Kids Artwork Wall

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How was your weekend? I hope as good as mine. I spent some great time with awesome friends who came to visit us for some skiing. They couldn't have ordered better weather. Check this out:

I know spring is right around the corner and most of you guys can't wait to see some warmer weather but this was the perfect end to a great winter.

Today I want to share some small changes in Lilly's room.
One of the things I got on my last Ikea trip was a DIGNITET curtain rod.

Ikea DIGNITET

She has been asking for an art wall in her room since she loves to color and paint. I thought it was the perfect solution to display all her colorful pieces of art. I love looking at all the proof of her imagination.  She told me that she wanted to be an artist when she grew up. I wonder where she gets that one from, haha.

Another thing that I'm now really sure of is that she is NOT a hoarder. She is so quick to get rid of things in her room to make space for new things. Or maybe that is just a part of growing up! I hope so.
"No mom, I don't need that anymore"..."NOOO mom I really don't want that anymore"...she does it with toys and decor. I think she is ready for a complete room overhaul soon.

That said, she told me that she didn't want the Hello Kitty pictures that she was previously so obsessed with anymore (I was so glad by the way since they aren't my style at all). I worked really hard to make them but I'm proud of her for moving on. I will put them for sale on Ebay.

So I hung the DIGNITET on that large wall for her. It was pretty easy to install as well.

I love her artwork!
I'm actually thinking about having her make some for the living room. 
I'm not kidding.

I also picked her up two of these great Ikea Skarum rainbow pillows.

Seeing all her great artwork and how happy she is to display it in her room makes me want to paint the walls white or a very light shade to make them stand out better.

So many things I'd like to change again. Let's see.
I'm working really hard today and tomorrow to get some things done.

Talk to you on Wednesday und guten Tag.

(Youleeya)

Playing with gold Sharpie

I love family photos and I had a lot of them on my old living room shelf but I didn't like them frames anymore.
When I was working on my brass and glass shelving unit, I bought some RIBBA frames at Ikea in several different sizes.

I love how chunky they are and I was planning on doing some gold and color details on them. Since I had a lot of rub and buff left, I was going to try that.

This is where I'm giving myself an award for this month:

I'm the best at picking items where no finish sticks to.

I'm a FINISH-REJECT-PICKER!

I'm also really good at picking things that don't have tags at the store by the way. Do you know what I'm talking about. It seems like every time I go to HomeGoods, the thing that I really want doesn't have a tag, the manager can't be found, they can't figure out how much it is and the new tag printer isn't working...

Anyway, first this month I had such a hard time applying the Rub 'n Buff to the shiny brass. And now I picked these beautiful white photo frames which I wanted to dress up a little. Seems easy again, right?
AHHHHHH, not so much.

The Rub 'n Buff would not stick to the frames at all. Look at the right one, well the left one with the coral spray paint isn't that much better is it?

I tried blaming it on the Rub 'n Buff again but I tried several things and nothing worked: I lightly sanded the frames and I applying deglosser.

cell phone picture

The black on the last frame is one of several black RIBBA frames that I bought because they had no white ones left in 5"x7" and I used Kilz spray primer to paint them. That is actually the only way I was able to apply any kind of gold finish onto the frames.

The white regular RIBBA frames didn't even like gold Sharpie and that stuff pretty much sticks to anything.

Yeah and how about all those sharpie projects on Pinterest. The gold Sharpie has been everywhere. One of my favorite projects is Mandy from Vintage Revival's gold Sharpie wallpaper. She is so awesome. Speaking of Mandy, I almost fell of my chair two days ago when I saw that she is following ME on Instagram. She probably let one of her kids play with her iPhone and they pressed follow by accident. I shouldn't even say this out loud, LOL, she might notice her mistake.

Back to my frames.
So I had to Kilz prime the frames and even then as you can see it in the above photo it peeled off in some places.

So here are some of the frames that I sharpied up. And I'm definitely more the Sharpie kind of girl compared to the Rub 'n Buff.

The little plate on the shelf was made by fellow blogger Lydia Pudel from Pudel-design. She sent it to me all the way from Germany because I won her Christmas giveaway.

This one turned out to be my favorite one. Wasn't my mom a cutie when she was 16? 
I put her next to my daughter's photo since they are two peas in a pod.

So back to my Rub 'n Buff issues. Do you want to have a good laugh?

Look at my poor abused brass bookends. All those Scratches and that awful unfinished Rub 'n Buff one on the left side.

