One Nightstand...

sorry kids, not that kind of one night stand....what kind of blog do you think this is?  nope...i'm talking about this nightstand.

Lovely huh? 

The short backstory on these nightstands is that I've had them since I was little, and my parents had them before me (presumably from a garage sale....) so they've taken a beating been well loved over the years. And they have the scars to show for it.  ( I had to sand off the "I love David" etched inside one of the drawers from one of my pre-teen moments of angst...just to name one scar). also, i have no idea who David is.  Sorry man, guess you weren't memorable.  

Anyway....since it's summer and I'm one of those overpaid underworked teachers in Wisconsin, I do have a little freetime over the summer months (when I'm not working my second job...that i have just for fun) so I decided to tackle reworking the old nightstands.   

Because I was too impatient to sand all the details of the nightstands I opted to paint them instead of refinish with stain.  And, I've just redone our bedroom in whites, yellows, greens, and blues, so white nightstands sounded like they would look great.  

I am new to painting anything so I googled how to do it and came across this lovely tutorial on the blog Young House Love and added a few of my own steps.  (like....adding some color and detail with some scrap book paper and mod podge.)

Here's a quick step by step of how I turned these worn out, sad looking nightstands, into something unique and pretty awesome looking (according to me).  

Step One:  I removed all hardware...stared at it for a minute, got over the guilt and pitched them in the trash. (trust me...no one would have wanted these, except old ladies.) (no offense old ladies.)

Step Two:  I lightly sanded the smooth surfaces so the primer could easily grab hold. by lightly i mean i just scratched up the surface with a 120 grit sandpaper for about three seconds.  

Step Three:  I coated the nightstand in oil based Kilz primer (the stain resistant one, since the stain on the nightstands is very dark, and I didn't want to have to use too many coats of paint.)  The primer will not look even, and that's ok.  Trust me, the paint goes on smoothly, and covers well.

Step Four:  I painted the nightstand with a water based semi gloss shade of white.  I opted for something just off of white.  So it's not STARK white, but still very clean looking.  I used a brush for the first coat to get into all the detailing.  On the second coat (and very thin touch up third coat) I used a high density foam roller to get a smooth finish.  It worked great.  I really like Valspar paints because they dry quickly.  I literally finished the painting part of this project in an afternoon because the paint dried so quickly, I could put the next coats on faster.  (perfect for my impatient personality.)  Sidenote: sorry about the crappy quality of some of these pictures.  I didn't have my camera, so I had to use my iphone camera, which apparently blows.

Step Five: I bought all new hardware, came home, swore a lot about it, and went back to the store for different hardware.  I ended up having to fill the two holes with wood filler, dry, sand, and repaint the drawers because no one makes pulls the length I needed anymore.  I ended up with these cool drawer pulls.  I love them, and I love that they don't match.  (we will pretend it wasn't because World Market didn't have enough of the kind that I originally wanted so I had to mix and match).  

Step six:  I waited for everything to dry completely for a day or two, then covered the ugly details on the nightstands with a fun colored scrapbook paper.  I cut the paper to fit over the details, painted a generous amount of mod podge onto the areas where the paper was going to go, placed the paper over the mod podge and smoothed it out with my finger.  The trick to no bubbles is to wait until it's totally dry before applying the top coat of mod podge over the paper.   If you do get bubbles, just cover your finger in mod podge and smooth over the area.

So here's the final project....

Not bad for the cost of paint and 3 trips to the store for drawer pulls....And generally pretty easy.

oh and one last pro tip....don't get oil based primer in your hair, unless you're thinking of going for a shorter look.

I know, I know...but I have a good excuse!

Ok, blog vacation over.  (can you take a vacation after only 3 posts?...eh..whatev).  My mom and I hosted my sister's wedding shower this past weekend so I've been busily creating all kinds of fun stuff in preparation.  So, check out what I've been doing for the last month in ALL my spare time...

Check out these super cute flower magnet party favors.  I'd love to tell you how I made them, but they aren't my design.  I stole the idea from my craft GODDESS friend Rebecca.  Hers look way better but no one seemed to care that mine were uneven and had drops of blood on them from poking myself repeatedly while sewing them.  (pro-tip: invest in a thimble)

 Then, as if I hadn't been tortured enough with sewing...I made this table runner because I couldn't find one I liked well enough in the store. Not bad for not measuring...pinning....or being able to sew in a straight line.  

This was my favorite project.  I used the die-cutter at school and cut out pennant shapes and letters in coordinating scrapbook paper.  Then ripped fabric into 8 inch by 1 inch strips.  I punched holes in the pennants and tied the letters together with the fabric.  Sick easy...and looks way harder than it is.  People were impressed.  And that's what it's all about right?

