Just "one thing" sewing project and room make over.

 Hello Everyone!

I know that I said that I would try to post a recipe this weekend, but I got caught up in a project.  Unlike many people who have spent the pandemic being creative and productive, I have spent most of my time working looooooong hours trying to keep the theatre that I work for operational during a time when a live theatre can't do live performances.  (Can anyone say virtual performances and Zoom Meetings?)  So, when I wasn't working, I spent my time face down in my pillow.  My craft room became a storage room.  My guest room became the most unorganized closet you have ever seen as I just piled things on the bed.

It was disheartening.

Alberto Vargas 1920. I chose this picture because of the vase. And because she looks a little down or pensive.

Then my husband gave me a piece of advice to try and it started to turn my attitude around.  He told me "Just do one thing.  It doesn't matter how small it is.  If you get one thing done, that one thing is done and you have accomplished something."

At first I thought that he was crazy.  Could he not see the mountain of things that needed to be done in our house?  There were rooms that needed to be reclaimed.  (Pretty much all of them but the living room and kitchen.)  Crafts that needed to get done that were just piling up everywhere.  Mending to be mended.  Piles of laundry to be cleaned.  And much, much more...... I needed to make lists of what needed to be done!  Then, from there, I had to figure out what was most important and do that first.  But it was all so overwhelming.  Some things were equally important.  And the important things weren't the fun things that I would rather be doing if I got the energy.  So instead of doing anything, I did nothing and got more and more unsettled as my life around me seemed to be slowly degenerating into messy chaos.

With something that sort of resembled panic, I thought that I would try my husband's advice.  I mean, it couldn't hurt anything.  More importantly, he didn't CARE what my one thing I got done was.  Did I do a load of laundry?  Great!  Did I make a craft project that I wanted to make?  Well, that was fine too.  Did I just clear off a table in one of the rooms that needed reclaimed?  Wonderful!  I got one thing done.  And then something amazing happened.  As I started to do "just one thing"  I found myself doing one small thing,  And then moving on to another small thing.  And then another.  Until I was actually tackling big things again.

And they weren't all things that I felt I should do.  In fact, the first thing "one thing" that I decided to start was the first step in a sewing project that I wanted to do.  I have wanted to learn to sew from a pattern for ages.  But they always seemed like Greek when I read the instructions and I never had the time to get together with my friends who sew so they could teach me to read the pattern.  Even though several of them were willing to do so.  I watched YouTube videos on how to sew the way other people watched Grey's Anatomy.  Relentlessly - over and over.  I had the basics of sewing - my grandmother had taught me that.  I knew to backstitch to secure my stitch.  I knew to follow the lines on the guiding plate of my sewing machine to sew a straight line.  I had made pillows and curtains.  Just not an article of clothing.

Then the pandemic hit and Gertie from Charm patterns started putting out daily videos.  And then she put out a free pattern to make Harlow Pajamas.  

https://charmpatterns.bygertie.com/shop/harlow-pajamas-free/

Vintage inspired lounge wear for people who were staying mostly in their houses.  And the pattern was appropriate for beginning sewers.  But most importantly?  She put out a video on YouTube that STEP BY STEP walked you through how to make the pajamas.  From laying out the pattern on your fabric to the final stitch.  It was like having my own beginners sewing class!  And if now wasn't the perfect time to be alone in your home teaching yourself a new skill, then I didn't know when would be a better time.

So I downloaded the pattern.  Which I guess is technically a "one thing".  But my first "one thing" in my eyes was to put the pieces I had printed together to make a pattern.  I sat on my floor - because I didn't have a table big enough-- and I cut and taped for hours.

This is me putting the pattern together.  As you can see, the pets were very helpful.

The pattern ready to become a garment.

It wasn't something practical, like laundry, but it was "one thing" done and I was proud and happy.  And inspired to move on to the next step the following weekend.  I had decided the next "one thing" was going to be laying out the pieces on the fabric and cutting them out.  With YouTube tutorial on my laptop, I ventured forth to sew.      

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HhEwFVjWJQ&t=5613s

And I did it!!!  It took me three total weekends because I was only doing a little at a time, but it was done.  And I felt amazing.

