Pimp my file cabinet

Inspired by a post I came across on Pinterest on creative ways to use wallpaper in your home. It featured a picture of a file cabinet where they had covered the two drawers with wallpaper. Challenge accepted!

Our file cabinet is old as dirt. It used to by my mother's when she lived in Ottawa in 1979... so you can imagine it's traveled quite a bit and has suffered the consequences. So covering two drawers would not do...

Here's a quick tutorial on how to transform your old file cabinet into something a bit more stylish and modern.

I got some Con-Tact brand sticky paper/plastic covering thing from Wally World for about $7. They did not have a huge variety of patterns or colors. I'm sure if you shopped around you could find something to suit whatever your style needs may be. In my case, I just wanted to get rid of the eyesore at this point. Yes, those are tape marks and a huge lips magnet from the Dollar Store.

You'll need one roll and you'll have plenty to coordinate whatever else you'd like as well. If you have a three drawer file cabinet, you might have just enough or run a bit short.

First, you want to clean all the surfaces, nooks and crannies. Evaluate how/if you're going to remove any hardware and figure out how to remove the drawers in advance if you can. I left the drawers in when I was working on them because it was easiest but removed them when I did the frame. You'll need a good pair of scissors, a box cutter type tool and that's about it.

Start by lining up the contact paper to the front of your first drawer.

It should be wide and long enough to be about 1" to 1 1/2" over the edges.

Use the handy dandy grids on the back to cut a straight line.

Jack says it tastes good too!

 Peal away about 3 inches of the back paper from the top and align to your drawer face.

Tape each corner gently to secure it in place and start from the middle "petting" the con-tact paper on to reduce air bubbles. Don't worry too much about them because you can always fix them later. 

Peel away the back paper slowly and make sure not to cause any creases or folds as they will show even if you pull off the paper and reapply.

Pretty straight forward so far...?!

When it comes to the corners, simply fold them as you would when wrapping a birthday gift.

Fold in every corner and then fold back each side of extra con-tact paper.

Now, if you have the types of pulls you can remove and then reattach on top of the con-tact paper, more power to ya! If you have sucky, inset pulls like my cabinet does, the next few steps are for you.

 

Feel around with your fingers to find the "alcove" and poke and cut a line down the center leaving about one inch on both ends. Then, cut some lines from the ends of your line to the four corners so that when you fold the top and bottom flap, you end up with something looking like this:

Before you fold in the two little triangles, you'll want to snip the end of it before you fold them in because they'll likely be longer than the pull is deep. Easy-peasy...

There ya go! Drawer numero uno is completed! :)

If you're lazy like me, you'll want to use the back paper from the first drawer to measure out the con-tact paper for the second one. :)

 

 

 

High-efficiency Laze.

The only tricky part that came with the drawers was getting around the key lock.

I tried to remove it but it was impossible (read: the tools were in the garage) so I thought I would work around it. Literally. It just so happens that the key lock was exactly the same size as one of the dots on my con-tact paper. Magic? I think so. I placed the paper on the surface and found the little dot landing closest to the key lock. I carefully cut it out using my husband's military issued survival knife - but any old utility knife will do! :) Again, laze wins!

Pull the back paper a little bit passed the key hole and start applying the paper from the key hole out to make sure you're aligned properly and you won't run any creases.

To cover the frame of the cabinet, remove the drawers and start measuring your con-tact paper from the top down. Leave a bit extra length to allow you to fold it back on the bottom to get a nice finish. Press along the frame, top to bottom covering both drawer alcoves. 

Take your time pulling the back paper and wait until you are done the front before folding the sides.

When you get to the bottom, you can carefully cut the back paper leaving you a few inches to work with along the bottom. Then, tip the cabinet onto it's back allowing you to fold in the paper underneath.

Cutting the back paper will allow you more flexibility and freedom of movement when you're tipping the cabinet on it's back. Also, makes it easier to align the bottom and make sure everything is nice and straight.

Now, poke the drawer alcoves with scissors or a knife in the shape of an X going right up to the edges.

Cut the excess off the triangle leaving about 3 inches to fold in. Be careful of the inner hardware workings when you fold the con-tact paper in. I had to cut around a bit to make sure the rails would still work properly for the drawers.

