Royal Wedding

Are you excited about the Royal Wedding?  It's truly the event of the year.  I have set my DVR (hope I don't run out of room) to tape all of the excitement.  Coverage began at 4am this morning here.

Maybe my invitation got lost in the mail??

 
I've heard that Kate's walk down the aisle with her father will be four minutes long...that's a long walk.

The dress, the flowers, all the pomp and circumstance...I'm excited about it all.

So, how about you...will you be watching?

Hope you have a great weekend.

-Judy

Pottery Barn Sale - Just What I Was Looking For

I was running some errands yesterday and dropped into my local Pottery Barn.  Usually I walk through, drool a little over all of the beautiful things, and leave.  But yesterday while I was there I noticed that they actually had quite a few things on sale.  I was looking through the table linens that were on sale when I noticed the beautiful tray they were in.

There wasn't a price on the tray so I was not sure if it was even for sale.  I asked the salesperson and she said it was on sale and she had a new one in the back.

For $28.99 this baby was coming home with me.  You see, I have been lusting after this tray for a while.  Then I stopped seeing it in the store (I didn't realize they were now using it for display).  I just assumed it was discontinued and gone forever.

This is the tray I currently have in my great room.  I still love it, but it's just not doing enough for me in it's current location.

The new Pottery Barn tray is larger and since it's woven rattan, it adds some nice texture and visual interest to the coffee table.

So, what did I do with the original tray I had in the great room?  I brought it into the kitchen.

I took my place mats and changed their configuration to make them into a table runner.  I placed the tray in the middle and added my sunflowers and a basket of fruit.

The woven basket is a stoneware piece that I picked up at Home Goods for $12.99.  I added one of the placemats to the bottom of the tray.

I love my new layered look for the table.  It actually makes the table look better and it really picks up on the new toile fabric I reupholstered the chairs with last week.  One new tray...two new looks.  Gotta love that.

Don't forget there's still time to link up to my Swing into Spring party.  The link stays open through Friday.

-Judy

Swing into Spring - It's a Party - #13

Welcome to this week's Swing into Spring party.  Even on a holiday week there were more than 100 linkups.  So much inspiration and creativity.  It's always hard to pick just a few, but here are this week's features:

Shelley from Crazy Wonderful created these chalkboard coasters.  I love the idea of using chalkboard paint in this way.  So creative.  Hope you go and check out more of her wonderful blog.

I have a thing for bird's nest used in decorating...I just love it.  These shadow boxes created by Liz Marie really caught my eye.  Please stop by her blog to read all about how she created these.

Love these drop cloth pillows created by Stephanie over at Junker Newbie.  Stop by her blog to read the full tutorial.

Look at this gorgeous chest of drawers.  You have to drop by The Homeless Finch to see where this dresser began.  It's an amazing before and after and there's a great story behind the chest of drawers.

You have to check out The Exchange to see how she covered basic drum shades with fabric.  It's a great tutorial with step by step directions.

If you were featured, please grab an "I've Been Featured" button (you can now find my buttons by clicking on the buttons tab right under my header).  Now let's get started with this week's party.  I can't wait to see what you have been up to.  Link up anything you have been working on...home decor, sewing, crafts, organizing, baking, recipes etc.     I will keep this link open through Friday.



<a border="0" href="http://www.diybydesign.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigJQ57UTTqP5H3ArJ4thAR7igkiq-H0DDqAFEPsF2LEEpbjH1V23WLACxNrrAJ-rl_ihObi7VRgtkVATLnOiXb94vFCFyE0hgeEzKWc5xlCrCAq-G59ysA1KWMwE4tk3dg_eaayqN5zU-K/s128/None.jpg" /></a>

A few rules:

1.  Please become a follower.  

2.  Please grab my party button above and display it either on your sidebar or somewhere in your post.  This way word can spread about the party.  The more people at the party, the more fun we will have.

3.  Please enter the link to your actual post, not just a link to your main blog page.

4. Please visit others who have linked up.   Everyone works hard on their projects and blogs...let's show each other some love by visiting each other.  Let's have some fun and hopefully make a few new friends along the way.

Ok...Let's Party

-Judy

Fabric Covered Clipboard

I had an old clipboard that my son had doodled all over years ago.  Rather than buy a new one, I thought it would be fun to cover it with fabric for my daughter to use for school.

I started with two coordinating fabrics I had in my fabric stash.

One of the fabrics was left over from when I recovered a chair I found in the attic for my daughter's room.

I traced around the clipboard leaving about a 1/2 inch all the way around.

Then using Mod Podge I glued the fabric onto the clipboard.

I then glued the excess fabric onto the back of the clipboard.

I then glued the coordinating fabric onto the back of the clipboard to give it a finished look.

It was at this point I wanted to cut away the fabric using my utility knife to expose the metal mechanism. However, I couldn't for the life of me find my utility knife.  So for now, I am leaving it covered.  It looks fine and still functions as it is supposed to.

Here is the finished product.  Super cute...and my daughter loved it!

Have a great day!

-Judy
Joining these parties:
Todays Creative Blog

What Can You Do With Paint

We are back from vacation and I am so happy to say that we came back to some much warmer weather here in New York.  I was very pleased to see that some of my flowering trees have actually started to flower.

