From Drab to Fab (again)

So, it has been a hot minute since my last post. I have been busy galavanting around the country. I went to Georgia and stopped in the Smokey Mountains on the way home, which were beautiful. However,  I brought my dog and Gatlinburg is not an overly dog friendly town, FYI, none of the restaurants I found would let her sit on the patio and Crystelle Creek that  http://www.bringfido.com  recommended was closed at 9:30 pm. However,  Brookside Resort  allowed dogs. We had a great room that backed right up to a river! Brookside Resort Gatlinburg, TN  Upon returning I have one thing on my agenda and that is getting my apartment clean and ready for school to start! My mom let me borrow her carpet cleaner so I have been busy shampooing the carpets. In addition to shampooing the carpet I have to vacuum and I, for a while, have used powder carpet deodorizer...it works okay. It leaves my carpet smelling fresh for a few days but in my bag-less vacuum cleaner, it makes ...

So, I have still been working away organizing and cleaning up my apartment. Being a direct descent from a packrat, organization is very important. Last night I finally got all my craft supplies sorted and off my kitchen table. I went from having a cluttered "hardware box" to having my tools separated into their own drawer and all of those random screws and stuff have their own little boxes. I don't know about you but I seem to accumulate jewelry boxes. I hate to throw them away, but I don't store my jewelry in them and they become a nuisance lying around. Until I repurposed them into hardware holders. Photo by C. Scharton Tah-dah! Now I have less empty boxes sitting around. Plastic bags are cheap and can work well to organize but instead of pulling out new bags it was easier just to recycle old boxes. And the boxes hold up much better to sharp metal objects compared to plastic. I put these boxes into a shoe box. Now I know where to find whatever it is I am looking for...

Today I was browsing through my old computer and found my art portfolio from my senior year! I did an independent art study where I decorated  home goods (from Goodwill of course) using up-cycled materials. I can't believe how quickly time has gone by and now I am going to be a senior in college. For several years I had been collecting bottle caps after being obsessed with a bottle cap belt Buckle had at the time. Soda Bottle Cap Belt My mom wouldn't buy it for me so I guess my plan was to make my own...but that never happened. Since I had so very many bottle caps I thought why not use bottle caps in my artwork? All three of my frames used bottle caps in some fashion or another. The blue frame called "Space Junk" was a trial and error.... Only error isn't fixable when we're talking hot glue on wood but I HAD to salvage the frame (even if it was $2 at Goodwill). I decided to paint the hot glue remnants gold and "Space Junk" looked like, well, space j...

A work in progress is making over my ugly brass kitchen hardware. I was thinking it might give my kitchen  a nautical/rustic sort of look by wrapping hemp string around the hardware. It's an easy way to make over the hardware without damaging it. I actually went way over the top with this project and found there were a lot of things I could do beyond wrapping them in hemp string. Since I was just "experimenting" I went a little wild to see how many ideas I could come up with. The product turned out to be pretty interesting. 1. Twine with pearls. FYI wrapping twine around a cabinet handle is not easy! 2. I had this bright idea to affix seashells to a popsicle stick (that I saved from being carelessly thrown away :) and then tying the popsicle stick to the hardware. 3. This was my mom's idea. Similar to the pearls but sequins with a jewel in the middle. Again, not easy to wrap the hardware! 4. More saving popsicle sticks from the landfill! If you couldn't tell from ...

Well, this is it. Post number 10. The final post for my media class. I kind of had 10 topics planned out from the start but I greatly deviated away from those... so I guess that means I am going to have to keep blogging until I run out of things to share with the world. I am excited too because with the launch of my webpage I have received more views than ever, yay! :) If you haven't checked out my webpage you can do so at  http://notrahcs.weebly.com . I was out shopping today and thought it would be a good day to share my favorite home decor stores with you all. 1. Wal-Mart, They have come along way in the last 5 years or so. They offer trendy things at decent prices and are even starting to make more products in the US. (on a side note though, as I was reading a label closer the other day and it said 50% American made, Made in the USA... but that's a start, right?) Oh, and they are open 24 hours to satisfy my need to decorate at 1 am. 2. Burlington Coat Factory, They have som...