DIY Cowtan & Tout Bamboo graphic pattern

As promised in my last post  (click HERE if you missed it) I was going to show you how I made the Cowtan & Tout Bamboo "wallpaper" used in the back of my desk/bar makeover.

{wallpaper source}

Hey, to get a little sidetracked here, I forgot to tell you that the round wine bottle (called Bocksbeutel in Germany and thank you Katrin for reminding me) is my dad's wine. Him and his buddies have a little hobby and that is making wine. It's really good. And my childhood art teacher (click HERE to see his work as an artist) who is also their neighbor and friend drew the label for the bottles. Isn't it cool?

Let's get back to the Cowtan & Tout Bamboo "wallpaper"...
Hmm, I cheated it's not wallpaper...and I know some of you guessed correct. You just know me too well already. It's a pattern drawn again with a sharpie! There was that certain Sharpie look that gave it away, wasn't there?

Let me explain what I did:

• I recreated the pattern in Illustrator and printed out several sheets.
• Then I taped the papers together to create one large piece of pattern.
• I removed the piece of wood form the back of the shelf, painted it white and placed my paper with the pattern on it.
• Then I used transfer paper under the pattern print-out and traced the pattern.
• After that all I had to do is follow along the traced lines with my gold Sharpie and a ruler.
• At the end I sealed everything with a clear Satin spray.

So all that's needed is a pattern print-out, a Sharpie, a ruler, transfer paper, pencil and clear spray!

Sorry but the photos aren't that great. It was dark and rainy when I tried to take the photos.

It took a pretty long time but I think it was worth it. Don't you agree?

And just because I wanted to share the goodies with you, I decided to have a FREE printable for you. My blog has been growing and I wanted to show you guys how much I appreciate all of you who read along.

So if you want to make something with this pattern, all you have to do is click HERE (I hope it works, let me know if it doesn't) for your free download of the pattern (don't forget to overlap and tape the print outs together). Just please give me a shout out on your blog if you create something with it and pass along where you got the idea from, ok? That would be so appreciated.

I wish all of you a wonderful weekend and don't forget to stop in again on Monday.

Tschüß

(Youleeya)

Powder Room Wall Art

Hello friends, today I want to share with you a small and quick art project that I worked on yesterday.

I have been wanting to add some art to a wall in my new powder room (click HERE to see the makeover). And since I of course didn't want to spend a lot of money, I thought that I'd just use the old picture frames that hung in there before, but I just didn't like their look anymore.

They are not bad at all but I was just really over the look and ready for something new.

As for the artwork, I decided to go with colored photographs this time. I have a lot of black and white photos throughout the house and wanted to switch it up a little. Especially since there isn't a lot of color in the powder room to begin with.

I went through my digital photos and found some great shots of my home town and also the town that I went to school in.

My home town of Lohr

Main Street

The street my brother and sister-in-law live in

Würzburg

I was so disappointed after picking the prints up from CVS Pharmacy. I guess I shouldn't get my photos developed at a pharmacy. My hubby said why did you even frame them and hang them up... To be honest, I don't know! I should have asked them to redo the prints, I guess I didn't feel like confrontation.

They turned out so dark but they look great as a digital file.

I'm keeping them for now and who knows I might take some better photos this summer when I'm going to visit for one month. Yes, I'm going with the kids while hubby stays back at home for a while and then meets us later. My friends' husbands are all jealous that he gets to spend so much time by himself, haha.

I took the frames apart and spray painted each mat a fresh coat of white. Works like a charm. They were a yellowish off-white before.

I also gave the frames the same fresh coat of white satin.

This is my favorite picture hanging ruler that I bought in Germany several years ago. You can move the  red spacers to match the spaces between the nails and there is a level attached to each spacer as well. It's one of the best tools I own and I use it all the time.

And here are the frames hanging in the bathroom:

Besides the glare, can you see how dark they turned out?

But I still LOVE the idea of having places that are dear to my heart as artwork.
Do you like it?
And by the way what places are great to get pictures developed fast. The order and pick-up kind of deal? I'm usually a shutterfly girl.

So talk to you tomorrow und guten Tag fellow webbers.

(Youleeya)

Things my mother doesn't like

Hi friends, how was your weekend? I hope it was as sunny and productive as mine!
I got a lot of things done but nothing that I can share with you guys yet. I primed my furniture piece and worked on some other projects.

