It didn’t look too bad from a distance…

But up close, it had definitely seen better days.

We considered stripping and restaining it, but I’m really having a black furniture moment right now.  So, I decided to use Glidden’s new Diamond paint on it.  I ran into our area’s Glidden rep at Home Depot not too long ago, and he was so excited to tell me all about the new formula and the extensive testing it went through.  It’s supposed to be great on durability and scrubability, so I figured that it would work wonderfully on a piece of furniture that receives a lot of use.

Tom and I hauled the table out to our garage and started sanding off the original finish and evening out all of the scratches and dings.  We started with a belt sander and 150-grit sandpaper.  This is what it looked like after sanding half of the table down.

After we were finished with the 150-grit pass, we put 220-grit sandpaper on a finish sander to smooth it out.  The result was super smooth.

This table has a leaf that flips underneath it, so I separated the sections before painting.  I also used a tack cloth to wipe off all of the sanding dust so that my paint finish would remain smooth.

Glidden Diamond is a paint + primer formula, so I decided not to use a stand alone primer.  I was worried that the paint might soak into the wood, but this is what it looked like after one coat of paint.  Outstanding!  I used a mohair roller, and the application was very smooth.

I gave it 2 more coats of paint (3 total) thinking that it would have extra durability.  Let’s be honest – I don’t know if that’s how it works or not, but I figure I’d rather paint more coats now than have to go through this process again down the road.

I don’t really have any pictures of the painting process, since I try to work quickly to maintain a wet edge with no roller marks.  However, I did get a picture to show you how I let the paint lay.  Here is a picture of one of the legs right after I rolled it.  I try to use a really light hand and don’t worry about smoothing it all out.  You can see at the top where the paint itself doesn’t look smooth.

A good quality paint will level (i.e. smooth out and lay flat), and Glidden Diamond met that challenge.  Here’s the same leg after it was dry.

Because it is 103432098349 degrees outside right now, I painted the entire table in my kitchen.  Glidden Diamond is no VOC and low odor, but I would say that there is actually no odor.  Tom walked into the house from work and couldn’t even tell that I had been painting.  There’s virtually no odor – I honestly stuck my face in the paint can and couldn’t smell the paint.

It’s too soon for me to talk about how wear this paint will wear on our kitchen table, but I am very optimistic about it.  Even just two days after painting it, I can put plates and bowls on it without them sticking.  That’s a good sign to me, because that rarely happens so soon after I paint a piece of furniture.

I’m really happy with the way my table looks now, and the transformation was really inexpensive (other than the chairs I bought, but I have been coveting these for years).

Obviously, Glidden Diamond will perform exceptionally well on your walls.  Just think what it could mean in high traffic and kid areas.  Durable and scrubable?  Yes, please!

Want to try it out yourself?  Glidden is giving away 5 gallons of Glidden Diamond to one lucky winner!  To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter form below (you’ll need to switch over to my blog if you are reading this post via email) to be entered.  This sweepstakes is open to U.S. residents, 18 and older.

As a MyColortopia Team member, this post is sponsored by Glidden.  All reviews and opinions are my own.

Guys!  One of the very last builder’s beige rooms in my home is gone.  I feel like there should be trumpets sounding and confetti flying.  Are you celebrating like us?

The kitchen has been the bane of my existence since we repainted our common open spaces in Lindsay White.  At the time, we didn’t paint the kitchen, because I wasn’t exactly sure what direction I wanted to take it.  I had dreams of turquoise cabinets and an amazing backsplash, but those dreams required a lot of time, money and effort – none of which I had.

When I offered to host my sister’s baby shower at my house this summer, I knew that now was the time to get the kitchen under control.  Luckily, the folks at FrogTape® brand painter’s tape must be on my same wave length, because I got an email asking if I could review their painters tape for a project.  Boy, Howdy!  Of course, I said yes!

We started by priming and painting the kitchen ceiling in Lindsay White.  And by we, I mean Tom.  I’m recovering from a leg fracture (hello, roller derby), and I didn’t want to try to stand on my toes to reach the ceiling with the roller.  I did go ahead and start taping off the windows and wall trim while he was working, though, so we would be ready to paint the walls when the ceiling was dry.

I used two different types of Frog Tape.  For the vast majority of our project, I used the green Multi-Surface type.  It tears easily, so it was no big deal to tape a lot of trim quickly.  When the ceiling was dry, we used the yellow Delicate Surfaces tape since it was freshly painted.

When we were ready to paint the walls, I painted right over the tape.

