Valentine Mantle

I thought I would show you all today the simple Valentines mantle I put together. Now usually I am not one to decorate for a small holiday like Valentines day. My husband and I don't even usually celebrate it, or if we do, we celebrate it on a different day that week to avoid all the craziness. So needless to say when I got the hankerin' (yes that's totally a word) to do something crafty I decided to dress up my somewhat sad looking mantle. This was quite the challenge for me seeing as how I don't own any pink or red decor, and nothing with hearts! I was also determined to do this without spending any money. gulp.

 

So my little mind went to work and I started scouring Pinterest for DIY ideas. I knew from the beginning I didn't want to go too Valentiney (I have a tendency to make up my own words) with the all pink and little cupids, especially since I didn't have any red or pink decor to start with. So I started on the heart garland.

 

 

I hand cut all the hearts from some red and pink scrapbook paper as well as some old book pages. The book pages totally gives it a more vintage/neutral look. It was pretty time consuming but ended up being my favorite part of the whole mantle!

 

I had some left over hearts so I used those on my candles for my "height" section of the vignette. I cut out slightly larger hearts from book pages to outline the red hearts and to add a little more of my vintage love. I taped them to each other and then to the candle. Then secure them with a little bit of jute twine.

 

 

Next I started working on the XOXO canvas. I took a blank canvas I had in my stash and started covering it with more book pages. I then used my Cricut to cut out the X's and O's and taped them on. I wrapped some coordinating twine to match the candles.

 

 

A few nights previously my husband went to Michaels to get some craft paint and he spotted some little wooden signs. So he bought me a few of them, one being this little Love sign. If that isn't love I don't know what is!! So I painted it red, and put it front and center. I stacked it on a craft paper covered book and the only little pink book I had that just so happens to be about cupcakes. That's Valentiney right?

 

 

 

I might add a few things here and there as the week goes on. My Camellia bush is just starting to bloom in the front yard so hopefully I can add of few of its white blooms soon. But overall I'm pretty happy with it, especially since I used only what I had around the house. That's the beauty though of being a DIYer at heart, your up for the challenge of making things out of nothing!

 

 

 I added a few more things to the coffee table and brought out my pink pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I fell in love with this pillow from TJ Maxx a while ago and bought it even though it doesn't match anything else I own. he he Maybe it will be useful down the road if we have a little girl in the house, but for now it fits right in with the Valentines Decor. :)

 

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Thanksgiving 2012

I know this post comes waaaay late, but I thought it couldn't hurt to share it anyway :) Just to forewarn you this post is going to be pretty picture heavy, because well I'd rather let the pictures do all the talking! I got most of my inspiration from Pinterest (no big surprise there) so if you would like to see some of my inspiration pins, you are welcome to visit my fall board here.

I was so excited to host our very first Thanksgiving at our house this year, and I wanted to keep the decorations very simple and natural. I am not a huge fan of traditional Thanksgiving decor and colors so I put my own spin on it. I went with aqua pumpkins, white plates, tan linens, and natural tree branches for that pop of fall color. Hope you enjoy!

  

 

 

 

 

 

Each person had a cloth napkin, paper napkin, and personalized leaf place holder.

 

 

Mmmmm you cant forget the sweet tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sorry for the crazy eyes, Britna caught me off guard, but yay for homemade Pumpkin Cheesecake!

 

 

Britna did such an amazing job with all the arrangements around the house. She is also responsible for all of these beautiful photos!

 

 

 

 

Evan had the most important job of all, entertaining the little man. But they enjoyed themselves thoroughly on the wooden ramp Evan made that morning.

 

 

Overall I would say it was a very successful first Thanksgiving. Thanks to a wonderful family that helped me out and made it so much fun and memorable.

 

If the host is smiling at the end of the Thanksgiving, you know its been a good day. :)

 

Its Finally Fall

Yes, Fall is here, well not actually here. Its still 101 here, but my calender says its here so out goes the summer decor and in comes the Autumn goodies.  I decided to take a break from working on stuff for the shop and actually make something for myself. Boy am I glad I did! I followed this amazing picture from Pinterest to a blog called Ella Claire, where she gives a full tutorial on how to make this beauty...

 

To see her tutorial go here.