And voila! You're done! :)

Here's my file cabinet back in it's natural habitat with his besties Wedding Gown Bag and Winter Jackets. :)

Guestroom Update

For 4 years I've been nagging my husband for us to paint the guest bedroom upstairs or our bedroom - hell, anything really! I totally get that while we live in PMQs there is no real and tangible gain from painting a room or buying furniture to suit a specific room. But there's also even less to gain from living with beige walls, beige carpet and ill-fitting furniture. I'd rather grow to love a PMQ than grow to hate it.

Anyways, he finally gave in and we re-decorated our office/guestroom/yoga room a few weekends ago.

*Please ignore the stretching husband.

We painted the walls Napa Valley green inspired by this little brochure. We liked the mix with blue and the comfy yet bright tone of it. We reconfigured our computer desk, printer table and book cases to have them all on the same side of the room so it looks more like a custom unit or a larger desk. The desk was bought at Walmart maybe a few years ago on sale for 50ish bucks. The bookcases where given to us by Js' co-worker who was moving and didn't need them anymore and our printer table is actually a coffee table from our living room set. The futon is old as dust as is (obviously) the ugly ass chair. All this to say that we just reorganized and re-purposed furniture we already owned to give the room more functionality and to create better use of the little space we have.

The only new thing is the roman shades which are meant to be the focus point. I love, love, love the print and made them myself for a few dollars based on this tutorial. They cost me a total of $23 and I'm quite happy with the results.

Another view. Crouching husband - hidden ugly chair.

I know the poster is a little tacky but I enjoy it and it cost me a buck. You can also see my yoga mat there and Js' guitar. That lamp is from Ikea and I've had it for something like 9 years. :) I have a bit of that curtain fabric left so I'm probably going to do something like a small pillow or something to bring that pattern in to this side of the room. That closet we use to keep Js' uniforms and endless shoes and boots and stuff so we sacrificed access to that door nearest to the wall and gained a whole bunch of usable space.

I'll stop gushing now... but yeah, pretty happy about all our work. I've got a few more projects I'm working on so stay tuned... or not. Whichever works.

Holiday Preps

The Holiday preparations have officially started at the "L." household! :) Last year, we waited until the last possible moment and then got hit with a monster snow storm so the lights never went up outside. This year, my nagging worked and we produced a very disorganized and amateurish display of colorful lights tangled in the branches of our dying tree. Oh, the joys of the season.

Nova was there to ensure the quality of our work.

 

And behold, the glamorous results :

Baking and Wedding Update : SK Reception Cake

Red velvet with cream cheese filling covered with fondant.

We decided to host a pot-luck dinner for friends out here in Moose Jaw so we could celebrate part of our wedding with them. It was a great night and it was a great excuse for friends to drive a "couple" hours for a weekend visit! :) I thought it was the perfect opportunity to make my own wedding cake. 

This cake was absolutely delicious. It was my first attempt at red velvet cake and I have to admit it was a lot easier than anticipated. The ingredients were pretty simple too so that helped. I had planned a whole morning to do it but what ended up taking the most of my time was the decorating.

The filling was delicious. I did have a small problem with it being too soft so next time I think I will prepare it a day in advance and leave it in the refrigerator overnight. 

For the decorating, I used store bought fondant because it's just so much easier and much much quicker. I used basic cutting tools and just gave 'er.

I wouldn't use butter cream with this type of cake as I didn't feel the red velvet was very flavorful - you need something with a little kick. However, I'd been looking for a good cream cheese filling recipe for some carrot cake and I think I found the perfect one. Stay tuned... ;)
 
PS: I cannot take the credit for the little lemon tartelettes. My friend Julie made them - I suggested she bring a desert in case anyone didn't like red velvet cake. They were absolutely amazing and I will definitely be making some as soon as she sends me her recipe. :)

PPS: Please forgive the very poor quality of the first picture. I totally forgot to take a picture of it before we cut the cake and I snapped this one to send in a quick email to Maggie - thank goodness!

Home Stuff - Another challenge!

I like challenges (because being a military spouse isn't enough!) and I'm always trying to find ways to grow, learn and discover new things. I don't like to stand still.

