Personalized Labels

Since I’ve had my embroidering machine almost 2 years, I think it’s about time I make some personalized labels to put on the items I make!
I got pinspired:

I had a couple of ideas of how I wanted to make my labels. I don’t have a logo or anything, so I set out to create something unique. I played with some fonts and graphics and here’s what I came up with:

I did this on a Mac and I looked for tutorial after tutorial on how to create a “mirror” image of the document. Nothing worked. I printed it out on paper, and scanned it in to my PC. I pulled the image into Powerpoint and began working.

The first way I tried to mirror it came out totally wrong (the upside down thing isn’t so bad- the gray background- horrible):

So I found another way:
It mirrored it perfectly, I printed a test page, and then printed the real thing onto iron on transfer paper…
And this was the last page my printer will ever print… I neglected to tell the printer that it was special transfer paper. So I think I messed up something. It’s telling me to check the color cartridge, and I have and it won’t fix. Note to self next time- tell the printer what kind of paper it’s printing on! Oh well- it is 6 years old. By the time we buy a new cartridge to test it, we might as well just buy a new printer. It's only like a $20 difference.

I cut out the squares:
and ironed it onto my 3 test surfaces. The directions said to have a sturdy working surface and discouraged using an ironing board- to the counter it was (protected with a pillowcase of course).

One (ironed onto a ribbon to make a tag- kind of like the inspiration. I did protect the delicate ribbon with another pillowcase while I ironed on the transfer):
Two (ironed directly on the shirt- on the inside of course. My OCD husband has since said it needs to go under the main tag. He said it looks asymmetrical and weird there.)
Three (ironed on a piece of fabric and then sewn onto whatever I’m working on- doing it this way would cause the fabric to fray which could look cool):
I think this was my favorite outcome (I heat-sealed the ribbon edges to prevent fraying). I think I like this the best because it looks like it came that way!

call the police...

’cause I just robbed CVS. Hehe… totally joking, but it sure felt like it!
Here were my transactions today:
#1:
4 speed stick deodorant
1 Colgate Total
1 Soft Soap bodywash
2 bags (9 oz) mini M&Ms
1 Cadbury Egg
Total due $9.21
I used (2 BOGO Speed Stick, $1 off colgate, $0.75 off bodywash, $1 off M&Ms)
I got back $6 ECB (speed stick), $1 ECB (M&Ms), $1 Cadbury Egg, $1 Green Bag Tag.
#2:
4 bottles of nail polish
3 packs of gum
Total due: $1.50
I used $1 off trident, and the $9 ECB from the previous transaction.
So total spent today was $10.71… not bad!
I’m not a ‘shelf clearer’ or a ‘hoarder’ but it sure is fun to see how far a buck will stretch! When the total on the screen goes down $10 just from coupons it is just exhilarating!! and if I didn’t get the nail polish, it for sure would have been great. But I can ‘splurge’ on myself every now and then ;)
and I actually bought 2 newspapers today because there are some great coupons!

January week 4:

was purely insane. Friday, 4 events happened in a 3 hour period that hasn’t happened in all 4 years of teaching. It was just crazy.
Other than that it was a pretty quiet week. I got a few orders knocked out that I have been working on. 2 sets of burp cloths (10 in one order, 6 in another). I have 10 towels to monogram this weekend and the beginning of next week. I already did one and I’m pretty pumped about it.
Since we got paid early this month I was able to enjoy Ingles’ BOGOs with coupons. Some of the highlights from the trip- 3 packs of popcorn for a grand total of $0.27 (yes, $0.09 a piece). I also got 2 packs of spaghetti for $0.57 (so around $0.26 a piece). A couple things that I didn’t realize were on sale, were so I got lettuce for $0.99 and Pullups for $6.98 (which is a great price).
I saved over $40 and $16 of that was in coupons.
My mom came up to visit this weekend. Dad is in Florida enjoying some time in the sun. Yeah super jealous.
For the first time in weeks I am totally caught up on laundry and dishes (and I didn’t spend all Saturday doing that). With potty training we are having to wash every other day (hmmmm super similar to cloth diapers!!).
We have been caulking and painting trim this week. Josh fixed the chewed up trim in the laundry room.
This coming week doesn’t seem too eventful, but I guess I should knock on some wood…

