Cheap Bathroom Update

I've been meaning to do a little something to our guest bathroom. I don't have any decor in there because I'm not sure that I want to stick with the color scheme that I have in there (brown, gold, tan, and cream), but I'm not sure what I want to do so I don't want to spend money on things that I'm just going to turn around and get rid of.

So, on a trip to Wal-Mart I picked up two 88 cent soap dispensers (I have two sinks in that bathroom), and decided to come home and spray paint them Espresso. I figured it would add a little color to the white countertop.

Then, I found some leftover beige vinyl and decided I'd cut out a couple of pieces to put on each one of them.

I dug around in a drawer and found some leftover gold ribbon to tie around them.

And this is what I wound up with. Not too shabby for 88 cent soap and a bunch of leftover craft pieces.

The next day, while I was out, I stopped by the Goodwill store and found a canister for $2.99 and two candle holders for $1.99 each.

I came home and cut another piece of vinyl for the canister.

Here it is.

I got a couple of candles at Hobby Lobby for 50% off and stuck those on the candle holders, put everything else out and here it is.

Don't mind me and the broom in the background - I'm nesting - lots of cleaning going on around here these days. But here is the countertop now. Not too shabby for spending less than $20 total. It's a little something to make it feel "homey" until I can figure out what I really want to go with in there.

Pantry Canister Labels

Since I've been in the kitchen cooking so much, I wanted to make my life a little easier and labels the canisters I keep flour, sugar, brown sugar, etc in. After all - just sitting on the shelf flour, sugar and powdered sugar look a lot alike in the pantry next to each other. I used black vinyl and my Silhouette machine to make some labels for each jar.


They look nice, were inexpensive and quick to make and it's so much easier to see what I have now!

Trash!

About a year ago, I bought this little wooden trash can from Hobby Lobby. It was normally $5.99, but I snagged it for half off, in the hopes I would spray paint it and put it in my laundry room for something other than the ugly white plastic trash can I had in there.

Well, time slipped away from me and I forgot about the trash can until the other day when I was cleaning up the laundry room and I decided to get it out of the garage and finally replace my old trash can for the new one.

This is what I started with. I got out a can of Rustoleum White Primer, because I wanted to see how the wood would react with the spray paint.

It looked good white, and didn't get all weird and textured and need sanding like I was afraid it might.

So, I got out the black spray paint and went to town! This is after one coat - it clearly needed 2 and I wanted to make sure to spray paint the inside of the trash can as well. Since it is hotter than Hades here in South Texas, it literally took 15 minutes from start to finish. This is what it looked like once I brought it inside - all nice and pretty!

Then I sat down and FINALLY got my Silhouette machine out (D bought it for me in December). I patiently read every step and instruction and then plugged it in and did exactly how it said. I decided instead of a design on it, I would just put the word "trash" to see how the machine would cut vinyl.

I have a couple of future projects in mind, so I thought that I'd use this cheap little trash can as my test run.

I cut the vinyl out and carefully applied it to the trash can and this is what I came up with... The font is called "Just Realize" Not too bad for my first attempt, I don't think. And this is it all done and in place.

And this is my laundry room. I just keep that little trash can across from my machines, to put lent in when I clean out the dryer or the occasional dryer sheet, so it doesn't have to be big and sturdy but no reason it has to be ugly either!