My Kitchen Table and Mismatched Chairs

We had been married 17 years, had 4 kids and still didn't have a table that our whole family could sit around and have food on the table at the same time.  I had been looking for something I wanted, but could never find one that I really liked and that would fit in my ity bity kitchen.  Also I had several friends who had spent small fortunes on new dinning sets only to have a chair break and then find out 1 chair cost as much as the whole set did.  Needless to say I was frustrated with the whole thing.

I decided to do mismatched table and chairs.  This way when a chair brakes I just have to find a new chair, spray paint it and I will have a full set again!  I started checking garage sales, DI, and furniture store close outs to find chairs and a table.  Not long after I started looking we decided to move so the small kitchen space that had limited me in the past was no longer an issue either.  Everything was falling into place when my 13 year old son said he didn't like the idea because it was too weird - teenagers always have to spoil their mom's fun :)

Here are some of the chairs in their "before" looks:

 I had TONS of fun during the painting process, although my husband wasn't thrilled that I tagged the backyard grass with such beautiful colors - he went out and bought me drop cloths to paint on  :)

I used Valspar (Lowe's brand) spray paint.  After doing 2 coats on the whole chair and 3 coats on the seat and top of the back I distressed the chairs, stained them, did a light spray of color and then put 3 coats of gloss spray paint on them.  After 1 year of heavy use only 1 chair has a chip where my kiddos keep hitting it into the cabinet.

2 of the chairs have padded seats that I covered in black fabric.  I was worried about spills soaking in and going sour so I covered the cushion with vinyl then put the black upholstery fabric over that. I am so glad I did this, one of the first days we used our new chairs and we had milk split on a cushioned chair.

I found my table on KSL.com.  It is solid wood and very sturdy.  I bought it for $20 because the paint and stain were in such bad shape and the top of the table needed to be sanded down to get the dents out.  I personally liked some of the dents - it added personality and completely went along with the look I wanted so this was a bonus for me :)

Before:

 

After:

I used black spray paint, distressed the table, stained it, and put several coats of gloss sealer on it.

And my finished product!
 

The set wouldn't fit in my old kitchen so I was very excited to get it in our new kitchen and see everything together.  My oldest son was so funny when we were packing.  He asked if we could wrap the chairs in black plastic so no one would see the chairs.  When I asked him why he said that our new neighbors would see them and think we were weird because our chairs didn't match.  (Trying not to laugh) I told him that it was ok if they saw that we had mismatch chairs because then they would know we were weird before they met us and we wouldn't have to try to be normal.  He didn't think my response was funny and he rolls his eyes every time someone says how much they like our table and chairs.

I love how the table turned out, but the best thing about doing it this way is the whole set, with spray paint, sand paper, stain, and sealer cost under $110.00!

Of course a table like this has to be tied into the room.  In order to do this I have kept the walls neutral and added the orange, turquoise, and purple accents around the kitchen with black as a neutralizer.  Here are a few pictures of how I have incorporated the colors.

I love to decorate with family pictures.  I already had these pictures from my other house so

I painted a few of the frames in the colors and left the rest black.

I had an old table from my Grandma that was falling apart so I pulled the doors off,

spray painted them and hung them on the wall.

 I found these at a garage sale and had to have them!

My Grandma had a pair when I was little and these remind me of her :)

I painted them purple and distressed them.

 I made this out of an old cabinet door and painted the rest of the items

to match my colors.  I'm hoping my kids will know that it is ok to be different.

 The owl is outdoor decor.  I painted both of these and I am currently

looking for something to paint black to put up with them.

 These two came in the right colors so I didn't get to use 

spray paint.  The lamb is the cookie jar my mom had when

I was little - I love the little reminders of family all over the house.

 I put this by our back door hoping my kids will read it often 

and remember it always.  I painted the frame to match the room.

 I was having so much fun matching everything that I thought I needed 

matching dish cloths.  I crocheted these out of cotton yarn.  They are the best

dish cloths I've ever used - stylish and useful :)

As you can tell I LOVE spray paint!  It's so fun to see things transformed by something as easy and inexpensive as a can of spray paint!  Just be patient!  I've had to do lots of fixing because I was too anxious and ended up with runs in the paint :)

Luau Birthday Party

My 11 year old daughter has been planning her Luau Birthday Party for months.  We have thrown a few luau parties for our old ward and at their elementary school so she had TONS of ideas.

