Better After

Burn Out!

Katie’s dining situation was dire. Her attention in this room had been spent on replacing the floors and repainting formerly pepto pink walls, and the furniture needs got neglected for a while. A borrowed table, five mismatched folding chairs, and one lonely refinished chair had occupied the space for way too long, until one day she snapped! No more!

And wouldn’t you know, a friend happened to be selling an old set right then. It was a little battered and beaten, and rocking a fist-sized burn in the corner, but it had two pull-out leaves and six matching chairs, and best of all POTENTIAL!

They were able to get the burn out and restore the whole thing to a gleaming shine, including the chairs and their sad vinyl ‘cushions.’ Check out their super level of softness now, and head over to Katie’s blog The Copper Coconut to find out her money-saving secret for making double-padded seat cushions of cushiness.

September 5, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

2 In Uncategorized

Silhouette Promotion: NEW Stamping Starter Kit!

As if the Silhouette couldn’t already do everything your crafty little heart could desire, they just introduced yet another new product: the Stamping Starter Kit!

Now you can take any image, font, or design you dream up and turn it into a custom stamp to use on any and all stamp-worthy surfaces. Everything you need is included:

3 sheets of stamp material (6 in x 7.5 in)
Cutting mat for stamp material
3 in x 4 in acrylic block
2 in x 3 in acrylic block
1 black ink pad
10 exclusive stamp designs
Instructional DVD
Idea/Instruction book

I’m in the Halloweeny mood right now, so I thought I’d give a skull stamp a whirl.

At first, I tried this design:

Um, nope. That was a bit too intricate for the stamp material to handle. There’s a reason they advise you to keep the lines of your cut no farther than 1/16th of an inch apart. It would probably work on a larger scale, but I was using the medium sized block.

So I tried again with a simpler design:

Win! The stamping material is a flexible acrylic that you will at first think is never going to cut in your machine, and then will probably fall apart when you try to handle it. Not so! It cut so easily and was sturdy enough to withstand a good scrubbing in the sink when I was done stamping.

You simply cut your design out of the material, plop it right on top of the clear acrylic block, (three different sizes come in the kit) and stamp to your stamping soul’s content. It will stay put until you peel it away, and can be stored and saved to use over and over again!

So many possibilities!

Silhouette has some excellent deals going on now to promote the new kit, so hook yourself up!

Here are the DEALS:

(1) CAMEO plus Stamping starter pack, plus a $10 gift card and 10 exclusive stamp designs for $269.99 ($88.96 off the retail price)

(2) Portrait plus Stamping starter pack, plus a $10 gift card and 10 exclusive stamp designs $129.99 ($108.96 off the retail price)

Already have a Silhouette? Then you can try the Stamping starter kit for $23.99 (you save 20%)

Click here to take advantage of these great prices, and be sure to use the CODE: AFTER at checkout!

Super easy and so much fun! Just think of all the stamps your

could create with your current fonts and library of designs!

* * * * * * *

Disclaimer: As a Silhouette affiliate, I was provided product for this post, all opinions are, as always, 100% my own.

September 4, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

12 In other rooms

Lofty Dreams

“Your loft is too little Sharla,” they said. “You can’t do much in here. There’s barely room for a TV and a couch.” “THREE built-in bookcases? Psh! Keep dreaming!” But luckily Sharla didn’t listen to the naysayers, even though I just made them up just now. She added those built-ins all the way up to the ceiling, which made the room appear twice as big, and even had room leftover for a little window-seat area too. Curtains all the way to the ceiling are another great trick for adding optimum oomph to a small space. Optimum Oomph. That should be the name of a men’s cologne or something.

Anyway, the point is: don’t listen to those skeptics in your head telling you that you don’t have space for something cool too. Chances are you do!

See more from Sharla at My Little Gems.

