My Version of Valentine's Crafting...

The people closest to me know that I love to switch up our home decor quite often.  I use different seasons and holidays as my excuse to swap patterns, colors and textures in and out of our space all year long.  But shockingly, that doesn't mean I go all out for every holiday on the calendar.  One of the holidays I've never decorated for is Valentine's Day.  And while I'm still not going all out...thanks to a super sweet invite to a blog hop full of talented ladies, I've decided to try my hand at a little Valentine's Day crafting! :)

For my project, I wanted to make some art to add a little "love" to our mantel.  I went shopping in my crap craft room {one of the few times I've been thankful for my hoarded stash taking up an entire room} and gathered my supplies: empty frames, cardstock, a heart-shaped lever punch, glue, ruler and x-acto knife.

I know my color scheme doesn't scream Valentine's Day, but it fits perfectly in our home and I wanted to prove to myself I could make something Valentine's-ish without using pink and red.

I started by cutting out my backgrounds.  I used the filler paper that came with the frames as templates, and cut clean lines with my ruler and x-acto knife. {Please ignore my much-in-need-of-a-manicure-nails.}

Then I started punching holes...errrr, hearts.

I lined things up as I punched along so I could get an idea of how many I'd need.

When I had enough hearts cut out, I laid everything into place.  Then I got out the trusty Elmer's to glue each heart down, one by one.  

The key is to not put a ton of glue on the back...just a dab.  And since you have the grid already laid out, you can slide the hearts around until the placement looks right.  I didn't measure anything for this project.  In fact, that was my requirement.  I didn't want to measure anything! ;)

After the first grid was done, I decided to use my next frame to write out an X and O.  Again, I just eyeballed the placement, and glued after I laid everything in place.

Once the glue dried, it was time to pop them into their frames, and voilà!  Instant Valentine's Day art for our mantel! :)

Now, before you go, please make sure you enter to win a $140 Target gift card and check out the 13 other amazing Valentine's Day projects!!  You won't want to miss any of them! :)

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Modern & Glam Fall Wreath.

I took on quite a few DIY projects to prep for the Modern & Fresh Fall Tour.  I was nervous about how they'd all turn out, but thankfully, most were a success.  {Love it when that happens!!}  My painted acorns seemed to be a reader favorite, and while I definitely love them, I have a soft spot in my heart for the modern and glam fall wreath I made.

This is the second time I've DIY'ed my own wreath.  My first was a success, even if it did take me a little bit of time. This one took no more than 15 minutes, and I'm super smitten with the finished product.

All of the supplies I used were purchased from Michael's {wreath form, ribbon, peacock feathers, jewel embellishments and hot glue/glue gun.}

I hot glued the end of the ribbon to the wreath form, and once it cooled {and therefore was securely held in place}, I tightly wrapped  the entire form.  Then I cut my ribbon and glued the end to the "back" of the wreath.  {This piece won't be seen because of the ribbon that the wreath hangs on.}

Now it's time to decorate!  I took my stem of peacock feathers and gently pulled each feather away from the stem.  Once the feathers were separated, I played around with different arrangements until I figured out what look I was going for.  Then I began to glue my individual feathers on.  I ran a small line of hot glue in two separate areas on each feather and stuck them in place.

Once the feathers were done, it was time to play around with my jewel embellishments.

Same as the feathers, once I figured out the arrangement I liked, I hot glued the jewels to my wreath.  Done-zo!  To hang it, I simply cut a strip of black ribbon, looped it around my wreath and tucked the ends behind my mirror so it hung at the right height.

I love the statement it makes in front of the crisp white mirror.  Anyone else love anything and everything shiny?!?! I just can't help myself!!

PS - Head over here to check out a little Q&A I did with a the super inspirational Sarah from Sarah M. Dorsey Designs.

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Linked up to Liz Marie Blog

DIY Painted Acorns.

One of my favorite DIY projects I tackled when getting our house ready for the amazing Modern & Fresh Fall series, was painting acorns to use as vase/tray filler.

I simply headed out the back door of our house and collected acorns of all shapes and sizes.

Then I hopped onto the computer and Google'ed the best way to kill any bugs or creepy crawlies that might live in the acorns.  {Yuck.}  I came across a couple different ways to make the acorns "indoor-safe"...the two most common were baking and freezing.

I opted for baking.  There were many opinions on the best amount of time and temperature to bake at. Some of the higher temperature/shorter time methods seemed to have issues with exploding or burning acorns.  I definitely didn't want to have either of those issues, but I also wanted to make sure that anything that could possibly be living in the acorns were gone-zo...so I decided to go with a lower temperature/longer baking time method.

I placed all my acorns in a single layer on a cookie sheet.  I pre-heated my oven to 200 degrees, and then I let the acorns bake for two hours.

After the first hour, I took the sheet out and gently shook things around so the acorns moved around a bit.  I wanted to make sure nothing was burning to the pan.  Then after the second hour, I took the pan out and let them cool.

{FYI - most directions talk about washing the acorns off and cleaning them thoroughly before baking them. I did this with a handful of acorns {see the couple clean ones in the lower right-hand corner of the photo above}, and then realized how ridiculously tedious of a process it'd be.  Since I wasn't eating the acorns, I did not deal with washing them.  I will admit that the ones I did wash were very pretty and polished.  So if you are going for a "natural" look with your acorns, definitely do this step!!!}

Once the acorns were cool, I got out my hot glue gun and glued the tops on all the acorns.  Most of them didn't have tops on already, so I just used a mix-and-match approach to this.  Again, this step is tedious, but super easy.  One dab of glue on the top of the acorn, and then put a top on it.  It helps to try a top before you put the glue on to make sure it "fits" the acorn.

