Is this work or play?.....

This is most definitely PLAY!

I was soo excited when this treasure was put in my garage that I started my project that night! I knew from this awesome blog
                       http://www.domesticimperfection.com/2012/05/paisley-stenciled-table/ 
 what I wanted to do and I was ready to put it into action. In fact I was soo excited I forgot to take a before picture so below is pretty much what my table looked like before I got my hands on it. 

First we primed the legs, and sanded the top. Then we painted the legs and let it dry overnight. All the fancy stencils online were around $50-- which was NOT in the budget, but I was able to find a cute one at Michael's that I like and with their 40% off coupon I scored it for $8! Then began the LONGEST 3 days of my life. Stenciling can be easy--- and can be hard. I bought a removable spray adhesive to help hold it in place. That helped a lot but there was still some bleeding. In the end I learned to just go very slow which was not easy for me because I wanted it done-- but it worked out.  below is the stenciling before I stained it.

 

I sanded the top a little bit just to make it smooth and even and then stained it! I cannot wait to put this in my kitchen! 

I have a secret....

I have a secret little hobby I picked up right around the time I quit my full time corporate job to stay home and take care of my little dolly. I want to have a cute house but we became even poorer then we originally were (I really didn't think that was possible) so instead of going out and buying things that caught my eye I now have to make them. This isn't really too big of a problem for me because I love all things crafty, but I never realized (until Pinterest) how much I can really create and how easy it really is!

For my first big project I ventured out to our local DI and found these beauties:

I wish I could really show you all the awful stains on these babies. They were pretty rough and I seriously considered putting on gloves to my elbows before touching them. However after a little pep talk I put on my big girl panties and dug right in taking off the seat, ripping apart the fabric, and separating it from the foam. I unpicked the seams and made a pattern out of the original

From there it was easy! I lucked out because the original foam was miraculously still good so I picked out some cute canvas fabric from the store, cut out my pattern, sewed it up,fit it over the foam, and stapled it to the seat underneath. I also gave the legs a little TLC and gave them a fresh coat of paint. The results were just what I wanted and I couldn't be more proud!