Spring Wreath

Using tutorials found here and here, I made a fresh little spring wreath for our entrance hallway. 

I started out with just a styrofoam wreath form, some pins and two bundles of yarn - Stitch Nation's Full o' Sheep wool in Thyme (I only ended up using one bundle of yarn):

I tied a knot in the end of the yarn and used a pin to hold it in place.  Then, I just started tightly wrapping the yarn around the form. 

Okay, so, after wrapping a couple inches of the wreath form, I set it down and walked away from it for a couple of hours.  I came back to my wreath form shredded by the smallest, furriest, and arguably most destructive member of my household.

I ran out and got a new wreath form and just started over.  The wreath form is white styrofoam in the rest of the pictures.  That's why. 

I found that the quickest and most effective way to wrap the yarn was to wrap it loosely around a dozen or so times and "squish" it and twist it around until it was tight on the wreath form and lined up with the rest. 

Yarn done, I started making the flowers.  I started by cutting out a lot of felt circles in different sizes and colors.

After the circles were cut out, I traced a spiral stemming out from the center.  I cut on the spiral, leaving a small uncut circle in the middle.  While my glue gun was warming up, I used my scissors to make the outside edge a little wavy and more interesting. 

I folded the outside "tail" under a little and started rolling the spirals up into these sweet little flowers, securing my uncut circle middle to the bottom with hot glue.  I hotglued some leftover pearl beads into the center of each flower on a whim. 

After I had made several flowers, I arranged them on my wreath and hot glued them on.

A close-up of the flowers.

It hangs a little off center right now because the weight added by the flowers.  I'm going to add a little ribbon to the top to hang it from.  That should help balance out the way it hangs. 

The total cost for this project was just under $10, that includes both rolls of yarn and both wreath forms.



P.S. I had a total blast looking for inspiration pics for this project.  If you made a wreath, I'd LOVE to see it.  I think I'm becoming a little obsessed.....

Outdoor Lighting - Part 2

I have a feeling that this will turn into a 3 post project.  The weather wasn't cooperating much lately, so it has taken me a while to get the second step underway.

After I cut the plexiglass (see the results here). I spray painted the outdoor lantern-style light with Krylon Outdoor Copper spray paint. I finished this product at dusk, so it was hard to get a good shot of the new color. But, here's a sort of before and an extreme close-up after:

In the continuation of my quest to add light to our dismal yard, at the end of the summer last year, I picked up 20 of these lights for a song (well, actually for about a buck each).  They are cheap brown plastic, but I knew that they would add a lot of much needed light to our yard.   

I wasn't wild about the brown plastic look, so I gave them a quick coat of the same outdoor copper spray paint that I used on the lantern-esque light fixtures.  I covered the solar panels with Frog Tape brand painter's tape and gave each light a quick coat of spray paint.  Here is my little light army drying after being painted:

Two very light coats later, I am just thrilled with the results.  Once the weather starts cooperating, I will get them in the ground and I will post pictures of these lights in place.

Outdoor Lighting

You may remember from this post that we replaced this light: 

with this one:

That wasn't the end of our outdoor lighting story. Our house had two broken lantern-like lights on poles.  You can just see one poking in on the right side of this picture:

The other one hidden up by the barn.  You can just barely see it in this picture.  It's just to the right of the thickest tree (almost parallel to the red pole sticking up from the plow of the truck):

We also have a wall sconce in the same black iron and yellow glass style in our sunroom next to our backdoor.  Though ill-placed and less than appealing to look at, all of the lights are in okay structural shape and with a little re-wiring, they provide much needed light for our dark yard.  I started brainstorming economical ways to transform the lights until we can move and/or replace them with a better style.

While wandering through my local Ace Hardware, I found sheets of Plexiglass for $5 a sheet.  I took it as a sign that I was meant to immediately start on the outdoor lights.  So, while at Ace, I also picked up an extra large can of Krylon Outdoor Copper spray paint.

Armed with my tools, I got to work.  I replaced the old, yellow glass with textured plexiglass.  Here's a before and after of the fixture near the front of the house:

To cut the plexiglass, I laid the sheet of plexiglass onto some old wood that I used as a home repair cutting board.  I laid one of the glass panels on the sheet of plexiglass.  Using a utility knife, I traced the outline of the glass piece onto the plexiglass, scoring the plexiglass about halfway through.  I then very carefully folded the plexiglass until it broke into a clean line in the shape that I had scored into the plexiglass. 

Once all of my pieces were cut, I replaced them in the light fixture.  I love it.  No more crazy yellow color.  And, I can use the energy saving compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL).  Before I changed the glass out for plexiglass, I didn't like that you could see the swirly shape of the lightbulb (I still used 'em, just begrudgingly).  Not a problem now!

Here is the before and after of the light in the sunroom next to our backdoor (the top was removed for spray painting):

By the end of the week, the weather should be warm enough to spray paint the rest of the fixtures. 