After all my acorns had tops securely glued to them, it was time to paint!  I knew I wanted mustard, plum and teal acorns, so I separated my acorns into three equal piles.  For the teal and mustard colors, I used craft paint from my supplies, and for the plum I used Rustoleum's Aubergine spray paint.  To get it "paintable", I just sprayed a generous amount into a paper cup, and then dipped my paint brush into the cup.

WARNING - do not use a cheap plastic cup to spray into.  The spray paint will eat through the bottom of it and then you'll have spray paint EVERYWHERE.  This may or may not have happened to me while painting my acorns and pumpkins. Eeeeek!  Also, just to be safe, put a drop cloth or something similar under whatever cup you are using. :)

I held the acorns by the tops while I painted, and luckily the paint dried pretty fast on these guys.  I tried to prop them up by their tops, so none of the painted surface touched anything while they dried, but not all of them would stay standing. For those who fell over, and then had some of the paint come off, I simply touched up those spots and let them dry on the side that was already dried.

The painting was pretty tedious, but nothing terrible...just a few seconds per acorn.  And I think the results are totally worth it! :)

Winter Wreath. {Say That 5 Times Fast.}

Check me out...I totally just legitimized myself as a blogger.  Okay, not even close...BUT I definitely completed some sort of blogger “rite of passage”.  I made my own wreath!  Woot woot!

I was really trying to get this done as a holiday project...heck, I even bought two wreath forms because I was certain I’d have time to make one for me and one to bring up to my sister’s as a house warming gift.  HA!  It just didn’t happen.  I should have known that if I wanted one done for the holidays, I should have started well in advance.  Oh well, there is always next year, right?

So I was left with two blank forms, and lots of felt.  What was I to do?  Welp, make a wreath for a wintery mantel, of course!   Adding a little something to the mantel could help to combat the inevitable post-holiday-décor-blues!

I wanted a wreath that was grey and white, and well, wintery.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to do until I saw Mallory's wreath. 

It was a total inspiration for me.  So I headed over to Michael's, picked up some varying sized pearls and got to business.

I cut charcoal grey felt {that I already owned} into strips.  I wrapped them around the form in an overlapping pattern, hot gluing things in place as I moved along.



Once the felt was done, I started gluing various sized pearls in a random pattern on the wreath.  I didn’t have a method, I just went with it and tried not to think.  When I formed a big enough cluster, I used a couple of the smaller sized pearls and glued them around the outskirts of the main cluster.

Then it was time to add a ribbon to the top so I could hang it from my mantel mirror.  I tried white ribbon first, but it was just too bleh.  I knew the tiffany blue ribbon I used to DIY a bunch of stuff for our wedding would be perfect, so I dug through some old supplies and found just what I was looking for.  The ribbon may be a little wrinkled, but it’s nothing a little ironing can’t fix.  {Clearly, I have been too lazy to bust out the iron to fix the ribbon...maybe I'll get to it one day.  For now, just ignore it in the picture. ;)}

I really like how my very first wreath turned out, although I'm not sure it stands up to the beauty that Mallory created! :)  Head on over to her and Savannah's blog to see more of the awesome things they do!

PS - In the last picture you can catch a glimpse of the other mirror that I was priming on the back porch.  Hopefully I can share that makeover, along with my winter-ish mantel, very soon!

Pass It On Project, Part Deux

Almost a month ago {jeez...shame on me}, I posted about the awesome Pass It On gift I received from Ashley at Attempts at Domestication.  Then it was my turn to get my craft on and create something lovely for two of my favorite bloggers Emily and Whitney {check them out if you haven't already!!}.

I headed to Michael's and kept my eyes peeled for a super cute container to spruce up.  {I love having pretty containers to store ordinary things.  It can instantly make a drab space more interesting.}  I originally thought I was going to use little cardboard boxes I found, but then a couple clear cylinders caught my eye.  My decision was made...I threw two in my cart and headed home to get started on transforming them.

Like most projects I come up with, I had a clear idea of how I wanted the end result to look.  I wanted bold metallic stripes and a fun felt flower to add a little pop.  I decided to use gold paint and go with a charcoal flower. 

I started by taping off my stripes, as well as the areas I didn't want to get painted, and I quickly realized the paint wasn't going to stick or cover like I had hoped. 

I wiped it off in a hurry and pulled out some spray paint primer.  I lightly coated my cylinders hoping this would give the paint something to better adhere to.

It took about 4 coats of paint, but I finally got the coverage I was hoping for.  Unfortunately, all that coverage meant that the stripes weren't smooth anymore, but beggars can't be choosers right??

Once the stripes were drying, I removed the tape and got busy making my felt flowers. 

After lots of cutting {my LEAST favorite part of making flowers} and a little hot gluing, my containers were done!

I even posted this shot on Instagram a while back!

Of course, I'm always my worst critic, which means I pictured them coming out WAY better in my head, but the important part is that they were made and sent with love.  I hope they put a smile on my bloggy friends faces!

I am so happy and honored that I was able to be a part of this awesome project.  If you want to see it all from the beginning, head on over to Karah at The Space Between. :)

Anyone else get their Martha Stewart on lately?!?!?!