And I even made a "scarf" so that I could tie a turban so that I didn't have to worry about doing my hair when I was wearing the outfit - yeah, that's quarantine fashion for you.

And after that it was like I was on a roll.  I started doing "just one thing" a day.  Sometimes I would just sew on a button for Mending Mondays.  Sometimes I would work on a craft project.  Or start reading a book that I put aside.  And slowly, my just one things, started looking like completed big things.

And one of these big things made of "just one little things" was what I was wrapping up this weekend.  

Before the pandemic, I had started redesigning my guest room because I HATED it.  I had the idea that I was going to have rose gold/pale copper walls as accent walls and instead, it just looked like..... well my husband and I called it baby puke orange.  

It wasn't a bad room. (In fact some of you may remember me showing you the decorations for this room years ago.)

 It just was one that hadn't turned out the way that I wanted it to and it never felt right.  My husband and I would joke that it didn't have any feng shui  (We don't know feng shui, we just knew the room wasn't working.)  Plus, going in it made me sad because it was the room my dad stayed in to visit me right before he passed away.  Memories were great, but wanting to cry every time I went in - even after two years- was getting to be a bit much.  So I had decided I needed a change.

To start off (again pre-pandemic and before I started doing things "one thing" a day), I decided the orange had to go and the layout needed to change.  (I had firmly decided the bed needed to go under the window instead of at right angles to the widow and that the tall dresser needed to be moved out of the closet because I needed the closet to hold my fall/winter wardrobe.)  I also have always wanted vintage Hollywood glam mirror furniture, so I thought I would do some research and see if I could make that happen.  AND, I am the Frugal Femme here, I wanted to change the whole room for $200 or less.

And I got sooooooooooo far before the pandemic hit.  I really did.

First I replaced the ceiling fan with a chandelier - which was purchased for $25.  (I say I replaced it.  This was actually done by my husband as he does all the electrical stuff in our house.)

Here, as you can see, I have moved the bed, and piled it high with clothing and items that needed to be put in the room, but the wall is still orange.

Got rid of the orange and got a Frenchie to help me.

The next step was to paint the accent wall a metallic turquoise and do antique gold accents to match the chandelier on the trim.  The paint for this cost $40.00.

Then it was time to try to turn the golden brown furniture you see above into the inspiration furniture pictured below.  I already had the paint for this because I had purchased it years earlier to do the trim in the bedroom so my bedroom looked more like Dita von Teese's.  This was yet another project I had not got around to doing yet, but I had the paint and thought that I would use it.

The mirror came out of the main bathroom when we first moved into the house.  It was too big for what we had in mind for the bathroom, but it seemed a shame to throw away a perfectly good mirror, so my husband had stored it in his shop for me until I found a place for it.  So the mirror cost me nothing.

I put on some bedding that I had in my apartment before I got married.  It was silk and I loved it, but it had stayed in a drawer for over a decade.   It was too small for the bed I shared with my husband and it didn't go with the room when it had orange walls.  I took it out of storage, ironed for what felt like ages and put it on the bed to see if it would go with the color scheme I had chosen--- because I REALLY didn't want to purchase bedding because that would have just blown my budget to smithereens.

I thought it looked great despite the quilt like aspect of it.

Keep your eye out for the faux fur blanket.  It was falling apart as a blanket, so I repurposed it.  Which you will see in later pictures..

Then it was on to curtains.  I cheated with curtains.  I couldn't find any pre-made that I liked that were in my budget and we have an interior designer that donates unused fabric to the theatre where I work.  I got to choose fabric I wanted for curtains (that the theatre could afford to let go) in exchange for doing tasks that our costumer didn't want to do. (So many buttons...........)  The cream, gold and silver fabric I adored did not have enough yardage to make curtains that covered the windows.  So I had to carefully measure the fabric and the windows and create panels in grey to "frame" the fabric and extend it enough to cover the windows.

I wish the picture did these justice.  They are gorgeous in real life.

I got a set of ornate vintage light switch and electrical outlet covers for $20.  But I thought they were missing something, so I painted some of the filigree antique gold.  

And then pandemic and quarantine happened and I stopped working on the room.  Even though I only had the trim around the closet and putting away the items on the bed left to complete.

