for them and the cuts- big spender I know! :)

Two of my shelves were a little off so I had to use some heavy-duty sand paper and sand them down to be even with the nightstand. (as seen in above photo)

4.  Much to your hubby's dismay paint your beauty spicing up your boring white-walled rental! 

I used a foam roller and a cheapo foam brush and it left a great finish- no priming here. :)

5.  Finish shelf backing.  I took the false bottoms from the original nightstand, cut 2 of them down to size with the jig-saw.  Shh... don't tell the hubby I used it while he wasn't here- he gets a little worried with me and power tools especially since we live in the boonies.  And his worry is probably rightfully deserved- I am the daughter of the same man who lost parts of fingers on 2 separate occasions! 1st to a cement mixer when he was in his 20's and the 2nd time to a table saw while working on the cabinets for our basement bathroom. And I most definitely carry his clumsy genes! Phew that was a tangent! Back on track...

I wasn't too worried about the appearance so I put a light coat of paint on both sides then covered the board with fabric.  I used hot glue to secure it to the back side of the board, wrapping it like a present. 

6.  Attach shelf backing.  I attached the 4 different backing pieces using a heavy duty staple gun. 

7.  Move your shelf on inside and decorate!

This one will end up in my daughters room and will most likely be adorned with a plethora of toys plus a couple extra goodies.  Just need to find some better baskets! :)

Final cost of this project was approximately $7.00!
Nightstands= FREE!
Shelves= $1.00
Quart of Paint= $4.00 (purchased from habitat restore!)
Fabric=~$2.00 (probably less, fabric was clearance at JoAnn's about a year ago!)

This most definitely was a hodge-podge project and tutorial, so please ask if you need more info on any particular step!

AND if you made it all the way to here, I've got another super great labor intensive project that I just finished last night as well! I'll try to get it up soon! :)



Princess Chair "Revamp"

We don't despise princess related things in our house, but it's not exactly our favorite.  We are more rough and tumble, with some girly thrown in there for fun. So when we stopped in St. Louis at my aunts house on our last cross country move my cousin Gina, being the sweetheart she is, decided she had outgrown her chair and gave it to Hallie.  We were excited... Hallie loved sitting in it, in fact she loved everything that Gina had, and I was excited it was free! But it was a few years old and Gina had definitely put it to good use, so I decided to recover it. 

Sadly I didn't take a picture beforehand so here's a stock look alike. 

I broke out my trust friend, the seam ripper and went to work.  And seam ripping I did! I ripped out all of the old seams so I could use the old pad as a pattern.  So a few episodes of 24 later, I was done with the seam ripping. 

I then cut out my fabric, pretty, fun and not-so-princessy thrifted floral fabric on the top, and go-to sky blue on the bottom. 

I then basically made a slip cover for the old pad.  Reassembled the 2 cushions.  I was lazy and didn't finish the edges well, I may go back over them at some point with a zig-zag or overcasting stitch and make it a look a little nicer- or not since it's on the bottom. :)

I then took the old pieces that held the cushion onto the frame and made duplicates out of the blue fabric.  Then I broke out a few more episodes of 24 and hand sewed the pieces back around the frame.  A little time consuming, but it's adorable!

Homemade Headboard Saga

Do your best to look past these 2 munchkins and what do you see?! Besides 4 other unfinished projects? (Yes I counted them... nightstands need to painted, lampshades need to be replaced with something bigger, curtains need to be hung instead of towels (seriously!), and decorative pillows need to be made and/or bought... and that's just 1 picture in 1 room... my life is full of projects in the waiting right now!)

Well if you can look past all of that you will see a beautiful handmade headboard! Thanks to Lis and her persuasion, enthusiasum, and persistance; my hubbies mad skills with a rip saw, desire for me to actually finish a project, and willingness to help desire to get our house back in order; and last but not least :) my crazy ideas, blogging addiction, and inadequate/incorrect plans... both households have rockin' headboards! (How's that for a run-on!?)

Lis and I drew out plans Friday night for these beauties, went to Home Depot at 9:00 at night to "price them out" or so I thought, and much to my hubbies dismay, came back with the materials to build them. 

Add a snow storm into the mix and you get a weekend full of building a headboard in your living room, including, but most definitely not limited to... drilling, sanding, and painting!  Hey at least we Tyson saved the sawing for outside on our front porch, I'm sure our neighbors got a kick out of that one. 

We're absolutely giddy about them!