bloomin' beautiful

Flowers are my absolute favorite. And my nose is super sensitive to smells so I can’t enjoy them nearly as much as I love them. I remember when I was younger and stayed home with mom sick, she would tell me to imagine a beautiful arrangement of flowers to get my mind off of puking or however I was sick. She usually took it a step farther and would bring home a bouquet of roses too. LOVE those memories and to this day that is what I think about when I’m sick. It puts me in my happy place!

Of course we know I kill any and every thing I touch (plant/flower wise). I am waaay better with flowers than plants, but I forget those suckers depend on their most basic need- water. So I wanted a way to have my cake and eat it too. Have flowers, and the beauty of them (minus the smell) AND not have to water them.

This is what evolved.
Now as my disclaimer- NO I didn’t invent these, NO I’m not going to walk through a step by step tutorial of how to make them, but my idea or not they are just as beautiful!

The idea came from Pinterest. It led me to this blog. And SHE has a step by step tutorial. I used some of the sticks from my “Thankful Tree” as the stems.
The vase was an idea I have been wanting to try- paint poured in a vase. I used the same color as my wall paint (Ben Moore Gray Horse) and found the vase at a thrift store for $0.99. This has been made for over a month, and the paint still hasn’t fully dried… not sure what to think of that- but it really does give it a cool look. Every couple days I’ll tilt the vase to respread the paint. I mean eventually it has to dry RIGHT??? But no big deal.

Here is a close up of the petals. This fabric just tickles me pink.

And it gives me those same warm fuzzies that real flowers did fromwhen I was home sick as a kid.

They sit on my new pretty little vanity to greet me every morning, night, and hopefully NOT in the middle of the night!

101 Change up

Everyone’s allowed to change thier mind right?
As I’ve been tackling my 101′s I’ve found that some of the 101s I had were either-
a. not practical
b. unimportant to me now
c. a given. Things that don’t need to be here but that I know we’ll do.

So in the spirit of marking things off and making life better I decided to switch some out, x-nay them, and replace them with something more practical.

#1. Plant a garden. Although this is noble, who am I kidding??? I wouldn’t even know where to START much less keep the stuff alive. Plus with us putting the house on the market, it just doesn’t seem like a very smart thing to sink money into right now. I am working on indoor herbs… baby steps.

#3. Cook an entire Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner for one side of the family. Love this idea, but coming off the holidays I realized a couple things. If we have people over for the holidays, of COURSE I’ll cook. If we go to them, then they typically cook (and I’ll offer a helping hand.) This one falls into the GIVEN category. It’s something I’ll do regardless. It doesn’t need to be taking up pretty real estate on my list.

#26. Get the piano tuned. Once again this is something I would love to do someday when we are somewhere more permanent. If we sell the house, we may end up renting for some time. Pianos don’t like to be moved. So to get it tuned and then survive 1-2 or maybe 3 more moves…. just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

# 56. Do SOMETHING with the newspapers we saved from our Wedding Day- I’m thinking mod podged onto a canvas with a wedding pic on it?? Tried looking for these papers… and I have NO idea where they are… not in our memory box, or in the closet that I thought they were in. Prime real estate wasted. Good bye. Maybe someday when I find them they’ll be made into something really great.

#62. Go to a pottery store and paint pottery. With the birth of Pinterst and other blogs, this just doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I can find something MORE creative to do with my time.

#64. Refrain from taking in any more animals. 1 dog is enough. Although we do have a tender place in our hearts for stray animals, they all can’t come in. We’ve decided as a family that we will absolutely NOT have another animal while we have Sadie (and that commitment is until death do us part). Well trained dogs take TIME and there is no where in this family for an untrained deee-oh-gee.

