World Market Towel Rack Hack

I recently was searching the web for a new towel rack. You see when we moved in to our new home our guest bathroom had only one towel rack and it hung over the toilette!…Now call me crazy but I don’t want my bath towel hanging up over the toilette and I wouldn’t expect my guests would either. So I took it down along with the matching one in our master bath, my good intentions were to hang them both up behind the guest bathroom door to create a double towel rack.
 

Visions of a bed frame dance in my head.

Wow it has been a really long time! There has been so much going on in our lives; we moved, took a month long vacation, unpacked a whole house, have been exploring a new city and I have a new job. But I’ll get to all of that later… Right now I am so excited to be back blogging and even more excited to share with you all a DIY that took me well over 6 months to complete. This DIY was also my first Annie Sloane Paint Project, so I will do a review of that product for you soon but first I just want to share the bed itself with you.

DIY Harry Potter Wand

Wands in Harry Potters world are no laughing matter and if your 9 years old and going as Hermione Granger for Halloween a wand is definitely no laughing matter. This was brought to my attention by my wonderful niece who called me up and said “Kiki I need your help! I need you to make me a Hermione Granger costume.” After I explained that I could not make her an entire costume in 2 weeks with no measurements or time we agreed that the most important thing she couldn't buy or find at home was a wand. I agreed to help and put my creative thinking cap on… This is what I came up with. 
Supplies Needed:

Old Fashion Baby Shower

Baby Showers can be a hard thing to plan. You want your baby shower to represent and honor the Mother to be. I knew I had to throw my Sister a baby shower she would never forget. Something elegant but not too stuffy. The hardest part for me was trying to plan it from hundreds of miles away. Luckily I have some amazing friends that helped me pull it all together in the last 24 hours. It turned out beautifully…or at least I think so what do you think?

A Foot Stool: in honor of a belated father days

Wow packing for a move really does consume your life! I know it was over a week ago but on Fathers Day I obviously got to thinking about my Pop. Naturally thinking about my Pop leads to thinking about wood working projects (its the if you give a mouse a cookie affect LOL). So in honor of my Pop and our mutual love of wood working projects, I have decided this weeks post would be on how to build a foot stool.

Supplies: (All of these I found at Lowes the total cost was about $25 bucks)
4 wooden legs
4 let mounts with hardware
1 round pre-cut piece of pine wood

Tools:
Power drill or hand screw driver
Ruler
Pencil
Dermal, metal file or drill bit (may or may not need)
Staple Gun (if upholstering)

Upholstery Supplies:
1 1/2 Yards Trim (I had extra but I wanted to make sure I didn't screw up.)
1 18" Square of foam
1 Box Nail Heads (I bought trim,foam and nails at Hancock Fabrics )
1 Yard 54" Fabric (Bought on Etsy Avisa Organics)

Fence Post Patio Table

Last year the Hubby and I bought some really cute Adirondack chairs for our small slab patio. But as we enjoyed them for the first time after painfully putting them together I realized, we had no place to kick up our feet or place a cool beverage. I didn't want to spend more money and our patio was really small. No way an outdoor side table would fit. So the next day I poked around in the garage and found some old boards and an idea sprang to my mind. I would whip together a little and cheap! coffee table for outside.

I made a quick run to the hardware store for some new screws and a fence post. I took the fence post and cut it four times. Each cut was about a foot and a half long. I then laid the four boards out and put two braces on with smaller screws to the underside. This ensured that all four boards stayed snugly together. I then marked the legs and screwed two screws into each one from the top of the table...I gave everything a quick sanding and Boom!

See the braces underneath to hold the boards together

How to rewire a lamp

Sophomore year of college one of my besties, Meg and I moved into a tiny 1 bedroom apartment. We figured it was better to share a small space together rather than share space with 40 other girls in a dorm. The only problem was after signing the lease we realized that we owned absolutely nothing! Lucky for us Megs Grandmother owns an antique store (that lucky devil!). So Nina lovingly supplied us with some much needed basics. We filled in the rest via hand me downs from friends and family. I still own some of the pieces from our apartment, one in particular that I have been carrying around with me for 5 years and through 4 moves! This beloved green lamp...which has been broken since 2 months before our graduation from college!  So when we did our garage overhaul I decided it was time to fix because how could I throw out something this beautiful? I'm here to tell you I shouldn't have waited 5 years it was so easy and took all of 30 minutes!

Family History in a Shadow Box

About 2 years ago my Mom was taking one of her regular trip down to see my Grams. I was living at home during this time while my husband was deployed in Afghanistan. Among going to school full time and working, I was also running with my local rescue squad as an EMS volunteer. I had signed on in order to put something more than just good grades on my future nursing school applications. Little did I know this resume booster would turn into a true passion.
Any way my Mom came home from her visit with my Grams and told me she had something special for me. My Mom reached into her purse and pulled out a tattered old badge that read "American Red Cross Motor Service". She went on to tell me that my Grams helped drive the ambulance for the Red Cross during WWII in her local area... I was shocked! I knew that my Grams was a Navy Wife during and after World War II but I had no idea she helped in the ambulance service! I was so struck by how amazing it was that 2 generations later I was doing the same thing she had done over 50 years ago. We both had men at war and while waiting for our husbands to return home safely we helped others in need by driving our local ambulances. The cool thing is my Mom had no idea she had ever done that either, until she came across the patch and asked her about it.
So this shadow box is a tribute to the strong women in my family who during our own time of stress and uncertainty reach out to help others through theirs. I'm so proud to come from women like this and my little shadow box now reminds me of that every day.  I hope you enjoy it and my little bit of family history.

