Thursday, July 28, 2011

It's here!!

Finally it is here! The IKEA Centennial store opened Wednesday July 27th and I was there! Call me crazy, but I LOVE Ikea.

Mr O'Connell and I woke up at 4 am to get to Ikea on Wednesday. We got there at 4:30 and were roughly # 300 in line. We made friends with some of the girls around us which made the time go faster. At 8:30, the ceremonies began, including the singing of the Star Spangled Banner, the Swedish Nation Anthem and America the Beautiful while raising the US, Swedish and Colorado flags. Then the Governor, John Hickenlooper sawed a log, which is apparently a swedish tradition.

The first 2500 people got something at the door, an envelope with either a gift card or coupon in it. Mr O'Connell got a $10 gift card, which was awesome, but I got a $100 gift card which was even MORE awesome!!

Over all the whole experience was amazing and SO worth it. We got a sauce pan, and a skillet and a Wok, along with some frozen meatballs.

I just can't believe I can go any time I want!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

TWO 30 min diy's!

So sorry it has been so long! Life has been crazy busy, and there hasn't been a lot of time for DIY! But the good news is, the month long dry spell has finally come to an end :) This weekend, we did two projects that took less than 30 min each! Gotta love a speedy diy!

On Wednesday, Mr O'Connell and I were sitting on our kitchen benches, wishing for something squishier and softer to sit on. Thats when we decided to cover our beautifully stained benches. They are so pretty, but we needed something more comfortable. So we drove to Joanne's to fix the problem.

After looking at lots of different fabrics to cover our benches, we decided on a faux leather that was very close to the stain they were, so they would still match. To add comfort, we bought a 2 inch high density foam for padding. (of course only after sitting on different thickness on the floor to test their comfort)

And so the transformation began. First we layed the benches on the foam to measure how big of a piece to cut, and we cut them out, using an electric knife.

Then we set the foam on top of the bench to see if it fit.
Then we flipped it upside down on the fabric and started stapling. First we stapled one end, to tack it down, while we pulled the other side taught. But we wanted it to be square shaped, not rounded so we made sure not to pull too hard.
Then it was just a matter of pull, hold and staple the whole way around. Until we got to the corners. I wanted pretty corners, so I folded it and stapled like this:
Which made the corners look like this:

LOVE them. So now the bench is padded :)

Our second project was a headboard for our guest bed. While at Joann's we spotted the PERFECT fabric for our headboard, and it was 50% off, so of course, it was ours.

So we built a frame out of 2x2's and stapled the fabric around the frame, of course pulling taught.



And TADA!


Now all we need is a crisp white blanket and white sheets. I love the bright colors together!

:)