Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright

I decided a while back that I needed to get my ass in gear and create/build some things I have pinned on Pinterest. I have pinned so many things that I want to try to recreate and I have finally finished some.

The first thing I tried was this sign:

                                                                      Source: susieharrisblog.com via Brooke on Pinterest

When I first saw this sign I knew I had to have it.  Bob Marley is one of my favorite musical artists and "Three Little Birds" is my favorite Marley song (with "No Woman, No Cry" coming in at a close second).  When I am feeling down or feeling like life is throwing me too many curve balls I listen to "Three Little Birds" to remind me that "every little thing is gonna be alright".  

I didn't have a tutorial or anything to look at because Susie makes them to sell.  I figured it wouldn't really be hard at all to make one of my own, plus I would be saving some money while I was at it.  As it turned out I paid $0 for my sign!

I already had the yellow and white paint.  The yellow paint was left over from Pacen's room project a few years ago.  I learned the hard way that you don't need to buy as much paint in light colors, as it tends to go a lot further than the dark colors.  So, I'm stuck with a lot of cheery yellow paint!  :)  The white paint I used was actually Primer, but it got the job done.

I noticed Susie used what, I'm assuming, is a piece of plywood for her sign, and although I do have some scrap plywood lying around, I did not have one in a manageable or proper size.  I rummaged around the house and came up with a piece of old paneling that would work (the back).  It was rather "L" shaped, but I could easily work with it and I figured I could fit it in my car and drive it to the family store in Harrison and use the circular saw to saw off the section that wasn't needed.

I then used Window's Publisher on my computer to find fonts that were similar to what Susie used.  I also made sure to open a blank page in the 24x24 size, which was the size I was making my sign.  The words "every" and "alright" were done in Brush Script MT and the other words were done in Candara.

I painted the board yellow and then decided to trace the words onto the board using that black/blue transfer paper (I can't think of the name of it right now).  Once I got the words transferred I painted "Every" in with white and then I decided I didn't like what I saw.  The transfer paper left a lot of black smudges all over the yellow and I decided I didn't like the font I had originally chose for the small words. 

I re-painted the board and re-printed the words (this time using Candara).  I then traced the words onto freezer paper and used a craft knife to cut out the letters.  I ironed the freezer paper onto the board to keep it in place and then painted all the words white.  I slowly peeled off the freezer paper and used small brushes to make the words less sloppy (some paint oozed under the paper).  

I sawed off the part of the board that wasn't needed and went over everything with some sandpaper to make it look somewhat older.  That's it!  It sounds more difficult than it was, but I'm not the best at describing things in a simple manner. 

I hung the sign on a small wall next to my bookshelf and I have decided I'm going to make more inspiration type signs to hang there too.  It will be my "It's-okay-Brooke.-Things-may-seem-hard-right-now,-but-everything-will-work-out-like-it's-suppose-to" wall.  I'll keep you updated as I add to the wall.  Hopefully it will be sooner, rather than later.  :)

For those of you who have never heard "Three Little Birds", here you go:


Of course the quote for this post is the chorus:

"Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right."
Singin': "Don't worry (don't worry) 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right!"

~ Bob Marley

Don't know why I didn't do this sooner, but today (10-25-11) I'm linking up at Sugar Bee Crafts.  Go check out all the awesome crafts!

Bedroom and Vanity Chair Makeover

The past couple of weeks I've been painting my room.  If you recall from this post my bedroom walls were a very bright color.  Actually, in that post you can only see one wall...the bright yellow.  The other three walls were actually green, blue, and red.  All with that orange trim.  You see, my room used to be Pacen's room.  We traded bedrooms back in January or so because I ordered a bigger terrarium for Bali, Pacen's Ball Python, and there just wasn't enough space in his room for all three terrariums and his crap toys and such.  My old bedroom is huge and I thought it only fair that Pacen and his snakes get it.  Besides, I didn't need all that room.

I lived with the bright primary colors for a few months and then I'd had enough.  I had to paint it!  So, I took some leftover blue and green paint from this room and mixed it with some leftover ivory paint from my old room.  I was going for a Caribbean turquoise color and after a bit of mixing I happened to match it perfectly to a picture on the front of one of my Caribbean Travel magazines!!  Nice!!  So the upper part of my walls are painted Caribbean turquoise, the bottom part is white, and the trim is a tan color that was left over from when I painted my living room.  So, the project ended up being cheap!  The only thing I bought were curtains and curtain rods.

 I got everything hung back up and organized and then I decided that my vanity chair looked awful and totally clashed with the new color.  This chair was here when we moved in and I thought it was too cute to toss. 

I now look at it and think, "Holy crap!  This chair is hideous!"  Luckily I have a lot of material lying around the house (I found some major good sales at Wal-Mart last year).  I chose a fabric that I liked and that I thought went well with the new color and re-covered the seat of the chair.  I don't own a staple gun so I used a hot glue gun to glue the fabric in place on the bottom of the chair.  Here it is after the makeover...

One of these days I might repaint it,  but I think it looks much better than it did and it took me less than ten minutes to re-cover it.  I'm pretty happy with my new room and I feel like it is now officially mine!

"There's a world where I can go
And tell my secrets to
In my room
In my room" ~ The Beach Boys

Home Improvement Projects

Everyone is always giving me grief because I have started many home improvement projects, but I haven't finished all of them. Sometimes I get motivated and I'll start a project and then half-way through I'll lose that motivation, or I'll run out of material, or I'll find that I need help, and the project is left to be finished at another time. Unfortunately a few of those projects have been waiting to be completed for a year or more. What can I say? I'm not the best at asking for help. I like to be independent and prove to myself that I am capable of doing things on my own. I also find it hard to go back to a project that was started when I have decided there is a more "fun" project that needs to be done! :) It's never ending.

Well, during Labor Day weekend I decided to complete a project that I started about a month ago. The sidewalk in my backyard ends just past the garage door and beyond that is 10' or so of dirt covered in weeds, leading to the back gate (leading out to the alley). When I moved into my house that area was a jungle of bushes and trees, which I had removed the year after. I decided it would be nice to have a rock path to the back gate so when Pacen or I take the trash out we don't have to trudge through nasty weeds or mud. So, about a month ago I started digging the area out (about 10'x3' or so). I dug down 4" and tried to make it as level as possible. Luckily as I was digging I found many flat rocks. Apparently there was a path there before the trees and bushes took over. When I was done digging I laid some landscaping fabric down (so the weeds wouldn't come back) and covered it in sand (2-3" deep). I then beat the bejesus out of the sand with the flat side of a snow shovel, trying to pack it down (while relieving some stress). After I made sure it was packed down pretty well I laid the flat rocks out the way I liked. I then spread red rock
(five 5-gallon buckets full) around and swept it into the areas between the big rocks.

That's it! I finished a project! Yahoo! Maybe now I should finish a project that is half-way done. I think I'll finish the guest room so my sister can sleep there when she comes twice a week to work at the hospital! :)

Do you see how I screwed up here? I forgot to lay the landscaping fabric down first! *big sigh*

I fixed that problem! :)

"Little by little does the trick." ~ Aesop