Frosting Mirrored Closet Doors: 2nd Attempt = SUCCESS!!!!

What I have learned from this experience is to never give up and that saving money takes time.  The total cost of this project was approximately $35 ($6.99 for the frosted glass spray paint, ~$6 for the adhesive shelf liner and $20 for the circle cutter which can be used for many other projects) but the hours we put in was the kicker!!  Not counting the first attempt, Mr. Loonie and I spent close to 10 hours, thank god for his help or I would still be on the floor cutting circles.  In the end, the doors turned out so adorable and exactly what I was envisioning.  Mr. Loonie and I had some bonding time too during the endless circle cutting when we did get out a word; we are both the silent type when working so conversation always lacks during projects.  Trust me though, I make up for it during his favorite show/video game or while he is trying to have a peaceful shower/bathroom break, etc., etc. ;)

So the method...........after many pinterest searches I found this amazing tutorial on the blog "My 3 Monsters".  I pretty much did exactly what she said, we were just using a different stencil technique.

Warning: Longest post ever!

STEP 1: Remove closet doors.  This is not as easy as it looks, after some web researching the recommended way is to remove the tracks from the floor.  Yah right....there was a screw right smack in the middle of the track between the two doors which couldn't be accessed.  Mr.Loonie decided it was time to get aggressive and bend the top track for the wheels to slide out and voila, they were out.  He just bent the track back when it was time for the doors to be replaced.

STEP 2:  Apply adhesive shelf liner to the closet mirrors and smooth down the best you can.  Don't worry about the air bubbles, once the stencil is cut, the air bubbles can be pushed out to a circle hole which is much easier than trying to push them out to the door edges.  (I wish I would have thought of this earlier). 

STEP 3: This would be the time to spray the closet frame if needed as the mirrors are covered but my frames were white so this was not necessary.

STEP 4: Cut out your desired stencil.  In my case, it was a random circle pattern.  I found the most amazing tool from Martha Stewart at Wal-Mart. This circle cutter is what ol' Martha would call " A good thing", best $20 I eva spent!  The cutter allowed me to choose circle sizes between 1" and 5 7/8" at 1/16" increments, therefore 94 choices! The only snag was that we couldn't get close enough to the mirror's edges as I would have liked due to the frame and the width of the circle tool.  We used random objects from around the house and traced with an x-acto knife to fill in the edges.

  

STEP 5: Take the stenciled doors outside to spray with the frosted glass paint. The can instructed to spray in >10°C and man, did we get lucky with a warm sunny winter day with temperatures hovering around 10°C in the sun. Make sure to cover up the surrounding area (we didn't want our garage doors frosted!) and spray according to can directions.  This stuff is toxic! To avoid any baby trauma, Mr. Loonie did the spraying which consisted of three quick coats.

BEFORE SPRAYING: (notice the reflection)

AFTER SPRAYING: (notice there is no reflection!)

  

STEP 6: After 10-15 minutes of drying (it dries very quickly) bring the doors back inside and peel away the remaining contact paper....very exciting!!  This took some time as we had to remove small slivers of the adhesive paper from where I did two passes per circle with the cutter. Bits of glue that stayed on the mirror after peeling also had to be cleaned with some windex. Thank you Auntie Jingle for the help!

STEP 7: Put the closet back together and admire your work!! It was worth it, phew!

Head over to Penny's Nursery Reveal post to view how the closet doors look in the finished room!

The Evolution of a Chalkboard Wall

I painted this chalkboard wall a couple years back and oh my, how the times have changed! While it used to be covered in insults, love notes and ramblings from my drunk friends.....it is now used for a baby countdown.  Is that boring or exciting?!

Roasted Garlic

Roasted garlic is amazing, it is the most delicious little package of creamy yumminess! I LIKE GARLIC! If I didn't say that my Ukrainian family would shun me.  My great uncle Matt used to carry around raw peeled garlic in his jacket pocket and hand it out to us kids calling it "Ukrainian Candy". Blech! Raw garlic is not the most appetizing.........now roasted garlic, and pickled garlic from the bottom of the pickle jar, that's another story!

METHOD

STEP 1: Preheat oven to 400°F. 

STEP 2: Cut 1/4-1/2" off the top of the garlic head exposing each individual clove.

STEP 3: Peel away the excess outer layer of bulb skin making sure to leave the bulb intact.

STEP 4: Drizzle with olive oil and coarse salt.

STEP 5: Cover with tin foil (not shown) and bake for 30-35 min until cloves feel soft when squeezed.

*Note: the cloves would be a lot creamier if the bulbs weren't so frekin old - use fresh when possible!

