Dear Readers on the Upper East Coast, please don’t hate me.
The weather in St. George this week has been freaking amazing, T shirts at the park kind of amazing. I was planning on saving this tutorial until things warmed up everywhere, but I thought the survivors of #blizzard2015 would appreciate the irony? Maybe?
Tell me that is not the cutest vintage cooler that you have ever laid eyes on. (2 secrets! Its not actually vintage, and you can totally make it!!)
Does anyone recognize that font? Possibly from this project? Jamie the Amazing designed an entire font (by hand!??!) and this is just one of the projects that we are using it on! Its so good right? We are in the process of turning it into a downloadable real life font as we speak, so creating with it will be snap!
Those of you with a Cricut Explore are the luckiest ones that don’t have to wait! This project is available right now as a Make It Now project!
So here is how it goes down. The cooler is completely adorable and currently for sale at World Market. Once you have your cooler (or art, or pillow, etc.) all you have to do is load the materials into the Explore and click Make It Now.
Once the Explore has expertly cut the materials (vinyl in my case) you weed it (take out all of the bits that are not part of the final design) and you are left with something like this:
Then you cover it with a piece of transfer tape:
Line it up on the cooler so that it is level:
Lift up the bottom of the transfer tape (don’t peel it all the way off or else it wont stay level!) and remove the vinyl paper.
The press it down and smooth it out with a scraper tool or a credit card.
You might remember that we are currently overhauling our family restaurant Durango’s Mexican Grill. (You will most definitely remember if you are in St. George and a frequent customer because the restaurant is still open for business!)
There were a few main goals when the reno began. Open it up, update the vibe. The first project in was the facade wall (you can read all about it here!) the next big project was to take out the overhead walkway and brick everything!
We (Court) demo’ed everything in a day and we’ve been working on getting it spruced up ever since.
The plan? White brick. I know what some of you are thinking. “Wont you have to clean it more if its white?” The answer is obviously yes, and honestly is that really a bad thing?
It is pretty fantastic when the stars align for a project. I was over at the bestie’s house talking about reno ideas and told her about the plan for brick and how I had no clue where to source it (this is when I was planning on laying it myself because I am the type of person that underestimates the scope of a project 10 out of 10 times.) Guess who’s family has a company that does exactly that? You guessed it! If you are in Southern Utah and itching for some brick/rock work you will want to call Squire at Quickstone Inc. 435-632-5272 they have been AWESOME to work with.
Working on a space that will be used by thousands of people is really different than working on a house. EVERYTHING has to be highly functional, highly durable and highly cleanable. The original plan was to have the brick mason’s make the brick white, but there were a few problems with that. The whitest that it can be made was a really light beige (see picture below). It would also need to be sealed afterwards (so that it could be wiped down) and it was more expensive because of the materials that had to be used to make it whiter.
After going over the situation, we decided that it would be better to have the masons make it as inexpensively as they could and then we would paint it after it was installed. This fixed all 3 problems. The paint was white, the brick was sealed (and if some annoying teenager decides to draw a wiener on the wall we can just touch it up) and it was less expensive.
So the brick went in! (We are in the middle of replacing the ceiling tiles and prepping them for paint so don’t mind that little situation.)
What a huge difference right?!
The brick also behind the counter and on the giant pink arch (don’t worry, we are taking out those windows and planter boxes too…someday…)
For paint I decided to use Sherwin-Williams Super Paint in High Hide White (if they don’t have that color at your local SW its just 3 oz of white pigment added to the extra white base)
We decided to paint before the grout went in because I want a little bit of color variation that I could control. Once the grout is in, the plan is to roll diluted white paint over the whole wall again to soften the grout lines and make it look nice and old. but painted. but still old. You know what I mean right?
I am beyond in love with it. Makes me want to put it in my house….
Do you have a place in your city that every time you drive past you just LOVE. Not love like “Oh that’s cute!” but love like it instantly triggers a gut reaction and you are caught up in a fairytale? I totally do. Many a place actually, but none more than this house. It’s my favorite place, and its for sale. Friends meet my dream project.
We scheduled a walk through with our realtor and I was 100% confident that Court would love it as much as I did. In my mind I could hear him saying:
“Of course we can buy this house!”
“You’re such a genius for thinking of it!”
“You’re right, it wont be that horrible to fix up!”
“Thank you for bringing so much joy into my life!!” etc. etc.
In reality, we hadn’t even parked before he said “You are out of your freaking mind. This is never happening.”
Sometimes all you need in life is a billion dollars.
The house was built in 1909 by a pioneer family. It is solid adobe brick and for the last 20+ years has been used as a rare book store. The giant Mulberry tree in the front is as old as the house!
It seems pretty teeny in the pictures because the windows are so huge, but if you look at the size of the door you can see that it’s actually pretty tall.
