Latest Crafting Acquisitions :)

Over the last few months, I have spent a fair amount of time on Craig's List. It can be annoying at times since most people think WAY to highly of their stuff, but I have been able to find quite a few sweet deals too. It just takes diligence and an app on your phone ha ha! Well, about a month ago I wandered over to the Arts & Crafts category and found a few gems that happened to all be listed by the same person who lives in my same town :)

This was the first draw for me contacting this lady. It's the Baby Lock Hand Knitting System - a household knitting machine! These were designed to be used even if you had never knitted anything before. You just load the yarn in the machine and it does the knitting. The box advertises that it will knit 1" per minute, which is pretty darm quick knitting.

The machine itself looks like the insides of a piano, lol. It lists number ever so often and if you slidei the pins down you can see the needles:

How cool are they? The kit includes an instructional VHS - good thing I still have a VCR! It even included this taped to the inside flap of the box:

The original receipt! It was bought in Melbourne, FL in January of 1989 and they paid over $200 for it. Imagine how much that would be in today's money, right? One of these days I'll get to actually try this baby out. I was able to snag this for only $25! How could I pass it up?!

The same lady also had these. I thought the listing sounded intriguing, so I looked them up and knew I had to have them. These are the BonFit Patterners. This is a "make your own pattern" kit. If you know about sewing, it would basically be a "sewing block", meaning a base pattern. It is designed that it will get you a basic pattern shape for your size and then they show you how to alter the base pattern to spice it up and make pretty much anything you want :)

The box contains lots of plastic pattern pieces. They have sliders that connect certai parts together and allow you to change what the pattern's measurements are, so this works for most sizes - I think it went from a 36" up to a 50" bust.

The pants kit had the same type of adjustable pattern pieces. Both kits include instructions and a VHS. The tapes have never even been opened. I can't wait til I have things set up better to where I can actually give these a try. And since i paid $10 for both kits, I certainly got a great deal :)

As always, anytime I go to a thrift store, I always check the craft section. I got these over a month ago, but I just had to share here because some of them are too funny!

I got some 1980s Needlework & Crafts magazines, some crochet pattern bookelts and a tailoring book. I LOVE the Granny Zoo pattern book on the top - it's all crocheted animals that are made using granny squares! This would be perfect for beginners who have only ever made squares - you just sew them together in a certian way and you have a cute animal. I can't wait to make one.

Just for good measure, I had to show this sexy number. I know you are jealous that I have this pattern and ou don't. If anyone out there needs a crocheted mesh jumpsuit with a curled fringe waist, just let me know and I might be persuaded to share the pattern :)

So, that's just a bit of what I've found lately. Have you found anything interesting?

Check My New Étagère

This is a project that has been a while in the making. I started working on this before we moved in, but it quickly got put aside (and completely blocked in by other furniture) when we moved in as I had to make our moving mess livable. After things got a bit more settled, I pulled this out and started up again. I am so thrilled with the results! You'll see why...

I got this étagère on Craig's List months ago for $35. It's solid wood and the shelves are removable. I liked it for its spindly legs and knew it would be perfect in my sewing room ... with the right makeover. Nice as it was, it was just big and dark and opressive - certainly not the vibe I have going in my "zen room" (which is what my husband calls it). So, I decided to make it white.

Look how dinged up it was!

The first step was filling in all the holes and crevaces. It looked great when I bought it, but that was just because the stain was so dark you couldn't see all the imperfections. On a stained piece, the natural nicks and weird spots added to the texture and looked nice, but I knew as soon as I painted it white they would all show up and I didn't want that. If I'm going through all this trouble, I at least want it to look smooth like it was supposed to be that way. So, I brought out the wood putty and started filling.

I seriously spent hours filling, sanding, filling again. Once I thought I had them all filled, I primed it with Kilz Original spray paint. I knew I needed something that would block the stain, especially since it was going to be white and I didn't want it to yellow over time. So, I sprayed. And sprayed, and sprayed. I went through 4 cans of Kilz just on the body of the piece! After the Kilz, I could see a few more imperfections that needed filling, so I just used DryDex spackle and it worked great. I primed over all the spackle spots again when they dried. Kilz spray paint leaves a gritty texture, so I lightly sanded it as best I could - it was really difficult to get around all those spindle pieces.

