Accent Wall/ DIY "Love is Spoken Here" sign

I finally finished this accent wall in our house and I think I'm finally happy with it. 

 My favorite part (besides seeing the adorable pictures of my kids) is the 

"Love is Spoken Here"

 sign I made, stained, and hand painted myself! What do ya think?! 

Unfortunately I don't have a step by step tutorial with pictures for you, but I will write out each step here. It really was pretty easy and didn't take much time at all.

Here ya go:

1. Find wood you want to use, I think I used pine, and bought two 8ft. 3x1in boards. 

2. Cut them to the length you want. I did them 2ft. long. 

3. I stained each board. I used 

rust-o-leum wood stain in golden mahogany.

4. I put all the boards together. 6 boards for the sign part and the remaining two went on the back to screw them all together.

5. I screwed them together one screw on each board on the top and then on the bottom.

6. I painted the words on. I like to hand paint things but it would also look really cute to use vinyl letters. 

7. I added a rope across the back so I could hang it up. This is pretty heavy so I needed a strong rope.

8. Hang it up!! And you're done! Easy peesy!!

Despicable Me, Minion cake

 A good friend and neighbor was having a birthday party for her son Gage and was doing a "minion" party. For those of you who don't know what a minion is, they are the little yellow funny guys on Despicable Me. 

ANYWAYS.... 

she heard from another friend of mine that I like to make cakes, and I really do. So when she asked if I would be willing/able to make a "minion cake" for her, I was pretty much super excited! 

So here it is... I love how it turned out! 

Little Boy Birthday Cake

My little boy Cru, turned 1 this last week, and this is the cake I made for him. 

I LOVE making cakes, and this one was super simple and fun!

He loves and I mean LOVES cars, 

and I actually thought about making an actual car cake, but I decided against that

because I was short on time. So I just did a "wheel" instead. 

It worked! And he loved it (well as much as a 1 year old can) :)

I just used a tall 9 inch round cake pan to make the cake and then frosted it. I used food coloring to make the frosting blue and I bought This stuff in black to do the icing. I usually would just make that but, like I said earlier, I was short on time. It worked, though, and I like it! Not to mention...

SUPER EASY!! 

 No I didn't let him get into the cake... this one I made especially for him. It was a mini version of the big one. 

Contact Paper Wall

Alright this is one of my favorite ideas I have had in a long time... I am always looking for new ways to change up things at my house, but I have two issues: 

1. I have two kids, therefore I do not have a lot of free time to spend on this kind of thing 

2. I am pretty cheap, as in I don't like to spend a lot of money on things like this. This doesn't mean I want it to look cheap though. 

I knew I wanted a cool accent type wall in our laundry room. It was just looking pretty bland and boring in there. Who wants to wash clothes in a lame laundry room, right? Ha ;) 

SOooo I was looking at some cool wallpaper I liked online but the ones I liked were all going to cost more than I was willing to spend, and I also didn't want to spend a lot of time putting up wallpaper. So I decided to try and think of alternatives to wallpaper,  besides paint. 

I thought  maybe stencils or vinyl decals, but I didn't really love those ideas. Then I remembered using contact paper on a play kitchen I made for my daughter, Sophie, for Christmas. It stuck really well and if I wanted to take it off at anytime  I could, and there would be no mess or residue from it. So I thought if I can do it on a counter top why couldn't I do it on a wall? Well it turns out you can!!!

I looked up contact paper on Amazon and I found this stuff!! Its about $12 for 2 rolls and for the space I needed it to cover that was perfect. So for $12 I got an awesome accent wall that I can change out anytime I want (not that I want to anytime soon). I love it, and it is possibly the easiest project ever!

I wish I had pictures of before it was done, but I don't. Sorry! But here is the "after"

 Here is how its done. 

1. Measure the wall you are wanting to put the contact paper on

2.  Measure the contact paper and cut it accordingly. 

3. Take off the backing from the contact paper.

4. Stick it on the wall

5. Smooth it and get any bubbles out. 

6. DONE! How easy is that!?

I would recommend buying a pattern on the contact paper that isn't easy to see any mess ups. As in, if you need to cut little pieces to fill in spots you can't tell where you did that without looking really hard. 

They have some super cute chevron patterns on amazon but they are really hard to disguise where you added things so that is why I chose a busy pattern, even though I am kind of in love with the chevron, but if you are willing to take the time to line the contact paper up perfectly then go for it! 

Like I said before, I'm all about Quick projects because of my kids, so the chevron was out of the question for me!

I also took some pretty cute pictures of my kids to put in there, its on the opposite wall.
Here is the main one I'm using.
Are they not the cutest kids in the world?!

