How to Remove Spray Paint From a Mirror

I got a great deal on a dresser/mirror set for Tasha several months ago (by great deal, I mean the neighbors were getting rid of it and let us take it for free) and figured the easiest way to update it and hide the stains/scratches/etc was to spray paint it (I tried gel stain first and it was a depressingly utter disaster). I know, I should have taken before and after pictures and I fully intended to take a before picture and kept forgetting as I started, head-first into each project (it's a curse, really).

Anyway, I got the dresser and nightstand all done and got lazy with the mirror. I didn't bother taping it at all. I just laid some paper over the mirror itself and figured that would do the trick....

Nope.

Here's what happened:

 The majority of the mirror looks like that (although the edges look even worse from the epic gel stain failure).


I tried to scrape the paint off with a razor blade, and, although it did the work on the gel stain (and took forever), the amount of spray paint and the size of the mirror made the razor essentially useless.

Luckily, Almighty Google came to my rescue and led me to Young & Crafty, where a similar case of laziness (though not as severe as mine) had led to a mishap as well. She recommended nail polish remover. I was skeptical, as was she, but after a LOT of scrubbing and a couple of ventilation breaks, the mirror looks brand new! Hooray!

And here is the finished product hanging up in Tasha's room. She loves it and I am so glad to have it finally done and put up (it sat in the back yard for nearly 2 months! eek!)

Organize My Life! (or at least all my daughter's hair accessories)

This one is my favorite so far

Anyone that is friends with me on Facebook has seen all the cute hairstyles I have done on Tasha's hair over the last year or so. What they haven't seen is the massive amounts of hair accessories that have taken over my bathroom (mine included!). All that girly-ness has been grating on Riker, although he has kept it to himself for the most part. Luckily, he doesn't spend that much time in the bathroom, so the 3 cupboards, a drawer and a medicine cabinet filled with all of my magic tools, gels and sprays doesn't have THAT much time to irritate him... until it adds up...

So...

I decided that I was going to buy Tasha an accessory organizer. They have been all over Pinterest, but I was too lazy to make some cute, fabric/batting/ribbon board. I found one at Walmart the other day, but wasn't really impressed by it. Plus it cost $10! Seriously, I know I could make one for less than that (but how to do it and still be lazy? lol).

Here's my inspiration:

Here's what I came up with:

It wasn't nearly large enough to hold ALL of our accessories, but then again, I still haven't figured out the best way to include all of the little clipies and rubber bands we usually use. Either way, this gets most of the bulk out of my bathroom.

I only spent $3 on this to buy the white knobs. The rest I did using supplies I already had laying around. Want to see?

Here we go!

I started with a shelf from an old broken bookcase (yes I have a pile of shelves in my garage) which I had spray painted to match Tasha's dresser
a 2 pack of cabinet knobs
two coordinating ribbons at least 3/4" wide.
sticky velcro
scissors
hot glue gun
sharpie

For fun, I drew a bunch of scrolls on the board with a sharpie. I think they turned out really great, but you can't really see them once you put all the ribbon on.

You attach 3 or 4 strips of ribbon to one half of the board, wrapping the ends over the edges and gluing them in back ONLY. Attach the knobs to the opposite side of the board. I added an additional strip of ribbon to the knob half, but in loops for the headbands. Because Tasha has so many elastic headbands, I cut the top ribbon and attached sticky velcro to both sides.

There you have it. Not the most detailed tutorial, but I didn't take a lot of pictures in the FIFTEEN minutes that it took me to make this. Hopefully it gets the job done!

Scrappy Saturday- Girl's bed canopy

Yar is currently obsessed with Tinkerbell and fairies. However, I don't want to succumb to the craziness that comes with buying decorations from a certain conglomerate company. You buy the comforter, the girl wants the sheets. You buy the sheets, she wants the wall decals. You buy the wall decals... you get the idea. So, I decided to go more with a floral theme, since Tink is always flying around in the flowers right? Needless to say, Yar was not happy with the fact that I wasn't going to go out and buy every single Tinkerbell thing ever made (yes, she even threw out the "my MOTHER decorated my room with Tinkerbell." Well, great. Now you already have a Tinkerbell room, so you can explore other options...). Even after seeing all the hard work I put into her room and how cute it turned out, she's still not entirely convinced (I'm sure that has to do with her void issues, which is a whole other story).

Anyway, I made these cute tissue paper flowers that I think were supposed to be dahlias, but turned out more like peonies. I hung them from the ceiling with fishing wire and thumb tacks. The bedding was from my younger sister, who is now married and has more "marriage friendly" bedding (what guy in their right mind would sleep on multi-colored floral bedding? Willingly mind you), and was kind enough to donate to the cause. I also put up a cute curtain that has multi-colored polka dots (yes there are a lot of colors and shapes in this room!) and some vinyl stickers in pink and green circles. It still seemed to be missing something. I figured that a canopy over the bed would add a touch of whimsy. Besides, I had wanted one for years as a kid (truth be told, I still want one...). Here's what I came up with:

So, I grabbed 4 old sheer curtains that I wasn't using anymore, but didn't have the heart to toss and started brainstorming. It wound up being SO simple. Before my husband tossed it out, I pulled the front frame off of our oscillating fan that died last week. I could have used a wreath form, and probably should have just due to the time it took to remove the stupid fan frame, but it was late at night and I was in craft mode (must... complete... craft...). I snipped the wire to allow for threading the curtains on and then wrapped the frame in ribbon to help the curtains not catch on anything. I put the curtains on and hot glued the ends of the frame back together. I then put two ribbons across the frame in a cross (between each curtain) and hung it up! Easy peasy! Aside from the fan frame, I think this project took all of 15 minutes. 20 if you count the ribbon wrapping. You could easily buy fabric instead. I just wanted to use up what I already had on hand.