#69. Store sheets inside their pillowcases in the linen closet. This was a random pin I found on pinterest. I started to do this and then realized that this would just confuse the linen closet situation. We don’t store things by room (Luke’s sheets, our sheets guest sheets) but by size. So all the pillowcases hang out in one place, all the flat twin in another. This whole sheets inside the pillowcase would just confuse us. No me gusta.

Here’s the new things I’m adding.
1. Make homemade salsa (maybe with the cilantro I plan to grow).

3. Learn how to make a frap at home. Cause it’s more than milk, ice, and sugar- I’ve tried it and that’s nasty. I need to perfect it.

8. Cook baked potatoes in a crock pot.

27. Make pregnancy book and Luke’s first year book. I have been wanting to document all my week by week preggo pictures (that are now over 2 years old- HOLY COW!) and Luke’s month- by- month onesie photos.

56. Make Luke a quietbook. This is something I have all planned out- I just need to find the time to do it.

58. Purge 100- Get rid of 100 things.

65. Make homemade liquid laundry soap. I can pretty much say I’ve mastered the powder. Now on to the liquid.

70. Make us matching Christmas stockings. I think I’ll make 4-5 stockings total since we plan to add to our family in the next few years (not 4-5 kids just for the record… 4-5 people total in our family).

For anyone seriously questioning… I got rid of 7 things- added 8. How does that work?? Well I originally didn’t have 101. I only had 100 things. So as I updated, I added that last one.

Collage-ing (cause collaging just didn't look right)

I think my whole goal in giving our master bathroom a little TLC was spreading the love into the bedroom. This room, sadly was just not on the top of my to-do list. “Most people don’t see our bedroom” or “We’re not in there much to enjoy it” plagued my mind as I thought of what my next project would be, but eventually I got tired of looking at THIS:
I have been thinking about this wall since we moved in. I knew 1-2 pictures would be dwarfed by the ginormity of it. Even a large canvas just wouldn’t look right. Plus, the door in/out of the room is to the left of this picture. Do you find the middle of the room from corner to corner, or from door to corner. Lots of things I have to think about with an OCD huband.
So cue the lightbulbs going off in my head. A collage! It was the only way to make this wall work. I collected my ideas for over a month. As I thought about what I wanted to include, I also kept my eye out for frames/stuff at thrift stores.
I found this “beast” at Salvation Army. $0.75 cents later she was mine. (she… he?)
I turned her into a beauty with some primer and a few coats of ORB (oil rubbed bronze) spray paint.
Here are a few more sneak peeks at the wall-
I found THIS awesome site on pinterest. You can make your letter any color you want, save it and print immediately- all completely FREE! I printed it on cardstock and put it in a painted thrift store frame.
I ordered some accent fabric to match our already red comforter. I ordered 4 different prints from fabric.com and I am LOVING the chevron. I hope to make some throw pillows for the bed at some point with the leftover fabric. And yes this is just a piece of styrofoam covered in fabric. Hot glued it to the back and hung it with an on command strip.
I found this frame at the thrift store too. It caught my eye because it didn’t have a matte or cardboard to hold a picture. I’m thinking when I get my vinyl cutter, I’ll figure out something to put on the glass. Also I wrapped the edges with some of the coordinating fabric I mentioned earlier. To prevent fraying I used pinking shears to zig zag the edges.
So enough chit chatting… here is the finished wall-
A few things I’m not finished with- I want the J to be  brighter white. The mirror frame will get a fresh coat of white paint. Obiviously I need to fill the 2 frames to the right.


P.S. Since this post I have updated the collage a bit. See it here
We moved the vanity out of the room- we are actually thinking about putting our house on the market and the less “stuff” out the better. For anyone wondering (and so rumors won’t start FLYING- which I know they will anyways): we’re not actually leaving Toccoa ANYTIME soon, and we’re not on hard times. We know we won’t be here forever and the less things holding us back the better. We had a really positive meeting with a real estate agent and we are just taking it slow!
While we’re talking about art- here are a few updates from the bathroom.
I am absolutely in LOVE with this fabric. Like I want to make floor to ceiling curtains with it.

