More Thrifty-ness...

While out and about treasure hunting on the weekend, I found some other fun finds along with my bulletin board.  Here's a little peek!

I stumbled across this super sturdy ladderback farm chair (hint: I've already started working on this and it's gonna be good!!).

An adorable little side table (wouldn't this be lovely in the baby's room?)...

This lovely padded bench...

This amazing HUGE mirror that I'm going to transform into a sign at our wedding!

This other vintage carved picture frame that I plan to use for the wedding as well.

And these pretty upholstery fabrics on sale for a mere $3 a metre!

Tell me friends, have you scored any amazing deals recently?

Sunday Night Shoe Confidential

Remember those black Steve Madden boots I was gushing about getting last year?

Well they popped up on Ebay in Cognac a few day ago, so I bought them.....sigh, sometimes I just can't help myself. They're just sooooo beautiful! I know I'm just justifying here, but it's so hard to find tall boots that are flat and fit my calf. It was shoe fate.

Please don't tell J! Guys just don't understand this kind of thing, you know?

Happy Sunday and hope you have a great week! Are you watching the Oscars? I love doing my own fashion commentary!

Delightful DIY: Pretty Fabric Bulletin Board

Amazing things always seem to happen when I hit my absolute fave place - the thrift store! Well remember how I said I needed to spruce up my new white walls at work? After stumbling across a selection of used bulletin boards, I decided to mix function with fashion and customize my own! I love love fabric hunting so it was a great way to add some pretty textiles into the mix.

It was super easy and it cost me only $5.25 for the whole project...yup, it was that cheap! Stay with me to find out how...

You'll need:
-an old bulletin board
-approximately a metre of fabric
-screwdriver
-scissors
-heavy duty stapler

I picked up this old bulletin board while thrifting recently for a mere $2.25. It was plain and boring and the cork was a bit knicked up but that doesn't matter because we're covering it up.

Then the fun part - fabric shopping! I headed straight to the bargain walls at the back of the fabric store and found this adorable aqua crafting cotton with navy line-drawn flowers. It was the perfect colour to match the pops of aqua around our new office. Plus it was marked down to $3 a metre and I only needed one metre to cover the board, with plenty to spare.

The bulletin board I bought had hanging clips so I simply unscrewed them and put them aside to re-attach after I applied the fabric.

Then I cut the fabric to fit the board, leaving a couple of inches around each edge to fold over and staple.

 Using the stapler, I worked my way around the board, starting with one staple in the centre of each side for placement and then working my way around, tightening the fabric as I went.

Then I re-screwed the hangers back in to finish it off.

Wowza! That only took about 10 minutes and now I have a unique and pretty bulletin board to cheer up my workspace!

$2.25 used bulletin board + $3.00 fabric = $5.25 total! That was so easy, I may have to make some fun boards for my home office now (any excuse to go back to the fabric store...).

Hope you're having a lovely weekend friends!

'Something Old' with Love

Well hello Miss Friday - it's soooo great to see you! Can you tell I'm pumped it's almost the weekend? I'm pretty transparent....I have big plans to do my fave thing (sleeping in!), mixed in with lots of reading (the new Jodi Picoult), getting organized for tax time (ugh!) and playing around in Photoshop. I've just discovered actions and I'm totally smitten! You can see my practice right here in this blog with the vintage feel I've given the photos.

It's been such a busy week that the wedding has been on the back burner. But I did want to share this personal detail with you. As you know, I'm getting my dress made by a local seamstress and I was crushed to learn I couldn't really afford a lace dress. But I did manage to find the deal of the century - gorgeous champagne 100% peau de soie regularly priced at $99 a metre and marked down to a mere $5 a metre (because the fabric store was closing). If you're new to the blog, you can check out my dresscapades here. Now ever since I've been really struggling with the idea of a silk dress, as I really am a girly girl in love with embellishment details. If I can find a cardigan with a grosgrain trim? Sold! Cute buttons or a floral lining - I'll take it!

So I was wondering how I could make this dress extra special.....it feels so plain in my head.

Well say 'hello gorgeous' to my mom's wedding dress, circa 1976!

Isn't she dreamy? It's so whimsical and pretty and with a few tweaks, it could be very fashionable today. Unfortunately - I fit this dress when I was 10 years old. Yes, you read that right! My mom is a petite gal and back in ye old 70's, she was a true twiggy! It's been in my sister and I's 'dress up box' since we were little but knowing it's importance, we always treated it with velvet gloves. So it's in remarkable condition. (Plus a fun note for the locals - she bought it at Helene's Bridal Studio!)

But what I'm really after is the pretty embroidered lace flower detail. Here's a close up shot. It's absolutely exactly what I want! My dress will have a 2-inch band across the high waist and I plan to have the seamstress create flower clusters on one side of the band with the pieces from the dress. We might even sew scattered random flowers across the skirt and bottom hem.

This was my big plan and then my sister pulled out a bag of lace and fabric remnants my grandmother and her mother's wedding dresses (my grandmother passed them on when my sister got married a couple of years ago). She didn't end up using them except tucked inside her bouquet, but I plan to incorporate them the flower clusters on my waistband, creating a raw edge, layered look to the fabric blooms.

I am so so excited about my dress now, because it will have such a personal element that totally suits my personality and my style! Four generations of my family will be sewn into that dress. Can you believe it? I tear up a little just thinking about it...I know I'm going to be a total waterworks on the big day.

Now the real hard part...waiting until the wedding to get to wear the finished dress and having to wait to share pics with you all!!

Did you have a chance to incorporate 'something old' into your wedding day? I'd love to hear about it!

Have an amazing Friday and a fabulous weekend my friends!

