Red bench rehab

This is actually an old upcycle. But it's one of my favorites!!!

I had gotten this bench from a friend while we were living in Georgia. We were about 45 minutes away from Savannah so we would get salt air and humidity you wouldn't believe. Seriously you'd walk outside and feel like someone left the shower on! Doing your hair? Forget it. 

It all adds up to your outside furniture quickly rusting and looking old and weathered. Quite fitting for the area. I did truly love it there don't get me wrong it was beautiful! Just didn't like the humidity and the bugs. The difference in Texas is it's a dry heat. Sticking your head in the oven vs. hell's sauna. Back to the point.... I know I know. Anyway. This bench sat there on my porch looking the same way as I got it. Sometimes it would move to my back porch that had even less cover from the weather.

One day close to the time we were going to move to Texas I decided to use up spare paint I had left over. So I sanded the bench lightly down. And covered the patio. I took a can of Rustoleum Universal metallic Hammered look in the color black, and sprayed the metal legs and backing. Being sure to cover any rust spots I found. Then I started on the wood. I took the rest of a barn door red can of outdoor paint and painted all of the wood parts of the bench making sure I got full coverage. Followed that with a Valspar antiquing glaze and rubbed it over the entire bench and then really good into the area's I wanted to "antique." left for twenty four hours to dry then took a two cans of polyurethane and sprayed the entire bench down. Left to dry for another twenty four hours.

Here was the finished product. All the neighbors fell in love with it. This bench has since survived four more moves and two hail storms. It's color is holding up perfectly.  I'm a firm believer that paint solves everything. Whether it's the color of a room or an old bench that just needs some TLC. 

Have an upcycle you have done that's one of your faves? I'd love to hear about it.

Cleaning Copper Hack

How to clean copper
 If you have copper pans or are just a collector of pennies. I have a trick to make them look like new!


We've personally had these pans for ages. Family member through family member. Over the years I've learned a few tricks to bring the copper back to life. Granted if you looking to get the black burned on portions out I can't help with that... But taking the tarnish of I can.

Half and half

Here's what you'll need:

• Table or sea salt
• Apple cider vinegar / or white vinegar apple stinks but works best.
• An old rag
• Spray bottle (you don't have to have this one but it makes it easier.)

Lay down a towel and lay down the pan you are working on. This one is copper bottom so I just turned it over. Spray the bottom of the pan with the vinegar. And sprinkle on the salt. The chemical reaction will be noticeable right away. Then scrub hard rub the mixture all over the copper. And as you can see in the top picture the tarnish clears and the red copper comes back to life. Next wash the pan entirely with soap and water. The vinegar is not good to leave on for to long.

If you have a penny collector you can use the same trick.

I put the penny's in a bowl with salt and the vinegar and swished them around the bowl for about 15 minutes then rinsed. Didn't scrub them or anything. It brought all the color back to life and you could see the tarnish come out while dumping the water from the bowl. 

I do warn to use a well ventilated area. The whole process is a chemical reaction. Breathing in the fumes can harm those with asthma or lung issues.

Stain removal of fabrics.

My family like any family has spills and messes. Almost daily I'm left trying to get various stains out of clothes, furniture and carpet.

How to clean fabrics:
These chairs are from World Market. They have a rough fabric that stains easily and is subject to daily cleanings. They are not scotch guarded though I highly recommend doing so if you have chairs like these. I'm getting to the point I swear. 

Here's what I use:
Regular Heinz white vinegar, Lemon essential oil, you don't have to. I just think it smells better. dish soap, Dawn and Gain have worked best. Use one to two drops of soap and oil, one part vinegar, three parts warm water. Using an old rag drip the solution over the stains. Scrub hard. Once clean I use a dry towel and press into the chair to soak up any excess water. And leave to dry.

So far the list of stains this solution has removed:
Red wine, sweet tea/cool aid when done immediately, spaghetti sauce, cake icing, water color, ranch dressing, chocolate, hair dye and Cheetos.

The list it hasn't removed:
Tea and cool aid once it had been left for a couple of days, some sort of oil based product, school paints, and nail polish.

I have also used this product on brown microfiber couches with much success.

My husband was a medic. While in training he would come home on weekends and I would wash his uniforms. I found a few tricks to getting all of the stains of you can guess what being a medic out.