Next I repeated the filling and priming steps on the shelves. This shelf was the worst - those scratches you see were really deep and much more noticable in person. But they filled in pretty well.

After everything was filled and primed and sanded, I started to spray the actual paint. On my desk I recently did for the same room, I just left it the Kilz white color. I've kind of regretted that choice now that I've used the desk since it tends to look gray-ish sometimes, so with this piece I wanted to use actual paint. I used Rustoleum Ultra Cover 2X spray paint in Flat White on the whole thing. No joke, it took about 6 cans to do the body and the shelves of this piece. I was starting to worry about the cost, but I was so far into it at that point that I had no choice but to keep buying more cans and go with it.

After the paint, I did another light sanding to get it more smooth feeling (again - those rounded pieces are really hard to do that to), and then I coated the whole thing in 2 coats of Minwax Poly-Acrylic spray in Satin finish. I used a whole can of the Minwax, which wasn't cheap, but it's so worth it to have a piece that will hold up to daily use. I would rather spend a little more now than have it get all chipped up and look awful after a few months, you know? Also, the poly-acrylic is water based, so it won't yellow over time.

So, after waiting the full 24 hours so the poly coating could fully adhere, we moved it upstairs (no easy feat!) and put it in its new spot.

I absolutely LOVE how it came out! Sure, there are a few places I wish I had filled better, but you don't notice them unless you are really looking it over and I am ok with that. I do realize that there are no doors on the bottom - I had a hardware removal issue with them so I haven't gotten them painted yet. Those are next on my to-paint list. In the meantime, I didn't wait to fill it up and help house some of my stuff.

Those purple bins aren't staying - they are just what I've used until I find something better. Just for the record. It holds the tv perfectly (it just barely fits and only on that particular shelf) and I love to watch movies while I make things, so I was pleased it worked out so well.

So, how much did this beast cost?

• Étagère - $35
• Wood Putty - I'm calling it free (I bought a tub and have used it on many things around the house)
• DryDex - Again, I'm calling it free
• 6 cans Kilz Original Spray Paint - $34.68
• 6 cans Rustoleum Ultra Cover 2X - $22.62
• 1 can Minwax Poly-Acrylic - $11.97

 Total: $ 104.27

So, it certainly wasn't as cheap as my desk I just did, but it certainly is cheaper than if I went to a furniture store to buy a solid wood étagère (google search if you don't believe me), so I'm happy with the price. I now can't wait to finish not only the doors, but also the rest of the furniture for the room. It's really starting to come together now and I can't wait!

My Latest Scores and Deals

Well, it's been a great week few weeks for me as far as acquiring furniture and such goes. I figured I would brag about share what I've been able to snag :)

Last weekend, I got the Craig's List deal of a lifetime - for real, I am not even kidding. I happened to open up the app on my phone while I was at work and the 2nd item listed in the furniture section in my area was this couch. This man had just purchased a model home that came fully furnished (it had been staged to entice the potential buyers), but his wife wanted to pick her own furniture. So, they listed their only-sat-on-by-potential-home-buyers couch for $100. Check it out:

The light in this picture isn't great, but how fantastic is the condition of this couch! There is not a scratch or a stain or even a dent in the cushions on this baby. It's the dark stained wood that we love and the brown and blue matches all the rest of our stuff. This was seriously the score of a lifetime and I absolutely love it. Oh, and it's super comfy too :)

While we were picking up the couch, the man said they were eventually planning to also sell the matching chairs, but since I had driven so far to get it (about 1 hour and 15 minutes south of me), he would go ahead and let me take the chairs for $50 each if I wanted. I jumped on that almost before the words were out of his mouth! Check these out:

They coordinate with the pillows on the couch back and are just as nice and comfy and brand new. So, these will be going in our main living room while our couch set we already had will go in the room with the fireplace.

