Protect Your Door From Your Wreath Hanger

For years I've used a wreath hanger on our front door but little did I know what damage it was doing to the door. After getting our house repainted last year my husband didn't want me putting it back up so it wouldn't damage the new paint. 

Of course I still wanted to hang my wreaths on the door, so I had to come up with a solution. I got to thinking... how can I protect the door? I kept thinking I must be able to put something on the inside of the wreath hanger (that you wouldn't be able to see) that will protect the door's paint from getting scratched. This is what I came up with....

 What you'll need to protect your door:

- felt (scraps will do)

- a pair of scissors

- a hot glue gun

The greatest part was I already these things I already had around the house.

Step 1: Cut two felt pieces to fit the door hanger.

Step 2: Hot glue felt pieces onto the wreath hanger.

Step 3: Let glue dry and decorate your door!

 Happy Crafting!

Have The Star I See Tonight - Star Garland

Star bright, star light, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have the star I see tonight.

Many of us know this familiar nursery rhyme. It came to mind as I knit all of these stars.

Large Star

Middle Stars

Small Stars 

Together these stars come together in the first garland I've made.

My friends know that I love a challenge and this project was definitely that!

My friend T requested a star garland to decorate for Christmas/New Years. Although, they love it so much they've kept it up ever since it was finished.

While the different stars I found patterns for, the garland portion I came up with my own.... sort of. Depending how long you've been reading my blog, you might remember my knit i-cord tutorial. I've used this i-cord for the garland and I've knit the stars into the i-cord. Using the knitting tails and my tapestry needle I sewed the ends to create a loop. So the garland is ready to hang!

This has been the first of three garlands I've made. I look forward to sharing the others with you. 

If you would like a star garland of your own, they will soon be available in my shop.

Happy Crafting!

Crafty Decorating

Need to decorate but don't have a ton of money? Decorate with what you've got! For this cute decor project I used a felt quote, a piece of scrapbook paper, and a picture frame. I bought this Home Sweet Home felt quote on sale for $0.50, I already had the piece of scrapbook paper, and the frame was a gift.

It was a simple project, it looks great, and all for under $1! All I had to do was cut the paper down to size and insert the felt quote and paper into the picture frame and hang it. It makes a great addition to our guest room!

Happy Crafting!

Upcycled Picture Frame

Yesterday I was cleaning upstairs when I came across the bamboo necklaces (pictured below) that we got on our vacation last month. As I was cleaning I was wondering what in the world we were going to do with these necklaces. When a moment of crafty inspiration hit... I'm going to make an awesome picture frame!

The great thing with this project is that I already had everything for it around the house. I grabbed the necklaces, my hot glue gun, and a picture frame with a flat frame. It was a simple project... just snipping the cord on the necklace, figuring out a pattern with the beads, and gluing them on the frame. 

In the end I love the way it turned out! We have a cool picture frame, that now is a special memento, to put one of our vacation pictures in.

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Happy Crafting!

Laundry Sign

I am in the process of redecorating my laundry room. Just because doing laundry can be boring doesn't mean my laundry room has to be! We are on a time of use plan with our electric company. I made the original sign when I purchased my first home in order to remember the cheaper times to do laundry.

This is my original sign. It is made from antique clothes pins, twine, scrapbook paper and stickers, cardboard, and hot glue. The stickers were coming off and it didn't match the color scheme for redecorating my laundry room.

I kept the clothes pin frame intact and remade the sign with new scrapbook paper and stickers. I glued cardboard on the back for added strength and the twine to the cardboard for hanging.

May my crafting inspire your own! Happy crafting!

Pretty Pantry Part 2

I have two words for you... Con-tact paper! I'm tired of my pantry being plain and today starts with con-tact paper! My inspiration. This project was great motivation to clean out the pantry and reorganize!

This project was definitely time consuming.
The most frustrating part was that the shelves were not placed evenly
so I couldn't just cut all the pieces at one time.
But it was SO worth it!

The end result is a pretty pantry that is no longer just dull white and boring!
Anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE green.
Everything in my kitchen is green and now so is the pantry!
LOVE my pretty pantry!!!

Project Pretty Pantry Part 1

Have you ever been perfectly content with something that is fine not realizing there is something better out there? I've had this realization about my pantry. I was perfectly fine with it's fairly organized state and it being plain white until last week and discovering a SPECTACULAR pantry on another blog. Now I am on a mission to pretty up my pantry! My inspiration.