I thought I would share my efforts, problems, solutions and adventures as I try to convert this house into our home.

Truth is, we currently live in Military Housing and it's the first place that we have that's "ours" as opposed to "mine and then he moved in". We've been here for a bit over a year and we haven't done much to the place to be quite honest. We were lucky to be assigned to a recently renovated MQ (Married Quarters - though they are called Housing Units now, they are still referred to as MQs or Qs) and we kinda got lazy because everything was good and functional and looked okay.

We both lived in rental apartments for quite some time before we moved in together. When you live in an apartment by yourself or with roommates, simply painting the walls is a huge task. Because you don't know how long you'll be living there for and because you have to paint everything back to the standard white or eggshell paint before you vacate, you tend to just leave it be.

That's what we've been telling ourselves over the last year and I'm sick and tired of looking at beige walls, box upon box of unpacked clutter due to lack of organizational space. Ugh.

My challenge will be to make this place a little bite more ours and to convince Js to let me. He doesn't see how it affects me that the downstairs bathroom is a total disaster and all those white walls blind me. There's also the challenge of saving a buck or two - because we don't own the place, we can't tear down a wall or anything so I have to find creative ways for people to look away from the ugly carpet. I also don't want to pay someone else to do the work and I don't want it to cost us our first born. It's just not worth spending too much money when we have so many other priorities and we'll get nothing in return.

I have a certificate in Interior Decorating that I've never used for anything else but plant my butt firmly in front of TV shows like 'Take this house and sell it' or 'Color Confidential'. I figure it's time to put it to a bit more productive use.

I'll post some "Home Stuff" updates, tips, progress reports as I face my challenge head on... Stay tuned...

Baking Fun - Tinkerbell Cake Pan

I'm not particularly fond of Tinkerbell but I got a special request for a friend's birthday. I'm very pleased with the turn out.

Tinkerbell Wilton Cake Pan

My advice : Save up a whole week's worth of patience before attempting your very first Wilton Cake Pan.

The cake was a simple vanilla cake. They wanted a basic plain vanilla cake so I'm not going to lie, with all the effort I put into the icing and decoration, this cake came straight from a box. (Nick Ross, take you mind out of the gutter!) The only kind of cake I wouldn't recommend for this is the "only add water" kind. I find those to go dry and not have a lot of "lift" to them. The ones that need eggs and/or oil seem to stay moist a bit longer and have a bit more flavor to them. Sure, more calories but with all the icing we're going to throw on there... does it really matter?!

I fallowed the method indicated on the Wilton website. I had a hard time figuring out the eyes and they ended up being too thick so I had to take some of the white out in order to put in the blue and the black. If you're doing eyes or lips, spread out the icing in thin layers but thick enough because you don't want any transparency. I had a hard time centering the eyes but trial and error works best. I used to black jellybeans to help me get it right and center everything before adding the icing. I figured they'd be easier to move around and remove than scraping off icing and starting over again.

I wanted to add some extra color so I used some left over Easter candy and decorated the cake with little flowers and confetti.

Otherwise it was a pretty simple but tedious process.

Baking excitement!!

Oh my! I have gotten a request to make a birthday cake for a friend and I am beyond excited to give it a shot! :) Yes, I know, it's very lame and house-wife like... but hell, it's something to do!

Not to toot my own horn but my cakes have become quite famous around here for their deliciousness AND their awesomeness! (Cupcakes too!) (PS: Wow! I looked everywhere to find previous posts about those cakes and I was shocked to discover that I have never blogged about them. I promise to blog more about my cake-making-fun!)

I have never done a cake pan cake before so I will have to make a practice cake sometime next week. I won't do all the black outline on it because I just don't feel like it, they'll most likely be white.

I promise to post pics, tips and such nonsense!

Welcome Spring! Welcome cake!

Behold! My cake decorating skills! :)



It was actually a lot easier than it looks an so much fun! I was certain I would be in a sugar coma by the time I got home from snacking on the icing. We also learned the technique to make those cartoon ones in cake pans... so I will probably be making a Spider Man for Js at some point!

There are more photos of the progress on my Flickr account!

I'm having friends over tonight to help me eat it all! Watch out sugar rush!