After two coats of paint (Peacock Blue), I peeled the tape off at a 45-degree angle.  It gave me a nice line with no paint bleed. FrogTape is the only painting tape treated with painted PaintBlock Technology, which means it reactions with the water in latex paint and instantly gels to form a barrier against paint bleed.  I hate when I have to go back and touch up lines with an artist paint brush, so this was great!

I wish I would have done a better job taping so that all of the old beige was covered, but you’ll never see this spot after I hang our window blinds up.  It’s way more noticeable in the close up photos.

This is a bold color, right?  Well, no worries.  I only used it in 2 of the walls in my kitchen/breakfast room.  The rest is Lindsay White.  I also used this Peacock Blue in my Mary Blair Feature Wall and in the Playroom, both of which open to the kitchen.  I need to figure out how to take a big panoramic shot of that for you guys to see.

In the meantime, here are some shots of the freshly painted breakfast area.  I still have a few more decorating touches to add – like some sort of valence on the windows – but it is a huge change for us as is!

We used the yellow FrogTape for Delicate Surfaces tape on this transition from blue to white.  Perfection!

I finally hung my cuckoo clock back up on the wall.  It works, but it drives me crazy in the middle of the night so I’m leaving it unwound.

If you have a room that you are working on painting, give FrogTape a try.  We were very happy with the results it helped us achieve!

Looking for some fun paint ideas?  Check out the FrogTape® painting inspiration Pinterest page.

As a part of that process, I’ve decided to take my heat transfer vinyl game up a notch.  I love making HTV items, but I always have trouble with the designs lifting.  It seems that I can’t get enough pressure on the design, and my household iron just doesn’t get hot enough to really adhere the vinyl to a shirt.

So, I bought myself a gift – an actual heat press!  I bought this bad boy (Amazon affiliate link) about a month ago, and I’ve been going hog wild putting HTV on everything in sight.  I seriously couldn’t recommend this heat press more, so add it to your wish list if you are in the market.  And if you have any questions about it, let me know and I could put together another post on the heat press.

I found some cute little shoes for Emma at Old Navy, and I decided I wanted to try to put some HVT designs on them.

Crazy idea?  Sure was.  But did they turn out adorable?  Absolutely.

Here’s the easy process I went through to make these.  Those of you who have craft cutters, listen up!  I use a Silhouette CAMEO (Amazon affiliate link) and am very happy with it.

I began by finding a piece of black and white flamingo clipart online.  I imported it into my Silhouette Designer Edition software, and “traced” the design.  If you need help learning how to trace in your Silhouette software, check out this post.

Then, I was left with the outline of a flamingo.  I resized it so that it would fit on the toe of the shoe, duplicated the design, and then flipped one of them so that the flamingos could be facing each other.

I wanted to put her name on the side of the shoe, so I found a cute font and sized her name so that it would fit.

I duplicated her name and then flipped the entire design horizontally – you have to cut out all HVT in reverse!

I cut the design out of Siser Easyweed vinyl in Fluorescent Pink.  Over the past few years, I have traditionally only used Siser vinyl for my HVT projects, because they have many different texture and color options.  Additionally, I think their vinyl just cuts cleaner and adheres better than other brands I have used.  I generally buy pieces of Siser vinyl at Expressions Vinyl, but Siser sent me a sample pack recently – including this Fluorescent Pink.

After cutting the design, I trimmed and weeded the pieces.

Then, as my heat press was warming up, I positioned the elements on the shoes.  I used heat resistant tape (Amazon affiliate link) to secure the designs so that they wouldn’t shift.

Then, I wrapped a Teflon sheet (Amazon affiliate link) around the shoe and carefully pressed each design to the top plate (the heated part) of the heat press.  I have heat resistant gloves (Amazon affiliate link) I wear so that I could get my hand inside the shoe and really press hard.  Siser Easyweed HTV is recommended to be applied at 305° (see why HTV doesn’t work great with a household iron?), so I wanted to be careful in case I accidentally touched the top plate.

When the vinyl was secured, I peeled off the clear transfer sheet and her shoes were ready to go!  They turned out so darn cute!

Do you do HTV projects?  If so, check out the Siser app on the App Store and Google Play.  They have all of their colors listed and many excellent how to videos.

Siser sent me a sample pack of heat transfer vinyl to use in a few projects.  All ideas and opinions are my own.