Normal spray and wash doesn't really work on these uniforms. For what ever reason the ACU (army combat uniform) retains stains like nothing else. I have found that this solution works amazingly well. So much so I've used it on everything from carpet, clothes to bloody sheets. (cat had just had surgery and slept with us that night. So not pretty in the morning) 

These are simple everyday house hold products that do an amazing job.
Dawn Dish Soap (the blue bottle) Hydrogen Peroxide and baking soda.
I've made a paste out of the baking soda and dawn before then put the HP over it for really tough stains like dried blood.

However turning it into a solution works amazingly well. Add to a bowl two parts HP and one part Dawn and Baking Soda. Stir together and rub/scrub into the garment. I used a regular bristle brush from the dollar store. Let sit for an hour and wash the item as you normally would.

For use in stain removal in carpet. Always test a spot first! 
We have beige color carpet and two dogs, two kids and three cats. It equals a never ending source of stains! Add same solution over the stain, let sit for an hour and use a steam cleaner or rug doctor to remove the paste.

Both vinegar and baking soda help with oder control. I highly recommend the use of either on stinky stains such as vomit or fecal matter. TMI if you have to clean vomit/poo out of carpet I recommend first putting baking soda over it and scraping the "matter" up with an old spatula. Helps with the smell and the removal. We have used vinegar to clean vomit out of the car and it did help the smell. But I recommend leaving the windows down as much as possible for the next couple of days. Then use a machine carpet cleaner when possible to remove any excess.




(I removed some of the pictures for the safety of my family. I will try to have more up ASAP)

Inner rambling and some peace.

Some of the best things ever written come from a source of great pain.

Laying here in my bed cheeks red and wet with tears with my husband's arms around me and my favorite cat snuggled close to my side. Both trying to lend me what solace they can as the months of stress build up finally break the flood gates and I decompress everything bogging down my mind.

Today I planned on getting up going about my normal Tuesday routine. And honestly I have no idea from how the time I got up this morning to the time I'm posting this led to a complete and under emotional deluge I didn't see coming. Seriously it was only an hour.

Which leads to what I had posted on my facebook directly before this blog page. The only thing I can think of that led to this cataclysmic event was that I almost ran out of gas this morning taking my already late kids to school and came home to cat vomit almost like a he left a present right before the door to my room. Which isn't a big deal this is every day stuff that just happens right? And then... my brain went into overload and unleashed it's fury on everything.

It's no secret. As women we let things get to us. Build up. And mentally brake us. We are so busy in our lives we push everything mentally aside to deal with later. When that later never comes it erupts in great emotional torrents of pain, anger, sorrow and shame. Makes me envious of men sometimes. So easy it seems. They either explode on the spot and move on or they seem absent of emotions all together. Grass is greener maybe.

 As I'm writing this a quote I saw a long time ago on a shirt came to mind "some days it's not worth chewing through the straight jacket." Ain't that the truth? We are all a little crazy and somewhat broken by own own experiences. Someday's you just have to mentally check out and deal with it all. Knowing I'm not as alone as I feel in all of this helps. I have the right people by my side and someone I can always reach out to. Isn't that the least we can ask for?

I end this blog with words to a song. It's Change Your Mind by Sister Hazel. If you'd like to look it up. Because I can't think of  a better way to word it then they have.

"Hey, hey,

Did you ever think there might be a better way

to just feel better about today?

Oh no,If you never wanna have turn and go away

You might feel better

if you stay

Yeah,

I bet you haven't heard a word I've said

yeah,

If you've had enough of all your trying just give up the state of mind your in.

If you wanna be somebody else

just tired of fighting battles with yourself

if you wanna be somebody else change your mind.

Faux mirror top bedside table.

Hey ya'll!
  We got bedside tables that have been in the family a loooooong time. Not quite antique yet so I had no problem with the idea of painting them. This is the "after" effect of the antique mirror look.

This is what it looked when I first got it out. Beat up. And changing colors?

The table its self is all wood. Minus that top center piece it's a hard laminate, that as you can tell was changing color due to age. I loved these tables they were my grandma's, then mine, then my moms for the last 6 years and now mine again. Our bed is a white metal frame from ikea. And I just wanted it to match a little better. Before we change the color of our bed. Another story for another date.

