Faux Iron Wall Art For Less Than $1

I love iron wall art. But it can be kind of pricey. Hobby Lobby has a great selection and their prices are usually pretty reasonable, especially if they have it on sale for fifty percent off! The only problem with that is, the nearest HL to me is about an hour's drive. So I can't just "run by" and pick up a piece whenever I want to. I've seen the wonderful creations out there in blog land where some talented folks have made their own iron look wall art out of toilet paper rolls and it inspired me to give it a try. Only I decided I wanted a piece of wall art that was longer than I could get from a toilet paper or paper towel roll. So I bought a piece of poster board and got to work! I used a yard stick to draw some lines the width I wanted then I just cut them out, leaving me with long strips of paper. I used a pencil to curl my paper edges to the shape I wanted. I cut some of my strips down to get the sizes I wanted. Sorry, but I didn't take any pics of the actual process. I wasn't sure it was going to work so I was just basically playing with it. I used my trusty hot glue gun to glue my paper together. When I was finished, it was a bit flimsy so I found an old thin dowel I had in my craft stash and cut it down to size, then hot glued it to the bottom of my piece. Then I added a couple more smaller pieces of paper to it to finish it off. Once I was satisfied with my "art", I spray painted it with some black paint and then finished it with a light coat of spray sealer. Here's my finished piece:





Pretty good for a first try, don't you think? This was easy and fun and I'll definitely make more!

I'm linking up with Linda's Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays over at Coastal Charm, with Kim's Wow Us Wednesday over at Savvy Southern Style, with Kate's Flaunt it Fridays over at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, with Kindra's Terrific Under Ten Tuesday, and with Christina's 20 Below Thursdays over at Christina's Adventures.
Oh, and here too:



Until next time. . .

Brownies ~ Quick and Easy!

We are having a "potluck" lunch at work next week with an all American theme to kick off the long Memorial Day weekend. We will be having grilled hotdogs with all the fixins! I signed up to bring a dessert. So I thought, what's a more American dessert than brownies?? I have a tried and true simple, but oh so delicious, recipe for brownies and I thought I'd share it with y'all.



Quick and Easy Brownies

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 x 9 pan. Mix oil, sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Beat in eggs. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Gradually stir in egg mixture and mix till well blended. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

You can add your favorite nut to this recipe also, but since I'm taking it to a public function, I don't want to chance anyone being allergic to nuts so I left them out. When I make these at home, I leave the nuts out most of the time as well, since my boys don't really care for them. These brownies are so moist and tasty! And they are easily transportable so that makes them perfect for my potluck work lunch or for a picnic by the lake. You could also easily dress these babies up with some icing and sprinkles to match your occasion's theme. But I'm leaving mine plain for this lunch. Simple, but delicious! Enjoy!

Until next time. . .

New Counter Tops -- Well, Almost!!

We worked really hard on the kitchen this past weekend. Both Scott and I took the day off work Friday so we had three days to work on it. We got quite a bit done, but we still have a long way to go! One thing we did get completed was the counter tops. I would have loved to put new granite counter tops in, but when you have champagne dreams and only a beer budget, that ain't gonna happen! So we found this amazing product at Lowes:



Counter top paint made specifically for laminate counter tops! How awesome is that??? Let me just say, this is the coolest stuff I've ever seen! I had seen a few other people use it and post about it on their blogs in the past, so I did some research on it and thought I'd give it a try. We paid around $22 for this container and they tinted it for us in the store. There are about seven or eight different colors you can chose from and we chose black. Scott was a bit skeptical about it but I convinced him that we should give it a try. If it was a bust, it surely wouldn't be the first $22 we'd ever wasted! Now I will say this, it stank to high heaven!!! I mean bad, bad, bad!! We painted one portion of the counter on Thursday evening and the smell just about ran us out of the house. I would highly recommend that if you use this, take it outside! I am very impatient and didn't want to wait until day light to try it. I learned my lesson! Also, it takes three days for the paint to cure so you can't set anything on the counters during that time. It dried pretty quickly and you just roll it on with a foam paint roller. Easy peasy!

Here's the counter top before:



And here's the same counter after:



And a closer view:



And finally, almost new counter tops, all decorated and looking mighty pretty:





We also finished up the back splash and got most of the upper cabinets painted. I'll share those later this week with y'all.

I'm linking up to Kim at Savvy Southern Style for Wow Us Wednesday this week.

Until next time. . .