I am saving this wall to hopefully find an old wooden spice rack (lightbulb- my mom used to have one…. maybe I should check into that!). I want to paint it and put nailpolish on it. I am LOVING nailpolish now that I am not biting my nail/hangnails.
Now let’s do some math to figure out where I’m headed in the next few months-
a= (now)
a+b=c
I don’t know. I was never good at algebra. :)
Can’t wait to share!

dodged a bullet

Well this week was a total blur! Here are some highlights:

Luke totally surprised me with two new words. Smoke and school. When we were driving to school one morning he saw “smoke” really exhaust coming from another car. He yelled “MOKE”. Didn’t even know that he knew that! Then we passed a school bus and he said “school”. Now we say it everymorning when we get to school and he also says “bye bye bo-bo” which is saying bye to the Barney CD I play in the car. Sweet boy!

My results from the biopsy came back NORMAL! Praise the Lord! I feel like I dodged a bullet, and the longer the results took, the more nervous it made me. Read about that here. But I am excited to cross that off the list!

I went to a Mary-Kay party last night (not my first) and had fun. Got a few things, although I’m really not particular about my beauty products. I’m excited about what I got and supporting the rep. but I don’t think I could ever get into that! I guess I just don’t care that much about makeup I want whatever I can get cheap and with a coupon (although I am really loving the Burt’s Bees brand- and they have coups!).

We have a “Winter ONEderland” party tomorrow that we are excited about! I really can’t believe it’s been a year since Emma Grace was born! Can’t wait to see some great friends!

That pretty much sums up the week. “Short” weeks always seem longer than they are (we had MLK off) especially coming off last weekend as sick as we were. Glad that whatever we had passed quickly and we bouced back to normal by about mid- week.
Some posts I have planned for next week are my personalized labels (which are in process right now), the master collage is done, and how I made the fabric flowers (seen here last picture in post) in the bathroom.

Excited to get out of this cold, rainy month!