Have you ever seen those old pie servers from back in the day? With aluminum tops and cherry/walnut wood surround? Well the aluminum look is what I was after. And I didn't want to spend any cash on it. So I looked through my stash of dun, dun, dun SPRAY PAINT. It's really amazing what you can do with that stuff these days.  Anyways I had a past project of making vases look like Mercury glass. OMG if you only knew my love addiction to that kind of stuff! ( and if you want a blog about how to do that message me and I'll post a how to. Its easy I swear!)  Where was I? Oh yes. Mercury glass. There's this product called Looking Glass from Krylon spray paint. I searched high and low but did not have any luck finding it.  How ever I did find this stuff -->

Rustoleum Mirror Effect

It's not as shiny so it doesn't give the exact look I need for my MG projects. But it does still look awesome in it's own way! And definitely suited my current needs. So I washed the top of the table down. Didn't bother taping anything off. I just went with the flow. In the back of my mind I kept quoting my art teacher from Elementary school. "There are no mistakes in art. If you don't like the way somethings looking change it. It's never ruined." 

I kind of loved the way it looked right then. Hi, my name is Janna and I have an addiction to mercury glass...I know.... No need to worry it was just the drying process with the lighter being the parts dried. The thinner coat you use on the top the more of what you'll see under it that was original. I only did one thin coat each with a few good dark spots to give it the look I wanted. You can sort of see it here below.

After it all dried which I have little patients for  ( Have I mentioned I'm a redhead, I'm Irish, I'm an Aries, I'm only 4 feet 11 inches tall and a woman? Needless to say I have an attitude. I'm lucky my husband can put up with. It's a running joke that the odds were stacked against him lol) So I waited all offffffff about 30 seconds to bring it in. Then I sat down on my bedroom floor and began to paint. the same favorite color of Annie Sloan Chalk paint. Which I'm now out of! Drats! In the color Old Ocher. It took two coats of chalk paint to get the fullness I wanted out of it color wise. I didn't want to distress the paint on this project....

**I forgot to take an in between picture but here are the drawer pulls before. Just brass ones. That I used the same Mirror effect on.

 All I can think about when I actually look at these are the doors in the movie The Labyrinth. You remember the ones she had to take the knocker out of their mouths to ask questions?

Any way here's the finished product of my 4 hour labor. I did two end tables at once. So my husband's is finished to. 

 You can see that it does reflect some. And with more coats it will reflect more. If you really want a mirror finish I suggest the Looking Glass one. This one is more for antique style looks.

The table painted and put together. I really fell love the detail in it. On the sides its got more.

Annnnd I love how it turned out! Exactly the way I had pictured it! Slightly old aluminum. Who knows one day I may add some rust looking spots.... Or not.

From afar. This is my side of the room. My husband and I's taste is pretty similar. But they differ on the fact he has a huge Dragon on his night stand. One day I'm going to change the color of the bed frame. So it's not a prefect match. But you know what? I'm over that look. But I'm proud of the way it looks, it's mine I put the effort into making it mine. And no one else in the world has anything exactly like it. Well for now anyway. I hope you find something soon and make it yours. There are no mistakes.

For now Goodnight to all. I Hope you have a wonderful day/night where ever your from.

My Momma's Soap review.

Hey Ya'll! (I'm from Texas ya'll is standard)

 Hope all is well with everyone today. I wanted to share with ya'll this wonderful soap we came across at our local farmers market. I love that place. I have a child with eczema it's been a problem with him from day one. We lived in Georgia for about 5 years and actually had it clear up entirely! Amazing what humidity can do! Well my husbands job requires us to move around a lot and we found ourselves back in the heart of Texas. About 4 months after the move the eczema came back.

Back to the point. We were at the spring opening of the local Farmer's Market last month and came across a new booth called My Momma's soap. Her soaps are made from all natural ingredients castile, olive oil, distilled water. essential oils and mineral pigment. No harsh chemicals. Recipes learned from growing up beside her mother making them.

We picked out a bar called Yellow Rose of Texas - castile. And have been using it on my husband and son every night. So far we've noticed a dramatic change in their skin. My husband only had eczema on his shoulders. But my son had it on his arms and legs. Their skin is softer has less blemishes and rough spots. I know some people with eczema cannot use products with fragence added. We are lucky that it's not the case for us. But she does sell a plain castile soap that should take away the issue. I could not believe the difference the soap made! My son say's he's less "itchy" and actually sits still without scratching. After seeing the difference first hand we went to the market this past Saturday and picked up 3 more bars! One of the same and a couple more manly scents for my husband.

Here are the bars we picked out

Yellow Rose of Texas-Castile
Ingredients: Saponified 100% olive oil, rose essential oil, rose petals, clay pigment and distilled water. (This is the bar we use on my son.)