After what seems to be the longest winter, it brought me much joy.

Centsational Girl is hosting an All Things Paint party today.  Painting is a great way to change the whole look of a room or piece of furniture without spending much money.  Since we've been away for the past week, I don't have any brand new paint projects to share.  So instead, I thought I would share with you a few of my favorite paint projects I've done in the past.

The first is my sewing table and chair.  Both are spray painted with Heirloom White.  If you haven't tried spray painting, I have to tell you, it's the best.  It's so easy...you can transform anything in just minutes.  Only catch...it needs to be warm enough if you plan to spray outside.  Since it's been so cold here for so long, I haven't gotten to do too many of these types of projects in a while.  I can't wait to start spraying again.  The chair we inherited from my husband's grandmother when she passed away.  It was the only dining chair left standing from her dining room and it was in bad shape.  It was very dark wood.  I started by cleaning it and stripping the fabric and the stuffing from the chair.  I sprayed the chair Heirloom White, distressed it and reupholstered it and added the nailhead trim.  What a difference a little paint can make.  The sewing table also got a coat of Heirloom White.  This is the table's third or fourth color change in it's lifetime, but by far the best.

Here is an closer look at the final result.

Here I bought an unfinished table and painted it for a friend's daughter's room.  The top is decoupaged with scrapbook paper in the colors of her room and I painted the rest to coordinate.  Such a cute look for so little money.

This is my daughter's bathroom makeover.  The bathroom was originally the yellow you see at the top.  I painted the bottom in Restoration Hardware Petal Pink and hand painted the scallops in Restoration Hardware Chocolate.  Using the back of a small paint brush, I added the dots to the scallop.

Here is my daughter's room when we painted her room a soft aqua and added a stencil to a focal wall behind her bed.  The stencil was super easy to use.  It was, however, very time consuming.  Patience is not one of my virtues.  Rather than waiting until morning, I stayed up most of the night finishing the wall.

Even though it took many hours, the finished result was totally worth it.  You can click here to check out the rest of her room.

But my favorite project using paint this year, so far, has to be my mud room renovation.

Isn't it amazing what one can of paint can do to a room?  You can click here to see the whole project.

Hope you stop by Centsational Girl's link party.  I'm sure it will be filled with tons of inspiration.  If you get a chance, I'd love to hear what you think of my paint projects.  I always love and appreciate your comments.

-Judy

Chicago

So after Cooperstown we came home for a night and woke up bright and early Wednesday morning to catch a flight to Chicago.  My son is 13 and since the time he was 7 my husband has been working on bringing him to every baseball stadium.  When we can make a vacation out of it, my daughter and I tag along.  By coming to Chicago, he is getting to see stadiums # 19, 20 and 21(Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers which is about an hour from Chicago) out of the 30 MLB stadiums.  Usually we go to a game, however, whenever there are two teams in any city, only one will be in town.  Therefore, we do a stadium tour of the one where the team is not playing.  He collects a baseball from each stadium.

We have a case in his room that fits exactly thirty baseballs.  Those are the 18 he has already and the white ball on the bottom row is from the inaugural season of the new Yankee stadium and is being used only as a space holder.

Wrigley Field is an awesome, historic stadium.  We landed at 9:15am and were seated at the stadium by 1pm.  It was cold.  No, really cold is an understatement.  I was beyond cold.  It was actually scarf day which came in handy.

My parents joined us on this trip, so yesterday my son, husband and father headed out to see the White Sox stadium, and my mom, me and my daughter headed to Magnificent Mile...it is magnificent.  So much fun shopping in Chicago.

The 900 Shops are filled with the most beautiful home stores.

Gorgeous lampshades...

and even more gorgeous ready-made drapes...I was redesigning rooms in my head like crazy.

What a great day.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and a Happy Easter!

-Judy

Antiquing near Cooperstown

My kids are on Spring Break this week.  Monday we took at overnight trip to Cooperstown, NY to see the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Image taken at Baseball Hall of Fame

After spending most of the day at the Hall of Fame, there was time before dinner, so we decided to go and check out a few of the local Antique stores.

The first two stores we visited were old barns, both without any heat.  It was in the 30's on Monday in Cooperstown and I swear it felt like 10 below in the Antique stores.  The store had several floors of the coolest things.

I loved the legs on this piece.

They had so many old telephones.  I think my daughter tried each and every one of them.  She has a thing for phones.

Being near Cooperstown, they also had many baseball antiques.

This is the view from the third floor of one of the barns.  How cool!!
So, it wasn't until the third store that I found something to take home.  Actually my husband found it, but knew it was perfect for me.  Can you guess what that would be?

It's a tennis racquet and case made between 1938 and 1950.

We are a big tennis family, and I still play competitively.  For $10, I am now the proud owner of a super classic tennis racquet.  It looks perfect in my office.

Don't forget to stop by and join in my Swing into Spring party still going on.

After Cooperstown, we came home on Tuesday only to leave bright and early Wednesday morning for Chicago.  Hope to share some of those pictures with you tomorrow.

-Judy