Neon to LED..the “antiques” sign all lit up
I can not tell you how excited I am that my “antiques” neon sign is up and working. It really makes a statement hanging over my new Frontgate table and chairs, I couldn’t be any more happier with the way it all turned out.
Gorgeous right? The size, the scale, all so perfect.
To turn this cool old “antiques” sign into a working fixture, I first took all the neon electrical components out. Which made it 100 times lighter, neon transformers weigh a ton. I loved the glass gaskets and thought it would be cool to keep them and light them up from inside. A couple of them were broken, and I had no clue where to get them. But wouldn’t you know it, Amazon had them. What can’t you buy on Amazon right?
The wiring job was way out of my realm. I used an electrician to do all the electrical work.
From the inside, he placed amber LED’s through all the glass gaskets
The underneath of the sign was in pretty bad shape, so I went to a metal supply place here in San Diego and had them cut me two pieces of sheet metal to fit. I spray painted the metal with a color I had in my stash called “jade”. My electrician thought it would be better to use LED down lights rather than halogen lights to save on electricity. He told me that the light output was a warm white color and it would illuminate the table nicely. I was skeptical, but I said ok. So he cut the holes for the LED down lights and screwed the new metal to the bottom.
Making an “Antiques” neon sign into an outdoor light fixture
A couple of months ago I bought this LARGE antique neon sign at Architectural Salvage in San Diego.
I was looking for an unconventional item to use as a light fixture over my new outdoor table from Frontgate
This is the plan I came up with to make the transformation
The sign is an old and rusty neon sign that is 8 feet long. The store employee told me it was double sided, and since I couldn’t see the other side being that it was against the wall, I took their word for it. And technically it is, but not exactly. Since the sign is so large and heavy, I wasn’t able to thoroughly check it out until they delivered it a week later. That is when I actually got to give it the good once over. I still loved it, in all it rusty goodness, but the other side looks nothing like the side I saw in the store.
There is a trace of the word “antiques” on the other side, but barely. So I have been hand painting the letters back on the sign.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to make the letters look old and rusty like the other side. I started with the “a” and the “n” and used white acrylic paint, which was probably not the best choice. I lightly sanded the area first but didn’t bother to put on a primer or rust inhibitor before painting. Totally winging it as I went along.
Operation Baby Shower – The Nursery
What is Operation Baby Shower? It is a charity event my friend Linda Millimaki is part of that throws a baby shower for all the couples on our local military base. Linda is the Director of Operation America Cares. They send care packages to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 7000 packages have been sent from her home in 3 years. She gives of herself to this charity like no other, she is such an amazing woman! I have seen her house full of care packages and it is astonishing to see the work that goes into getting those packages out. It is such a huge undertaking, but she will tell you that her reward is in the smile it puts on the soldiers faces and the endless thank yous when they get a one of her packages. Truly inspiring.
For me personally, I can not express my gratitude enough for the men and women of this great country who dedicate and sacrifice their lives for our freedom. I asked Linda if I could offer my design services as a donation for the Operation Baby Shower, a little something from me to give back to our military.
The couple that won my services are from Minnesota and are stationed here in Oceanside, the sweetest people you ever met. They are having a baby boy in September, and his name is going to be Noah.
Listen To The Mustn’ts sign
I wanted to do a custom sign for the nursery I am working on, so I asked the mom-to-be if she had a favorite saying or poem she loved. She sent me the poem, “Listen to the Mustnt’s by Shel Siverstein. I was a little intimidated to do a poem, but I couldn’t go back and tell her “oh, sorry, there is a word limit on what you can have as your favorite because I have never done one that long” lol
I used an old chicken coop crate lid that I found at Architectural Salvage in San Diego. Which of course made it even more difficult since it has spaces in between the wood. Yeah, I like to make things as difficult as possible when I am doing something I have never done. So I took it really slow figuring it out on my silhouette program, and printed it out in sections.
I used turquoise on the main words to tie in with the inspiration picture I am using in the room.
The sign wasn’t easy with all those words, but it is done and ready for the room.