Sir Choc-Alot
Ingredients: Saponified 100% olive oil, distilled water, fragrance oil, cocoa and mineral pigment.
(Smells so good I want to eat it! Think of a chocolate bar)

Indian Blanket
Ingredients: Saponified oils of olive, canola, coconut and palm, distilled water, amber-jasmine-vanilla essential oil and mineral pigment.
(If you've ever smelled Dragons blood incense it's the same. This is the one my husband picked out.)

And last but not least my favorite. The Austinite I'm from Austin so I maybe biased but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way this smells.
Ingredients: Saponified oils of olive, canola, coconut and palm, distilled water, patchouli, mint and mineral pigment.

Fact of the day.
I didn't know what Saponified meant so I asked. It's the conversion of oil into soap. 

Benae Cobert is the owner of the shop and an amazing caring person that I've had the great pleasure to meet. Very warm and inviting. And her story is amazing. If you'd like to know more about her or would like to order her soaps online please visit her at Facebook.com/mymommassoap or her personal site mymommassoap.com

Scentsy/Candle wax hack.

Ever tried changing out a Scentsy warmer while the wax was still hot and got it all over the wall? I'm a klutz. Seriously I trip over flat surfaces and walls just seem to come out of no where. So it's no surprise that I would get wax somewhere.

A while back I had spilled wax on the white wall in our kitchen. I scraped the best I could to no avail. The red wax was there to stay. Till I thought about heat. I tried a hot wet cloth and that did a little but didn't take it all off. Next I though about a iron. There's no way I could fit it where I needed it to go. Next I thought about the hair dryer that just about caught my head on fire it was so hot. Got it out and went to work on the wax. Literally within mere seconds the wax started to melt and come off the wall. On the down side every time I'd wipe it it would freeze again and smudge down the wall. So I took a wet rag with some vinegar on it and followed the wax with the hair dryer. Slowly but surely it all came off. BAM! Back to new!

The next one was harder. I have two kids and two cats. One knocked a warmer over on the the floor and carpet. I had experience once before with dun, dun, dun, a candle! I know I'm so old fashioned. 

I don't have a picture with me but this worked pretty well. Take a paper bag, and an iron. Put the bag over the spot of wax on the floor and put the iron on it's highest setting. Once hot, iron over the spot under the bag on the floor. The Iron melts the wax and the paper bag soaks it up. Keep moving around and repeat as necessary till all the wax is gone. It's worked twice for me. Be careful to do it as quick as possible if it's a dark color wax or a soft stain will remain.

Flea market find to bedroom beauty.

Here's an old post but it's one of my faves. We have a local flea market where we live. It's small and hot and dark in a building with no AC and the only electricity is from the rented booths. So far we've only been a few times. I've seen a lot of project pieces but haven't found the right price. Till we came across this mess.

It's a Tennessee cedar chest. SMELLS AMAZING. As you can tell someone painted over it's original varnish  Black on the sides, burnt orange'ish on top. (I'm a UT fan and I love burnt orange this is not that pretty color.) The top had some water damage and the sides looked like someone was practicing hockey shots against it. All..the..way..around. 

The paint was thick coated. But the person who painted it didn't sand first. So lucky for me the varnish under it had bubbled and some of the paint was relatively easy to scrape off with a regular paint scraper. The rest? Not so much. I said this stuff was thick and I wasn't lying. It took 40 and 60 grit sandpaper to get it all off. I did end up finding a lot of the original varnish was in good condition but not salvageable. The entire time I was sanding I found myself screaming Nicole Curtis's words from Rehab Addict saying "Why the hell would someone cover that up?!" the color was beautiful.

This was hours of using the rough grit sandpaper later. Then I used 220 grit for for the finish. I decided to cover the water damaged front side in my favorite brand of chalk paint. And stain the top since it was in better condition. 

Is there any surprise I would use a different stain? I kid I kid. I do love other colors but I wanted dark and I was not disappointed. It took two good coats and a good wipe down to get it the right color I wanted. I finished it with a spray coat of polyurethane.

Here is the finished product. The top came out beautifully and I was able to salvage the sides. The front main panels didn't work out as well so I decided to go with a two tone look. I used Annie Sloan chalk paint in the color Old Ochre to give it more of an antique look. Eventually we plan to add copper details to the top and front. But for now this is how it shall stay. 

Ikea head board turned dog gate.