Also, we finally picked up a bunch of furniture from Justin's Grandma's house. His parents have been storing it in their garage for months and it was time to free that space up for them again. Though, look at my garage now:

I've even filled it more by now, so it's pretty packed at the moment. These are all pieces that I'm going to spruce up so we didn't want to bring them in the house yet. Check out the right side there - we have a second fridge! Woo hoo :) It will look pretty ridiculous in there by the time we bring our big freezer too, but man will we have some cold food and drinks :)

I also hit up a few yard sales lately. First was the sale to benefit the THS Project Graduation this year and it was held at St. Teresa's Catholic Church. To be honest, they were pretty pricey on most everything (I bet they ended up with a lot of excess at the end), but I did manage to find a few pieces:

All of these are destined for spray painting :) As much as I love Pocahontas, that tin will become a dog food can. I thought that organizer would come in handy for the sewing room, and the little shelf will go well somewhere I'm sure. The little ceramic shaped there are wall hangings and they have a scroll design on them, so they will make a nice little accent somewhere too.

Last Friday I was picking up lunch at a local restaurant and  happened upon a yard sale along the way :) What luck!

I got that chair for $2 (it has a crack on the back near the seat, but I can fix it), the old school fold-down table for $2 (it's real wood so it will get a nice makeover), the magazine rack thing was $3, and a bunch of assorted patterns and such for another $1 :) 

I came across this filing cabinet at the Salvation Army for $15:

It will also be getting a nice spray paint job. It will either go in our office or in the sewing room (to hold the patterns for my Etsy store).

I also always have a gander at the back aisle clearance sections whenever I'm at Target. Last Thursday I scored big :) I got a bunch of random things, but the most notable is this guy:

This is the Simple Human Butterfly Top Stainless Steel Trash Can. Normally these are $100, but this was on clearance for $29.99! Woot woot! They even had the custom sized liners to fit this for just $3 per bag, so I grabbed all that they had (I think it was 9 bags or something). They had a small white can also in the clearance - also Simple Human Stainless Steel - and it was only $6, so I grabbed it (and all of it's 6 or so bags of clearanced liners for $1.74 each) and now it is in the downstairs bathroom :) 

I've still got a few other items pending for me to hopefully pick up this week :) I can't wait until we move in and I actually have the time to work on fixing some of these items up!

Have you found any great deals lately?

More Second Hand Furniture

So, this week was the week of Craig's List. I got an app on my phone and whenever I'm bored at work I look through the furniture section to see what's new and cheap :) My parents needed a few items too, so I used them as an excuse to really look hard. I ended up finding them a set of night stands for $30 (they're really nice!) and since my dad was going to pick those up, he offered to swing by and look at something I had been eyeing.

This lingerie cabinet matches my French Provincial dresser from Brenna AND the mirror I found on the side of the road. Score! I'm seriosuly addicted to this style and now it's become sort of a collection. I've just got to get them all! lol. This guy was $30 and honestly it's pretty roughed up. It seems to have belonged to a smoker because there's orangey-brown weirdness all over it and it smells. Nothing some spray paint can't fix :)

While my dad was picking up the lingerie cabinet, he saw this dresser too and grabbed it for $30 since he had room in the van :) Another piece for the collection! I now have a goal to get the whole bedroom suite - how awesome would that be?!

I also received a wonderful gift from my dear friend Tara :) My new dining room table!

This baby is solid wood and it is a beast! It has an extra leaf in the center and it has a drawer at the ends on either side. You know, so I can hide a knife in case of intruders or something :) It's a little roughed up, but for now I just gave it a wipe down and covered it with a table cloth so we don't mess it up. Once we get the other furniture in the room I can get a better idea of what finish to put on it, so at least I can use it in the meantime. Thank you so much, Tara!

I'm sure everyone out there will think I'm just as nuts as my family does for this one. There was a big yard sale around the corner from my parents' house last weekend. Sadly, I didn't get to go to it, but we drove by afterward and noticed this crib was still hanging around. I ran into the lady later and she said it wasn't up to current safety standards so they couldn't sell it. I told her I wouldn't be putting a baby in it and she sold it to me for $15! I have pinterest to thank for this one - have you seen all the cool benches and things people have made out of cribs? I'll make this into a chair or something down the line :)

So, those are some of the newest acquisitions :) My garage is seriously brimming with furniture, so I'm going to really start slapping these out, you know, so I can fit the car in the garage.