paint

I am addicted to Target! I can go into a Target for a loaf of bread, and will come out with a cart full of goodies and a receipt for $250. I truly believe that time stands still inside of Target. There have been times when I could swear I’ve only been shopping for 30 minutes and three hours have passed.

Last week, on a grocery run, I did my usual quick walk down the end caps of the home goods department. I love finding items that I’ve been eyeing or cool linens on clearance that I can repurpose.

I flipped when I found a gorgeous medallion print lampshade on clearance for $9. Then, a few aisles down, I found a set of cloth napkins for $7, and a body pillow cover for $5. I knew exactly what I could do with these!

I’ve had a blah-beige lamp sitting on my end table for months (a year?) I got it for $5 at a local thrift store and had intended to paint it–someday. Well, after finding this lampshade, I knew I would be painting it Provence by Annie Sloan Chalk Paints. (DIY cost: $14, plus paint) LOVE!

I sewed the napkins together to make two beautiful throw pillow covers, and I used the body pillow cover to make 2 square and one rectangle throw pillow covers. (DIY Cost: $12 for 5 pillows, plus inserts.)

I can’t wait for my next Target trip!

The months of August and September have been crazy busy for me! I thought for sure that when the kids were back to school that I would have SO MUCH TIME to get all of my housework, work-work, volunteer-work, and DIY fun-work done that I would be literally searching for something to do…WRONG!

Housework has been on hold, work-work has picked up, and volunteer-work comes in almost daily. This means that DIY fun-work gets squeezed in at all hours of the night while everyone is in bed and I am desperately trying to catch up with my “Mom-only” guilty pleasure shows (Mistresses, Devious Maids, Real Housewives of Miami…)

Here’s my latest midnight project:

My Easy DIY Vintage Sewing Cabinet Makeover

My daughter has been asking for her own desk since school started, but she doesn’t have a lot of space in her bedroom. As I was searching for a small table I could transform into a desk, I came across this vintage sewing cabinet at my local thrift.

These are a fairly common item at garage sales and thrift shops. In fact, there were two different ones for sale on the day I found her. Yep, it’s a her….

She was marked at $35 because she came with a working sewing machine installed, still a pretty good deal, but I really just wanted the cabinet. The tag showed that it was the 7th day since she had been put out for sale, so I asked the manager and he brought the price down to $20, machine and all.

This girl weighed a good 40 lbs, so even if I wanted to just tuck away the machine, I knew it would just be way too cumbersome to keep installed. I unscrewed the bolts and set the massively heavy machine aside for my upcoming charity yard sale.

As part of my search for a desk, I had come across a new (to me, at least) line of chalk paints at a local home goods consignment shop and I decided to try some out.

I fell in LOVE with this coral color called Gypsy by Vintage Market & Design Furniture Paint. I coordinated it with some Annie Sloan Provence, used the Annie Sloan clear wax and left the hardware with its existing patina. Not much work, but boy, what an update!

My daughter LOVES it, and it fits right into the little corner of her bedroom. I’m still debating whether to hang a basket in the hole where the sewing machine was or to cover the hole completely with a thin piece of board, but for now she can do her homework in the comfort of her own room.