I did, however, decide to try to raise my spirits during quarantine by making my own version of a Gerda Wegener painting.  

I didn't have a large canvas, but I did have six small square canvases that I had got for $7.00.   So I spaced them as one large canvas, changed some of the color schemes to match my room better and began creating.

The painting as a work in progress.

The painting completed.

The original and then mine.  I'm no Gerda, but I still like it.

And then for months....   NOTHING.  I did nothing.  I pretended that the room didn't exist.

But, last weekend, I decided my "one thing" would be to finish painting the closet trim.

 And because I had to wait for it to dry, I put away the items on the bed.

Then I hung the curtains and started decorating and, before I knew, the rooms was done!

The sheepskin rug on the floor, that's the faux fur blanket that was on the bed in the previous picture.

And so is the sheep skin rug on the opposite side of the bed.
The feather fans I got for $1.00 each at the theatre a few years ago and had hidden in a closet.  The plan, at the time, was to bling up the handles a little bit, and I probably will still do that once I figure out how I want to bling them, but for now they go on the wall for a touch of glamour.  (I was going to try to be a toned down Dita von Teese for Halloween one year.)

For those of you who were wondering, I got the rug on clearance on eBay for $25
The Closet curtains were $10.
The mirror accent night stand came out of my craft room to make space for my sewing table, so I already had it.
The bird painting was one I had done for the original room and I thought it worked in the new room.

For those of you wondering about the artwork by the Gerda painting.  No, I did not paint those.  Those are images taken out of an eight year old calendar that I kept because I liked the artwork.  To frame them, I used two of the frames that were previously in the room, but I spray painted them antique gold.  (It was some spray paint I had left over from spray painting pine cones for Christmas one year.)  Then to "matte" them I used the same wallpaper matte that I used for the other photos, but this time I painted them metallic turquoise with some of the paint left from the wall.

The grey rabbit throw I purchased for $15 and then lined with a silk sari throw rug that my dog had chewed a hole in, and I had saved thinking I could use it to make pillows.

And I decided I needed a touch more silver blue on the bedding to match the curtains and the rug more strongly and I got those pillows on clearance at Marshall's for $20.

I did this before I saw the Vargas picture, but don't you think the trees look similar?

The decorations by the closet are baskets that I was already using to hold my tights and some sweaters.  

In the vase are floral bead things that  I purchased for Mardi Gras about two years ago for a center piece at a ball. 
The vase someone was throwing away and I asked if I could have it.

The branches came from my yard and the birds I use for different mantle piece "scenes" I do throughout the year.  So that little area cost me nothing except a walk around my house.

Then there were the 1930s vintage lamps.
SQUEEEEE!!!!!

I was still in budget, so I splurged and spent $40 for the pair of these lamps that were still in working order and that I love!

And I accomplished this simply because of deciding to do "one thing" that then cascaded into finishing a big thing without me even thinking about it.

I adore this room.  Since I basically use it like a closet, my husband teases me and says that it is one of the fanciest closets he has ever seen.  Although not all of it is glamorous.  I mean, I am using it like a closet.  I thought about hiding those pictures from you, but then I thought, how fair is that?

Yup, that is a basket holding shoes that didn't make it into the closet or the shoe rack.  
The rod is a towel rod that I put shower rings that have the clips on on them and I have put my scarves through the rings and the clips hold my hats and belts.  Not very swanky I know, and if my closet was big enough to hold it that is where it would reside.  But it isn't.

And speaking of closets, I know y'all are saying "Yeah, those curtains are nice, but how does the closet look?"

Well.......Like this!

I had to get a rack that hangs from the closet rod so that I would have a place to put my pants.  I had purchased that and installed it preCovid-19 for $15.00.

AND, you may have noticed I am not done labeling my shoe boxes yet.  So I guess, technically the room isn't complete quite yet.  But I still thought it was close enough to share.

For those of you keeping tally wondering how much I spent on the room renovation.......

$192!!!!

Which i don't think is too shabby for a whole room renovation.  But it did help the pocket book that it took months to get done.  I could purchase things about once a month without it hitting the pocket wallet too bad.

So like Design on a Dime, I'm going to show the before and after pictures together.

