Pinterest Project Friday: Double Feature (sort of)

I've been a bad, bad blogger my friends, and I am sorry.  Between being sick twice in one week, three sick kiddos, a wedding reception, and some general craziness happening in our household, I just haven't had the time or the inclination to sit down and write a post.  But now I'm (fingers crossed) healthy again, the kids are tucked in bed, it's raining outside, and I am about to have a little treat and a cup of tea.  I missed Pinterest Project Friday last week, so I'm going to make up for it now, although this project kind of went off in a different direction than originally planned.

I told you all I was working on something for one of the boys' rooms, and my original inspiration was this pin of a DIY trellis lampshade.  It was done on a drum shade, and used grosgrain ribbon for the trellis design.  My lampshade for Reed's table lamp is a barrel shade (I think?), and I ended up not liking the color ribbon that I had to use for the project, so I put it off until I could take a trip to Michael's and pick out new ribbon.  That trip never happened, but I came up with a different idea for the shade, and then went even a step further to create a totally new DIY project.  I'm not quite finished with it yet, so I'll do the step-by-step tutorial sometime next week, but here's a peek at where I'm at so far:

Isn't it cute?  I'm pretty proud of myself, as I drew that elephant freehand, and I am no artist.  You can tell that it's an elephant, right?!

So, my second Pinterest project for the week is another super simple one, as long as you can find the right supplies!  I would have done this one ages ago, but I had a hard time tracking down a stepstool, believe it or not.  I checked Michael's, JoAnn's, TJMaxx, and Target: no dice.  Finally, on my third trip to Target of the week, I found the perfect little white stepstool.  It's something I have been in desperate need of, both because I wanted to do this project and because I'm short and always have to hoist myself onto the counters to get things from the top shelf in my cabinets.  Here's a link to the original tutorial, at Prudent Baby.

Since I wanted my stepstool for the kitchen, I looked through my scrapbook paper collection to find one that would work with my new paint color (which is Behr Toasted Nutmeg, by the way, and I am in LOVE with it).  I found a pretty printed one with the right color tones, plus some nice words about being thankful on it.  Here is my finished product:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I will admit that it is quite off-centered due to me having a six-month-old strapped to my chest in the Moby wrap while I was Mod Podging.  Reed was quite intent on grabbing the paintbrush in my hand, so my paper went a little crooked.  I kind of like that, though, because now every time I look at it, I'll remember my little goober trying to grab at the glue.  This was a very quick and easy project, and very useful too.  I'm going to scout for more stepstools everywhere I go, as I think this would make a great Christmas gift!

Ciao, my dears, I'm off to drink tea and read my book!  Pinkie promise I'll post more regularly next week.  At least I hope so!