giving green a shot

Although I am not a “save the earth” type of person, I’m all about saving some dough and making my house a little healthier- and if it saves the planet too- wahoo!
A few ways we’ve gone green are cloth diapering, cloth wipes, homemade laundry detergent, and cleaning supplies. We are always looking for ways to be more energy efficient too like having an energy audit done on our home and finding ways to make the most of what we have.
I already shared my laundry detergent recipe here.
I feel like a semi-hypocrite saying we cloth diaper. We really don’t anymore. We made the switch at 18 months and did cloth for about 6 months. Atleast we gave it a shot right?? We were thrilled with BumGenius 4.0 with snaps. I bought them at Cottonbabies.com and LOVED everything about this place. Also I got most on sale through their “seconds sale”. We also bought 4 flip covers (they look exactly like the BG, but they are just the outer shell) that I used with prefolds, and one Kawaii cover. Not impressed by the Kawaii because he has such chunky legs and these seemed to have a slim fit. I think we own 15-18, which lasted us 2-3 days. I also have a planet wise wet bag purchased on Amazon. LOVE this thing.
Luke has always been big and I think he just eventually grew out of them. With him pushing almost 35 lbs, I just think he has too much pee pee to be contained in the diapers. He was waking up wet every night (even after stripping, changing out the inserts, making them more bulky, etc.)  which was causing horrible sleep for us all. I do plan to keep my stash (that I spent less than $200 on) for our next child, so that’s where I see us saving the cash. For our next I also plan to ditch all the microfiber (totally NOT impressed), and get hemp or bamboo inserts. We’ll see when that time comes.
He is super cute in his cloth though:
Cloth wipes were something I never thought of before having a baby. But they make so much sense and are super easy to make. I had a friend ask if I would make her some and as I was making them I decided we would make the switch as well. I think Luke was around 6 months old. Here are what my wipes look like: one side terrycloth, the other flannel.
Although the traditional size of cloth wipes are about the size of a washcloth (which folded in half fit perfectly in a disposable wipe box), I made a few half that size. I use the big ones for poopy and the smaller ones just for pee pee. We actually prefer the smaller wipes- which is funny because I only made a few small ones because I was running out of terrycloth. Also the flannel was cut up baby blankets. We received SO many blankets (winter baby) and we never were able to use all of them.
Now onto the wipe solution. There are a couple schools of thought about this. Some people take their solution and pour it over the wipes in the wipe box, so they’re wipes are ready to go. I didn’t do it this way, mainly because I worried about mold and the wipes seem like they’d be too wet. Luke does NOT like a cold bottom and this just seemed like it would be cold.
We mix our solution in a peri- bottle from the hospital. We somehow accumulated 2 (and I never even used them because I had a C). We keep 2 always filled and ready to go. We squirt the wipes at each diaper change, and throw the dirty ones in the laundry. Seriously this is 10 times easier than I ever imagined it could be. We don’t wash the wipes any differently than normal laundry (although if there is a major poopy I may do a rinse cycle first). I do try to scrape most of the poo in his diaper so there isn’t a lot of it sitting in the laundry.
I fill the bottle almost to the top with water, put 2 squirts (about 2 teaspoons) of the baby wash, and 2 tsp of baby oil. Yes there are organic and more ecofriendly options when it comes to baby wash- but I’m cheap and I still have these from baby showers! (2 years later- isn’t that CRAZY??).
I seriously can’t believe how easy it is. Also I am always up for making cloth wipes for anyone. Just e-mail me. I charge $1 a piece (for the big size) and I recommed having about 30 if you plan to do laundry every 2-3 days. Of course the older they get the less you’ll use. But these are also good for boogie and face wiping too.
We also make our own all purpose cleaner (about a cup of vinegar mixed with water in a spray bottle), and I use baking soda and vinegar as a drain cleaner.
I can’t give up Lysol and Clorox toilet bowl cleaner- there’s just something about a fresh toilet. (especially after a weekend like we just had- puking and all). And I still use shower spray: although I did pin a recipe for shower/tub cleaner that uses dawn and another that uses grapefruit. Very interested to try these. But I don’t think I’ll ever give up the toilet cleaner! I also won’t give up windex, although the next bottle I got is the windex with vinegar. It probably isn’t eco friendly at all, but it makes me feel better. I also don’t use paper towels to clean. I’ll use old cut up t-shirts or old washcloths to clean counters/windows/and to dust. I keep them with my supplies in a wipe box.
I have almost completely ditched dryer sheets (I’ll occasionally use a dryer bar, and I am going to make a wool dryer ball for the other days).
We have also tried not using plastic grocery bags. Sometimes they are inevitable, but I’ll only get paper bag at Ingles if my trip uses more than the bags I have. I found some ADORABLE reusable bags at The Container Store that I carry all the time in my purse. The blue shows how big they get and the green shows how small they roll up! Love these things and LOVE that CVS rewards it’s customers with the green bag tag! I never get a bag at CVS becasue of this wonderful perk!
We recycle any and everything we can to shrink the size of our garbage. Every piece of paper, cardboard, and plastic is recycled. We have a great system in our house set up that works for us. A trashcan in a closet for paper (of course important things get shreded). We keep a laundry basket in the laundry room to put plastic and cardboard. This is a holding area. When it gets too full, we’ll take it out to 2 large trashcans we’ve set up outside- one for cardboard and one for plastic. Once a month we’ll take a load to the recycling place and everything’s pretty much already sorted.
Josh lowered the temperature of our hot water heater to get some savings there. We also switched out our old thermostat for a new one. Of course a brand spankin’ new a/c unit would help our energy savings… dream on right?
I feel like we’ve made these changes for us. It saves us money to not buy paper towels all.the.time. I am not a wipe nazi and we do still have disposable wipes on hand for weeks that laundry is just too overwhelming or if he’s sick. Sure, I’ll use plastic bags when I just am not thinking. Luke is in pull-ups (required by daycare) so we are contributing to the landfill that way (of course using coupons for every purchase!). But the small changes we do make such a difference in our home. I am so glad my husband’s on board too. This would be impossible if he refused to touch a cloth wipe/diaper or recycle!