September 4, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

14 In desks/hutches/buffets/ kitchen/dining

Unit of Treasurement

Seems to me that fewer and fewer people need giant walls-o-entertainment anymore. Our TVs are slimmer, our space-eating VHS collections have been replaced by DVDs, which have been replaced by Netflix, and rows and rows of CDs have been replaced by iPods and Pandora. That’s how it is in my household anyway. So what’s a girl with a big, fat entertainment center to do?

Sell it, sure, but you practically can’t give these things away these days. I saw one for sale recently that was even bigger than this for $125. You can hardly buy a coffee table at Target for that cheap! Well, what about this brilliant idea from Courtney at Golden Boys and Me: turn that outdated entertainment unit into a true treasure by transforming it into a classy kitchen built-in! Because universal truth alert: even though we may no longer need acres of space for our media, we’ll always, ALWAYS need more storage in the kitchen.

September 3, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

3 In tables/dressers/ Uncategorized/ wood

Coffee Table Tales

Did you have a fabulous Labor Day weekend? Or Labour Day weekend, if you’re Canadian? Or regular ol’ weekend, if you’re everyone else? Hope so. Yay for long weekends, and yay for September! September is officially Fall in my book, even if the temperature here is hovering around 109 all week. But it’s a breezy 75 degrees indoors! Brr!

One good thing about our roasty toasty weather here in Arizona is that while the rest of the country is packing up their drop cloths and paint buckets, we’re dusting ours off and just getting started! Here are a couple of great makeovers from a fellow Arizonian gal, Elisha at Pneumatic Addict.

First, this huge boxy thing which she insists was a coffee table in a previous life. I’ll … take her word on that. But her aunt was on the hunt for a coffee table that could measure up to the rest of the large furniture in her large living room, and as luck would have it, a neighbor asked if she wanted this 4’x5′ monster (not a typo!) before it got hauled to the dump.

So Elisha dragged it home and raised it about three and a half inches, then beefed it up with layers and layers of moulding, stain, poly, and love to deliver a coffee table worthy of her aunt’s formal home. Unbelievable transformation!

But that wasn’t her only ride at the coffee table rodeo. After handing off the table above, her aunt donated Elisha the old coffee table it replaced. The finish was battered, and one of the baskets was held together with packing tape, but that didn’t scare her one bit. She got to work repainting it, and had so much trouble with the color bleeding through that she eventually resorted to clear nail polish! A regular McGyver, that girl.

She didn’t even bother trying to find baskets the right size, she just built a new pair herself! She’s amazing. See more on her blog Pneumatic Addict.

Hey, have you been wondering who won the giveaway from SchoolLockers.com? If your name is Brittany Chavers, it’s you! Check your email!

September 3, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

17 In Ugly Lamp Contest

Ugly Lamp Contest 2013: Our Winner!

Attention ladies, gentleman, and frightened children of all ages,

the 4th Annual Ugly Lamp Contest has blessedly drawn to a close.

I’m so pleased to announce our winner.

Please put your hands together and stifle your gag-reflexes one last time, for the ultimate Ugly Lamp Champion of 2013,

BACON BARF!

Bacon Barf breezed through the final round, with a grand total of 46% of the votes. Raccoon of Utter Despair trailed a distant second at 24%, followed by my personal favorite Owl-coholic with 11% of the votes.

Deer in the Dread-light earned 10% of your votes, with a sad final finish for Lemon Moody and Lil’ Miss Mr. who tied for last place with only 4% each. My 4-year old daughter actually thought those two were cute, but she, like many of you, literally had a physical reaction at the sight of Bacon Barf.

So congratulations Bacon Barf. Your utter ugliness has served you well. You’ve won a well-deserved title, life-long notoriety, and your friend Jenny a $100 giftcard of her choice!

Please take your rightful place in Better After’s Ugly Lamp Hall of Champions.

Thank you all so much for joining in the fun! Your comments are seriously the best part of this whole contest for me. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! And stay on the lookout, maybe you’ll be the one to discover our champion next year.

Til then, may your eyeballs rest in peace. Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you next week with far more beautiful and lovely things to share than we’ve endured this week!

August 30, 2013 By Lindsey @ Better After

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