Hello there! I want to share with you my latest "golden" DIY. Lately I've been crazy about finding beautiful decorative pillows with gold accents, even when I've found very pretty ones in Marshalls and Ross, I still have not enough of them and definitely don't have the cash to buy some of the prettiest ones (like sequined ones, even a small one is around $20 USD).

So, I had a pillow, lying around the house, and I decided it was time to revamp it. I think I got this from mexican Walmart a couple of years ago, I remember I paid around $50 pesos for it (like $3 USD), it has poor quality but at the time, as a newly wed, I needed stuff to "fill up empty spaces". What I did is very simple and quite easy, I loved this project because of that and because it was very cheap! 

BTW, sorry for the poor quality photos, I still don't have a professional camera, this is all using my cellphone and sometimes I get it right and sometimes the light is wrong, the sequins are very hard to photograph, they come up blurry, etc etc etc...

Ok, so... this was my ugly pillow:

What I did is I bought Stretch Gold Sequin Trim from a local store here in Ensenada where you can buy by meter (I bought 1.5 meters and it was more than enough), price was around $2 USD per meter. I found this link in Amazon with what looks like the one I used, pretty much the same one.

First I thought of covering entirely one side of the pillow, but then I figured I wanted stripes, so I played around a litle bit:

I used a hot glue gun, figured out where I wanted my stripes (didn't measure it so they didn't come up perfectly aligned), and I glued away...

This is the final result:

I'm kind of in a "shoe crisis" at this specific moment of my life. You know? All these adulthood years I've been awful at taking care of my feet, I confess I'm the kind of person who buys  the cheapest shoes as long as they're pretty! I've always hated the idea of paying a lot of money for something I'm gonna end up ruining in a couple of months... sadly, for the last couple of months I've been in a lot of pain, my feet hurt all the time and I had awful corns :(  I needed a deep pedicure and I payed for one 3 weeks ago at an awful place in Ensenada called "Angie Day Spa" NEVER get a pedicure there... they charge full price for cold water and an old nail file... plus the girl looked in a hurry like she really wanted to go and was sloppy all the time... I had to go to my mom and she gave me a 5000% better pedicure at home, she's a sweetheart...

With that said, I took a decision I should have taken more than a year ago when I bought the most comfortable booties I've ever had: Never again will I buy cheap shoes. This doesn't mean I will pay retail... I hardly ever pay retail... this means I will have to look harder and spend a bit more money in order to get good shoes, good support, right size, etc... etc.... So first, I need to get rid of old shoes right? Non-comfy ones... then at the same time I've been reading all these DIY Glitter Shoes tutorials... I decided maybe I can get rid of old shoes or maybe I can revamp them, try to make them comfortable and wearable and still have fun with a new crafting project!

All blogs I read call for Mod Podge... but I live in México and specifically in Ensenada where we definitely/urgently need a crafts store... where to buy it? Where??? A friend and I walked the whole city, went to Office Max, Home Depot, a bunch of local stores and nothing! I was starting to give up when we googled alternatives and found out that 1 part of white glue + 1 part of water could do the trick. I was a bit skeptical but went with it... also I didn't find the "almost dust" glitter I was looking for, I really need to go craft shopping in San Diego... I decided I was going to start with a couple of very old patent leather shoes, in that case if I didn't like the finish, I could always just throw them away.

1. I used a very fine sand paper to take the gloss out, so the glue could stick better and not fall off.

2. I mixed 1 part of glue and 1 part of water, then I mixed in the glitter. I didn't like this... I shouldn't have, it made the finish a bit bumpy and I had to fix it later.

3. I started with a very thin layer, using a foam brush... it was very frustrating because the glitter was so heavy it was sinking at the bottom and I couldn't get any of it; so, I decided to use a spoon to pour small amounts and then "spread it" with the brush. This worked a lot better.

4. I gave it 2 coats and waited for them to dry like 30 minutes between each coat. They were looking a lot better but still not what I wanted! You can look at the texture and dullness :(

5. Then I put a 3rd coat using mostly glue and just poured in the glitter on top of it... shook the excess off and they were so MUCH better!!!


