Have you ever read the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie?  You know the one, “If you give a mouse a cookie, He will ask for a glass of milk.  If you give him a glass of milk, he will ask….  Well that’s how my upstairs guest bathroom started out.

When we moved in this house 8 years ago, one of the first things to go was ALL of the crazy wall paper.  The guest bath had this weird mustard colored wallpaper that had huge urns with flowers on it.  I tried to take it off – but no go!!!  I tried everything to pull it up but no way was it coming off.  So I did what I am emphatically going to tell you NOT to do.  I painted it!  I know – you are shocked right? And not only did I paint it, I painted it black. The room was all white, white wall, white tile, white cabinets, white toilet.  And to top it off it is a tiny bathroom.  By painting it black it pushed the walls out and made it feel bigger.  I was in Lurve!

Flash forward 8 years.  My son had just recently moved out.  I was putting the room back together and found this:

Sorry, it’s so blurry… remember I mentioned it was a tiny bathroom?  Well, it’s also a dark bath and really hard to get good pictures!!  But I digress.  As you can see the paper that wouldn’t budge . At. All.  Had two pieces of the top layer torn off.  How did that happen?  Now what?

I knew that if I tried to take of the rest of the paper I would spend the next twenty years peeling paper of the walls, patching, etc.  And I gotta tell you that it was more than my brain could handle on a good day! So again, I did what I am going to tell you NOT to do – see a pattern here?- I decided to put up beadboard wallpaper. OVER the existing wall paper.  Yeah, I know!  The Home Depot guy has already had two heart attacks!

So I went to Lowes and bought wall paper, interior trim bright white paint and a 1x6x8. After deciding that I wanted to install the paper 2/3 up the wall, I measured and started to hang the paper.  It went up like a dream and from start to finish took me less than 45 minutes!

I then put the hubs to work and had him rip the board down to a 1x6x6, which we nailed flat on the wall. Then we ripped the 2×6 in half and  laid it flat on top of the board to finish off the look.

I just love a man at work!

Here is what it looked like when we were finished.  I painted the wallpaper and the board in a bright white interior latex trim paint.  And it was so pretty!  ( Again apologizing for the crappy pictures!  Remember – dark, tiny room, most taken at a weird angle or in the mirror….)

I decided not to hang the towel bar back up but rather go for some hooks for towels, bathrobes etc.

  I went with a simple polished silver to match the rest of the hardware in the room.  And I love it! All of it!

Until… I saw the baseboards.  NOT. BRIGHT. WHITE.  At all.  So I decided I had to paint the trim in the room.  So I did.  And it looked great.  Until I looked at the bright white trim up against the vanity, who was as you might have guess not bright white either!  Seeing where I am going here?  If you give a mouse a cookie…

Stay with me for the next installment, or three or four… of the Give a Mouse a Cookie bathroom!

Hi! It’s beautiful sunny weather here in Texas!  Which means I can finally get back to painting.  So. Darn. Excited!!!

So if you didn’t know already I have painted my kitchen two or three( or maybe four?) times in 8 years.  For reals!  The time before last I was tired of this really pretty, creamy tan that was faux finished. I was in the mood for color so I painted it this really bright lime green.  I loved it.  For awhile.  When the kitchen was painted lime green I bought an old china hutch and painted black.  I also painted my kitchen cabinets black at that time and realized I needed a pop of color in there. So I painted the hutch this really mag turquoise, distressed in black.  And I truly LOVED it.

Over time the lime green wore on me a little bit. I still liked it, but it was a bit much for everyday.  So I painted the kitchen a light lemony yellow.  Still.. something didn’t quite fit.  Ya know?  I tried to sell  it to myself that everything looked fabulous, but when it’s not right – you know it’s not right! I knew that the turquoise color was just a bit too bright compared to everything else in the room but the thought of painting the hutch, well… I just didn’t want to do it. Again! ( did I mention that before it was turquoise it was black? Yes, you see a pattern here!)

This is how it looked yesterday… so pretty!  But so wrong! So I got out my paint and got busy!  I used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Duck Egg..one of my fav’s!  After it dried I distressed it and used clear and black wax to seal and protect the piece.  Here is what it looks like now –

I left a little of the turquoise showing through.. and I like that it gives it depth and creates several colors. The difference is really quite subtle but, now it is perfect!  It has the same color value as the rest of the room and while I loved the turquoise.. the Duck Egg is perfect!

I am always amazed how the little details can change everything in a room!  So the next time your room isn’t quite working for you, pay attention to the details!

