Updating an Old Bistro Set with Rustoleum

I have this area in front of my house that the previous owners used to have a bench in.  I'm not a big fan of the area, and eventually I'd like to just extend the porch.  However, until then, I just have to live with it. 

It's not such a bad little area, I just don't really care for the design in the rocks without there being anything in there to make it look like it has a design for a reason...and, my husband put in fresh mulch on the other side of the house, so the bright red mulch kind of clashes to me with the burgundy rocks.  What do you think?

My husband LIKES the rocks, so I can't just change them out yet.  It's not often that he voices any opinion on decorating or home improvement projects (he usually just lets me have free reign and if I'm happy, he's happy) so I'd like to respect his wishes when he does.  I was thinking of maybe scooping out the burgundy rocks and adding more red mulch in just those areas and keeping the grey rocks.  Compromise, right?

I had a little wood and metal bistro set that we got as a gift about eight years ago.  It was definitely showing it's age.  It didn't really fit out on our current back patio, so for now I decided to give it a little update and put it out front so that area wasn't just empty.  Eventually I will get a bench to go there instead, and further on down the road some rocking chairs or a porch swing once we extend the porch.  When that happens, the bistro set will just go in the back yard.  It needed updating either way.  :o)

Our shutters are black so I picked up a can of Rustoleum in Satin Black so it would coordinate.  I figured it would be durable for an outside project.  I purchased this at Lowe's, and while I was there, I was picking up some spray paint for another project and saw this!

Rustoleum's Universal Hammered spray paint in black.  I thought it might be fun to try out and use on the metal parts of the bistro set.  I didn't even tape off the wood first, since I was going to paint it black anyway.  I sprayed all the metal with with this stuff.  It was so fun to spray it on and watch it "hammer" up!  Very neat.  I love the look.

After I let that dry, I used a brush to paint the wood.  This project took only one day to paint, super fast and easy.

I let it dry over night, and in the morning I gave the whole set a quick coat of clear poly (used a spray paint form I already had one hand).

While I had the brush and the paint out for the bistro set, I decided to update this old picnic table a little too.  I grew up with this picnic table, my dad built it when I was a kid.  I couldn't find the sander to smooth it out before I started, but oh well!  :o)

I need to take a finished picture of this picnic table and of the bistro set out front, haha.  Sometimes I forget to do that! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Roses from my sweet husband!

From my girls, beautiful cards, hand crafted flower magnets, homemade pots with flowers to plant, and even cakes they decorated themselves!

My husband's mom came to spend the day with us, my husband picked up Chinese food for dinner so I didn't have to cook, and we spent the day lazing around, chatting, and watching movies.

What a great Mother's Day!

Yes, I back-dated this.  It's my blog, I am allowed!  :o)

Tooth Fairy Gets to Come Again!

She's getting so big!  :o)

Living Room Photo Collage

I have been on a mission to get my living room decorated.  I love the look of photo collages hanging up, with mismatched frames. 

I also knew I wanted to tie in more blue, green, and white to brighten up the newly painted beige walls and the brown couches. 

So, I took a quick trip to the craft store where I found some pretty scrapbook paper, and decided I liked having the letter "M" around as well, since that's what our last name starts with. 

I shopped the house for frames that weren't really being used, and sat down on the floor to play around with layouts that might work.  I settled on one and then got to work painting my frames.  I did most of them with a quick coat of white spray paint.  They are NOT perfect, as I was going for a bit of a shabby chic look. 

I decided to paint the glass in the biggest frame with chalkboard paint, as well as the glass in a smaller frame.  I was thinking of doing the "M" Family, and "Est. 2004."  Love the way it turned out!

So, I knew it was going to be tricky to hang up all of these frames without poking a million holes in my newly painted wall...and I really didn't want that.  So, Pinterest to the rescue!  Found a great tip that was originally posted at Blissfully Domestic. 

I took an old roll of wrapping paper and traced everything!

I made sure to write which frames I had traced since some are similar sizes and I wanted them if specific places.  I poked in the holes where the nails would go on the frames too.

Then I got to work putting the traced papers up on my wall with some easily removable tape. I put all the nails in right through the paper once I got everything where I wanted it, then just pulled the paper off the wall right before I put the frame up! So easy! 

My helper is pretty cute, huh? :o)

Almost done!  My last touch was to change out all of the pictures in the frames to sepia toned photos of our family!  I absolutely LOVE how it turned out! 

And there is my "finished" (when is it ever REALLY finished?!) product! 

Also, who knew how hard it would be to find white chalk?!  I looked all over, Walmart, drugstores, grocery stores...I found plenty of colored chalk, but no boxes of just white chalk.  I finally found a box of sidewalk chalk that had a stick of white in it (which I really like, actually, because the tip is "sharpened" like a crayon, haha, really nice to use!).  I want to get some chalk markers, but I was too impatient to wait for them if I ordered them from Amazon or somewhere else online.