DIY Archives - The Sarcastic Blonde

I hope you’re all having a great start to the weekend!

I made it to a Flywheel class this morning before

preparing for the “state of emergency” with our “snowpocalypse” in Georgia.

The Timehop app kills me because somehow things are always perfectly timed.

I of course am having a good laugh at the city freaking out about 1-4 inches of snow in Georgia.

I get it I get it. There are no plows or salt trucks here and its all hills and windy roads. And 2 years ago people were stranded in their cars for hours or sleeping at the office and it was a nightmare. I TOTALLY GET IT. It’s just hilarious that now because of that the city has to basically shut down an entire day early so that they don’t get blamed for the worst winter-storm-plan EVER, and so that people can hunker down as if it’s going to be the hardest 48 hours of their lives.

but I digress…..

so….this came up in my time hop this morning

On this day 3 years ago, I had to go to work in -43 degree wind chill (I can’t remember the real temp, I just focused on the “feels like” and YES it felt like it) by taking the train and then walking to work.

I had to WALK TO WORK in that, and everyone here is literally acting like it’s the end of the world.

But anyways….. cheers to a cozy winter weekend!

I’m interested to see how this “state of emergency” plays out!

As I mentioned earlier this week, we hosted a small group at our place for New Years !

A lot of you asked out my Champagne Bubbles DIY so I wanted to share, even though yes, New Years is 359 days way.
I tend to do things late on the blog. You know that.
I still haven’t even posted about our Christmas vacation 🙂 so stay tuned…..
I figure, Christmas and New Years may be over,

but Awards Season is just beginning and this would work perfectly for that.

It was too easy and TOO CUTE (if you ask me) not to share!

I think it would be perfect for the Golden Globes this weekend or upcoming Oscar parties with your girlfriends!

and if you want to take advantage of the post-Christmas decor sales (which are AMAZING) I also think it’d be cute with pink and red ornaments for Valentine’s brunches, etc…… when I find an easy craft I really don’t drop it….. prepare to see this bad boy year after year!

My first tree and ornaments when I was out of college all came from Target in one of those huge jumbo bins. They sell them year after year so I’m sure you’ve seen them. It’s a ton of plastic ornaments for about $20.

I didn’t have varying sizes, which they recommend, but it still turned out SO cute.

I had Kip cut the hangers for me and then it was a matter of minutes before it was all set!

based on champagne bubbles from The Kitchen on Food Network

All you need is

A champagne bottle – I used a jumbo one that we got for New Years

Needle nose pliers, to cut the hanger

A wire hanger

Christmas Ball ornaments, they used clear, I used gold and silver.

Cut the hanger so that one edge is straight and the other has the top/curved edge. Then just thread the ornaments of various sizes, starting with smaller ones if you have them, and building all the way up. Pop the hanger in the bottle and you are all set to party!

I had two sticks in two smaller champagne bottles since we hadn’t popped the jumbo bottle prior to guests arriving, and then I switched both sticks over into the one jumbo.

as Ina would say,

HOW EASY IS THAT?!

and as my husband says,

“I don’t think anyone is as excited about the champagne bubbles as you are.”

Whatever.

I also made take-home Hangover Helper bags for our friends.

I included : water, lemon, fish oil, aspirin, green tea, and a detox tea.

I don’t know what came over me but I was feeling crafty the day of!

There was tons of yummy food that I got zero photos of 🙁 so I am just going to skip that part……

I wore jeans and OTK boots with my feather racerback tank and this blazer that I am obsessed with.

// BLACK NOTCH COLLAR BLAZER // FEATHER RACERBACK TANK //

my brain is truly fried after this week.

I’ve been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to remember all of the other things I wanted to include in this post, and you know how I ramble, so I promise it was A. LOT.

All I can think of is :

I forgot to mention in my Coffee Talk post that Nick’s job just isn’t even mentioned AT ALL on The Bachelor. Remember when it used to Andrew Firestone and all of these successful men and now they don’t even necessarily have a job? Nick’s job is literally just a reality-TV person. Same with Ben Higgins. They used to have jobs, and now are “formerly” employed. Like Ben’s fiancé Lauren who is no longer a flight attendant. And now contestants don’t even have to have legitimate jobs.

Anyways….. just think it’s hilarious that they are truly going to have a Bachelor for an entire season that literally doesn’t have a job and they aren’t even going to mention employment of any kind.

So pathetic.

In case you missed it,

on The Sarcastic Blonde this week :

Coffee Talk

Wishlist Wednesday with killer tops under $100

New Year New Promises

An update on my resolutions for Week One :

I have worked out every day this week! I am trying to do 31 straight days for the month of January so we’ll see how that goes.

I made three amazing recipes this week and I will be sharing them next week!

One resolution I have succeeded fully on is my “3 new recipes a month” — I already did it in one week!

I worked really hard on my sleep hygiene and didn’t look at my computer or phone after 10 PM, and I still didn’t fall asleep for around 1-2 hours every night 🙂 OH well.

Ummmmm when I think of all of my other ramblings I’ll share them this weekend!

But have a great weekend and get excited for the Golden Globes!

I am giddy with excitement at having an awards show red carpet to look forward to!

Cheers to a great weekend!

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like I always say, just call me Martha!

as I mentioned last week, we finally tackled a big DIY that we have put off for the year and a half we have owned our condo and painted the kitchen cabinets.

I had been hesitant, not only because of the amount of work, but because I was afraid they wouldn’t turn out well. I also thought we had to use a sander to strip the finish off and I was dreading all of that dust.

When we were at Home Depot picking up paint samples for the walls, a customer was buying this DIY cabinet kit and raved about it.

The cost of the kit is a mere $65. We had to buy a couple brushes and things but the total cost of this renovation was definitely under $100 and was completely a sweat and hard work cost and basically no money.

I can’t believe for the amount of money how great the finished product looks.

I only wish we did it sooner!

but it definitely was A LOT of work. my knees would have bruises from kneeling and painting so often.

I knew the project would be a lot of hard work and take time, but I did greatly underestimate it. Taking all of the cabinet doors off, removing all of the hardware, tempting out cabinets, taping off everything with the blue tape – just the prep to start took time.

tips : Draw a picture of the kitchen and label all doors and drawers with a number. Mark each door with that number on a piece of blue painters tape and keep it taped to the floor in front of the cabinet while you paint it – otherwise, who knows what went where.

Then, there is a three step process for the cabinets

1. The de-glazer to strip any finish off of them and get them ready – this part took a lot of elbow grease and was the worst part of all of it. Hated it.

2. Three coats of the base paint. Which when you have to do each side of a cabinet door and wait hours for it to dry before you can flip it to the other side adds up.

3. A coat of protective top coat to seal it all.

We had cabinets downstairs in the basement living area and upstairs in the guest bedroom.

Those of you with a garage or actual extra space – it’ll be much easier!

Living in the city, garages and space to put everything and do the painting is nonexistent.

please ignore any “styling”, as in, no styling. we have been moving things from one place to another for projects and there is crap all over the place at the moment 🙂

:: BEFORE ::

:: DURING ::

:: AFTER ::

It’s made such a change – it’s so much brighter and feels so much bigger.

and looks so much prettier too of course!

Next up, painting the kitchen and living room.

who knew finding a basic grey or neutral or beige or whatever color was so impossible (oh wait, I did, because I’ve read about it on blogs for years. and newsflash : they are correct.)

come back tomorrow where I’ll tell you about sitting next to James from Vanderpump Rules at dinner on Saturday and NOT GETTING A PICTURE WITH HIM BECAUSE I SUCK.

that’s pretty much the whole story, but come back tomorrow anyway……..