Thursday Blog Share: Pugly Pixel

Happy Thursday friends (a wee bit early of course)! Lately I've been sharing how I'm learning Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator, thanks to lunchtime tutorials from my lovely Fusion designer friends and Adobe Creative Suite for Dummies. I started down this road in order to do my own wedding invitations, but it's been a happy, creative injection to my blog to be able to do some of my own graphics!

So today I'm sharing some of those graphics with you and steering you towards a blog that's helped me tremendously. It's called Pugly Pixel and blogger Katrina shares her love of photography, culturama and all kinds of ultra-cool digital downloads like clip art, Photoshop brushes and textures. She offers many of these free, and you can also sign up for a premium membership to take advantage of even more great digital downloads.

Here are the banners I've designed to highlight my regular blog features, thanks to a little help from Miss Pugly Pixel!

My 'Before and After' banner shows off my furniture redo's. You can find downloads of the scallop and starburst medallions here.

'From the Kitchen' is my random collection of recipes and you can find the paper buffet clip art here.

For 'PIY Pointers', I post tips and tricks about painting your own furniture. Download the collection of tape strips here.

'Etsy Love' is my virtual shopping cart of pretty things I'm coveting. You can get the tres cool colored shipping tags clip art here.

Isn't it amazing to have this vast online world full of fab people sharing awesome stuff? Once again I'm reminded how much I adore blogland!! Hope these resources can help you my friends and big hugs to Pugly Pixel!

Keep smiling and may your day be filled with good things...

Before and After: Grey Clouds Weathered Side Table

This sturdy antique solid wood side table has been sitting in my studio since last summer, just waiting for inspiration. I don't know why it took so long but when it hits - you have to just go with it! Since it's been soooo long since I shared this thrifting find, here's a reminder.

Pretty old school eh? This is one super solid piece - it weighs a ton! But the wood carving on the legs is simply amazing. I decided to really bring the detail out by distressing the table and keeping the antique brass hardware for a vintage meets modern feel. I had sanded the piece way back when I first got it (don't you love it when the hard work is done??). So I simply had to pick out a beautiful stormy weather greenish grey, paint several coats and then sand away at the edges and carved bits to reveal all the luscious solid wood goodness!  Of course I sealed it all up with a couple of coats of water-based polyurethane.

Here she is with her brand new, freshened up Lather Creations style!

Isn't she lovely? So light and bright now, but still with vintage styling to show off her charms. I don't usually work with brass hardware, but it seemed to suit the piece. Thoughts? Are you loving the brass revival or is it just not for you?

Here's a few more pics of Grey Clouds to share.

If you live in the Winnipeg area and simply must have the Grey Clouds Weathered Side Table, you can buy it here.  Or if you have a dated piece of furniture that could use  a Lather Creations refresh, email me at lhume1@mts.net and let's have a chat!


Have a lovely week friends!

From the Kitchen: Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken

Hi all! I'm having an awesome lazy holiday Monday and I hope you are too.  I've been trying to eat a little better (gotta look good in my wedding dress!), but I love to cook so I've been playing around with some new recipes lately. For yesterday's Sunday dinner, I decided to make to throw some chicken breasts in the slow cooker with 3/4 of a jar of salsa. Yup, it's that ridiculously easy!

Just to recap, for today's From the Kitchen recipe, you'll need:

3 chicken breasts
3/4 jar of salsa

I set the slow cooker to high, but because it was only chicken and liquid, it cooked very quickly. After 2.5 hours on high, I used two forks to gently shred the chicken then turned it down to low for another 3 hours.

The end result is like pulled pork but it's chicken! It's super tender and flavourful thanks to the salsa. For dinner, we topped the salsa chicken on tortillas with chopped tomato and lettuce, grated cheese and a little sour cream. So easy and so yummy! In retrospect, I should have thrown chopped onions and peppers into the chicken mixture and it would have been even easier.

And what great leftovers. Today I made a taco salad with lettuce, tomato, leftover shredded salsa chicken, grated cheese, crushed taco chips and a dollop of jalapeno ranch dressing. Mmmm!

Do you have any easy healthy slow cooker tips to share? I'd love to hear them!

Before and After: {All You Need is Love} Blue Half Moon Table

Happy weekend friends! It's a long weekend here plus I took Friday off so I'm luxuriating in all the sleeping in and 'me' time!

Friday my sister and I went fabric shopping for her Matron of Honour dress (what a horrible term for a 29-year old, don't you think?). Luckily, she's a talented seamstress so she'll be making her own dress. We found the most lovely soft aqua cotton twill that is the perfect mix of relaxed and chic. Can't wait to see what she does with it!

I've also been working on some Lather Creations projects and I'm excited and nervous for this reveal. Remember this vintage wood half-moon table I picked up in the fall?

Well I decided to have some fun with it. Being such a music lover, I've been wanting to incorporate song lyrics into my pieces for a long time. This became the chosen one!

I primed and painted it in a fun beachy blue. Then I picked up an aquamarine paint pen and hand painted the lyrics from the Beatles' classic 'All you need is love' along the rounded edges. Then I sealed the whole piece with water-based polyurethane. Because there's nothing you can do that can't be done :)

From grandparents to newborns, Beatles lyrics really do stand the test of time - so I think this table would be perfect as a side table or even in a baby's room!

I love love how it turned out and I can't wait to do my pieces in the 'Lyrical Series'. If you have any ideas for great lyrics to use on pieces, do pass them along!


If you live in the Winnipeg area, adore the Beatles and simply must have the All You Need is Love Blue Half Moon Table, you can buy it here. Or if you have a dated piece of furniture that could use  a Lather Creations refresh with your favourite lyrics, email me at lhume1@mts.net and let's have a chat!


How are you spending your weekend friends? Doing deliciously fun things I hope!