 

So I started following her steps, only I had to tweak them a bit.

 

I measured my mantle and decided how big I wanted my sign to be, since I had to make it from scratch. I decided 24"x30" would look best. So I started digging through our scrap pile and cutting my pieces.

 

 

Then I made up some cream chalk paint and painted on one coat, then some streaks of a minty green, then one more coat of cream. (the last coat didn't make the picture)

 

 

 

Then sanded her down, and started tracing the words. Now this could have been a fairly quick process, but our printer was out of ink, so... I ended up having to trace the letters onto paper by taping them onto my computer screen. This slowed things down quite a bit, but where there is a will there's a way!

 

I didn't get picture of the last steps, but i traced my letters onto the wood, then traced those in paint then filled them in. My camera doesn't really do this project justice. In person you can see a little aqua showing through, and the nice worn antiqued look to it.

 

 

 I added some spray painted candle stick holders, and some pumpkins I got last year from the Target dollar bin, and now I have a cheap, and simple Fall mantle. Now if only it would start cooling down around here so I can start enjoying all my favorite fall foods!

Chalk Paint Coffee Table

A few weeks ago, my husbands cousin called me up saying she had an old coffee table she didn't want any more but it was sturdy, and I could have it if I wanted to paint it up. It was love at first sight. :)

I am a sucker for anything with curvy legs, not sure why. I could tell it had definitely been "loved" over the years and needed a good sanding. Later on I learned that this table has made its rounds through our area. It has been in at least three different homes including my in laws. It has survived many years of use, and lots of kids.

Here is a blurry picture of the underside of the table. Gotta love little surprises :)

I was so looking forward to my chance of experimenting with homemade chalk paint. I bought a beautiful cream color called "cottage white" and got to mixing.

I tried at first to follow a recipe I found online for the chalk paint, but I was not getting the results I wanted, so instead I just mixed my own. I put a little bit of Plaster of Paris in a dollar tree Tupperware and add a tiny bit of water. You don't want to put too much water because its really hard to undo without making a huge batch. Then I mix in my paint until I get the consistency I want (which is somewhere around pancake batter) then get to work!

I love how this table turned out, see...

The heavy distressing gives it that old farmhouse look I love.

So here is the before and after.

Before:

After:

I learned a lot of lessons with this piece, mostly involving Polycrylic. If you need any pointers just let me know. So what do you think?

Noel Sign

I saw this beautiful Pottery Barn knockoff on pinterest and instantly fell in love.

So I decided to make my own!

This was so easy and fun to make this simple Christmas sign. It was cheap too, it only costs about $4 a letter at Michael's, then you need red and brown paint, and a glue gun. I used the brown paint first where I wanted the letters to look distressed, then I pained several layers of red paint over that. If you want it even more distressed looking you could always add brown paint around the edges to give it that "shabby" look. 



Don't you just love those projects that only take a little bit of your time but make a huge impact?!

Make Believe Mantle

Ya know how when you notice something in your house that isn't quite what you want it to be, then all the sudden its all you can see when you walk into that room? Has that ever happened to you? Well, after we built our coffee table here and I took some pictures for this here blog, I was so annoyed by the look of our too small shelf. Its amazing how looking at a picture can really point something out to you that you hadn't really noticed before.

This shelf was put up in a hurry when we first moved in, trying to make it look a little more "homey" for our first visitors. It worked for awhile, but when we moved the big couch against that wall, it dwarfed the shelf even more. So after bugging my handy BIL and repeatedly showing him pictures I liked, kinda like this one...

 Pinterest

and this one...

 Pottery Barn

So one weekend while my husband and I were out of town, Ryan got a wild hair and decided to build one, (I swear it was like subliminal messaging) and look how good it turned out!

I love that it has that chunky mantle look to it. It is so much more fun decorating for fall when you have a make believe mantle.

Now I cant even begin to explain how he built it, all I know is that I love it :) Maybe someday, I will be brave enough to attempt that wonderful chippy look like the ones above. But for now it works just fine!

I am linked at Home Stories A 2 Z

DIY Headboard

Around here we've been busy making all sorts of interesting furniture pieces for our house. Some of the most noticeable being our new headboards. Ryan made his out of an old pallet, honestly I didn't even know that they made pallets this big!