Well I tried to fix them up a bit and I primed them with metal primer the same way I handled the brass bookshelf. After the drying time, I applied tape so I could finish the edges in stripes.

Then I removed the tape.

AND

Drumroll please.....Tada... Aren't they lovely? HAHAHA...HAHA!

Nice logo action here, right? Like anybody would pin this master piece ;)

So after that I went on a gold sharpie binge around the house even Lilly discovered the appeal of a sharpie.

Her fingernails:

 And there was more but I couldn't take anymore photos because it got to dark and the photos were way too crappy.

I hope that I'll be able to pick some upcoming projects that will work out perfectly!
Do you have any favorite Pinterest Sharpie projects?

Have a great weekend friends.

Tschüss,

My Painting

I want to share my painting with you today. It's finally done, but I have to tell you that I like it much better in person. I painted some of the details in metallic and you can't tell on the photos. I guess you'll just have to imagine them. The metallic looks beautiful in the evening when I light a candle.

You can see some of the metallic paint in this picture.

Can you believe that I have had this canvas since I was about 16 years old. No, me neither. I received the canvas as a present from the mother of my boyfriend at that time. She always painted and she knew that I liked to paint. Now I have painted since but never finished this one and I really don't know why! The canvas has the perfect size for this wall, so I figured it was about time to paint it after 22 years. Wow I'm old.

My inspiration came from Pinterest. Did you ever see this soundwave artwork?

And I googled abstract static soundwaves. Haha, don't ask me why, I have no clue! I just came up with the name and this is what showed up. It somewhat matches my cuckoo4design blog logo, doesn't it?

So I just used colors that I liked and went to town to create my own version. The painting is the result. 

I'm quite happy with it. I just need to sign it yet.

Do you actually remember what my fireplace area looked like before this small makeover?
Here is a picture to refresh your memory:

I only had a little color on the mantel but I wanted more.
Guess what this change cost me? Well?
Hah, pretty much nothing, except the new orchids. I had the pillows already (they are from Ikea by the way and you can still buy them), the lamps were in the attic with the canvas. The blanket and fake furs (also from Ikea) were lying on a different chair. And I already had the acrylic paint as well.
Here is another painting (actually I painted two almost identical ones) several years ago. They are still hanging in our bedroom. I used metallics as well.

I'm planning on showing you some old photos of our living room next week.
And I also need to talk about my "cursed corner". That's what I'm calling my bookshelf wall that I left out of all the above photos for a reason.

I wish you all a great weekend.

Ikea Margareta Christmas

I know that I'm very early with my Christmas decor. I usually start the day after Thanksgiving (I never go shopping on Black Friday) but when I stopped at Ikea on October 22nd, I fell in love with the Ikea Margareta Fabric. My head was spinning, that's how excited I was!

I love the Ikea Margareta Wood too. It would look great in a faux fireplace, wouldn't it?

While my mom was here I started working on a little (yeah right, it's huge) canvas.

This is what you'll need:

• four 2x2x8 furring strips for $6.88 (2 cuts at 50" length, 2 cuts at 72" length)
• 2 yards of Ikea Margareta (pine tree) fabric for $13.98
• 1 pack (8 screws) 2 1/2" wood screws for $1.18
• stapler and staples
• ornament hooks
• ornaments
• If you'd like to add lights to the canvas, you can buy 14" inch grommets (or whatever fits your bulbs), attach them to the fabric where you want the lights and stick the bulbs from a white light garland through the grommet. I opted for no lights since I want my chandelier to be the lighting focal point and another reason is that the grommets were on the pricey side. It sure would look stunning to have the canvas lit!

You could also make an advent calendar! There are so many possibilities!

I predrilled the holes and put the frame together with 2 screws for each connection. 

Then I stapled the fabric really tight to the frame. Make sure to keep it even, so the tree looks straight.

I bent the hook from the right side into the hook that you can see on the left side,
to be able to just push them into the fabric and hang the ornaments.

Lite weight ornaments work best and that's why I used these ornaments from an old Ikea garland.

I just pushed the hooks into the fabric with the ornaments on it.

FINISHED

Do you notice something else? I hope so! Haha!
I changed out the crystals on my cellula chandelier.

Look, I can see myself in the ornament :)

I usually have a small tree in the corner instead of the boxwood topiary. I might put it somewhere else this year. Not sure yet!

What do you think? I have to take some more pictures when it is dark outside because the chandelier looks beautiful. At least that's what I think.

Have a great weekend. I hope I'll be done with another exciting project by Monday.

Happy Friday und guten Tag!