While this isn’t a post to hash out everything that’s been going on (I’m sure I’ll talk about it at some point), I do want to offer my apologies of sort for putting Makely on the back burner.  As I know you would agree, parents do everything we can possibly do for our kids, and this year that meant only getting to focus on the critical elements of our lives while we kept our heads above water.  Now that summer is here, Tom and I have had a collective sigh of relief.  And for us, that relief means we can work on all of those projects that we’ve been putting off.

Once such project is finally creating a painted version of the Jaws poster that inspired Zack’s room re-do.  I originally found it online, and I knew that I had to incorporate my version of it into a piece of Jaws artwork to hang above his headboard.  I can’t explain why I love this so much, but I guess that’s just the thing about art.  Zack loves sharks, and I felt like this poster was going to make his room sharky without being “sharky.”

This was such an easy project once I decided to get going on it!  I started by picking up a piece of 2′ x 4′ MDF (medium-density fiberboard) at Home Depot.  It was taller than I wanted it to be for his wall, so Tom used the table saw to cut about a foot off of the height.

Next, I primed the entire piece with a good quality primer.  Even though I was going to use Glidden Complete – Stain Blocking Paint + Primer on the piece, I know from working with MDF that it soaks up paint like crazy.  The primer was to put a barrier between the MDF and my good quality paint, so that color wouldn’t be effected.

The top part of the piece was going to be Lindsay White (like Zack’s walls), so I went ahead and just painted to top half of the piece in that color.

Then, I attached a large picture hanger on the back of the MDF and hung it on his wall.  I wanted to make the ocean a modern ombre and match the lines on his wall, so I carefully sketched out the lines where I would need the colors to transition.

The next part was the most difficult part of the whole project.  I resized in Photoshop Elements the Jaws that poster I had found online.  Then, I broke it into sections that would fit on a 8″ x 11″ (normal printer paper size) by using my guide lines.  I was then able to crop the poster to just one section, print it out, and then Undo the crop (Command + Z on a Mac, Control + Z in Windows) to move on to the next section.  The result was the poster printed across many sheets of paper that I taped together to make the sign to trace onto my MDF.

There are many ways you can trace a pattern onto wood or MDF (my favorite is this one), but I used my serrated tracing wheel to draw out the detail lines of the letters, the swimmer, the shark and its mouth.  Then, I just filled in those lines with pencil and drew in the other missing details, like his teeth and eyes.

Finally, it was time to paint!  I laid plastic sheeting across my kitchen table and broke out my Glidden Complete – Stain Blocking Paint + Primer.  The first area I painted was the swimmer, and she is painted in Summer Sandcastle.  I was working with the piece upside down at this point, so I was able to quickly move on to the Jaws letters, which are painted in Red Geranium.  I moved to the other side of the piece and painted the shark in Ascot Blue.

The Glidden Complete – Stain Blocking Paint + Primer laid down so nicely!  I painted each color with 2 coats (except the Red Geranium – reds always require more coats than normal), and the color was vivid and rich.  It covered my pencil marks, which is not always the case for other paints.  This will be great paint to use if you have something to hide on your walls or ceiling, such as a water stain or crayon marks.

Once the details were finished, I was able to paint the ombre ocean colors.  The largest portion of the ocean was Marine Blue, so I painted it first.  Then, I mixed the Marine Blue and Lindsay White in equal parts and painted the top part of the ocean.  I did the same thing with Marine Blue and Deep Pool for the small bottom part.  After that was dry, I used a paper towel to blot on the the mixed paints over the top and bottom lines of the Marine Blue, which blended the areas together to form a nice ombre effect.

After the piece dried, all I had to do was hang it on Zack’s bedroom wall.  He quickly declared it “Jaw-some.”

I am thrilled that this last big project for his room is finished.  Now I only have to put together a few little details, and I can declare it DONE!

Do you have a project you need to get finished?  Glidden is giving away 5 gallons of their great Glidden Complete – Stain Blocking Paint + Primer to one lucky winner to get them on their way to declaring it DONE!  To enter, simply fill out the Rafflecopter form below (you’ll need to switch over to my blog if you are reading this post via email) to be entered.  This sweepstakes is open to U.S. residents, 18 and older.

As a MyColortopia Team member, this post is sponsored by Glidden.  All reviews and opinions are my own.

I used to suffer from crazy allergy symptoms.  I was simply beautiful to look at and talk to when everything was in full bloom.  I’m kidding.  In actuality, I thought there was not enough Kleenex in the world to make me tolerable to be around.

But then, two things happened that sort of changed things for me.  The first is that I had Emma.  I literally have zero idea as to why my allergy symptoms got remarkably better after I gave birth to my second child, but they did.  I only have anecdotal evidence to support this, but I think Emma must have had magic powers or something.