Well Hello there!
 I am starting this new blog as way to keep family and friends updated with my upcycles and life in general. Anyhoo back to the point right?

                This is an Ikea twin size FJELLSE headboard. It came with the rest of the bed but my kids like anyone else's I hope, have a habit of jumping on the bed. Which led to the screws being ripped from the wood and then a loud crashing noise from the opposite side of the house followed by chorus of "UH OH." After a "This is why we can't have nice things!" moment. I dealt with the situation much like a kid myself throwing the remaining parts of the bed in a closet to be dealt with at a later time. So it sat there ...... for..... months.....

 

**Hold on rewind back up** Insight.
I'm living with my mother while we save for a home. So we have three rooms at the back part of the house to ourselves. plus a bathroom. It's lovely, I'm grateful. I really and truly am! blah, blah, blah.  Anyway "TO THE POINT!" you say?... Separating said rooms from the rest of the house was a white metal swinging baby gate of doom. To my ears... It would hardly latch and led to a lot of banging in attempts to shut it. My kids are 6 and 8 so why not get rid of the gate you ask? Well because we also have a menagerie of animals between our two families. My mom has two dogs and a cat. And we have two hamsters and two cats and one more cat on the way. With the smaller part of the food chain on our side of the house, there needed to be some separation and sanctuary for the animals.... And a reason for a gate.

So I happen to be cleaning the closet and I'm wondering if I should toss, trash or keep this bed. And as I look at it, I think its about the exact size of the hallway that the current gate resided in. I pull it out and get and odd look from my husband as he sees the gears in my brain turning. I put the head board into place of where it would be and realize it would be a perfect fit and replacement for the big white eye sore currently there. He likes the idea, Mom likes the idea. Alright lets do this!

So I take the headboard out onto the patio and wipe it down. This model in particular is unfinished. So it was an easy redo. I used my favorite stain I had on hand Minwax in the color Jacobean.  No sanding or anything, just straight on to the wood. And it turned out great!

 Sorry for the way I'm dressed and the quality of these pictures. I had no idea what I would be starting at the time. Above I am testing out the stain to see how well the wood would hold it. And it soaked it right up. One coat was all it needed. Side note ** from experience when staining always go back and give it a good wipe down to take off any residual stain or it will be sticky.

Ah... Ain't it beautiful? For what ever reason I'm not a huge fan of blonde wood. Because I'm a child of the late 80's early 90's maybe? We were going to stain these later down the line anyway but hadn't gotten to it. I highly recommend these beds if you want to be able to make it your own quick. (my kids aren't easy on furniture so I think it was a fluke) And Ikea also sells other unfinished dressers and more so you can complete the set. 

I liked the way it looked just the way it was but it had two obvious issues. The two GIANT holes the dogs hadn't figured out they could go through yet. The solution was actually my moms idea. It's a grill thingy... you know the part of the grill you cook on? Yeah that thingy. You can buy it at Home Depot for $20.00. It's called Expanded Metal. Who knew it had a name? I know, I get easily distracted bare with me it will be worth it. We used an angle grinder saw and cut the metal square in half. The headboard itself has a half in grove in the top rail so we inserted the metal into it. For the bottom we let it drape over the back and screwed it in. (I will get pictures of this tomorrow I swear) Then we added a double swinging gate hinges so the gate can swing both ways. I believe this also came from Home Depot but the name of the brand escapes me. I'll look into it.


So this is the finished product. And here is a rough estimate of prices.

The bed itself sells at Ikea for $79.00 
(we got it from a friend. It lasted a lot longer then I thought with my boys so I take off depreciation cost.)
The rest was bought at the Home Depot
The stain was 1 qt. Wood finish oil based interior stain in the color Jacobean for $7.77 (I had it on hand so free)
The hinges are 3 in. x 3 in Oil-Rubbed Bronze double-action spring door hinges for $17.98 time 2.
only come in 1 hinge packs..Why I don't know.
And last but not least the Expanded metal sheet in the size 3/4" x 24" for $19.97

Making a grand total of $124.72 if I had bought all separate. I still have left over pieces of the bed that are going to be used for later projects. Could I have bought a new gate? Yes. But I'm all about reusing things as much as possible. And I honestly couldn't have found a awesome looking gate such as this one in stores. So there you go Ikea Hack 1938729837298 head board turned dog gate. 

PS. If you noticed the light saber without me mentioning it you deserve a cookie!