A little wreath tutorial

One of the things i wanted to get done this weekend {long weekend mind you} was to make my fall wreath. it only took me two whole days and some heavy rain to finally hunker down and get to it.

{did you know im a procrastinator? like really bad}

last year I made one with faux flowers from the craft store. I really liked it and had plans to use it this year but to be totally honest with you i can't for the life of me remember what storage tub its in and if its in the shed or not so with the unexplainable and the unknown of the where abouts of my 2010 wreath, why not make a new one?

score!

{supplies}

yarn

scissors {you really dont need 2 pairs.... unless of course you just really want 2}

styrofoam circle wreath thingy

thumb tack

hot glue gun

make a small loop/knot at the start of your yarn. push thumb tack through loop into the foam.

and hot glue that baby like its going out of style. 

{you really dont need the thumb tack but i put it there so the thread would be held in place while i glued it down}

then you start looping the yarn around. this is the first round.

2nd round.

3rd round.

i did one more round for a total of 4 rounds and it was completely covered in yarn.

Felt flowers

{supplies}

felt {color of your choice, i just grabbed a few of everything i had whether i used them all or not}

scissors

marker

something round {candle holder works good, you want something that you won't mind getting the marker on}

1. take your round object and trace around the base onto the felt with the marker {i traced 6 circles}.

2. cut out the circles leaving one circle in tact.

3. fold the circle in half.

4. cut the folded circle down the middle.

5. fold one of the cut pieces in half and dab the insides with hot glue, press together.

6. take your glues/folded halves and hot glue them to the circle which you have left that wasn't cut {in any formation}

for the next step i used a little metal button kit i bought at Joanns {you can use anything for this step though, this is going to be on the center of your little flower you just made}

I also used scraps of different fabric.

once the buttons are made glue them down on the center of your flowers.

AND now for 11teen different pictures of different angles of my finished yarn wreath. yay.

sorry, couldnt get any better angles. it was pouring 30inches of rain outside and my little front porch is only so big but you get the idea.

I didnt end up using the flower with the purple because 3 ended up being plenty for this wreath. I also made some extra buttons to fill in the blank areas around the flowers. The gray flower I made larger and used the rim of an old vase I had. 

im really excited about my new wreath. so much so that when i come home today i might just take the street that runs in front of the house so I can admire it from the road. exciting.

I hope you all had a fantastic labor day weekend! ♥

Scrap Wood Art

Holy poop batman. I finally did something that I saw on pinterest. I had his idea for awhile. to create something to hang in the living room. We had some scrap boards laying around and I wanted to make something with those boards but couldn't put my finger on it.

All hail to the Pinterest.

When searching for 'Pallet wall art' this little do-dad popped up and I was like 'Oh that's neat. I can work with that'.

{Twiddler House}

I took my boards and cut them to different sizes. I didn't want them to be all that even, just off enough to notice it and to give it that little extra umph.

cause we all like some umph on our walls.

I took two smaller strips of wood for the backing part. Marked where I was going to put my screws. Once I had my marks I took a counter sink and pre-drilled my holes. It's better to pre-drill the holes because if you just screw the screws into the wood it will more then likely split and we don't want any splitage.

Can you believe that I had exactly two of these small strips of wood, perfect length and perfect size. no cutting required? Ya, that never happens. {w00t} I think im going to play the powerball now.

I had some stain left over from my dining room dresser redo project so I geared up and put my game face on. Ready to stain the heck out of this thing. only to come to the conclusion it needed just one coat and it was good.

I aint complainin though.

Uneven edges.

The back.

I still have to buy the hardware {hooks} so I can hang it on the wall but I really wanted to show you what I did with some white paint.

Alien looking flowers all the way. Heck yes.

The inspiration was done with a stencil. Maybe I should have gone that route. nah. I like to free hand so I just got my paint brushes and did some doodles in the form of some sort of flowery looking things.

I like it.

It's different.     I like different.

I don't like finding the studs in the wall to hang heavy objects up.

*******************************

I have something else I want to share with you but im going to wait for another time because it has absolutely nothing to do with this post but I was amazed when I learned of the answer to this specific question.

Why are Flamingos pink?

No cheating google.

Scrapbook Paper Bunting - Tutorial

When I created the bunting for Jayden's room redo, it was the first bunting I have ever made. I've been seeing them all over the internets lately [dare I say Pinterest??] and I have always thought they were so cute. I've seen the fabric ones, paper ones which were then sewn onto fabric ribbon... just all kinds of buntings and each and everyone one of them were unique and creative in their own little ways.

When it came to Jaydens room, I would have loved to do a Fabric one, however I would have used up a lot of my fabric [which is the fabric I use for my items in my shop] so that option was out. Then I thought to my self, 'Self... should I sew paper onto ribbon?' and self did not comply with that option, so I went with plan C.

A paper-hole punch, white yarn, scissors, thumbtacks, and a template I made out of thick/heavy cardstock.

Oh and scrapbook paper [the main attraction!].