Supplies needed:

Scissors
Hot glue gun and sticks
Quilt or craft pins
Shadow box: the right size to display something special to you
Craft felt: enough to fit over the front of your shadow box
Quilt batting: same size as felt or more if depending on thickness desired
Fabric of choice: at least 2 inches larger than felt on all sides, this will be your background so pick something you really like.

Staining and Finishing

Staining Once I choose my stain I choose my tools. I like a sponge brush and a rag...Mr. Marie prefers a painting brush and my Pop usually uses just a sponge brush. So I will explain to you what I know and you can go from there in order to find what works for you. I dip the tip of my sponge brush into the stain and dab off any extra on the edge of the can or container I'm using. Then I go back and forth on medium sized area of wood. I place my brush down pick up a rag and give it a firm but even swipe over the stained area. (I do not let it sit any longer than it takes to just place my brush down and pick up the rag.) I feel this technique makes the stain light and even. I like to do it this way so that if I want my finished product to be a bit darker I can go back and add another layer after it dries instead of starting out dark and realizing it was too much. Its harder to remove stain than add more. Then you wait (a long time usually 12-24 hours) for your stain to dry completely. Once your stain is dry and your satisfied with the tone of it, you are ready for a sealant layer. If you want your project darker add another layer of stain in the same fashion and wait for it to dry completely before moving on. NOTE: I always wear latex gloves while staining to protect my skin. Stain takes a long time to come off. Also make sure your always wearing clothes you don't care about because it does not come out of fabric.

Welcome to The Marie Project!

I want to thank you for stopping by. I thought we should get to know each other first before we start sharing our DIY tips and secrets.  So I’ll start... I’m Christina Marie, I am a passionate DIYer, I am a dog mom to wonderful beagle named Mack and a very happy wife of a very wonderful Man who I will lovingly refer to as Mr. Marie lol. I grew up in a wonderful town in New England. My amazing husband puts up with my constant brain storming and sharing of ideas. My family and close friends are my number one cheering section and are super important to me!  Even this blog title has two special meanings. It's in part to honor my Nanny (whos name was Marie) she sadly passed away when I was 20. Also this blog title is a bit of an inside joke between me and an old dear friend. She claims that everyone’s middle name should be Marie because it’s easier to remember (as her and I both share this middle name) So by following her philosophy I hope to be able to share my projects and a bit of advice with you all in order to make you all DIY Maries LOL!

 

OK so those were the basics.... Now as you may be able to tell from my blog title I love a good DIY project and in my mind life is one big DIY project. Whether it is in life or in the garage building a desk, you have to have a plan to start with... but you have to be willing to tweak and adjust that plan when its not working. Some times in life or in a project you try something and it just clicks! And sometimes you have to try 3 or 4 times (or try many different ways) before it come out being what you want it to be. However just like in a life, the difficult DIY projects that you stick with til the end usually end up being the most rewarding.

Garage Overhaul!

People who discover we are a military family often say to me..."wow it must be so hard moving every few years!" and the answer to that is.. "sh-yeah! moving sucks. BUT!!!" There is this blissful thing about moving... it's called going through your crap lol. You see its true that the military will pay for movers to come into your home, box up your stuff and move all of it to your next duty station (aka where the military sends your family next). So it's great cause you really don't have to do much right?.....not! You want to make sure you know what the packers are moving and you want to take some basic things with you. Sometimes you have to wait a while for your household items to get to you, even if you have been at your new duty station for a while. I've heard some people wait up to two weeks or more.

A Morris Chair of My Very Own!.. Part 2

So a quick recap...I bought an old amazing chair, that took me over a year to find, stripped it all down, stained it and put a semi-gloss on it. Now I'm going to explain how I finished it up by creating a new seat for it, cutting cushions and covering them. If you didn't see how it all started check out Part 1.


The Seat...
As you remember I had to remove the old canvas seat due to mold. So I started by tracing out a new one on a piece of cardboard. I did this by holding up the cardboard to the bottom of the open seat cavity and having my Pop trace the outline of the seat onto the cardboard. I cut out the cardboard design, traced that onto wood and cut it out. I placed the wood seat on the brackets that the chair already had and it fit like a glove! I stained and sealed the wood seat so it would match the chair. Things were looking good! I was almost there!!!

The last piece to the puzzle was...

A Morris Chair of My Very Own! Part 1

The Long Awaited Morris Chair
For the last few years of college I lived with two wonderful girls, who are still my closest friends today. My one roommate "J. Marie" had this old wonderful Morris chair that was from her grandmother. It was a rather fragile chair so it lived in her room instead of our living room. But I developed a fondness for it through the years. You see I would "sneak" into her room, as it was the furthest down the hall away from the living rooms noise and distraction. There I would sit myself in that glorious Morris chair and do my reading or work on an article for the school news paper. It was a quiet comfy retreat where I could really focus and brain storm ideas. (let me tell you a lot of great writing came about in that chair!) That chair was so comfortable and so relaxing that I vowed to one day own one!

Two years later we graduated and I had to say goodbye to my "thinking" chair...So my search began! Almost every day, for well over a year, I looked on Craigslist and eBay for a Morris chair that was just right. The problem was they were all very expensive. However, I knew that if I kept searching I would find one for under 100 dollars... and one glorious spring day it happened!