Grandma Yetta Costume

I am a HUGE  fan of The Nanny.  It's for sure in my top 5 favorite shows of all time. I have this dream of being each of The Fine women for Halloween, Yetta, Sylvia, and Fran (although technically Yetta isn't a Fine....she's a Rosenberg, but you get the idea and that's probably more information than you needed to know anyway)

A few years back I was Fran.  You can see the post HERE. 

I'm going to have to do a redo some year.....because honestly it wasn't that great.  My hose weren't opaque enough, my lips weren't red enough, and the hair wasn't high enough.  It was a bit half assed and Fran Fine deserves my whole ass.  But in my defense.....I was in charge of alllllll the food for the particular Halloween party, and most of you probably know that when you are the one pulling the party off...you getting ready (whether it be cute and dolled up or in costume) always seems to take a back seat and you never quite turn out the way you wanted.  Someday I will do her justice!

Fast forward about 2 years.....(but still at least 8 months before Halloween) and I was doing a little shopping at Goodwill.  I was walking down an aisle and the clothes on a rack parted and light came shining down from the sky......ok so not exactly.  BUT it did sort of feel like divine intervention.  

The rack was totally full and I couldn't see the front of it....but for some reason I was drawn to what at the time I could only tell was a black sweater with thick shoulder pads.  Once I moved the clothes next to it and I could see the front.....I gasped (gaspy hands on face emoji) and proclaimed out loud for the world to hear (really) "A YETTA sweata!!!"

It was a bright sequined sweater that instantaneously SCREAMED Grandma Yetta and I bought it right on the spot and kept it the rest of the year until Halloween.  Things like that just don't happen everyday and you must seize the opportunity!

Once it got a little closer to Halloween I started to gather the rest of the components for my Yetta  getup.   I bought a cheapo fanny pack and painted it gold with sparkly acrylic paint, stole some pants from my mothers closet (not sure why she had such horrendous pants that I don't remember her wearing since I was in the first grade...but whatevs....worked out well for me!) and bought a grey wig online.  The finishing touch was the glasses from https://www.giantvintage.com/collections/vintage-womens-sunglasses and a little lipstick.

My sister Bree was my hairstylist Halloween day and did an AMAZING job at teasing the ever lovin crap out of the wig and giving me some pretty EPIC Yetta hair.  It came out 1000000x better than I could have ever imagined or done myself.  Good job seester!

 Here it is all done

And a little side by side action

I can't wait to do a Fran redo and get my Sylvia on!

DIY Dyed Shoes

Let's jump right to it....

When I saw these plain white shoes at Walmart for the low price of $4.44...or something crazy awesome like that I had to have them

I walked around the store for about 40 minutes trying to decided which style I wanted.  You would have thought I was making a major life decision....but I ended up choosing the Keds style.

Pick out your color dye.  I chose yellow for a very specific reason....you'll see why in a future post

Start by  saturating the shoes with water.  This will help them to soak up the dye more evenly

Follow your directions on your dye bottle....which mostly likely means bringing  a big pot of water to boil with your dye

Add your shoes

I found that flipping the shoes over gave them the opportunity to dye most evenly in my pot.  But depending on the size you have you may need to do one shoe at a time

Once they reach the shade you desire, take them out and rinse them well under cool running water

I set mine outside to dry... and that's it!

Here's a picture of the finished shoes in the middle....next to a similar style store bought red pair.  Not too bad for a DIY dye job. Now I want to make a pair in every color

Stay tuned for more about these shoes in the future

DIY I Heart My Hubby Shirt

When I was rolling around ideas in my head of what to get my friend Jade for her bridal shower I decided enough people would probably get her lingerie that I would go a different route.  Usually bridal showers are chalk full of the sexy stuff....hers was no different.  She will definitely have her pick of stuff for a while.

Funny thing though is I literally got NONE at my shower a few years back....and that's practically unheard of!  I dug up this picture to prove it.  Not a negligee in sight (I really just wanted excuse to say negligee)

Anyway....I settled on the idea of making her a "I <3 My Hubby Shirt"  I wore one that I had made for the after party on our wedding night and since I'm kind of a sucker for traditions and stuff it seemed appropriate the she have one too.  That's where this text came into play.....

The girl has big knockers.....I had to be sure

 I really wanted hers to look very "I <3 NY" style so I bought a plain black shirt, iron letters, and heart patches. Someday I hope I'll have a cutting machine of some sort so I will be able to make my own stencils or cut out vinyl and do more intricate designs but until then iron ons are my go to

Voila

And then I thought I would leave it up to her.  She could either wear it as a regular old T shirt, OR.....she could go for a more cute, casual, sexy thang and wear it to bed with some matching red panties

There's options

And for the record....finding red underwear around Valentines Day is HELL!!  I thought it would be easier....I was wrong

DIY Kitchen Countertop and Cabinet Redo

I had zero to do with this project.  Nada. Zilch. This was all the hard work of my sister and brother in law.  I just get to write about it....win!

They bought a cute house that was built in 1986.  The joke is that my brother inlaw seems to love everything from that year.  Not only is it the year the house was built, but it's also my sisters birth year and the release of his favorite movie, Top Gun.   Anywho, the house is in great condition but needs a little sprucing up to fit their taste.....especially the kitchen

Not terrible...but drab builder grade.  Regular oak cabinets and formica counters

First project up was the counter tops.  They used a Rustoleum Cabinet Transformations kit.  It contains everything you need from deglosser (eliminates the need for sanding) to the top coat and everything in between

Ta -dah!!