 And finally....the dessert.  Raspberry filled cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  Totally freaking delicious and SO easy!  I found the recipe here...  Tidymom.net  and added my famous cream cheese frosting to the top.  Let's just say the party go-ers left with happy tummys.  

These were my first attempt at making pretty cupcakes, so I was pretty impressed with myself.

  I know you want one right now don't you? 

Yeah...me too, but I have a bridesmaid's dress to get into in 18 days and 

I can only eat sticks and grass until then.

Change of Plans

So for weeks I've been planning and measuring and planning and obsessing....and obsessing some more over my craft room/honey's office. The truck was lined up to go to Ikea and pic up the most fantastic cabinets and butcher block countertops.  (in my head it was PERFECTION, cause that's how I roll).

BUT.  common sense and a $1000 price tag for the bones of our new work room (not including the delicious fabric and lighting and on and on....) was just not in the budget, considering we've got a lot of big ticket items on the horizon.

So...off to Goodwill I went, (a little snarkily because quite frankly, second hand stuff gives me the heebs) looking for inspiration.  AND...lo and behold....I FOUND IT!

$10 bucks, for the coolest vintage lamp....and just like that....Goodwill, made it into my good graces.  I'm in love with this lamp.  So much so, that I kept shopping...and even went to a second Goodwill store!  I found the best treasures.  Most of them need some tlc, and a whole lot of cool scrapbook paper and mod podge, but I have a vision.  

I even found a GORGEOUS new, old desk.  

It's so huge it almost had to live in the doorframe between the kitchen and office, but a little cursing and prodding later, and it found it's new home.  It's almost perfect.  Just a couple marks from being well loved (and perhaps from getting wedged in the door frame).  And the best part is, it was 40 bucks.  The bread box in the upper left corner is going to be painted and de-breaded, and is going to be a new home for my bills that I don't want to look at.  And...it was $2.  

I added my childhood dresser for storage, and took the mirror of the matching vanity and made it the perfect spot for my sewing machine.  I'm loving this room!  It's not quite done yet.  All of honeys books and other assorted crap I don't want to deal with are in boxes behind me...but from this angle, it's even prettier than the Ikea room I created in my head.   More pictures to come as a I finish organizing...and mod podging!  

Eat Me

Or rather eat these.  

I call them the Shut UP, no way! Peanut Butter Cookies.  They are so easy.  A little too easy in fact. Which is good for the 14 year old, because they're so easy to make he gets to have them regularly...not so good for my old lady metabolism and the bridesmaid dress i need to squeeze fit into in 6 weeks.  Regardless of how fat they'll make you, you're going to flip out when you hear the recipe.  Ready?

Shut UP, no way! Peanut Butter Cookies (i really do call them that...by the way)

-adapted from Post College Kitchen's Easy Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup peanut butter -creamy or chunky...your choice

1 cup of sugar-brown or white or a mix of both (insider tip-the brown makes them chewier)  

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

Form into balls and flatten on a cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.

yep.  that's it.  4 ingredients.  no flour.  no butter.  and you probably have all the ingredients in your kitchen right now.  Oh...and if you want to get funky with them, throw in a couple handfuls of quick cooking oats and a bunch of chocolate chips.  You're welcome.  

So why Smoosy?

Hello!  Welcome to my Blog!  I'm sure you're wondering...or maybe not, but too bad...where Smoosy came from.  It's a bit of a silly story involving a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a card that the flower shop owner, so very carefully and with much love and attention to detail, scribed "smooshy, smooshy"love Rob, as "smooshy, smoosy" love, Ron.  (eh...close enough) And so unbeknownst to the flower shop lady, smooshy smoosy was born and has become a bit of a term of endearment in our house.  So....after much deliberating and agonizing over the perfect blog name (seriously...it was so hard!),  Smoosy it is.  

So my friends and family keep harassing urging me to start a blog and open an Etsy shop.  So...i finally caved to one of their two demands.  I've decided to start with the blog and work my way up to the Etsy shop.  I've decided to wait on the Etsy shop until I get my new craft room up and running.  I'm disturbingly excited about it and can't wait to start work on it next week during spring break!  I'll post before and after pictures hopefully by the end of next week.  I've spent hours (literally....) planning and designing and measuring and decorating the room in my head, and a little on paper.  I've googled craft rooms and come up with what I think is going to be super fantastic and totally inspiring.  I can't wait to start!  Also, I'm sure honeys can't wait for me to get on with it either since my "planning" totally interferes with our tv watching time...

yes.  we're that cutting edge.  Jealous?  

So stay tuned to my blog for random blogginess, craft projects that if I can do, anyone can do, recipes worthy of repeat performances, and the occasional picture of this dog. because seriously.  look at that face.