At some point someone in my family ordered a couple thousand  dozen cigar boxes. I’m not sure why or what they planned to use them for but we still have them. LOTS  of them! Talk about a hot mess…

After about a year of them being in the Hubs office in a great big box, I decided they weren’t doing anyone any good and something had to be done with them. I mean I’ve seriously been dusting a box of boxes! Crazy much?

I took three different sizes, got out my paints, scrapbooking paper scraps, and glue and went to work.  After giving each box a coat of paint, I then took some scrapbook paper and lined the inside of a few of the boxes.

After the paint had dried it was time to attach the knobs.  These boxes lids are pretty thin, so depending on the knobs I had chosen for each box, I either drilled a hole in the lid and attached the knob or simply glued the knob on after deciding on the knob placement.

I then put on a protective coat of wax on each box.  Don’t want to mess with waxing?  You could always use a polyurethane top coat.

I could have stopped here – and I did on some of the boxes, but on a couple oI decided to take it to the next level by stenciling on a design.

Here are my finished boxes!

The duck egg blue box holds my dryer sheets and looks too darn cute in my laundry room!  It is so pretty that it almost makes me want to do more laundry – almost!

The black, more masculine box would be great for a jewelry box, gift box or maybe a family keepsake box.

The turquoise one is going to be a gift box for a friends birthday present. Much better than the bags I usually throw together.

These boxes are the perfect snowy / rainy day project for me!  Quick and easy, and you can let your imagination run wild!!

It’s been awhile since I’ve done Feature Friday. With all of this cold weather it’s been almost impossible to get out in the workshop garage and actually paint!  So I’ve been inside working on all sorts of fun projects!

My friend Shelli called me wanting to know if I wanted some furniture items.  Of course I said Yes! One of these items was an old hand made bread box. I was so excited because I knew it would make an amazing charging station.

First thing – of course- was paint. I know- your shocked! I used ASCP in Graphite on the outside.

And ASCP Duck Egg on the inside!

Followed by a little  distressing, wax and a cute new knob and this is the final result:

This is how you will usually find all my electronic devices:

Either in the kitchen, living room end table or on my nightstand! And that’s just my stuff. It isn’t a pretty sight!

This bread box came with an adjustable shelf.  Perfect for my laptop, IPad, iPhone and Kindle!

I just love how you can shut the door on all the devices and cords ( my pet peeve – seeing cords everywhere! Drives. Me. Crazy!)  Now all you see is a pretty box! I also love that I have reused something instead of buying something brand-new that likely wouldn’t be made nearly as well.

Now this piece isn’t as fancy as some of my other pieces.  I thought about painting a monogram on the door, or even putting a vinyl design on the door that could be changed on a whim.  But I like that it is versatile enough that I can move it to almost any room in my house and it will work well with the decor.

For now, it will be in my kitchen, by my calendar hiding all of my crazy clutter.  Ya gotta love that!

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!   I love this holiday – so much fun, so little to prepare for, you get to eat chocolate AND more importantly you get to give those that you love an extra special “I love you!”  For me, it just doesn’t get much better than that!

Here at the castle we don’t do as much decorating for Valentines day as we used to now that the Princes have grown up and moved away.  However, you know that I can’t just ignore an opportunity to decorate  something. So I usually focus on where we all gather together the most – in the breakfast/kitchen area.

So… my chalkboard got a new look!

I have to admit that I went on Pinterest for a few ideas.  I used bits and pieces of ideas that I saw there to create my board. ( Unfortunately, I don’t have  links to any of these ideas… sometimes it is almost impossible to track these on Pinterest! –  so if you know please let me know so  I can give credit where credit is due!)

I have to admit that when I see this every morning it just makes me smile!  Isn’t that what decorating for holidays is suppose to do?  So – from me to you – HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

Every once in awhile I come across something I absolutely LOVE!  I have decided that some things are just too awesome to keep to myself , so being the wonderful person that I am I am going to share them with you…

I recently came across a new App called Waterlogue and it is GREATNESS!  It costs $2.99, you can use it with Instagram or to create your own “water color” art prints! It works like this – you take a photo off of your photo stream, put it into Waterlogue and start creating!  So simple, so fun that you won’t want to stop playing with it!

Here is an example:

I am sure you’ve seen this photo on my website… Now here it is once I have put it into Waterlogue.

Cool!  Right???  I have had so much fun with this, I can’t seem to stop playing around with it.  I will say that if it has one fault it would be that it doesn’t seem to do as well with faces… sadly.

So there you have it! If you have ever wanted to create your own artwork but just wasn’t sure that you had the talent or the time?  Well…now you do!

Hi! As you can see my website and blog are currently undergoing a facelift!  Please come back soon to see all of the new exciting things we have planned!

Thanks!

Tammy