Business Cards!

We're in business!  Woo!!  Alex had some cards printed up for us and I'm so excited.  Of course as we get further along we'll get new ones made with a website and all that jazz.  We're working on a few projects right now to put up for sale so we'll see how it goes!  Any comments, suggestions, or requests PLEASE let us know!

Chaise Lounge and Pirate Ship

Our niece Raelynn just turned 5, so for her birthday I built her a chaise lounge toy box for her room.  As it tends to go, we couldn't build her a toy box and not build one for our nephew Ryan, so Alex built him a pirate ship toy box.  We drew up our plans (yes, yes, you can see who the artist is ... and it's not me hehe) and went to Lowe's to get the supplies.

I started on the chaise lounge first.  Here's what I did: 



Glued and drilled the sides and front face together.

Glued  and  drilled the bottom to the top pieces.

Added a few coats of white paint.

I cut the foam to match the curve of the back and glued it on with spray adhesive.



I pinned the fabric to the foam to start upholstering
(and somewhere along the way I sewed the buttons on).

Stapled  all along the back edge...
This was my first time upholstering anything and let me tell you,
those curves were not fun.

Voila!

 

Upholstered the seat.

By far the hardest part ... the arm rest.

I attached the back to the rest of the box and started decorating it.

I painted up a little scene and Alex hooked it up with a hinge.

I made a couple of pillows and it's ready for the birthday girl!

I think she likes it!  She ONLY wanted to take pictures upside down hehe :)

Here's how Alex did the pirate ship:

He cut the sides of the ship out.

Glued and drilled the sides, back, and bottom.
He made the front sides go in on a curve to make the shape.

He drilled port holes at the back of the ship and added railing
along the back and front edges.

Put a bit more flare on the front and added the hinge and top piece.

Painted it all black.

Painted the inside yellow and it's starting to look like a ship!

I found this Halloween decoration...

And used it as a stencil!

I added the skull stencil to both front sides and the back.
I added a bit of extra flare with the red stripe and gold curves
and Alex painted "Captain R.R. Robbins" on the top front. 

The girls love it, and Ryan wonders what the hell they're doing in his ship!

Captain Robbins regulating.  Kicking the girls out of his ship! 
Maybe we should have added a plank...

These were really fun projects.  We can't wait to get started on our next custom toy box!



Rapunzel's Tower (Cupcake Stand)

Our latest creation comes in the form of a cupcake stand for my neice's birthday party.  The theme she picked is "Tangled" (the Disney movie) so I decided I wanted to make it look like Rapunzel's tower.

Here's the first drawing I did (yes, yes, I know, I'm not an artist haha). I wanted to have the traditional tiers with the top tier coming up to the roof of the tower.  The final result is quite different than my original thought.

I found this birdhouse at Michael's and I thought it would make the perfect topper.

I painted it up and added some spanish moss and Rapunzel's braid.

In the garage Alex started the welding the tower with some scrap metal he was able to find at work.  He made 4 legs at the bottom (covered by a piece of wood) and attached the branches.

He added a couple of plates to the top of the legs and secured the wood cover to the plates with silicone so that everything is level and nothing moves around.

A quick coat of primer and it's ready to paint.

I painted the branches brown and the tower part tan with some random brown sprays.  I also added the sheet of "grass" at the base.

I found this pebble scrapbooking paper at JoAnne's and I figured it would work perfect to make the tower look like it's made of stone.

And it worked!

We went to the beach and found some pebbles to add a more realistic feel to the base.  I also brought home some kind of dead beach plant to make tiny vines and wrap them all around.  You can't really see them in the pic, but they're there.  And last but not least, I put some more spanish moss here and there.

Added the wooden discs to the branches and it's coming to life!

Finished!

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your hair"

This was really fun to make.  I can't wait to get some cupcakes on it and take it to the birthday girl!!

Random Stuff in our House

This bar cost us less than $20 to make and it looks perfect in the corner of our living room.  We have a tiny kitchen and no dining room so we needed somewhere to eat, this was the answer!   Alex built this and I added the trim and painted it up.

We have 3 dogs so finding room in our little house to lay beds out was hard (especially since I can't stand clutter).  This end table was the perfect solution to save some space and add some extra funk to our livingroom.  I went to a used furniture store and bought a used end table, took the doors off, sanded it down, and painted it.  I made the dog bed with some fleece material simply by cutting strips and tying them together (like those knot blankets), and viola!

This is the Doghouse Saloon.  Alex loves old west looking things so he made this by starting with an already built dog house and then added slats of wood to make the whole gunslinger barroom effect.

Like I've already mentioned, our house isn't so big.  We have to use space saving solutions and this is one of them.  For our first few months here we didn't use the TV because there was no where to put it.  This TV stand is perfect.  It's tall enough to go over our love seat.  Alex welded this, and since I wanted the raw metal look, we left it alone.  I'm now happy to announce that we have cable!!  ... That's a big deal when you've been a couple years without it ;)