First off was the invite.  She really didn't have anything in mind so we started drawing.  The more we played with a design the more she liked having different layers.  She really liked having a hibiscus flower and the word LUAU on it and we both thought it needed a hula dancer.  I was able to create a hula dancer using a figure off the Rock Princess Cricut Cartridge.  I had to move the arms and add a grass skirt but it came together perfectly.  After we made the hula girls, we screen printed the hibiscus flower on the front of the cards.  I made a stencil for the flower using my Cricut and the Sure Cuts software.  Then we made our own rub on letters for the "LUAU".  These are lots of fun, but have to be cut out very close to the image or they leave a shiny halo where it wasn't trimmed.  We bought the rub on paper at Hobby Lobby.  It was a little pricey but that is what coupons are for :)

Crafts and Activities

My daughter is very artistic and crafty so of course she wanted to make flower leis, flowers for their hair, bracelets, sarongs....  She had a humungous list!  We narrowed it down to the flower leis and a flower for their hair.  The leis were simple, we bought shell necklaces (from Zuchers) and dollar store flowers (we lucked out and they had good looking Hawaiian flowers!)  We took the flowers off and hot glued ribbons to the back so the girls could tie the flowers on their shell necklace.  It was a simple craft but turned out very pretty.

The hair flowers were a little more time consuming. We wanted them to be attached to a headband so I made braided headbands out of an old brown t-shirt.  They turned out very cute and had just enough stretch to be comfortable for different head sizes. 

 I also pre-cut flowers out of bright cotton fabric.  I did 3 different sizes in 6 different colors.  I pre-washed some of the flowers so they would be frayed and curled, this gives the flower a worn look and is really fun.  The girls were able to choose between the colors, sizes, and frayed/not frayed flowers.

We put a button in the center, added some burlap ribbon or twine and attached them to the braided t-shirt head band. 

They turned out super cute and several of the girls have worn them to church and school - I love to see our party favors being worn after the party!

We had planned on making sarongs for the girls and letting them use bleach pens to decorate them or having the girls tie dye them, but we ran out of time.  The dollar store near us had "grass" skirts so we bought 1 for each girl and they worked great.  Don't underestimate what you can find at the dollar store, they really came through for me on this party!

For the activities we asked a friend to come teach the girls the Hookilau and they played limbo.  We had planned to have a fire but the rain came just in time for the hula lesson and everything was moved indoors.

Decorations

The decorations were much easier for this party.  Since I have done several Luaus on very large scales I have tons of grass skirts for serving tables, sarongs and other Hawaiian print fabric for table cloths, lit palm trees, tiki statues ....  you get the idea.  Anyway, I made surf boards out of large poster boards and spray paint to hang around the yard.  I made a stencil of a hibiscus flower and a turtle.  We had 4 surf boards of each style - stripe, flowers, and turtle - in several different colors.

I was able to find paper lanterns with lights in them at the dollar store and we have several tiki torches that we scattered around the yard.  It looked very fun until it started down pouring but we were able to move most everything under the patio and into the house.

Food

We had Hawaiian pork, rice, tons of fruit and Hawaiian sweet bread for dinner.  I cook the pork loin in my crock pot on low for 12+ hours in pineapple juice - it comes out very moist and falls apart.  After shredding it I put it back in the crock pot and add sauce.  The sauce is 1 part Minors Sweet and Spicy Plum sauce and 2 parts pineapple juice.  This is a family favorite.  

My husband found the recipe for the Hawaiian sweet bread the day of the party.  I had planned on making some, but just hadn't found a recipe that I liked.  This one was simple and tasted almost exactly like the bread we had when we went to Hawaii.  

Here is the link for the recipe  http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Hawaiian-Sweet-Bread?vm=r

Her cake was fun, but I'm still trying to master the marshmallow fondant so it's not perfect.  Next time I will get cookie cutters in the shapes I want instead of free hand cutting them.  These turned out ok, but up close you could see all my cutting mistakes.

I was craving pineapple upside down cake so I made one of those too.  We were sharing cake with our neighbors after the party :)

It's always fun to have a little taste of the islands, the guests had fun, and most important my daughter was thrilled with how everything turned out!