After I cut about a gazillion and one pieces of scrapbook paper into the shapes of little triangles, I put two holes with the hole punch at the top, not measuring, just completely eying it, which is fine either way.

I then took a long piece of cut yarn and placed it through the two holes.

At the end of the string I tied a little loopy-knot. The thumb-tack will be going through the loop to hold the banner up in place.

I put about 8 pieces onto one string. This was enough to go from one corner of the room to about the middle of that wall.

Once the bunting was hung up around the room, I was left with the little knots and thumbtacks in the corner, still showing, so all I did was go around and move the paper to the edge, as close to the corner as I could, just enough for the edge of it to cover over the thumbtacks and the knots that were made in the yarn. Once I did that, I evenly spaced the rest of them to make it all look more even.

It was such a simple project that made a really big impact. Jayden loves them... of course he calls them 'The Party' [???]. Which is fine by me, everytime he goes into his room now he can think he's at a party. :)

Have you made any crafts lately? Do tell!

Soap Pump - Tutorial

For awhile now I have had a 'glass soap pump' on my mind. I have been looking through different types of glass soap pumps on the internet and there is just something about them that looks so appealing to the eye. Of course they look better next to your sink than a plastic-white 'made in china' soap pump, right? Because that's what we have had for awhile now.

As you know I love glass. All things glass. Sometimes I will purposely buy pasta sauce, solely based on the type of jar it's in. ....Okay, maybe not that obsessive but you know what I mean. I also have some small mason jars and a few other plain glass jars. One in particular that had been sitting on the counter for quite some time now was an empty small, Salsa jar. It was plain and fat. I just loved the size and shape of it and after some thought I figured 'Hmm... why not try and make a soap pump myself [for free] and use that small-fat salsa jar!?'.

And so I did.

First I had an old soap dispenser away in my tub of 'goodies' [as I like to call it]. We've had this since Josh and I first started living together. It hasn't been used since than because ... Over the years my taste's have changed and that there soap dispenser did not fall into that category. So I took it out of the goody tub to take the pump part of it.

Next... A clean and dry empty jar.

I than took the pump part of the soap dispenser out and cleaned the parts of it.

I took the larger white piece of the soap pump and did a rough trace around the inside of the jar lid.

Next up was gathering all the tools needed for the 'job'. As you can see I already made a simple hole within the traced circle... And remember your safety glasses! :)

I took my wire cutters and started cutting away bits and pieces inside the circle, until it was large enough for the soap pump to go through.

Once I had the pump within the lid, I used some gorilla glue to secure it on the inside and the outside of the lid, as you can see it bonds metal and it also 100% waterproof!

I let the glue dry overnight and the next morning I used a good coat of metallic Valspar spray paint over the lid and the pump. After it dried... I have my finished product!

I think it looks so much better on the counter than what was there before. Granted I might have went a little overboard on the glue, hence it bubbled a little around the edges of the pump, but ah... it was free and it works!

Before

After

And there you have my complete tutorial on how to make a simple hand soap pump/dispenser. Any glass can be used and depending on the lid you can easily use a larger drill bit to drill the hole into the lid instead of using the cutters... my lid was a thin piece of metal so I just used the cutters and it only took me about a min. 

And if you were wondering, because I know you were, working with a Salsa jar made me want chips and salsa after I was done with this project. Unfortunately we didn't have any chips. Boooo!

Simple Wall-art tutorial

Last week, into this weekend, has been a little hectic around here. I was home from work most of the week last week because I had a sick toddler on my hands. After a 3rd day of a spike in temperature, I luckily got him in to see his Pediatrician and turns out he had a little sinus buggy going on and some fluid in his ears [poor little guy]. After a few days of medicine, we have a very hyper-playful Jayden back, tearing the house up, one toy at a time.

Josh did work more on the electrical for the recessed lighting in the shower, so that project is coming along smoothly. As for myself, I worked on some simple little digital projects in photoshop, to create some simple, new wall art for the office. Specifically, the new reading nook [stay tuned].

I had brackets on my mind for this little art project and so with some down-loadable bracket PS Brushes and a few 'words of wisdom', I created 'Imagine, Create and Inspire'.

I already had a frame that had 3 individual slots, measuring 4x6 inches. So basically all I did was create my prints in photoshop on a document measuring 4x6 and than printed them out on plain paper [something this simple can be printed on plain paper. It helps save your photo paper for future, bigger projects].

I placed one of the open slots on top of the paper with the print on it. I than took a pen and traced along the inside part.

Since all of the prints are centered on the page the same exact way, I gathered the 3 of them and used my small Fiskars cutter to cut along my traced line.

...Like so.

Last step is easy. Just tape the cut prints on the underside of the backing and viola!

A simple little way to dress up, and add a little character to a wall of photos.

What digital projects [or any wall art projects] have you been working on? Do you use Photoshop to create any kind of wall art? If not which program do you like to use most?

Sneak Peak

Hint: On sale and was originally made for a table.