 Here is a picture of what the pantry looks like after cleaning it out. It hadn't gotten a good spring cleaning so I threw out everything that was stale, got rid of boxed and put the crackers in air tight containers. Items that needed to be grouped together went into baskets to keep things organized. I now have a basket of baking supplies that stay in the pantry, a basket full of top ramen, and a basket with different sizes of disposable plates and napkins. I LOVE having the pantry organized! It's great to get rid of the boxes and having snacks in clear containers you can see.

The pantry is still a work in progress. I still have BIGGER plans for the pantry so stay tuned!

Experimenting with Sharpie Brush Tips

My mom picked these up for me the other day. Before I started my experiment I was under the impression that it was paint. Still the same Sharpie but with a larger tip that resembles a brush. Hence the name lol. Overall works well. I was expecting it to cover a bit better. With some of the thing I tried it on you can see the brush strokes/lines.

Here are before and after pictures of a zebra tray I picked up at Target a few years ago in the $1 section. Because my craft room colors are purple and black I decided to color in the white stripes purple.

Before

After

Frame Art

There was a big empty wall in our guest bedroom. I've had all kinds of ideas of how I might want to decorate that wall. The one thing that I knew for sure was that I wanted some sort of large art. I decided to make my own art. I had great motivation to get something up on the wall since my long time friend came to visit us over the summer.

As usual I found lots of inspiration on pinterest. It is pretty much a daily thing in our house to start a sentence "Guess what I found on pinterest J..." I don't think my husband minded the whole pinterest thing so much until I actually started making the crafts. However, it is SO much cheaper making these things yourself then buying them.

What you'll need to make your own frame art:

-picture frames of different sizes

-paint & brushes

-hot glue

My inspiration was my jumping off point (as is pretty much anything I do). I knew that I wanted to hang one of my pictures from my photography class in college in the room. So I went to Michaels and bought a bunch of the semi cheap wood frames (ranging from $1-$20). I bought one large frame for the center and varying sizes to surround it. I bought two of each type of frame because I like things even. 

I came home and laid the frames out in a design I LOVED. I then wrote in pencil on the picture frames R for right and L for left so that I remembered which side I had placed them on. Looking back on this now I probably should have numbered them in some way because after I painted them I couldn't remember how I had originally laid them out.

My guest room different shades of blues and browns. I already had paint at home so I quickly went to town on painting my picture frames. I tried my best to make sure the same colored frames did not touch each other. After I redecided how I wanted to lay the frames out again I hot glued them together. The inspiration piece drilled holes and nailed them together. But since I was in a hurry to get something on the wall and the frames were light I hot glued them together, overlapping the frames. The center picture frame had one of the metal claw hooks on the back so I hung that regular. To add support to the other frames I periodically added a nail under the lip of one of the frames to make sure my new art wouldn't fall off the wall or lean.

I love the end product and again it is unique and something no one else will have. Not only is it my photograph but also my artwork. It made for a very cool and unique way to display one of my photographs. In the future I may decide to add on and make it larger but for now it's good. :)

Memo Board

A simple DIY memo board. What you'll need:

-old cookie sheet (it doesn't matter what it looks like. It will get spray painted.)

-spray paint in the color of your choice

-modge podge

-scrapbook paper

-paint brush

First it is important to make sure magnets can stick to your.cookie sheet. I went to goodwill and picked up an old cookie sheet for $2 since I didn't have an old one at home. My kitchen is black and green so I chose to spray paint the cookie sheet black. Pick out a few pieces of scrapbook paper to modge podge onto the cookie sheet.

Once the cookie sheet has dried, apply a liberal amount of modge podge across the bottom side of the cookie sheet with a paint brush. I used a foam paint brush so that brush strokes would not show in the modge podge. Using the raised edge of the cookie sheet towards the wall allows the nail to rest against the edge for easier hanging.

For my memo board I used green and black scrapbook paper along with a laser cut apple patterned scrapbook paper. First I measured out the paper. I cut two squares of green, black, and apple scrapbook paper. Then I took my scallop edged scissors and trimmed the border of my paper.

Next place the scrapbook paper onto the modge podged cookie sheet. You can create any pattern you like with scrapbook paper you like. I alternated the green and black paper. Placing the green apple paper over the black paper for definition. Smooth out any air bubbles as best as possible. I realize that the cookie sheet was already painted black but I still chose to use black paper for uniform texture and scalloped edge.

After this has dried apply a coat of modge podge on top of the scrapbook paper to harden everything. When that has dried spray with modge podge sealer.

Once everything has dried just hang and add magnets! The beauty of this is that you will have a unique memo board, that I guarantee no one else has!

Inspiration