Buttons!

I have been meaning to make new throw pillows for our couch and bed for a few months now.  Everytime I head to the fabric store for a costume or some other sewing project, I check out the remnants room and usually find something that I love (good thing I have lots of storage in my sewing room!).  I have also been obtaining pillow forms for some time now with grand plans to sprinkle throw pillows all over the house.
One important thing to note with every throw pillow I make, I put a zipper down one side so it is completely removable and every supply that I use is machine washable.  This means that I can change out the covers as I get bored and wash them as they get dirty.

The first pillow that I am working on is the most labor intensive by far.  I saw this image on crafting a greener world: 

It was over.  I was sold, I swooned.  I became obsessed with googling pictures of button monogrammed throw pillows.  On my button pillow, I wanted to do a 3 (to represent the members of our family: Matt, myself, and the pup).  This pillow was made out of white buttons and some leftover white linen dyed a dark blue-ish gray.  Note:  I am still thinking about making a 4 pillow if and when we have a kiddo. 

The cost for this throw pillow was minimal.  I already had the fabric (leftover from the roman shades I am making for the front room), I had the dye (but it only runs about $2 a box at JoAnns if you want to try this project yourself), I already had the thread, I already had all of the white buttons (I've been sewing for a long time and had collected a few small containers full of buttons over the years.).  The pillow forms I have were each less than $5 (I get my pillow forms from Hancock fabrics or JoAnn fabrics if they're having a sale, or from Atlanta Thread Company if I'm making a large-ish purchase and can justify paying for shipping).  The fabric paint was $1.19 at Michaels.  For the 3, I used Elephant font, bolded.

After I printed out the number, I traced it onto the cleaned and dried gray dyed linen.  With the text traced on the pillows, I used white fabric paint to fill in the number a little bit.  I did this only so that if I did leave any gaps or a button falls off in the future, it'll still look okay until I notice and fix it.  Here is my 3 traced on and painted very lightly with iridescent white fabric paint:

Then, I laid out my buttons and just started sewing. 

I'm still sewing on buttons, but when it's done, I just have to sew on the back, put the zipper on, and put it on the pillow form.  I'll update with pictures when it's all done.

I am a spray paint addict

I firmly believe in the power of spray paint.  When we moved in, we had a lot of things that were still functional, but not incredibly pretty.  Some things that we had from our renting days or that came with the house (like the mailbox), were perfectly fine, I was just unhappy with the color.  I constantly have a mental list of items in our house that I would like to freshen up with some spray paint. 

A few weeks ago, while on a Lowe's trip, I picked up a few cans of white glossy spray paint and spray primer.  I just got around to gathering everything that I wanted to paint, prepping it, and getting the jobs done. 

Project 1:

Picture Frames

I got a dozen 11x14 picture frames at Michael's for $1.50 each a couple of months ago (on sale, plus a coupon!).  Michael's only had the frames in black.  But, they are very sturdy plastic that came with a mat and quality mounting hardware. I used one coat of white spray primer that is made for plastics and two light coats of spray paint to get these from black to white.  The mats were white when I bought the frames.  I took them out of the frames and spray painted them with metallic silver paint.  I have to say, I'm pretty thrilled with the end result, especially for the price.  Here's an idea of what the frames looked like before:

And the after:

Project 2:

Firewood Holder

Fine shape, great price, wrong color.  Matt and I picked this little baby up at Menards for just over $10.  I didn't actually remember to take a before picture of this piece, but here's the after (just imagine it in black for the before)  

Project 3:
Garbage Can
We bought a couple of these garbage cans at Target way back in college.  They were cheap and could hold garbage.  And, at the time we bought them, that is all we were looking for.  These days, they were looking a little bit rusted and gross.  After a quick once-over with some sandpaper, I was ready to spray prime and spray paint.  The garbage can is still as functional and cheap as it's always been, but now it matches my color scheme and looks clean

Before and After:

Much nicer looking, no?  And here it is in our bedroom (it's right under the calla lily picture from my this post)

Project 4:

Mirrors

Matt got these mirrors from one of his tenants.  They were planning on throwing them away.  I am always on the lookout for big mirrors.  I love how much a mirror can open up a space and reflect so much light back into a room.  Matt snagged these before they met their fate in the dumpster.  I cleaned them up and primed and painted them white.  I think it's a big improvement from the icky, dated gold color.  Here's the before, during, and after:

Project 5:

Thread Rack

I ordered two of these unfinished wood thread racks off of Amazon for my sewing room:

They're functional and hold a ton of thread.  But, they were kind of blah.  Two coats of Valspar Glossy Tulip Pink spray paint later and they are a cute little punch of color in my sewing room:



Next on my spray paint itinerary:  A few of the planters that live in our sunporch, some pieces of trim to finish out a mirror in our guest bathroom, an old light fixture on the sunporch, a recycling bin for our kitchen, and some more picture frames.