Linking up to
Amanda at Serenity Now Weekend Bloggy Reading
Angie’s Create & Inspire Party
Gail’s Catch as Catch Can
Amy’s Saturday Seven Party
Turquoise and Navy Nursery
I am working on a turquoise and navy nursery for a couple in the military. Designing this nursery stems from when I donated a gift certificate for my design services for the charity Operation Baby Shower. It is for our local military base, Camp Pendelton in Oceanside. The young couple that won the gift certificate are super duper sweet and are having their first son, Noah in September.
I showed them this picture by Carl Christensen and they loved it. It was my starting point for the nursery.
I knew they wanted to use navy in the room, so I needed to figure out how to marry the turquoise color in the picture with navy. After a little research on Pinterest, I fell in love with the navy and turquoise combination
I also used the web site Design Seeds to pull together color combinations. You put in your colors and it gives you a beautiful color palette with a picture
Since my inspiration picture has a lot of brown in it, and their crib is brown I also made a palette with browns and turquoise
In the end, I came up with this design incorporating gray, navy, turquoise and brown
The blue chair is child size that will have the Ikea shelves above it for a reading area. The poem is by Shel Silverstein, a favorite of the mom-to-be that I am going to make into a sign for the room.
4th of July decorations and desserts {and a cute video}
It sure was weird having the 4th of July on a Wednesday this year wasn’t it? I know it has been a week since the holiday, but I don’t think it is too late to show you some fun things I did to celebrate.
Our 4th was spent with family, eating, swimming and watching fireworks in our backyard. I decorated and cooked for two days. I just love the 4th of July, it makes me so proud to be an American, I can not get enough of the red, white and blue.
I wanted to make to another magnetic table skirt for the 4th of July using strictly flags. {in case you missed how I did my first magnetic table skirt, you can see it here}
For my 4th of July table skirt, I used 4 nylon flags I purchased at Home Depot. The cool thing was, they were exactly 30″ long, all I had to do was sew them end to end. This time though, the magnetic tape adhesive wasn’t sticking to the nylon fabric. {I am learning as I go with this magnetic skirt idea} I ended up having to staple the magnetic strip to the flag skirt. Once I got the magnetic strip secured, it attached and detached to the table with ease. It is something I will use year after year, I just love how it turned out.
I bought carnations and daisies from Costco for all my flower arrangements and inserted flags
Great 4th of July food and drink recipes
Since 4th of July is this week I thought I would share some great recipes I recently made from my Pinterest boards. I tried these recipes on some friends that I had over last week, thank goodness they all turned out good, otherwise I would of been doomed.
Drinks
I have been pinning like crazy to my Bottoms Up! board that I was starting to think people might think I have a drinking problem. I was skeptical on how this alcoholic beverage was going to taste, mixing beer and tequila just didn’t sound right. But it was SO good. All my friends loved it, we drank every last drop of it. I am going to make this again for the 4th of July, it’s going to be so refreshing with the hot days we are having.
I added limes and cherries to the pitcher and put some in bowls to add to the drinks.
I put some wine one out for those who didn’t want the Margaritas. Using the mason jars for the Margaritas were the perfect compliment to the wine glasses I used
They are called “Redneck wine glasses” Aren’t they fun? Super easy to make too!
Here is a simple tutorial on how to make them. You can get the supplies at Wal-mart. {you don’t have to spray the lids with chalkboard paint, but it makes it fun}
Sprucing up some HomeGoods mirrors
I bought two mirrors at HomeGoods for our river house, for $39 each. I loved the shape of them and I knew the blue would be a perfect match to the room. Well, actually when I got them out there, I realized that they were too perfect of a match {I forgot to bring my camera charger so I had to resort to using my iPhone camera}
See how they just blend into the wall? I decided they needed a pop of color on the frame to really stand out. Since I don’t have a lot of options when I am out at our river house, no craft room or Michaels close by, I have to hunt around to see what I can use. All I could find in my limited stash was some old liquid gold leaf paint that was almost the consistency of syrup. It wasn’t the best medium to paint with, but it did the job
I used tape to mask off the blue area I wanted to keep. Much better right?
Here are both of the mirrors in the room
Look at how much the mirrors stand out now
Even though the paint was hard to work with, I am glad I got it done. Adding the gold made such a difference, and it didn’t cost me anything. Gotta love those kind of projects!
