25 October, 2011

pretty little wreath


I saw this super freaking cute idea at Offbeat Home originally. So I trekked (just down the street) to my local fabric shop. I came home with a pretty little pile of fabric.



I then proceeded to rip that pretty pile into small strips. ripripripriprip....





 tietietietietietietietietietie....




I'm so happy with how it turned out! I can't wait to hang it on our door!

07 September, 2011

In the beginning there was a door...

So here we are with this new blog... I get so inspired by reading about what other people are doing online that I decided I wanted to add my share to the mix. And when I started thinking about it & talking about it with Amanda, we realized that we're actually pretty crafty & do a lot of DIY projects around our apartment. Plus, we LOVE to cook & try out new recipes & have all kinds of plans for future crafts, concoctions & the like. Sooo...put all that together & voila!! we have a new blog! Basically, we would be doing ourselves a disservice by NOT documenting all of our projects. 

In fact, as I type this Amanda is probably on her way back from Texarkana where she spent the day building table legs for our dining room door. Yes, that's right- our biggest ongoing project is to turn a salvaged door into a dining room table. It's pretty exciting, actually! But maybe you're wondering how we managed to come across this door...well, my friends, let me enlighten you.

One hot Sunday a few months ago Amanda, our friend Colton & I were driving back from the local Mud Bug Madness crawfish festival. As we took a detour through a residential neighborhood, I spotted a door on the side of the road, awaiting trash pickup. Amanda & I had been discussing on & off for a while what to do about a dining room table since we finally live in an apartment with enough room to dedicate space to such furniture. So I offhandedly remarked that the door would make a nice table. Colton jokingly asked if we wanted to go back for it. It only took a couple of seconds & a glance at Amanda for us to say, "Why not?" So we turned around & headed back. 

Now, here's where the story gets kinda interesting... We pulled up in the driveway & I mentioned that maybe we should knock on the door & ask if we could take the door before just loading it up & hightailing it out of there. We rang the doorbell a couple of times & just as I was peeking through the frosted window to see if anyone was really home or not, the door opened. On the other side was an older gentleman dressed in... a fluffy, white bathrobe. Without any look as if he had just finished/was about to start showering! Oh my!! I stuttered out something about the door at the end of the driveway & the man quickly interjected with his permission for us to have it. (Yay!) He shut the door as we headed to claim our prize. We started giggling while Amanda started humming "Afternoon Delight", because...how else do you explain a bathrobe in the middle of the day?!?! 

Once we regained our composure, we had to figure out how the door was going to fit into Colton's Scion. Now this particular car is actually a bit roomier on the inside than it looks. But still not quite roomy enough to fit three adults & one full size door. We finally managed to tilt it in with all but the driver's seat down, me squished into the backseat next to the door & Amanda wedged into the back cargo space with her feet perched in a cubbyhole. We were laughing so hard at how ridiculous the situation was & would have laughed even harder, except that it was pretty uncomfortable. Poor Amanda had to pretty much just fall out of the car once we got to the apartment! But finally we got it out of the car & up our stairs & stood admiring our treasure on the front porch. Where it stayed until our management asked us to remove it. Did I mention that Amanda & I sometimes suffer from bouts of procrastination? 
 
                                          Our pirate's booty, pre-makeover.

Now the door is on sawhorses with a pretty tablecloth over it in our dining area. We actually use it as is (turns out it's really convenient when having a party), but we have plans to strip it, stain or paint it & add the legs that Amanda & her dad are making. We've removed the hardware too. We're pretty excited to finish it (even though it might take us a while...) & I can't wait to see what it's going to look like! 



                       We finally made it around to taking off the hinges & doorknob...




                                     Except the hinges were reeeally attached!! 


-April