Master Bath Renovation: Part 5 (cost breakdown)

Just a quick update from here. Went to the dermatologist and she did end up removing the mole that I was worried about. She wanted it sent to the lab to test… so now we wait for a few days. The only part of me that is SUPER nervous is it’s on my arm that gets direct sun at recess. The right side of my body is always more tan than the left because of the angle of the sun. And I never think to put sunscreen on at school. I will FOR SURE be doing it this year though. And even though she sliced off a tiny piece it is hurting bad. I can’t imagine how it would feel to have to dig deeper. Also I have one on my back that we are watching for the next year to make sure it’s not changing at all.
This week went by SO slowly. Shorter weeks always do that to me for some reason. Today was a workday and Monday is a holiday.  Luke came down with bronchitis last weekend and we did the whole “wait to see” if it gets worse. Sure enough it did and by Wednesday night he was coughing so hard he puked. It’s so pitiful to see little ones sick. We got him medicine Thursday and he seems completely back to himself today (except for a pretty epic cough).
Ok on to the vanity:
Keep in mind that if we were to have bought just a vanity it would have been $270+ just for a new cabinet, top and possibly mirror (that we really didn’t need anyways). At the minimum, we would have still needed to get a new floor, and my gray walls would have had to wait.
Also, we didn’t have to buy any wood for the built in vanity (it was all leftover from other projects), or most of the trim (for the mirror), or caulk, wood putty, nails, and Kilz Primer. We also already had the trim paint on hand from other touchups in the house.
ORB Spray Paint: $6
Spray Primer x2: $8 ($4 each)
Liquid Sander/Deglosser: $6
Liquid nails (for the mirror): $5
Martha Stewart semi-gloss paint (vanity color): $6.50
Martha Stewart eggshell paint (wall color): $6
Martha Stewart glaze: $6
New pipes under the sink x2: $16 total ($8 each)
All the trim (included the top piece for the mirror, and other pieces on the vanity): $7
Foam Roller replacements: $10
Shelf Support pegs: $7
New knobs/hinges for vanity: $9 (3 knobs, 2 hinges)
Vinyl Tile: $30
Caulk: $3
Organization containers: $30 (the cream colored one was the only one we could find to fit the space. It was a splurge at $16. The rest we just from Target).
Total: $156 (rounded).
Like I said in the vanity post, we are still looking for a new faucet. I’m not ready to spend $80 on one, so what’s there will work for now. I’m hoping to maybe fnd one for under $50. Either way, we are still waaaay underbudget.
We did get Home Depot’s generous Veteran’s Discount of 10% off all the purchases! Pretty great since that basically cuts out tax- (not really but it feels like it).
I just can’t believe that for so little money, how different and great it looks! And I’m sure my parents were happy to save $110+ on our gift! (wink wink I could use some new clothes). :)

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

Back to monogramming!

It feels good to be back!

Although I can’t take a ton of orders at a time, it feels so good to be sewing again!
Here are the most recent things I have done:
Never in my life have I been so scared of piece of material. There is a backstory- About a year ago I had someone ask if I would monogram some bloomers. I didn’t think it could be any harder than monogramming a onesie or anything else with elastic. Was I WRONG and I ate my words. It stitched TOTALLY crooked, and I was so embarrassed. Of course I didn’t charge the customer and I offered to replace the bloomers. She was SOOO generous (as all of my customers seem to be!) and I vowed to stay far away from bloomers. I did end up ordering a pack of bloomers- but they sat and sat. Until I decided to try again this summer- and BIG surprise- it was a TOTAL flop. Crooked again. I guess I was just too embarrassed to take pictures (fortunately this time it wasn’t an order- it was just for fun), but bloomers left me totally defeated.
So I figured it was just about time to try bloomers again! I have since learned a few tricks of the trade to get them on my hoop straight- and I really can’t believe it worked. I do wish the initials would have been farther down on the booty, but I did it a little higher to ensure it was straight- you win some/ you lose some.
Here are some orders I did for a baby shower at work- It was 2 different orders for the same shower.
By the way- the matching flower is a hair clip to match- I haven’t posted these yet on FB but I have a few already made and I can make them with whatever fabric I have.
And I am working on a few other things- including a valentine shirt for Luke. I’m thinking an airplane with “hearts” as the trail of smoke…