And that, dear friends, is why I did not post a recipe this week-end.  But my "one thing" includes this blog and I want to start getting back to my regular weekly posts, so the next post that I do will, hopefully, be soon and will be a recipe post.  

See ya soon.

Bye!

Mid Century Book Case Revamp!

Hello Everyone!
Oh my gosh, I have learned how to  do so many new things since Memorial Day!  I want to share them with you, I just don't know where to start.

What have I learned you might ask?  Well....
1.  I have learned how to give myself a homemade hot oil treatment to help keep my turquoise hair lovely and healthy.

How do you love this sexy picture?  Was it worth looking this glamorous for eight hours?

I would say yes, it was worth it. The picture on the left is the picture that inspired me to decide to do a hot oil treatment.  I saw how dry my hair was looking Memorial Day and decided it needed some love.  The picture on the right is my hair a week later after the treatment under the same light.  As you can see, it looks much softer and healthier and the color actually looks a little deeper.  Which is amazing when you think that this is my fourth week of having it this color and everyone warned me it would fade fast.  Wow!  That's a long caption.

2.  I have learned how to cut and weave a shirt so that I can take and old t-shirt and give it that rock-star glam look.  (This is also a good way of making the shirt a little less tight on you if you have added a few pounds.)

This is my Ramones shirt that I have had for forever that I decided to weave to make myself look "rock star chic" for the Rock of Ages Musical I am going to see.

3.  I have figured out how to make flower barrettes using fake/silk flowers so that I can make my own "vintage style" hair ornaments to go with my up-dos.

So I can rock it in a Billie Holiday fashion.  Aren't these photos so glamorous?

4.  I started working on the art for a tiki-mermaid mantle theme for the living room this summer and learned that I can draw pop-art mermaids in the same style as Stephanie Buscema.  (If you haven't every seen her art, check it out.  www.stephaniebuscema.com She does the most adorable vintage ladies.) Which is a skill that I think that I am going to use to turn a circle skirt into a kickin'  retro kitschy circle skirt using the old fashion method of fabric painting like they used to do back in the 50's. If I can make this work, I will have the skirt of my dreams for mere dockets rather than hundreds of dollars.

Here's a sneak peak of the pencil sketches.  I will show you the finished version after they are painted and decorating my mantle.  And I will keep you posted on how the skirt turned out.

5.  I sanded, stained and painted my mid-century mod style entertainment center that I bought in October to replace the $30 discount store book case that I was using in my living room!

Since this fifth one is the one that I am most excited about at this second, and I have to take some more pictures of me in the process of doing the others to show y'all how to do them, I am going to show you my make-over of my new mid-century baby!

The Story of my $40 Mid-Century Bookcase/Entertainment Center

Last October, the theatre where I work was having a costume/furniture sale.  Most of the furniture was nothing that I could use, but I fell in love with a little, damaged book case. I love the lines of it and I thought that I could turn into a cute little entertainment center.  It definitely needed some love, the sides were coming apart from where the piece had gotten water damage and the varnish was coming off on the sides and the top.  But I thought that it could be fixed.  So I bought it for $15 and asked my husband if I could store it in his shop.  He agreed with the stipulation that I would have it out of the shop within two weeks.
Well....... Life happened and, fortunately, my husband is a very patient man, so seven months later I finally had the time to start trying to bring it back to something worthy of going in my living room.

This is what it looked like when I pulled it out of the shop.  Its hard to see from this angle, but this is a very basic bookcase with angled legs.  Perfect if you like that mid-century style.  Which I do. I don't really care for the golden color that a lot of the furniture was stained back then, I like a darker wood, and the varnish was coming off the outside anyway, so my first step was to sand the piece with my electric sander.  So I sanded......

And I sanded......

Until it got dark.
So the next day I got into my furniture refurbishing outfit.

Please excuse my closet mess, I was also, at the time of this picture, going through a closet purge.  I got rid of 4 paper bags and one trash bag full of clothes.

Because what workman's outfit isn't complete without the addition of a bow made out of your own turquoise hair.  How much do you love my Frugal Femme phone?!?!?  I'm going to show you how you can personalize your phone like with your own design for only about $3.00 total for the case and all in an upcoming post.