Lookin better already!  But they didn't stop there....the counters were up the next weekend.  They really wanted granite but that would be a big expensive pain in the ass.  After alot of research they decided on the Armor Garage brand Countertop Kit.  It's a bit more expensive than other kits out there but the end results is heat resistant (like real granite) and thicker than other kits on the market. It also has the "sparkle" effect already mixed into the paint so you don't have to sprinkle it in yourself

The counter tops made the look of the cabinets pop even more!

What a difference right??

It really turned out great and looks even better in person.  Their dog Phoebe agrees but she is glad it's all over....quite frankly this kitchen project was exhausting for her

So if you have been thinking about sprucing up your kitchen don't rule out these DIY options.  It may take a little work, but it will save you ton of money

For more DIY kitchen cabinet ideas check out this post by Top Reveal. They have so many great ideas that I have never even seen before! It's amazing what you can do to personalize your space yourself

DIY Tennis Racquet Mirror

This project is old.....REAL old.   Like I made this for my nieces' 13th birthday and she just turned 14 a few weeks ago old.

Better late than never right?  Or so they say

So my Katie is quite the little tennis star.  She's been taking lessons for maybe 4 years I think?.....somewhere around there

She was 13 and playing against 17 year old boys.  She was kicking ass and taking names like a champ....that's my girl!

I wanted to give her a tennis themed birthday gift and I came across this picture on Pinterest that gave me the idea

So I made my trip to Goodwill to hunt down an old racquet and found this (beware of crappy pictures to come)

I spray painted the whole thing a light blue

I don't seem to have any pictures, but then I put a few coats of  blue glitter acrylic on it

Then comes the mirror portion. I didn't have the time, patience, or ability to cut the mirror to the exact shape of the racquet like the inspiration photo.  I just went to Michael's Craft Store and bought a round mirror that would fit in the middle.  I kind of like the exposed strings because I feel like she could use it to hang earrings or something if she wanted to

I used the best glue in the world....E-6000 Glue

What I did was glue the mirror to the strings as best as possible, and then took a piece of cardboard cut to the same size as the mirror and glued it to the backside.  This way the strings of the racquet were sort of sandwiched in the middle and the mirror had something to stick to (the cardboard)


I decorated the mirror by gluing on some gems I had.

Get this.....those gems were from a kit I got from my older sister Heather for Christmas in the 3rd grade.  Katie was born when I was in 3rd grade.....so those gems are literally as old as her.  I've had them for over 13 years

But hey.....my theory is that it's not hoarding if you eventually use it......right?


Now I'm already a bad photographer....terrible.....no good

But damn it's hard to take a picture of s mirror! I honestly have no clue how to do it and make it look even remotely ok looking.  So they're pretty bad




Baaaadddd.......

Still bad

And you guessed it......bad

And while I was on this tennis kick I also made this sign for her bedroom

I hope that when she makes it as a big tennis star she remembers how her favorite auntie was so supportive of her tennis career.....remember that Katie! ;)


So now you know what to give the tennis player in your life.....I know how often people are on the hunt for a good tennis gift.....all the time I assume

DIY Painted Floppy Hat

Last summer I fell in love with the floppy hats at the dollar store.  They seriously seemed almost exactly the same as the ones I've seen that are $10 and up 

Here's the one I made back then

And the tutorial.   In that post you'll see how I said I was tempted to buy a bunch and make a butt load of different designs

Welp.....I did just that.  I bought a bout 5....ok 6.............alright maybe it was 8

And now I'm having fun doing all sorts of fun stuff to them.  This first one I made was inspired by this look that I found at alot of different stores....stripes!

All I did was use acrylic paint to paint on the stripes using the lines on the brim of the hat as my guide 

You really have to sort of push the paint through the holes for even coverage

I just did one black stripe and one white stripe.  I'm debating whether or not I should keep going and paint the entire thing like the example above?   What do you think?   Or should I leave it?   I can't decide!!

Thanks to Elsa for modeling it for me

Can't beat getting a customized hat for around $2.

DIY Custom Shirts Using Freezer Paper

I have been DYING to start making my own shirts.  My head is stuffed full of cool sayings and designs.....but I've been unsure of the best way to go about executing them

I really love all the cool shirts people make using iron on vinyl....but since I don't have a Silhouette Cameo or any other kind of cutting machine for that matter (This busy broad is also a poor broad) I haven't really felt like I should bother breaking into the world of vinyl.  Pretty much too depressing for me without a machine haha

So I decided to finally give the freezer paper technique of making shirts for an idea I had for my niece Elsa's birthday

If you follow me at all, you might remember that she had a camping themed party....so sticking with the theme I decided to make a "Happy Camper" shirt

First off I decided to use up some pink flower iron on letters I had left over from making the little girls flower girl shirts for the rehearsal

Then came the camper portion

I found an imagine online and printed it out.  Then I traced it with sharpie onto the freezer paper

I marked with an X what was to be cut out.  

CAREFULLY cut the entire image with an exacto knife as well as the X out areas....but be sure to keep the pieces..you're going to need those

Take the piece of freezer paper and iron it onto the shirt shiny side down.  It's the shiny stuff that makes it stick

Then position those little pieces you saved and iron those on too

Take your fabric paint and cover the whole area using a foam brush.  I did about 3 coats to get it even

Peel off the outside

And then the little pieces

Not perfect...but not terrible for a first attempt at a new technique.  You can see spots where I didn't have the paper ironed down good enough so paint seeped under.  Next time I will do a better job of checking that.  But once you put the shirt on a cute kid I think it  doesn't even matter....right?