 

Once cooled, the possibilities are endless......squeeze the cloves out of the skins and add to anything you can dream up! I like to add the goodness into dips, soups and pasta sauces or mix with butter or sour cream to top potatoes like we did, pictured below.  You can't beat roasted garlic spread on a fresh loaf of crusty bread though.  In the end, it's your choice how to eat the good ol' ukrainian candy! Enjoy :)

Painting Penny's Room

Like I said before, picking a flippin' paint colour is difficult! For weeks we had at least 10 paint chips taped up on the wall in the white, pink and orangey-coral family; there was even a couple of aqua chips, just for something different but Mr. Loonie did not want it feeling like a hospital :/. We checked out how the colours looked in all possible lighting conditions....sunny, cloudy, morning, afternoon, evening, lamp on, lamp off, etc. I knew I wanted the room bright and fresh but I didn't like any of the whites or light coloured samples we had so you know what I did? I went down to Rona, grabbed a book of whites and picked the colour which looked the most white to me. So yah, after all that I just went and picked a colour from a book.....craaaaazy! Luckily, it all worked out...

Mr. Loonie patched, sanded and primed the walls before the new colour went up. The before colour was a mauvy purple (it looks really light in the below photo to the left - have a look at this post which shows a better representation of the purple).

BEFORE SHOTS:

AFTER SHOTS:

I chose Refreshing White from Rona's Expressions line, it ended up having a pink tinge to it allowing the dressers and trim to have some contrast against the wall. To clean up the baseboards and trim I did a quick coat using just basic white straight from the can. 

The closet also had a makeover since the doors were already out for the frosting project. The shelf was a wood veneer/ particle board combo and the plastic brackets had aged an ancient yellow.  Mr. Loonie tried taking out the shelf but it was not moving out of its 30 year home; the years of paint had sealed it in tight.  We ended up protecting the walls with newspaper flyers and spray painting it all a clean white.

Now to get the last bit of trim up around the door and the frosted closet doors in (the 2nd method worked - post coming soon!) 
Ooooh.....the crib and rocking chair (both Kijiji finds) were delivered this weekend by Loonie family members after a Edmonton weekend trip. They are amazing!

Sunday Geocaching - March 4, 2012

Yummy Things from a Can Part 1: Dulce de Leche

"Literally translated, dulce de leche means sweet of milk."* It is popular in Latin America as a sweet desert made from slowly simmering sweetened milk resulting in a golden milky caramel which can be used for topping ice cream, cake, cheesecake, etc!  Yumm!
The following is the easy way of making it rather than slaving over a hot stove trying not to burn the milk.....we all now how that turns out.  You have to try this, you will be amazed at how delicious it really is!!


STEP 1: Peel the label off your can of sweetened condensed milk. You don't want to be cleaning up paper bits in the pot.

STEP 2: Place the can in a pot under at least 1" of water.  You do not want the water level to drop below this as your can will explode leaving you and/or your kitchen covered in hot caramel lava.  I had the stove set on 4, just a low simmer.

STEP 3: Simmer between 2 and 3 hours.  2 hours for a more runny milky sauce, 3 hours for a thick golden caramel sauce which is what I did.

STEP 4:  Be careful when opening the can, it is very hot!! It may be wise to wait a few minutes, I was not so smart :(

STEP 5: Use to top your favourite desert and enjoy!

*source

Frosting Mirrored Closet Doors: 1st Attempt = FAIL

So I have this great idea, it's just figuring out how to execute it.  Penny's room has two giant mirrored closet doors.  It was great when the room was used as my "getting ready room"/walk-in closet because when I did look in those mirrors it was after at least 20min of primping. It will NOT be the same case when Penny arrives. Those mirrors will only show a 3am monster looking back at me, a monster covered in poop, pee, spit-up, milk and who knows what else.  So I need to provide myself with some protection: a shield of frost!

The plan to continue the polka-dot theme as it would still allow for some reflection (I can't wait until she starts recognizing herself...oh the excitement!).  My first idea was to cut out 6 different sized circles into a plastic sheet (report covers) using things found around the office to trace and an x-acto knife to cut out. I would hold a stencil sheet one at a time to the closet door and spray, moving around the door with the different sized stencils to create a random pattern. 

Note: I marked off 1" and 2" increments around the stencil to assist in spacing.  Obviously it wasn't needed.

I thought the over-spray wouldn't extend past the sheet and the static cling from the plastic would stay close enough to the mirror.......WRONG! As you can see, from the picture below it was an epic fail.  The "wind" created by the spray blew the sheet up and the over-spray was too much for these little sheets especially for the bigger circles.  I tried to spray closer for the smaller circles but that just led to drippage.  I cleaned this mess up with a little paint thinner and a razor blade.

                             

On to Plan B....stay tuned!