This is what you see when you walk in the front door. The space is really huge, especially for an old house. The ceilings are 13 feet tall!
To the left of the main entrance is a smaller parlor type room. Don’t you want to die over the doorways and transom windows!?
Dyl was a little nervous….she’d never been in a Romance Room before.
If you walk all the way through the hallway, you end up in the kitchen (or if you go through the doorway at the back of the first room)
The kitchen is my favorite room in the entire house. There is just something magical about it.
This little corner in the kitchen above the window had the most amount of plaster/brick damage downstairs. If you look closely, in the crack you can see where there is daylight coming through. But man, look at the plaster ceilings in there. (And that pink is perfection!)
There is a small one room addition to the left of the kitchen that’s a little um… stressful?
Back into the hallway is a bathroom that has been remodeled. Which made me kind of sad.
And to the left of the bathroom are stairs that lead to the 4 bedrooms.
They are full of abandoned bookshelves.
Behind the faux brick panel the plaster had come off of the ceiling.
The last bedroom is my favorite. I am pretty sure that every single one of us (except Court) audibly gasped when we walked inside.
It is kind of hard to write about how much I love this house. It is my absolute dream. I cant even imagine the work that it would take to fix it, but can you picture how beautiful it would be?!? The house is currently under contract (not with us) and I have no doubt that we would be into it at least $350k before it was livable.
But man it would be worth it!!
You know the saying If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, then it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, then it was never meant to be? That is kind of how I am feeling about this guy. I am utterly terrified of it and at the same time it is all I can think about (shhhh don’t tell Court, as far as he knows I’ve given up all hope!) I just love it SO. MUCH. Who knows maybe the buyer will back out and I’ll win the lotto? Maybe I have an uber rich reader who wants to buy it for me purely for the entertainment value of watching as it pushes my life to the brink of destruction? Maybe the seller will come down 100k on the price? Maybe I just need to trade my first born?
So many maybes, and lucky for me, maybe leaves a little room for dreaming.
The best thing that came out of this entire situation is that is pulled me out of my creative funk. HOLY FREAKING TIME!!
So what do you think? Would you ever take on a project like this? Which room was your fave? Have a good maybe to add to my list?
Do you remember the ipad of the 80’s? Lacing Cards.
You know the kind right?
Well this project is like that, only its really cute and something that you actually will want to hang on your walls!
To make this project you will need:
Cricut Explore
Cricut Explore Markers (see my alternative option here!)
110# Cardstock
String
Teeny bit of tape
This is a Make It Now project that I designed for the Cricut Explore which means all you have to do it click the Make It Now button and it automatically sizes and cuts everything exactly the way that I designed it!!
One of the features of the Cricut Explore that I love SO much is the write and cut feature. It does it all in one pass, so it is perfectly lined up every time!!
Just make sure that all of the dotted lines are covered with yarn. Dylan my 6 year old super loved this project, so it is definitely for smaller kids, as well as older ones. (Or kids a heart for those of you who are like me and love it as an adult.)
You can check out each of the projects on Design Space here:
Want more info about the Cricut Explore? You can see all of my posts about it here! And while you’re already nominated for mom of the year, check out these other kid friendly projects!
Lets kick off January (errr. almost Feburary…) with a round of Cold Dead Fingers shall we? If you are new to the game, dont fret, here is how it goes down. On Instagram when you upload your favorite furniture/thrift store finds, all you have to do is hashtag it #colddeadfingers. Why cold dead fingers? Because it is SO AMAZING that it can only be pried from your cold dead fingers of course! Also who would have thought that I could use the phrase cold dead fingers 5 times in one paragraph? Mad skills.
Up first is this gorgeous lamp that Mandie (great name!) found. She paid $10. Guess what? It’s worth $500.
Tori found a pair of these MCM arm chairs. She’s wondering how she should reupolster them. Chime in below with your thoughts!! Personally I am going to say leather, anyone surprised?
You know when you find an amazing sale and immediately call your best friend to make sure that she doesn’t miss out on it and possibly hate you for life? Yes. This is that.
Urban Outfitters is KILLING IT in the rug department right now, and they are running 25% off their already fantastic prices. So quick scan this post for pictures and snatch up the rugs that you love because they aren’t going to last!
Copper is at the top of every 2015 trend list that I have seen. The warm pinky tone is absoulte perfection! There are so many different ways to incorporate it into your house! 7 Copper DIY Projects!
The cheapest way to get an AMAZING wall design? Sharpie Paint Pens. Have an old lamp? Sharpie Paint Pens. Boring chair? You guessed it, Sharpie Paint Pens. They are like THE magic DIY wand. 7 Sharpie Projects that will blow your mind!
How about if we all go on a virtual thrifting trip and see the treasures to be found? These 10 THrifting Scores will make you jealous and happy at the same time.
