Dress-ed To Impress

Winter greetings everyone! 

Here in NY we've had quite a December to remember.  In the last two weeks we've had over 12"+ of snow fall. Looks like it's going to be a white Christmas! 

Back in October I signed up for an introduction to sewing class through the local adult eduction program. It was a really fun class and I met some truly awesome people. Over the course of six weeks I picked out a dress pattern from Jo-Ann Fabrics, purchased the materials, and began my journey of first time sewer. Below are some pictures taken along the way. I finished my dress on the last day of class. 

It was a lot of work but spend more time fixing my mistakes (using my ever handy seam ripper). 

If you're a first time sewer I would recommend an easier project to begin with. Since I had ZERO sewing experience I found myself watching youtube videos, reading sewer blogs, and calling my aunt for advice and how-to's. 

Overall it was a really fun class and I did learn a lot. Since finishing the dress I've made a rag quilt (soooo much easier!), a medium size tote bag, and a poncho. It's pretty addicting once you start and I'm so glad I did. 

One of the best parts of signing up was meeting the other great women in the class. Our class ended two weeks ago but still meet on Wednesday evenings at my house to sew together.

The Dress!

The process....

Here are some pictures of the class working on projects.

Sew-inspiring

Here is my little drop leaf table cleaned up and ready for a little sewing action. I really love this piece and wanted a just a little bit of color to brighten it up.

I used some of the leftover light blue 'oops'paint that I had from the spring on the legs and side drawer. The small glass knob cleaned up well with some hot soapy water. 

The top surface was beautiful and I just wanted it cleaned up.  Acquired furniture always needs a good scrub down (especially CL finds). After sanding off the finish I applied Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner to help prevent streaks and blotches prior to staining.

Once dry I applied my favorite stain -- Minwax Dark Walnut to the surface. Two coats of wipe on Poly later and it was looking simply amazing! 

Look who got a facelift!

I'm so excited to share my updated blog layout. Thanks to the helpful tips, instructions, and HTML code I created a pretty nice new blog to share my unique finds, furniture transformations, and other DIY projects.  Shabby Blogs is a great place to find backgrounds, buttons, sidebars, and much, much more. The best part of Shabby Blogs is that it's all free! They believe everyone deserves to tell their story in style and why everything on their site is 100% free. How awesomely cool is that!?

I also must give credit to Pam at DIYDesignFanatic as she has a great tutorial on how to add social media links to your blog.

Tomorrow morning I'm off the the Pottery Barn Holiday Decorating Party. Looking forward to learning how to create a rustic Thanksgiving and a Nostalgia Christmas for 2013. I'll share tips, best practices, and PB's best kept secrets to knockout party.

Additionally, when I get back I'm going to share my sewing table makeover which I completed this week.

Stay tuned...........

Funky Find! Sewing Table

I found this beautiful gem on Craigslist for $25. What a great deal!!  This is going to be my new sewing table once we move into our new house. I am going to give it a good cleaning, a LITTLE paint, and it will be ready for display. It's really nice the way it looks right now so I only want to make some minor adjustments to it.  If this beautiful 60 degree weather in NY stays around for the weekend I might be able to get it done sooner than later.

Pottery Barn Free Classes

I love free! #Pottery Barn is offering free decorating classes this Sunday, 11/17 (and 11/24). A great opportunity to get decorating tips, discounts, and IDEAS. I love looking at all the PB items in the store & catalogs and then creating my own similar style through funky junky finds!

Moving on...

Thursday will be a bittersweet day for us. We're closing on the sale of our house that we've called home for the past 7 years. We put a lot of work into restoring it and I truly love the way it all came together. But the time has come for me to find a new home make over project. I hope to have our new home in January with pictures to share.

While I'm sad to be closing this chapter of our lives I'm super excited to start the next. I fell in love with our new home the minute I laid eyes on it and knew it was where I wanted to call home. Plus I've  have already started thinking about what the first project will be... but more of that later.

Here is what our home looked like when we purchased it in 2006.

Six years, one large tree removed, gallons (and gallons) of paint, new windows, a roof, new walls, etc we finally finished all that we set out to do. Our masterpiece was complete.

What a transformation indeed! It was a great house that holds a lot of wonderful memories.  I found our next house right around the corner from this little gem :)

Another dresser do-over!

I wanted to add one more dresser makeover that I worked on over the summer before I move onto sewing and other fun stuff. This dresser was in a bulk pickup back in the Spring. How could you not love it? Additionally, back in March I came across some beautiful wallpaper that I fell in love with. One look at the dresser and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this paper. 

The after picture didn't come out too great so you can't see the vibrant colors and the speckles of glitter. But trust me, it's gorgeous. The picture doesn't show the new knobs I added on the top two drawers. I found these awesome green and brass knobs at Pier 1 in the clearance section around the holidays. They complemented the paper beautifully. 
The paint was leftovers from some earlier projects (remember the green dresser?) The yellow was another good opps find at The Home Depot. I added a little bit of walnut stain to the top and here's the transformation! 
[disclosure - lots and lots of sanding was required ;) ] 

I really didn't want to part with this piece after it was transformed. But it did find a new home in a teenage girl's bedroom. She fell just as in love with it as I did.

A dresser do-over!

I wish I had taken a picture of this beauty before I fixed it up. Oh well. This was another CL freebie find. The drawers needed some work in addition a fresh coat of paint all around. I thought this was the perfect piece to experiment with spray paint and my traditional handy paint brushes.

The piece turned out better than I expected :) it's new home is a baby boy's nursery. Ahhhhh.

Beginning this week I will be posting all about my latest project....SEWING. I'm super excited to start my class and begin creating my first project!