I saw Centsational Girl's post about her new "Best of DIY" website which is a library dedicated to home improvement and interior decorating ideas. If you have been featured on her "Best of the Blogosphere" before than you are on her new site as well. And I'm so happy to see my DIY ceiling fixture (all the way at the bottom) and my secretary desk makeover (updated secretary) on her new site too. Well to me it's special to get featured by the Queen of blogging :)

So I thought I'd share with you the things my mother hates in our house today. I mentioned a couple of projects ago that I would write about some things she can't stand. After all she is my toughest critic and she doesn't hold back.

Number one on her list in our house is...
...the way I hung our faux taxidermy heads on wood slices in our bedroom:

Do you know what she said? Can you guess? And before I share, I have to say that I agree with her BUT..., yes a big fat BUT!!! She doesn't like that the heads are hanging so close to the TV and I agree and here is the big fat BUT: I'm afraid of heights and the line above the molding is way above my comfort zone. You all know how much I like to paint our walls but the ceiling above the molding didn't get painted for 13 years. It was still the builders white and last year I finally convinced King Konya to paint it for me. I can't stand standing on a ladder to paint that high.
That said if I would hang the animal heads above that line like my mother says, and I would decide I didn't like it anymore after some time, then the wall would need to get touched up and painted again...I just simply couldn't handle it. Haha, I'm not kidding. I do have my limits and that is totally it. I don't want to bug the hubs about painting the cathedral ceiling anytime soon and I really can't handle it myself.

Number two on my mom's list are my gold chevron lamp shades:

In her own words: "If this would be my house they would not be on those lamps! There is just one too many patterns here and those got to go." In this case I don't agree with her because I happen to love those lamp shades even though chevron is overdone. I still want to live with them for now.

And number 3 is the gold polka dot ceiling.
But I should say WAS because in this case I convinced her. She likes the dots after seeing the finished project.

And last but not least she's not on the same page when it comes to my lighted Gnomeo. And in this case I just don't care again, because I love him. He is the Gnomeo to my Julia or should I say Youleeya!

Sorry this is an iPhone picture but he does have a permanent spot on this shelf.

There are just some things where I won't budge, do you have those decor items too, or is it just me? And you all know how I like the quirky items.

I totally wish my mom and dad could just stop in whenever they want to instead of reading about it on my blog but this is just the way it is. They live across to ocean in the country I was born in and I look forward to their yearly visit. My dad's visit is coming up this month and the best part is always picking him up from the airport. My parents come on different trips which solves two purposes: I get to have two visits instead of one combined stay and they don't have to leave their beloved baby/rescue puppy with someone else.

I think I might have to take a small blog vacation when he is visiting since it is a special time that I don't want to miss.

So this is it for today and I'm going to play hooky now and go NYC!!

Talk to you on Wednesday und guten Tag.

(Youleeya)

Cracking the whip!

First of all, thanks guys for all the kind words about my last post's to-do-list.
I guess it really does make a difference to put the ugly truth out there and on paper, or well, not on paper... I mean on the world wide web ;)

But before getting into talking about my progress, I want to share a picture of one of the stray cats that I have been feeding through the winter (and summer):

This one is my favorite. Something is wrong his/her right eye. It's deformed and he (I'm praying it's a HE) is really scared. I'm always glad when the strays are really scared. It's not good for outdoor cats to be too friendly with humans. Too many mean human beings out there. This is the second winter that I fed him and now he comes really close to me and talks to me but I was never able to touch him. 

I haven't really tried either, but he knows that I have good food.

And here are my too girls, Lilly and Lucy watching him eat. 

Can you spot him? 

Back to DIY:

King Konya (aka the hubby) actually told me to buy some ceiling paint, yay! And I cracked the whip at myself and got some stripping done, giggle (I know I'm immature)!

But I'm pretty happy with what I got done. Want to see?

Well The front door handle and door bell went from this:

To this:

So much better, isn't it?

I didn't stop there though!

I was on a roll, I can't just strip the door handle and not move on to the rest, right?

The door knocker got stripped

I totally used the tough chemicals and I pretty much always do:

And I managed to scrape the glue boogers off the front door. I read that you should use rubbing alcohol on hot glue but the regular paint scraper and sand paper worked great. I only used the rubbing alcohol at the end to get the somewhat greasy leftovers off the door.

And I didn't stop there, I also stripped the storm door's kick plate:

And painted the front door.

Here we go:

A newly painted door and freshly stripped brass hardware. The numbers were actually silver and I just used some Rustoleum Gold Metallic spray paint on them. Matches perfectly!

Then I looked at my metal flower pots that cracked on the top sides over the winter:

I used tape to give it a quick fix for now:

The style of our home is typical for Pennsylvania, not really my style but you have to work with what you have.