 

For a while he left it just raw wood, which looked good, just not quite finished. Last weekend he stained it, and built a new wooden frame to go around his metal bed frame. He also managed to find some old hinges while working in his parents old barn. They go so well with the "industrial rustic" look he has going in his room. 

 

 

Meanwhile over in our room I decided to make a headboard using more of the old aged fence boards we had. I cleaned them up, then traced the shape I wanted. I only had to trace one side, then Evan could use the cut pieces to trace the other side so it would be symmetrical. Originally, I was going to paint the headboard a distressed white, but I fell in love with the color of the aged wood.

 It has made such a difference to the look of our room. I love that it has a more feminine shape, but then the coloring of the wood brings in the masculine.

That's all for now. Ill try and share more of the projects were working on soon!

I was featured at Perfectly Imperfect

Our New Addition

Before you get too excited, no were not having a baby... but almost as exciting. We've made our own coffee table! What? That's not as exciting? Well anyway, we were getting tired of our furniture store table with its shiny wood and "one of a million" look. So we decided to make our own. I looked through my ever growing inspiration folder and remembered this little beauty...

source

We were so excited to see a stack of old fence boards on the side of our house when we bought it. And they have contributed to quite a few projects now. I knew we wanted to personalize the table a little bit, and fit it to our needs. We have always liked the idea of a storage ottoman, but knew it would be hard to keep one clean. So often our coffee table is used more as a foot rest than anything else, so it needed to be durable and something that could hide dirt. Well it doesn't get much better than old wood.

The BIL started by building the interior frame, then nailed the fence boards to the outside. He constructed a lid and used two big black door hinges. He drilled two holes on each side, and looped through and knotted big rope. It ended up looking something like this...

There is so much room inside to store games, blankets, pillows, magazines or anything else I fancy!

It really fits in with the rest of the decor. It has some of the brown from the couches, and even has a little blueish grey like the walls.

Were really happy with the way it turned out. Eventually we would like to get some bigger hinges that go on the outside, but no biggie.

p.s. I am aware that the shelf is off centered, we recently rearranged our furniture and haven't gotten around the moving it yet. We would like to put something different on that wall altogether. Any ideas?


I am linked up at Perfectly Imperfect and Home Stories A 2 Z

Dreamy Dining Room Chairs

For a few weeks I have been thinking about reupholstering our dining room chairs. They have been through some rough times, and are showing there years. I remember the day I helped pick out this table and chair set for my mom a good 10+ years ago. Since then they have made it through a house full of pets, and more recently my nannying job. Needless to say, there are a few juice stains as well as mac n cheese smears. (It was totally worth it, to get to spend everyday with the little cutie). But today I decided, I don't want to look at our ugly, old, stained dining room seats any longer! Just look at these things...

They look like they were owned by a diesel mechanic who never changed before he ate dinner. Anyway, I just so happened to have a coupon for Joann's Fabric screaming my name from my email inbox, for a whopping 50% off one whole purchase. So off I went to buy some dreamy linen. While I was there this little picture popped into my mind. This chair I found on pinterest was love at first sight!

I have a feeling it will be a while until I ever own a chair as beautiful as this one. But I can definitely try and make my own version with what I have! So linen and lace it was.

On a more serious note, I'm thinking I may have a disorder called fearofbuyingfabric-itis. As soon as I pull that number and wait in line to get my fabric cut I start to get the butterflies, and I keep changing how many yards of fabric I want to buy. I suppose it would help to be more prepared before I actually buy the fabric. Like perhaps knowing the measurements of my chairs so I could make a more educated guess. :)

But I didn't so I just guessed and said ,"Give me 4 yards please" with the biggest smile I could muster. I figure I can always go back and get more if I need it. So with my coupon the fabric only came to $13! After I bought that I went back and had them cut me 4 yards (again, totally guessing) of lace. I made separate orders so they wouldn't use my coupon on the lace instead of the fabric. Is that cheating? At the register, the wonderful lady had another 50% off coupon so my lace only came to $9. I could have kissed her! So altogether this has only cost me $22! That is if I don't have to go back and get more fabric. 

I'm a little nervous having never done something like this before, but I think it should be fairly easy. Ill let you all know how they turn out!