I still believe I need to try this project again but with "dust" glitter and mod podge... and NO mixing of the mod podge and glitter... Lucky me I have plenty of shoes I can use for this hehehe...

I also added a comfy insole for me to use this and not kill my poor feet! I know this is not making them "good shoes" but at least I get to wear them a couple of times before saying bye bye!

So this is it for now... I'll keep you posted if I do more of these projects!

Hello everyone! I hope this year has been good to all of you :) it has been exciting for me actually and it has represented a lot of new stuff, challenges, new projects and whatnot.

And talking about challenges, I'm right in the middle of this 3 day juice-cleanse diet and it's kind of driving me crazy I have to say. Today is day 2, so it looks like I'm half way there... we'll see. My highlights about this: yesterday I didn't like the juices a lot, I was like... this one tastes funny... I don't want it... etc etc.. but TODAY... oh today! they taste like heaven! I'm looking forward to drink the next one and even when I feel deprived, I don't feel like yesterday... yesterday I had fuzzy vision all day long (on top of my blindness) and today that's gone, I'm even a bit more focused and not as hungry I guess, even though I am hungry, yesterday I was starving :(.

My goal is a real detox since I was feeling kind of "funny on my tummy" as a result of all the tragadera decembrina (there's no way but the Spanish way to say that haha) so we'll see if it works... right now at least I'm not popping antacid like Dr. House pops vicodin (had to say that one more time!).

What I'm sharing with you today is this little space that I have in my "walk-in closet", I really loved the results and it has gold touches of course!

Hello everybody! Merry Christmas! I'm hoping you're enjoying yourselves these holidays!

On my previous post I mentioned my "recent" passion for all things goldified! I also mentioned (I think I did) I had a handful of home projects that I wanted to share with you.

This specific one it's about restoring an old table; it ended up being a pain and frustration, not because of the transformation itself but because I took all the process photos with my super new cellphone (yay!!! I'm a person now) and for some reason I had to reset it and forgot to backup all the pics so I lost the process ones and I have just one that I sent to my dearest friend Betty, she's always saving me you know?

So... I wanted this to be very graphic and all DIYish but I guess I'll just have to share with you the steps :(

This is what the table looked like! It had been lying around the house since... forever I guess... and I was using it to store the Dogs' accessories and treats... then I found THIS PIN and I really wanted to do something similar but didn't have the budget to go all Ikea this time... then I saw the table and it made sense!!!

What I did, step by step:

1. I sanded the whole thing, it's weird since it has this... like... "paper" with the wood finish covering it, still sanded it a lot! I sanded the metal as well and used two kinds of sanding paper, the first one was very rough and then a finer one.

2. I covered the whole thing in Rustoleum Primer (gray color but it was lying around the house so I had to use it)... then I waited and waited... like 2 hours before proceeding with the painting.

3. I spray painted the metal and casters in gold (using Rustoleum Metallic Gold as usual), I did this first because spray paint dries faster than regular one and I wanted to move forward with the rest of the table. I just covered the table with paper and masking tape so it won't get gold but I was not too worried since I was still going to cover that with white. I waited one hour before moving on.

4. Using a brush and Behr semi-gloss paint and primer in one I did the rest of the table, it needed like 3 coats for it to look good and I had to wait like 2-3 hours in between coats, this definitely took all day! You can see the light in the picture above, it was bright and the one below it started to get dark. I'm guessing you could do one coat then wait for next day and so on but I'm very impatient so I wanted to finish it as soon as possible.

This is the finished product:

I really LOVED the results!!! I'm guessing you could use some other kinds of paints, this is what I had in hand and it worked!

And BTW that vase that looks like SALONG Ikea ones, I got it for $1.49 USD at the 99c only store! I just couldn't believe it!!! It's adorable!

To wrap up I'd like to share the news with you, my Pink Beetle is gone :( I finally sold it and I guess I'm moving on... these are the last photos I managed to took with it... missing it already!!!

So this is it for this post :), I'm working on something that involves everything I did with my Christmas décor at home but... I don't know when I'll have it ready :(

Thanks a lot for reading my nonsense and come back later for new gold-transformations!