The other thing I’ve started doing is using an essential oil blend that I made from Lemon, Lavender and Peppermint Young Living oils (or LLP for short).  As soon as I start to fill a twinge of allergy congestion or headache, I swipe my blend across my forehead, under my eyes, across the bridge of my nose, and under my nostrils.  You know, like this animated graphic (which really cracks me up):

To make my own blend, I bought a roller bottle and put 20 drops each of Lemon, Lavender and Peppermint in it.  If I use it on my kids, I put some coconut oil on them before I apply the oil so that the Peppermint doesn’t feel too hot.  I like to use empty essential oil bottles with a Young Living roller cap for my roller bottles, but here are some good looking ones with metal rollers on Amazon if you don’t have empty bottles (Amazon affiliate).

I’m not the only one who loves LLP.  My new friend Spudly is a big fan, too!

I choose use Young Living oils because of the Seed to Seal promise.  These products are genuine and without synthetics.  The company carefully monitors every aspect of essential oil production – literally from the each plant seed to each bottle’s seal – so that it can produce essential oils with unmatched purity.  I feel confident using them for myself and my family.  There are absolutely other oils on the market, including some that you can buy for much cheaper.  However, from what I’ve found doing my own research, Young Living essential oils are the only that I personally feel comfortable using.

If you would like more information on Young Living essential oils and how they can help your family with their wellness goals (and ease seasonal allergies!), please reach out to me at Lindsay@MakelyHome.com.  I’m always happy to answer questions.  Or if you are ready to get started using Young Living essential oils in your home, you can sign up here.

If you sign up as a Young Living Member, you can order a Premium Starter Kit, which is the perfect way to get started using oils.  If you become a Young Living member (you can’t order the kit by signing up as a retail customer) and place an order for a Premium Starter Kit in the month of April through this link, I will send you a personal gift to help you get started with your essential oils.  I am certain that you will be pleased to have it, as I use mine nearly daily!  ?

Here’s to having fewer seasonal allergy symptoms!

Although my kids haven’t been to Disney when they were old enough to pin trade, they do participate in a lot of pin trading through Destination Imagination.  At both the State and Global tournaments, there are hoards of kids gathered around trading pins and working on their negotiation skills.

We just got back from the Texas tournament yesterday, and Zack brought home a huge amount of pins to add to his Destination Imagination pin collection.  As I was adding them into the book I made for him, I decided to show you the DIY Pin Trading Book I made for him last year, because it is working really well!  You can buy pin trading books at our DI tournaments (and at Disney!), but I wanted to make my own that had some special features – and it was cheaper than purchasing one sold just for pin trading.

I bought a few things on Amazon to get started.  The first thing I got was a zippered 3-ring binder that has a shoulder strap.  It was important to me that Zack could carry around his pins on his own, and I wanted it to be zippered so that he wouldn’t lose pins when he was running around.  The binder I bought him also has a zippered pocket on the front, which I wanted, too.  This is the link to the exact binder I bought for him (Amazon affiliate link), but you may want to search some more on Amazon since there may be some different options now.  This one was $17.99.

I also bought a few bulk sets of 9×12 black 2mm Foamies sheets.  I’ve seen people use felt for page inserts, but they felt too flimsy for me.  The Foamies sheets have some thickness to them, so they don’t feel like they are flopping around.  I bought 2 packages of 10 sheets on Amazon (affiliate link), but again, check prices before you order.  They were $6.41 a package when I ordered.

With my three-hole punch, I punched holes in the Foamies pages and inserted them into the binder.  Depending on the size of the pins, we do anywhere from 6-10 pins on a page so that they don’t get too heavy and rip.

I like to keep his pins organized by type so that he can have a better idea of what he has.  For example, these pins are from Regional tournaments that he has participated in.

I also ordered some rubber backs for the pins in his collection.  Many of them had metal butterfly backs, but I was worried that they would scratch up the surface of the pins underneath them.  It’s also always good to have extra backs on hand because your kids will probably lose some!  He keeps extras in the zipper pocket on the front of his binder.  I bought a package of 50 rubber pin backs on Amazon (affiliate link) for $5.99.  We’ve actually gone through all of them, so I need to order some more.

We have now used all 20 pages of Foamies in his pin trading book, and they are so neat and organized!  He loves looking through them, and I love that they aren’t all over the floor of his closet.

Do you or your kids have any trading pins?  How to your store them and carry them around?