And I sanded........ for what felt like forever.  Until all the old varnish was off the outside of the book case.
It was then, as I was looking at the inside and thinking - that varnish still looks new, its going to take forever to sand off.  That I decided to do some research into dual colored bookcases and how authentic would that look.  Turns out, that it would be pretty authentic.  Lots of furniture back in the 1950's and 1960's played with dual colored stains.  And I decided, mostly because if I had to sand anymore my arm was going to fall off, that I would go with this dual stained look.
So using this as my inspiration picture (even though its painted rather than stained):

I started..........sanding.

Well, to be honest, not right away.  First, I had to fill in the cracks made by the warping of the wood from the water damage.  I know that, to repair this correctly, I was supposed to get the wood wet again and then put it back to its original position using clamps and such and then let it dry.  But that goes beyond my skill set at this time.  So I decided to fill in the cracks with wood putty.  And then I sanded.....

And yes, I sanded some more......

And I sanded yet even more........

Until it was finally ready to be stained!
To be be very frank with you, this is the first piece of furniture that I have stained.  I usually use paint and, I'm not going to lie to you, about halfway through this process I wish I would have chosen to paint it because you don't have to do as much sanding and you don't have to worry so much about air bubbles and things drying in your stain while your stain dries for six hours.
So, this is not a how to blog like many of my other blogs, for that, you should probably go to another blog of someone who does this all the time.  But I was still pretty pleased with my results, so I wanted to share them.
And so I started staining the piece using my inspiration picture as a guideline.

And the first coat was done! (Except for the legs.  I decided I was going to remove them and do those last.)  Don't you think the cracks look pretty good for a first timer?  I do, so don't pop my bubble of pride.
And then I had to wait.  And wait, and wait, and wait.
I didn't do a very thick coat, but Louisiana decided to have one of its most humid days and nights while I was doing this, so it took twice as long to dry.  So I had to wait until the following afternoon to put on the second coat.
And when I was done, the piece looked like this:

The legs were still left, but it was coming along!
And, as I used a two in one stain that both stained and shellac-ed, I didn't have to do a top protective coat.  Hazzah!
For the legs, I decided that I wanted to recreate the look of those metal protective caps that you find on many pieces of mid century furniture.

See the little caps on the end?  I wanted to do that!

But I didn't even know if they made caps for square legs and I didn't want to wait anyway.  So I decided that I would paint mine on using Martha Stewart's Liquid Gilidng in Brass.  (I have used these gilding paints for for so many things!!!  I have painted outlets covers, Ambercrombie's antlers (my pub mascot dear head that I painted white and gilded the antlers), door knobs and locks, and touch ups on my metallic ballet flats.)
First I had to sand and then stain the legs with two coats of stain.  I did not take pictures of that.
Then I could put the gold "caps" on my legs.  My first thought was that I would just take painters tape and put all the way around the legs and paint.
WRONG!
The leg is angled, the tape was not, and getting the tape to line up the way I wanted was not an option.
I briefly considered free handing it, but even though I'm good at painting straight lines, I know that I'm not that good.  So that was not an option.
It was then that I came across the brilliant thought, or at least I thought it was brilliant, of using rubber bands.  I could put them on the legs and push them up and down to position them the way I wanted on the legs.  And I could also see how they lined up before I started painting.  Fabulous!  So, with a solution in hand I started to paint on my "caps".

Notice the rubber bands. :-)

It only took one coat of the gilding paint and it was dry in a matter of minutes.
Then I just had to wait for my husband to get home to hammer the legs back in place with his special rubber mallet for wood that distributes weight so that it doesn't damage the wood, and VOILA!!! My entertainment center was ready to go in the living room.

Its kind of hard to see the "caps" in pictures, although its clear to see when you look at it.  So I took a close up of one of the legs and my vintage vinyl collection.  Most of its Frank Sinatra, but hey, you got to have some of your childhood Disney thrown in the collection right?

I think it turned out pretty well.  And I feel it definitely fits the vibe of my 1965 house.

And that is all that I have for you today dear people.
As you can see from the beginning of the post, I have lots of different things that I want to share with you in the coming month/months and that's not even including the two week menu that I am in the process of creating for a summertime two week menu. So please stay posted and I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into my latest project for my home!