And now I have a sore throat. I either inhaled too much stripper or I'm getting strep. I used a mask for half of the job. I know, I know... I should really use one the entire time but it wasn't comfortable.

I have some more work lined up since I bought something at the Salvation Army this week too:

I thought of Sarah M. Dorsey's desk/wet bar makeover (click HERE) when I saw this piece. She really is amazing! I thought I'd give it a try for my Etsy store. Lets hope for great weather and lots of time over the weekend.

Have a great weekend friends and talk to you on Monday.

(Youleeya)

Linking up at:

My to-do list

This is an embarrassing post but it's the ugly truth!

It's just one of these weeks where I feel overwhelmed and tired...where you just want to hide somewhere and do nothing. But that's just not an option. Blame it on the weather, my hubby or my male furry baby (he makes me so sad), or the many unfinished projects I have lurking around the house. It is what it is and I just don't feel like much these days.

I was writing a list last night about what all needed to get done. The hubby never thinks anything needs to get done by the way and I'm just nitpicking. But I'll share the list with you guys.

I also have some pictures to show you!

Number 1 is my failed Pinterest Halloween project. Yes, you heard right...HALLOWEEN. Needless to say it really has to get done.
What was the project? (click here to go back)

I loved the idea of hot-gluing small spiders to magnets and putting them all over my metal front door. This was awesome for the inside of the doors but what I wasn't expecting is that it was still so warm around Halloween that the front door got so hot, the glue melted and all the spiders slid off the magnets and down the door. Now my front door has been looking like I have huge boogers stuck all over it.

Now picture about 10-15 of these glue boogers on the front door!!!

Awesome, isn't it?

Removing this stuff will not be fun and that's why it hasn't gotten done. I guess I have to get the hot air gun out and start scraping. And then of course the door needs to get repainted too.

Speaking of the front door.
There is more ugliness going on. It's just screaming: "Go away and leave us alone! Don't ring the bell or touch the door handle."

Check out this crappy door bell. I have to replace it with a new one. 

(While reading this post, the hubby actually said:
"Wow, I never noticed how bad our doorbell is!"
Well Dear, that's exactly my point)

And while on a silver kick I decided to spray paint my storm door handles several years ago. Ugh...bad, bad, bad idea. I have to remove the hardware and strip the paint off.


Lets move on to the inside of the house and back to the kitchen. You all know that I haven't finished the backsplash yet and may I remind all of you that the tiles are still only leaning against the wall. Here is a great shot of what the wall actually looks like:

Why oh why, you ask? 

Well besides the fact that I'm still somewhat undecided about how to end the tiles on the left side (I explained my dilemma in this post HERE), we also have to get a new microwave since ours has been barely working. I don't want to tile around my old microwave, so I need to do some research about what to get and what we can afford. Oh, I would love to get a microwave/confection oven. This is not where the story ends. If we install a new microwave, I'd like to have the new one finally vented to the outside, but I need to find out if there are pipes in the wall and get quotes on how much it would be to put the vent in. I don't really want to do it myself. So this is a project that will take some time.

Since our hood and microwave isn't vented, I'm sad to report that this once again ruined our ceiling which is disgusting and yellow.

Hey and while speaking about the ceiling, do you remember our living room ceiling project from excessive bathtubbing? Hmmm I asked the hubby to paint the ceiling and nope, he still hasn't! Since we have an open floor plan this means we have to paint the entire ceiling all the way into the kitchen over the grease stained ceiling. Lovely, isn't it?

Back to the kitchen:
I also still have to build out the cabinet and put up some trim under the kitchen counter tops.

I have been looking for some nice legs that are used for kitchen islands so I could extend and build out the side of the cabinet in the last picture. But I haven't found anything that I really love and that is affordable.

While reading about all these projects, have you noticed that I keep saying "I" and not "we"? This is where I would wish that we could be one of those incredible DIY couples that you cross frequently in the blogosphere. This is not the case here. Stuff like that doesn't bother my significant other, or like my mother says, why would it bother him, he knows that you do it ALL eventually and you spoiled him too much. But there is no "we" in indoor projects in this household and it really does drive me nuts.
I wish I could change the post title from to-do list to honey-do list.
On the other hand, I do love the fact that I can pick pretty much anything I want and I only get occasional resistance when he can't deal with changes.

So that's all my ranting about unfinished projects for now but let me tell you I haven't showed you the garage yet ;) where I will hopefully be able to get some stuff done once the weather is finally in the 50s.
It's also not a pleasant experience to hang out on the soccer field in the 20s and 30s. Seriously!

I'm ready for the 50s and 60s now, bring it on!

Talk to you on Friday my friends und guten Tag.

(Youleeya)