Fun Project: Swag Light

Hello all! :) I have been doing some organizing and some changing around here [in my craft room]. This is the very first day that I have actually crafted in here, so I am very excited. This wasn't a difficult project I did today but it did take some time. In fact it's really not done yet but it will be tomorrow. I promise.

Remember this?

and this?

 

Not my husband but the striped paper lantern! lol Some hot glue gun burns, 300+ coffee filters and an hour and a half later, it is now this!
 

 

This was fun to make... except it took time and patience. It was easy too. I really really love how it looks now and I love how it looks like I have colorful bulbs inside when all it is is a reflection of the colorful stripes that are on the paper lantern. The photo below shows the process. Just kind of crumple up your coffee filters and hot glue them all one by one on your paper lantern.

Materials:

Paper Lantern [I got mine from the World Market for $2.50]
Coffee Filters [I used about 250-300]
Hot glue gun and glue sticks

I took the pompoms down by the way. But maybe they will look better when I put them back up given I don't have too many patterns and too much texture going on anymore. :)

This right here was where I got the idea...

from KCInteriors

Laterz gatorz,

[Pink Craft Room] Progress...

 

Hey friends! This is as far as I we got today... Here is the desk. I still haven't decided what I want to do with the small cubbies in the front but the yellow bucket is starting to grow on me. :) The past couple of days, we have been doing a lot of measuring and planning. A built-in is going up on the wall where the pom-poms are. The husband is also building me two leaning desks book cases on the opposite side.

A lot of my stuff are stored in [open] bins but not in moving boxes anymore. I have easy access to them now, but I still want a better storage solution for them. It's just nice when everything is where I could see them so I don't forget that I have them.

The sheers on the windows are from my Mom-In-Law. She has awesome taste for window coverings and a whole lot of different things where home decorating is concerned and she knows I love to decorate and dress up windows, so I mostly inherit what she has and I have no problems at all using them in our house.

My Cricut Expression and my Cricut Cake finally have a home and they are accessible! I don't have to take them out of the closet or their caddies every time I want to use them. John [the husband] also got me two cool bar stools today as part of my anniversary gift to go with my desk. He knows me too well! We searched and searched all week for the right ones, it was very frustrating... So when he saw the stools online yesterday, he was like "Let's get them!"

 

 

And here he is modeling my paper lanterns. :) We don't have an Ikea close by, but during one of my thrifting trips, I bumped into a set two sets of brand new Ikea swag light kits for a buck a piece! I didn't have to think twice because the paper lanterns were already a part of the plan, we just didn't know that they were gonna light up too. [Score!] The picture on top of the one above, we are trying to figure out whether the pom-poms are staying or not or if we need to put all white or stagger the length of the pom-poms from the ceiling. Yeah, tough decision! lol But, the lanterns are definitely staying where they are at and a couple pieces of cable hiders and we should be set.

I still have a bunch of pieces going in this room. And will share photos as I finish them. This pink room will be a work in progress for a while... just until it all feels right and until our brains our fried from thinking of stuff to do or add or build.

This year's anniversary sure has been the best so far. It tops the one year when John built me a craft room from pretty much nothing. You can see it here. :) Maybe next time I see you all, I can give you a tour of the room.

Til the next post!

It's been a While...

Hello folks! I know I have disappeared from the blogosphere for a long long time. All my bloggy friends will agree that three months is like forever in BlogLand. So sorry friends, there's just been too much going on here and I have been choosing to spend time with the husband before marching season formally starts [which is gonna be like in two weeks!] From then on, we rarely see each other anymore until about the end of October. He is a very busy man. It's a real gift that I've chosen to not to work, because I don't have my own schedule to complicate things. We've been through all that and it is NO FUN. We have been spending lots of time here:

 

So we have done quite a few things in the new home in the past three months. :) Lots of planning, lots of going back and forth trips to the home store and made a few beautiful changes. I will give you the deets on those later in the week. Today, I just want to show my husband off and this really really nice anniversary gift he has given me. He built me a craft desk for my new craft room! :)

 

It was sooo hot last week, we decided he will build the structure inside... But as the project progressed, it got bigger and bigger, so we kept inching into taking the job outside as close to the pool as possible. Our patio was a wreck until about 10 PM last night. But that's okay, I kept telling myself the rewards are well worth it.

Here he is [below] checking if the whole thing is level before I painted the top. :)

 

And here she is [below] sitting in the pink room. :) Excuse the mess... I am currently working on putting the room together. My stuff has been all over the place since we moved about eight or nine months ago. We should be good after we get this room put together. I actually made sure about three weeks ago that John's stuff would have a place to go before we started working on mine, because his stuff are bigger and they take space and he needs them for work and for PLAY most of all. He eats, breathes, drinks music every single day... him and his drums, guitar and his geeky music tech stuff are connected at the hip. :)

 Note: The shopping list in the project plan wasn't right. John ended up a couple of boards short... but a few minutes spent looking around in the garage and he was back in business. He had some extra boards laying around in his garage from past projects we've done. So make sure you do the math on the cut list before you get on your way to the lumber yard.

We got the project plan for this desk from Anna White. Like every project in her website, this desk isn't hard to build as long as you use the right tools and you stick to the plan. It can be done in two days. The only thing that stopped him was the heat. I didn't want him to roast outside too long in the 106-degree weather... 

The color is called Aquatint from Sherwin Williams. I thought I wanted my desk to be white until I saw this color, then I had to have it. The yellow bucket is just there for practice. I'm not sure if I really want buckets as opposed to baskets... We'll see. The goal is to have this whole room put together before the week is over. We will see about this too. *winks*

We still have a couple of building projects lined up for this room, which is all mainly storage... and I believe we have decided we are going to take our time. But I will post more photos soon as I get all my stuff out of the moving boxes and have better photos of this room. I can't wait to start crafting again!!!

Laterz,