Coffee Table Sneak Peak

The other project I had to finish up was my $15 (!) craigslist coffee table. This didn't take long at all, especially compared to how long the cabinet took. I'll let the paint and stain cure while we're gone and when we get back I'll distress the edges a bit, since they'll get distressed anyway.

Here's what it used to look like:

And here's what it looks like right now:

Cabinet Sneak Peak

There's nothing like a firm deadline to give me the extra push I need to finish up my projects. We're heading out on a roadtrip to visit family on Monday, so I had to get all my painting finished and the pieces brought inside. The paint will cure while we're gone, and I'll put it all back together when we ge back.

In the meantime, here's a reminder of what the cabinet used to look like:

And a sneak peak of what it looks like now:

How I find great deals on ebay and craigslist

I've found some great deals on ebay and craigslist and ebay, but it takes some patience and some know-how.

On ebay, I search for whatever it is I'm looking for, say a twin size chamois sheet from PBK. I don't want to be too broad, but I also don't want to be too narrow in my search. My search parameter in this case would be: (PBK, Pottery Barn) chamois sheet twin. When the results are returned, you have the option to "Save this search and alert me later". If you click on that and follow the instructions ebay will email you every day with any new items that match this search.

Every day I check my email to see if something has been listed that I'm looking for. Usually not, but every so often there will be one I want to keep an eye on, so I save it to my watch list. From there it's just a matter of keeping an eye on the auction (ie, not forgetting when it will end!) and deciding how much I want to spend and not spending more than that. I tend to place my bid in the last 30-45 seconds, which prevents me from upping my bid if my bid isn't high enough and usually prevents others from outbidding me.

On craigslist, I've been searching for various furniture items, so I have much broader search parameters: I search in 'furniture', leaving the search for box blank so everything will come through (people call things by so many different names, it's best to err on the side of too many results rather than too few), and  putting a price limit on it- minimum 0, maximum $60. Once the results come through, I copy the url and add it to my google reader feeds. Several times a day anything that's been posted that matches that criteria shows up in my reader, which is much easier than visiting craigslist multiple times a day. Once the posts pop up, it's just a matter of deciding if I want to call on anything that came up.

Have you found any great deals on ebay or craigslist?

edited to add:
If I won't be home, or am too busy too watch an ebay auction end, I use auctionstealer. It's a sniping program that allows 3 free snipes per week (the week starts on Sunday) and places your bid (up to the maximum you stated) in the last 10-12 seconds. If you pay a small monthly fee, you can use it more frequently and it will place your bid in the last 3-4 seconds. I don't use it that often, so I've never bothered with the expense. The program is easy to use, and I've never had any problems with it, and have won a number of auctions using it.

The Washington Monument

Did you know that it's free to get into the Washington Monument?

Tickets can be obtained for free the same day you visit, but they do run out.

If you want an assured ticket, you can order them ahead of time for $1.50 a piece, plus shipping.

We visited the monument last week, and we were happy that we'd gotten tickets ahead of time. Our scheduled time was for 2:00, and all the other tickets for the day were gone by then.

We drove to the closest metro station, then took the metro to the stop just a couple blocks from the monument. It was a fun little adventure and makes me much more willing to explore DC some more. I do not enjoy driving in the city (way too many cars and people), but taking the metro lets you skip all that. You do have the expense of the parking garage and the metro tickets, but the trade-off of less stress is more than worth it for me.

Purple ruffled wall

To give LMS her purple room without actually painting it, I stapled a purple sheet to the wall, then thoroughly wet the sheet with liquid starch, smoothing the sheet to the wall as I went. I actually had to re-starch various places 2 or 3 times in order to get it to lay flat. I let the sheet dry in between each starching, so it took several days before I was happy with the result. There's still some wrinkles, but they're only noticeable when the light is just right.

I didn't like the look of the edges of the sheet, especially since the staples were visible. So I went a bit OCD and made 20 feet of ruffle (which means I needed about 80 feet of fabric strips).  I did the ruffle in one long strip, so it was kind of awkward to work with. After ruffling the strip, I sewed it to some lavender ribbon to provide stability and rigidity. Then I sewed some tiny white ric rac over the seams in the middle of the ruffle. Definitely OCD on my part, but I like how it looks.

Once the ruffle was all done, it was time to put it on the wall. I just hot-glued it on, making sure the glue was on the sheet, not the wall (that would be a mess to clean up). It didn't take too long and it's stayed up without any problems.

Close-up view of the ruffle and the wall. I cut a hole for the light switch, and put the switch plate over the rough edges. 

Embroidery hoop wall art

The hoops I ordered off ebay. I had bought 6 or 7 from Michaels, then decided I needed more :)

I didn't use the biggest ones, but I'll find a use for them.

The PBK curtain panel I found for cheap on ebay. Very pretty, but not long enough for the window in LMS's room.

A butterfly all cut out and glued into a hoop.

The backside: I used small amounts of hot glue to hold the fabric to the inside of the hoops. This went better than I thought: I did around 20 of these, but didn't get any bad burns. Since I'm a klutz, that's saying something.

Some of the finished hoops, stacked and waiting to be hung. I just hammered a nail in between the metal adjusting thingy and the hoop, and they stay up nice and easy.

My favorite hoops are the two with the flowers. After I stretched and glued the fabric, I hot glued the flowers to the fabric. I love how they turned out!

Name banner in LMS's room

The name banner in LMS's room originally looked like this:

However, I didn't like how it turned out. It was too....nursery-ish, if that makes sense. It didn't fit with the feel of the rest of the room, and the colors weren't quite right, either.

So I used some fabric, paint, and ribbon and made a different banner, and hung it on a different wall. I like the results much better.

1. I sewed some white fabric behind some lavender fabric (both were leftover from the headboard cover I used for the bolster).

2. I painted the backs of some chipboard letters (leftover from the first name banner) and used them to stamp the banner pieces.

3. I sewed a sleeve at the top of each triangle, then threaded some ribbon through it.

4. I knotted a loop on either end, glued some pretty flowers over the loops, and then tied some ribbons in between each triangle.

5. I hammered in some nails, then hung the loops over them.

All done!