Guest Blogging at Table For Three

I'm back! Well, not quite 100% but enough to write a quick post. Megan over at Table for Three kindly asked me write a guest post for her this week while she and her sweet family are on vacation. 

I feel as though I've been going a mile a minute these past few weeks (which might explain why I, the girl who never gets sick, caught the flu). The holidays are literally around the corner, this is the busiest time of year at my job, plus I'm trying to maintain my normal daily routine of being mommy and wife. I'll admit I sort of threw this DIY together at the last minute over the weekend, but I'm really glad I did. The end result was a pleasant surprise when I put them on our TV stand and they really helped complete that corner of our living room. Funny how things work, right?

Check out my guest post and learn how I made this painted planters here. 

Sickies

 

Just dropping a quick note to explain my absence so far this week. The flu has hit our house and hit it hard. Jordan had it first last week and it caught up with me on Sunday. I stayed home from work on Monday while my mom watched Lucy, only for her to come home with a cough and some sniffles. Looks like we are all getting a dose of germs.

 

I'm hoping to be able to get back to blogging tomorrow. I've got some goodies to share!

Weekend Project: Lucy's Kitchen

About a month ago I shared some inspiration photos for DIY play kitchens I found through Pinterest. As I mentioned I want to take some old, thrifted furniture and refinish them into a little pint sized kitchen for Lucy for Christmas. 

Not long after that post I ventured out and hopped around a few thrift stores trying to find a perfect pair of night stands. I had trouble finding a set that was the right size, the shape I wanted, and in decent condition. I eventually found two different pieces at my trusty Goodeals for a steal each (one was $8 and the other $11) and had trouble deciding between the two. I ultimately purchased both. I figured I could use one as a sink and the other as an oven. Who cares if they are the same exact style or size? I know Lucy won't. 

Well these pieces have been sitting in our dining room for about two weeks know and Christmas is creeping up. Things have been so busy and crazy lately and hubby has been feeling a bit under the weather. We are closing in on a week and a half before Christmas so we need to get our butts into gear. Our plan is to get to Home Depot tomorrow and get supplies so I can get to work this weekend. Here's the plan as it stands today. Of course, knowing how I work things are likely to change on the spot.

First, we need to make a few changes structurally. The drawer will come out of the piece on the right and will be replaced with an oven door made of scrap wood. The front of the drawer will be refashioned into a back splash behind the stove. I purchased a very inexpensive bathroom faucet and I'm on the hunt for a metal bowl to use as a sink. The night stand on the left will need to be cut into to install both. Once the structure is complete, I am dying to paint! (Color is a secret until the final product is revealed!)

Finally the fun part - decorating. A skirt under the sink, swapping out the generic knobs for more fun ones, and adding a few fun kitchen accessories. 

Can't wait to get started this weekend. 

Emerald: Pantone Color of 2013

Have you all heard by now? Emerald is the Pantone choice for the color of 2013. This announcement crept up on me as I've still been in coral/tangerine mode from 2012. I have to admit I am thrilled with this color choice. Emerald is such a gorgeous, rich color and I am really looking forward to incorporating it in both my personal style and in our home. I've already taken a slight spin in a few plans I've been putting together for our house, hoping to add a little green into the mix. I've been on such a gold kick lately and emerald compliments that color so well. Plus I'm lucking out that emerald looks great with dark locks as shown in the below photo. (Hint, hint to anyone Christmas shopping for me. Emerald all the way!)

Here are my top 10 favorite emerald pieces I've been seeing around the web.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

DIY Christmas Decor: Felt Leaf Garland

I think garland is one of the simplest decor items but can also be one of the prettiest. Whether strung along a mantle, wrapped around a staircase or just draped across the wall, garland makes a great statement and is such an easy way to decorate. I love all handmade garland. You can pretty much make garland out of anything these days: yarn, paper, fabric, etc. I wanted to make something easy that I could use to decorate the tiny railing we have on our steps.

