Staining Wood - The Cheap Way

Okay, so I just wanted to write a short post this time just to let everyone know a better way to stain wood. I'm not sure what it would look like after you stripped furniture or something already stained and then did this, but it has a beautiful color when you stain naked wood. Now, all you need is sole cider vinegar and steel wool. You can get a gallon of apple cider vinegar for just a few dollars, and you can get the steel wool at the dollar store. So what you're going to do is take an empty pitcher, pour the apple cider vinegar in it (as much as you think you'll need, it doesn't hurt to make extra, you WILL end up wanting it), then take five or six pieces of steel wool and put ten in our pitcher. Make sure they are fully submerged in the vinegar to get the full effect. Cover the pitcher with something (unless you like the aroma of vinegar throughout your house /: I don't, personally). Wait two days, stir it up, then it's ready to use! I take a paint brush to brush it on. There's no need to wipe anything off a half hour after applying it like regular stain. I set mine in the sun to dry, it dries fairly quickly (about an hour).

So that's that! Now you know a cheap and better looking way to stain wood :)

Here's a picture of a finished product with this technique.

It leaves a rustic/barn house look, which I am obsessed with these days!

"Wine a bit, you'll feel better"

Hi everyone. I haven't been on here for a while, mainly because I went through a laze phase but also because I didn't think anybody read my posts. But somehow and someway around 100 people read my page and a few liked what I wrote. 100 people may not be a lot to the others that do this blog thing for a living, but it's a heck of a lot more views than I ever expected! So I'm going to tell you about my new projects I've become obsessed with this last month. I was looking around my house one morning and thought "wow, I need some decorations!". So I headed to a nearby store to see what I could find to fill my empty walls with. When I got there I was in shock. Everything was SO dang expensive. Simple sunset pictures were over $100 and signs with a few words on them were around $50. I quickly left that place and drove just a few blocks (everything is rather close living here in San Diego) to Home Depot. The first thing I wanted to try to do was stain a piece of wood to see how it turned out. I really wish I had taken pictures of this process, but I didn't so you're just going to have to imagine it. So I got a couple of pieces of fence wood from the lumber section, one piece was 5' long and the other was skinnier and 6' long. I had the guy that works there cut both of the slabs into 3 pieces each. I didn't know what I was going to do with them yet, but I did know I wasn't going to do anything with longer pieces than that. I also got a super skinny piece of wood (cut it into 8 sections) because for some reason I thought I was going to make a "pallet-looking" sign and the little pieces were goign to hold it together. And I needed hooks to hang our keys on at home so I threw a pack of 50 in the cart as well. When I got home I took some sand paper and lightly sanded the rough pieces of fence wood (nobody wants splinters!) then got out my stain finish (don't remember the color) and stained the wood. About five minutes later I whiped off the excess stain (didn't want it too dark) and let it dry some more. I waited about and hour for it to finish drying which was a good amount of time to sit back and ponder what I'd want my sign to say. I ended up thinking about a sign my grandma has in her kitchen. It says something abuot 'wine and whining' (I still don't know exactly what it says, never asked her) and I came up with a good saying for my own sign, "Wine a bit, you'll feel better". I thought it was a pretty corny but classy way to say "JUST DRINK!". I went over the white paint a few times, but the stain I used kept showing through. I also went over the original purple grapes with a lighter color I made just by adding a little white, same with the green for the leaves. And instead of using the small wood pieces to hold the boards together I used the hooks I bought and it gave the sign a nice rustic feel. Hope you like the finished product, I sure do! [Especially it being my first attempt at this kind of project ;) ]

Heat Packs

I needed a break from the pillows I was making so I did my best to find something new to create. I don't know where the idea came from, but I randomly thought that it would be pretty cool to be able to make those handy hot/cold packs with rice. My mother and grandma always used them on cold days or when their backs were sore from a hard days work. I looked at some different ones online until I found a style that I felt would work for not only me, but my customers as well. I have come across some that were sewn only around the four corners. I didn't like that. I had an issue with the fact that, when holding one side of the pad, all of the rice would fall to the bottom. So I found a way to make mine in a way that would keep the rice even and flat no matter how it was held.

So, here's a few finished products

This one is smaller. It's more for (ladies, your menstrual cramps) or you can keep it in the freezer on those hot days to cool you right off.

I got in the groove of these things, I made probably ten of them.

Hope you enjoyed!!

Pillows, Pillows, Pillows

I am really getting the hang of this. I made 4 new ones today, check them out!

They're so much fun to make, but I think I will need something more challenging soon. Easier than the wingback chair though /: that's for sure.

Cushion covers

I bought some cheap fabric from Walmart thinking that I was going to try to use my sewing machine, but assumed the idea would jut fail like the many other ones I tried to use it. I measured a couch cushion and just started to cut and see fabric together. Without any template or direction at all, the first one I made didn't turn out too shabby. So then I was googling a fabric store that didn't have too expensive of fabric. I found a store called Home Fabrics in San Diego. They have tons of great patterns and quality fabric and they are fairly reasonably priced. I got a couple yards of two fabrics that weren't too girly (for the hubby) and a zipper and went home and measured, cut and sewed that new fabric. The zipper ended up being the most difficult part. I think I did each zipper a different way. But this is what it turned out to be, and in my opinion it looks darn good!

Please don't mind the can of beer (oopsies /:)

And those pillows I made in the middle of finishing the covers. I'd get bored of working with the same fabric for hours so I got some fun pattern and made pillow covers as well. The piping for those was really not how I pictured the process to be like, it was a definite challenge until I got the hang of it.

The above pictures are a couple of pillow covers I made. Super fun and cute! (Too girly for my husbands liking, though)

I just took some better pictures of the couch cushion covers, take a look

The others were taken at night, these new ones have more natural light which makes them look tons better.

The $5 Dresser

...into something I wasn't supposed to keep. Oh, but I am.

Wing-backed Chair

This has been a pain to take apart. I'm learning as I go. There's been tons of Google-ing and YouTube-ing to figure out just how to strip this disaster. I will try to take a picture tomorrow of the progress, but for now this is all you get. Chair $9 from Consignment Classics in Point Loma When this project is done I;m not sure any amount of money will cover what I feel it's worth.

Shop