Also I just bought some madras plaid fabric off etsy. I had it IN MY CART at fabric.com and they sold out… I was so mad and disappointed and thought that maybe by some long stretch someone on etsy would be selling some… sure enough there was a yard of this Michael Miller goodness! I’m thinking I’ll make him (Luke- not Michael Miller... I don't think he'd appreciate that lol) a pair of shorts for summer with a matching applique shirt. I may have paid a smidge more on etsy, but their shipping was cheaper than the other. That’s what I get for actually thinking through my purchases!
I’m sure I’ll get frustrated or overwhelmed in the next few months and take another break, but absence makes the heart grow fonder :)

Master Bath Renovation: Part 4 (mirror)


It is unbelievable to me that in all the “before” pictures, I never took one of the mirror. Close your eyes and imagine a BIG, shiny, reflective, untrimmed mirror held up with little plastic clips.
But what we found behind it was truly the biggest shocker of the whole renovation (besides the old nasty carpet pieces we found):
When we took the mirror off the wall we got quite a surprise: a huge hole that used to house a medicine cabinet.

This was a huge speed bump because we were planning to use Liquid Nails Mirror Adhesive to attach the mirror to the wall. We did have a secondary support system in mind (small nails around the perimeter of the mirror) just for double protection from the mirror falling off the wall. But this huge hole creates that much less space to put the mirror adhesive. Time for some improvising!
Josh ended up patching the hole with some 2×4′s cut to fit in the hole. The other side of the mirror wall is my closet, so we attached the 2x4s with screws from that wall. Surprisingly, I took no pictures of this procedure. I guess since we were winging it, we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best!
The 2×4′s worked quite well. We attached the mirror to the wall using liquid nails for mirrors and left it to set for 3-4 days. While it was setting, we did re-install the ugly mirror clips to have “extra” protection from the mirror crashing off the wall. Also the mirror was not centered to the wall, or to the vanity (complete head scratcher to us too). Only thing we can think is they went for the studs and centered the clips in the studs to the mirror. We ended up centering the mirror to the wall. If you REALLY look at it, it feels weird that it’s not centered to the vanity top, but the trim wouldn’t have fit on the right side if we centered the mirror to the vanity top. Since there are no before pictures, you are just going to have to go by my word!
We also nailed some finishing nails around the perimeter of the mirror which would be the permanent secondary support system that the trim would cover. As we held our breath, and simultaneously crossed our fingers- we unscrewed the mirror clips and hoped for the best. Thankfully there was no mirror crashing down incident! The mirror held and it was time for trim!

Tidus, a dog we gave away earlier last year had chewed some trim in the laundry room:


This trim needed to be replaced ASAP so we used the top of the chewed trim as the side pieces around the mirror.

We measured, cut, and nailed the new trim in place. <—– makes the whole process seem painless, but in reality 2 drill bits bit the dust, I chipped the mirror (to the tune of a small crack- that magically disappeared 2 hours later…. still not sure what to think about that), and spilled brown paint on a white rug while touching up the vanity… all in a matter of 10 minutes. Frustrated is too small a word to use for how I felt. But with the magicallydisappearingmirrorcrack a few hours later, things improved tremendously and we were able to finish.



Loving this new mirror trim- but during the whole process I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about tearing the whole thing down and buying an already trimmed mirror! :) All’s well that ends well.
I am painfully behind on painting as you can see in the pictures. The bottom half is completely done (trim and all) but up by the ceiling is just slow going. Plus painting paneling is a pain! <— holy alliteration.
Stay tuned for post 5 that will show how much it all cost! We came in under $200- just for a spoiler.