I found this tutorial by one of my favorite bloggers, Nicole from My oh My. It's a very simple garland made from felt cut into the shape of leaves. I liked the idea of using different shades of green felt. I took my own spin on her version and opted to use a silver yarn to string the leaves and a red yarn to make pom-pom 'berries'. Felt is so inexpesnive and I already owned the yarn so this quick project cost me next to nothing.

I may squeeze in another one or two garland projects before the holiday gets here. There are so many great DIY garland ideas on Pinterest. The best part is with just a swap of color or change the shape, most of these can be altered for other holidays, too.

All images via Pinterest

 

 

What's your favorite garland?

DIY Christmas Decor: Painted Reindeer Art

I gave you all a sneak peek at this project yesterday and I just finished it last night. I was inspired by the below glitter reindeer canvas art that I've seen all over Pinterest. While I really like the look of the glitter version (I'm slowly turning everything in our house gold), I'm not too fond of crafting with glitter. We have a few glitter decorations for the holidays and it just ends up with giltter all over our floor, table, etc.  I wanted to use the same idea of a reindeer silhouette, but decided to paint instead of glitter, and use a piece of wood instead of a canvas.

I bought the piece of wood (approx 11"x11") from a local craft store and used some old stain I have leftover from several other projects. The reindeer shape was found online and I just cut it out to trace onto the stained wood. A little white craft to paint inside the outline and my reindeer was ready.

I liked how the silhouette looked on the wood, but when I finished I thought it still needed something. I freehand wrote some script 'Noel' above the picture and added a little decorative 'garland' at the bottom.

Happy Friday!

I linked this craft up to the Clever Chicks Blog Hop!

In The Works

In lieu of a tutorial today, I thought I'd share a little project I'm working on.

 

 

Hoping to finish up tonight. More Christmas decor tomorrow and next week!

DIY Christmas Decor: Snow Globes

I've seen these DIY snow globes made from old mason or food jars all over Pinterest and I remember seeing similar ones at Anthropologie last year. These globes were one of the first decorations I wanted to make when I decided to DIY a lot of our Christmas decor. 

Supplies Used:

- mason or food jars (i used artichoke and salsa)

- distilled water

- glitter

- liquid glycerin

- ornaments for inside globes

- sand paper, crazy glue

The first thing I did was spray paint all of the lids, even the gold mason ones to keep them all the same shade. I also decided to spray paint the deer figurines, but keep the trees green.

You'll want to sand the underside of the lids to make them easier to stick and use the permanent glue to attach the figurines to the inside of the lid. 

Next, use glitter to fill the bottom of the jar with enough to cover the entire bottom and make a nice layer of 'snow'. After that, fill the jar to the top with distilled water and add a few drops of liquid glycerin. I've read that the glycerin helps the glitter not to stick together.

I wanted to make sure my jars would be sealed tightly with no risk of leaking so I put a small layer of super glue on the rim of the lid before attaching it to the jar. 

Last step is to turn over, shake up your snow globes and enjoy!

A few notes:

- I didn't put enough water in the first two jars (the ones on the right). I left some room for the trees, but evidently left too much. I learned my lesson for the last jar (far left). Since I sealed the jars with super glue I couldn't reopen to add more water.

- I forgot to add the glycerin to the first two jars so I'm honestly not sure how crucial that ingredient is. Although I read that it's used to help the glitter spread when shaken, I haven't noticed a big difference.

- After a few days I've noticed that the water is starting to turn a bluish-green color, I'm assuming from the plastic trees. 

I decided to try one with the gold glitter. I love the look except the fact that you can see the layer of gold glitter floating at the top.  I think I might prefer the look of the gold over the white glitter. 

DIY Christmas Decor: Decorated Paper Mache Tree

 

My next DIY Christmas decor project was inspired by decorative trees I found at Target a few weeks ago. I really liked the look of them, but didn't want to spend $10-15 a piece for such a simple item. I instantly knew that I could remake these for much less.

 

The three looks I liked best were the feather tree, the knit tree and the berry tree. I lucked out that I already owned all of the supplies needed to decorate and just needed to purchase the trees.

