Tuesday, March 27, 2012

It's been a while....

Well I guess I'll start with an apology for never updating. I've done a bagillion crafts that should last us for a year's worth of updates.

A lot has happened in the past year. We got a new puppy, niece, re-did the kitchen, bathroom, built a screened-in porch...we've been busy. I have to give a lot of the bath and screened-in porch credit, by a lot I mean pretty much all, to Phillip.

Let's start with the new puppy, Jewels.

She is 3/4 black lab and 1/4 boxer. She is feisty and LOVES to play. She definitely can get a rise out of Caliber. Sometimes he just lays there, sometimes he plays along. Here are some pictures from the day we got her, December 23, 2011.







Isn't she adorable?! She is huge now. Here are some more recent pictures. Excuse the quality, they are from my cell phone camera.



Onto the kitchen...I decided I wanted to redo the countertops. After much research online about painting techniques, I settled on faux granite sponge painting. It did not turn out to look a lot like granite but I am definitely in love.

Here they are before. I also painted the faux brick wall white and the rest of the kitchen white to brighten things up a bit. The walls were antique white and the faux brick was...well...brick colored. 

I wiped the countertops down with cleaner and used Kilz primer. Then I got some craft paint from Walmart. I used FolkArt brand. I used a sponge to and a paper towel to get different effects.










I then added some silver glitter flecks since stone usually has some natural sparkle. 

To seal it all, I used a water-based polycrylic from Minwax. 

Here is a link to a tutorial. This one is a little freaky-deaky since her name is Kristi too and her blog is Creative Kristi. I promise I did not steal her name...total coincidence. I guess it was meant to be for me to paint my countertops. Maybe she and I should be friends LoL :-) 

Thanks for stopping by. More kitchen updates to come.