I also think it is now safe to say that I am ADDICTED to contact paper!
I bought some of the chalkboard kind and have already put it to good use in my pantry!

This literally took 5 min and it turned out awesome!

Anyways... its a fun project to change up a room really quickly, and any one could do it! Obviously my laundry room is not totally complete, ( the cabinet needs painted and so do the rest of the walls) but for now I am loving it!
 Let me know what ya think! :) 

How to Re-finish a Coffee Table*

For my first showcasing project I have decided to show off the coffee table/ tv stand (whatever someone may want to use it for) project I just finished about 2 days ago. 

I found this little gem at a garage sale a couple weeks ago. SCORE! I knew it had great potential, and I think I was right. :)

What do you think?

If you are looking to try and do something like this here is the
How To: 

Materials: 

~ a coffee table or whatever type of wood furniture you want to re-finish. (look anywhere, thrift shops, craigslist, or just ask around, you can't beat free right?!)

~ Paint, latex/water-based paint is what I used,  I would recommend this. 

~ A paint brush

~ Sand paper and an electric sander 

~ Antique glaze. I used this

~  a rag

~Polyurathane.  I used this kind here .

1. First step is to wipe of any dirt or dust

2.  you will want to remove any hardware, ie- knobs, handles, that sort of thing.

3. Now is time  to break out the sander. Just pretty much go to town. Start by using a lower grit first (the lower the number the rougher the sand paper). I used a 60 grit sandpaper and then down to 80 or 100 then to 150 grit for a very smooth finish. Any places you can't get with the electric sander can do by hand. Remember it doesn't need to be perfect, though, because you are going to be painting over it. However, sanding is an important step because the paint will adhere much better to your piece this way. I have heard there are products you can use so that you wouldn't have to sand but I have yet to try that. If any one has used one before PLEASE let me know! :)

4. Clean the furniture piece again. You don't want to be painting over sawdust.

5. Next get out your paint brush and start painting. You will probably need to do at least 2 to 3 coats. Maybe more. I did 3.

6. After the paint has FULLY dried the fun part comes. This is where you take the antiquing glaze, a semi wet/semi dry rag, and get to work. (you can also use a rough paint brush but I like the rag better). This part is fun but it can also be a little tricky.  

First dip the dry part of the rag into a small amount of the glaze. Start wiping it where you want it. This stuff is easily wiped off so if you put too much don't even worry about. You want to get this stuff in all of the cracks and crevices, and a little bit of this stuff goes a long way! Then let it sit for a few minutes so that it can kind of start to dry. Now take the semi damp part of the rag and start lightly wiping areas you want less glaze. This is why its kind of tricky and hard to explain unless you have done it. So I would definitely recommend trying the glaze on something else first just in case. 

7. After you have got that glaze looking just like you want it, and believe me, this can take a little while. (or maybe that's just for me, because I am some what of a perfectionist when it comes to this stuff) Now you let it dry. 

8. Once everything is dry (again) take out the electric sander again and just kind of rough up the edges, corners, sides, top, and whatever else you want. Just have fun and be creative with it. 

9. Now wipe it down one last time and  put that hardware back on.

10. The last step is to use the Polyurathane. This seals  the piece and makes it so that the paint wont come right off.  I love that it's a spray, because that way I'm not getting yet another rag or brush dirty. It just makes my life easier.

And you're done!! 

I absolutely LOVE it, and it is so fun finishing a piece like this. Don't you just love the details and my personal favorite part is the inside of the drawers. It's contact paper I bought off of Amazon.( Here)  for another project I will be showing later. But I had extra and so I used it for the drawers. It goes perfect huh! 

I am loving it! And, lucky for you , I am actually putting this up for sale right now. 

I wish I could keep it, but if I kept all of my projects than I would have no room to walk in our house. So I'm asking $95 if any one is interested let me know.

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My Blog

Hi everyone! My name is Megan and this is my blog!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE all things creative. You name it I am sure I enjoy doing it. Whether that be doing hair/ make-up (I am a professional cosmetologist), re-doing furniture, sewing, designing clothes, decorating,  crafting, drawing, painting, singing, writing, photography, and dancing. I love it all! And although I may not be a professional at ALL of these, I thoroughly enjoy them all.  

So that is what this blog is about, Showing off my creative projects, whatever I decide it may be that day, but it’s not only about me on here… I also hope to inspire others to go out and get Creative!   

I will be showing tutorials (to the best of my ability) and explaining how and what I do. I love any input that you would like to give, so definitely feel free to leave comments and let me know what ya think!

Yep I think that about sums it up! Now let’s all go out and create!