You can buy these paper mache cones at pretty much any craft store for just a few bucks each. I chose to use a variety of sizes since I wanted to have a small group of trees to display.

 

 

To decorate the trees, I already owned Christmas sheet music that I purchased from the thrift store last year, a red beaded garland (hand-me-down from my mom), yarn, and a ton of white feathers left over from an ornament project my mom and I did a number of years back.

 

 

I broke the beaded garland apart and used the glue gun to start lining them around the bottom of the cone, working my way up to the top. I lucked out that there were minimal gaps and the beads fit almost perfectly to cover the paper mache. I glued on bead on the top point to finish.

 

The yarn tree was my alternative to the knit tree, from Target, since I have no knitting skills whatsoever. My compromise was to use a nice sweater-like looking yarn and simply wrap it around the cone for a few layers, stopping every couple of spins to add a dab of hot glue to hold. The was the easiest and fasted tree to make.

 

For the feather tree, I chose the largest, thickest feathers and hot glued them 'facing' down starting along the bottom of the cone, I filled in the gaps underneath with shorter pieces to cover any showing paper. I simply worked my way up, using shorter pieces as I went up with each layer. Looking back I think I should have painted the cone white to start with, but I'm still really happy with the end result.

 

The last tree was made with Christmas sheet music that I punched into the shape of a heart. I originally wanted to replicate the sheet music trees that I saw at Anthropologie last year, but wanted to keep the consistency of the cone shaped trees. This was my alternative. Starting at the bottom, I simply put a dab of glue just on the bottom tip of the heart, leaving the top of the hearts loose. I tried to alternate the layers a bit to keep them from looking too 'perfect'.

 

 

The trees are now the centerpiece for our dining room Christmas table setting. You can see a peek at the table above. Most of the items for our table were purchased at Target, Michaels or AC Moore. I wanted to keep things pretty clean, but festive looking.

 

This project probably cost me around $8-10 total to create since I already owned all of the supplies excluding the trees. A much more cost effective version than the Target trees!

DIY Christmas Decor: Decorating with Mason Jars

I spent this past weekend working on some homemade holiday decorations for our home. You might remember me telling you how I really don't decorate for the holidays. I never have. I think part of it has to do with the fact that my parents go all out for holidays like Christmas. My childhood home growing up was (and still is) a Winter Wonderland. We had a minimum of 3 Christmas trees each year, sometimes more. There was always lit garland around the steps, a giant lit wreath in the foyer window, every frame on the wall and glass table top was wrapped in festive gift wrap. Daily hand towels and rugs in the powder room were replaced with ones feature Santa. The list goes on.

 

I put a tree up the first two years in our house, but even that sort of dropped off over the past few years. Now that we have Lucy, I feel it's important for us to start really celebrating and enjoying holidays so she can enjoy them, too. I did a little Valentine's Day decorating last winter, skipped over Easter (I can't get down with pastels), the summer holidays and Thanksgiving. Now Christmas is here and it's time to decorate.

 

One of the easiest projects I took on wasn't even a planned one. My in-laws are in the process of moving and in doing so gave me a box filled with mason jars, knowing I could get some good use out of them. I initially started to use them to store the scraps and leftover supplies from other projects I was working on, but quickly realized I could also use this storage idea as a decorate piece for the holidays. Not only was this one of the easiest projects, but it was pretty cost effective, too.

The jars are filled with corks, paper straws, pinecones, beads and feathers. The corks were the only DIY I did for this project, dipping the ends in alternating gold, red and green paint to give them more of a festive look. I purchased the paper straws a few weeks back because I loved the look and knew I'd find a use for them. The pinecones were left over from our dining room table setting (to be shared later) and the beads and feathers were leftover from another project I was working on (that I'll share with you later this week, too).

Not only was this easy to make, but it's also pretty easy and clean looking to display. I chose to put our mason jars on top of the cabinets on our breakfast bar in the kitchen. I catch myself looking at them a lot from our living room as the jars actually make the cabinets appear taller. I might need to store mason jars up there year round.

I have more projects to share with you this week!