From Messy Kid's Desk, to Vanity for Mom

I have wanted a vanity for forever!  I really want one of those beautiful antique wooden vanity's with all the details and the three sided mirror, but who can afford that?  With that in mind and the saying "Fake it till you make it", I figured I would slap me together something at least resembling a vanity.  So I brainstormed a little and realized we had an extra kid's desk in the younger boys' room.  Hmmmm, I came up with a plan.  Apparently, I was really desperate at the time because it looked like this...

I told you it was fresh from the kid's room!  Anyway, I came up with a plan!  I took it into my room and lifted up the glass and laid sheer fabric table clothes over the frame of the desk. I had the table clothes left over from my wedding (so what the hell was I going to do with them?).

 

  Then I put some of my vintage treasures on top after I replaced the glass.  This is what I came up with...

The mirrored tray and the vanity set were actually my grandmother's. She gave them to me last year when I helped her clean out her shed.  I already had the perfume bottles (also given to me).  The jewelry box was a wedding gift and the flowers were the ones I carried when I got married.  We had a Halloween themed wedding.  My entire little vanity area was free.  All put together from things I already had.  

Tea Cart - Before and After

I love vintage stuff; clothes, dishes, hats, decor, furniture...you name it!  I can see potential in so many things people throw away.  It really makes me sick to see it!  So last year, when my step-mom decided to flip a house, I scored a few treasures.  One was a little tea cart.  I know y'all have seen these adorable little brightly colored carts all over Pinterest and wondered where in the hell people were getting them...At least, I know I was wondering. I saw an adorable little red one in an antique shop one time and they wanted a fortune for it. So, when I was walking through the flip house and saw a funky looking brown tea cart with brass colored handles, I could see potential.  They were just about to toss it in the dumpster when I saved it!  

Yeah, I get it, it was freaking ugly!  But I knew it didn't have to be.  I took it home.  It sat in the shed for the last year, and last week, I finally painted it to match my kitchen.  The colors in my kitchen are teal and red and I plan on putting this little cart in front of the sliding glass door (the side that doesn't slide).  So since my curtains are red, I painted it teal with silver handles. 

I think it came out great.  I can't wait to finish it off with some cute little vintage kitchen objects!

Simple Lego Decor

I needed more on my sons' walls then just mounted Minifigs.  I looked through the house for other things to use as decor.  I had some old white picture frames laying around so I decided to find some Lego "art" to put in them.  I gathered all the instruction books from the Lego sets we had bought over the years and found two pages that were very similar.  The only problem was that they were too small for the frames. I solved the problem by using some green scrapbook paper that I already had.  This worked out great for me because it is the same shade as the accent wall in the boys' room.  I just used tape to center everything.

Upcycled Lego Decor

My step-sons really wanted a Lego themed room.  We have a million of them around and I was trying to figure out some inexpensive ways to create something for their walls with Legos.  So I went out to the shed in the yard and looked around at the heaps of lovely stuff (junk) everywhere to try to find inspiration.  My eyes fell upon some old bed slats against the wall.  Having boys, we have had plenty of beds that didn't live up to expectations.  Furniture just isn't made to stand up to rowdy boys anymore.  I always keep the bed slats though because the kids always seem to break them.  So I brought them in and painted them a high gloss white (which we already had because it is also the trim color in their room).  I figured up a nice amount of spacing and started gluing Legos to them in varying colors.

I used Loctite to glue the Legos on.  The drilled holes you see are inset screw holes that were already in the slats.  Once I had all my Minifig platforms glued on, I decided to see how they would look.

 

After I figured out where I wanted the Minifigs on each platform, I hung the slats on the wall using the pre-drilled screw holes.  I chose to hang one over the closet door and one over each of the windows because I didn't want the boys taking them down or messing with them.  Many of these Minifigs had been my older son's and he didn't really want them in his room (he is 17) but he didn't want them messed up either.  This turned out to be the perfect storage solution for something we wanted to keep!

Music Themed Art for My Son's Room

My 15 year old loves music so I decided to make some music themed artwork to hang on his wall. I started with a frame I already had. I pulled out all my old CDs and let him pick which bands he wanted.  Then I lined them up.  To cover the gaps, I used black ribbon (the kind you curl on a package at Christmas time).  I just ran the ribbon over the gaps and taped the ends to the back.

Then I figured out where I wanted to hang it on the wall.  I took old records (nothing great, mainly old Christmas records that I didn't want anyway) and used small finishing nails to nail them up through the hole that is already in the center.  Since these records weren't anything "cool" I made sure they overlapped the labels enough so that they wouldn't stand out.  He is really happy with it and, of course, I am too (because it was free!!!).