Stuff on the walls - Part II

A couple of months ago, Matt found this sweet Typographic Map of Chicago on zazzle.com for a mere $30.  And, it's HUGE!  It's just shy of measuring in a 2 ft x 3 ft.  We thought it was super interesting. 

The map has been sitting rolled up in a corner of our kitchen for a couple of months while we argued about discussed where to hang it and how to frame it.  Last week, Michaels was having a 60% custom framing sale and we were totally inspired by the rest of our new wall decor, so loaded up our map and headed over there.  I was so amped to get this thing framed that I started taking pictures as we were walking into Michaels!

 

About 30 minutes later, we had selected a pretty, simple white wood frame and a gray/green/blue mat.  The picture below doesn't really capture the color of the mat accurately, but I only had my phone on me.

I'll update with pictures in two weeks when it's all done and back in our home.

Stuff on the walls!

Well, it's official, after 14 months in our home, we have started putting things on the walls.  It was a big step for us. 

Between removing the popcorn ceilings, adding so, so much drywall, painting, and trimwork, we didn't want to hang anything on our walls.  We knew that if we put anything up before the walls were done, we would constantly be taking whatever art we hung up down so it would not get damaged while we worked. 

We started in the bedroom.  Matt and I bought this print from IKEA a few years ago on sale for less than 20 bucks.  I love how crisp it looks next to the Sporty Blue of the walls.  We're still tossing around ideas for what to put on the other side of the window, but it's really nice to have a little something in there.

With the bedroom looking spiffy, we turned our attention to the kitchen.  Our kitchen has two wood walls and a few drywalled walls.  As we're planning on gutting the whole room in the not too distant future, we really haven't done a ton in the kitchen in terms or renovations or decorating.  Sure, we removed the popcorn ceiling, painted the ceiling, changed the light fixture, replaced the handles and knobs on the cabinets and drawers, and busted down a wall; but it's not like any major changes have gone down.  We haven't even painted the walls yet (though color selection is underway). 

Since the walls haven't been painted yet, and we knew what we wanted to adorn one of the wood walls, we started there.  For Christmas, Matt's mom gave us a vibrant, framed needlepoint that she made for us.  It's stunningly beautiful.  Here's her signature on the bottom and a close up of the matting used to frame it. 

And a view of the whole piece.  We're just thrilled with it and it fits perfectly into our vision of the kitchen.  I am so impressed with her needlepoint skills.  Thanks, Sue!

With the needlepoint in place, we were ready to move onto the other side of the china cabinet (which is never moving again because it is freaking heavy!). 

Matt and I honeymooned in Sonoma County, CA.  We have since returned for the harvest festival and hope to head back later this year.  Every time we go, I take more and more pictures of the beautiful scenery of wine country.  We opted to use some of these pictures to decorate the kitchen.  I also had a handful of plain metal frames that I got back in college just sitting in a box in the basement.  We pulled those out and cleaned them up and framed our four favorite wine country pictures.  That was the easy part.  The hard part was picture placement.  Using paper that is the same size as the frames, we created dozens of arrangements.  Here are a couple of our top contenders: 

In the end, we went with a more spaced out version of the second arrangement.  Here's the finished (though no centered in the picture) wall:

And, a close up of the pictures we chose:

I love how having a few pieces of art on the walls makes our house feel so much more like home.  Now, onto all of those walls in the living room....

Guest Bedroom Walls

There are two rooms in our house that have remained untouched since we moved in.  Both are small bedrooms that we have been planning on using for future children.  Until last week, both rooms were used for storage and the doors were kept closed pretty much all of the time. 

So, we decided to use some paint that we got during a major sale at Sherwin Williams, our old mattress (A few months ago, Matt and I got a new mattress.  It has individually pocketed springs and a very thick layer of memory/tempurpedic foam on top.  It's fantastic.  It did however leave us with an older mattress that wasn't quite ready for the garbage.), some art we used to have hanging on the walls of our rental, and a hand-me-down nightstand from my grandma to make a sort of guest bedroom.  I don't plan to drop a lot of money on this room as it won't be used very often and we have plenty of furnishings and accessories that can be repurposed into that room. 

Here is what the "guest bedroom" looked like before I got my hands on it: 

Awesome, right?!?  The first thing I did was remove that crazy fabric from the window.  Then, I got to work on the wallpaper.  Luckily, only one wall was wallpapered (though all of the walls have a border).  Here's what it looked like close up:  



But, as I started to scrape off the old ugly, crazy wallpaper, I found......

Different old, ugly, crazy wallpaper!!!!

It's very pink with these women gardening or just hanging out in a garden.  It's a little tough to figure it out, exactly.  I'm pretty sure it's original to the house (built in the 70s), as the only thing under the bottom wallpaper is the drywall. 

My favorite part of the wallpaper is that each of the girls has a different word on the pockets of her dress; Fun, Love, Joy, Happy.  It's very, very 1970s.  And I kind of love it.

Here are some close-ups: