Pinspirations

There are two pins on my Spring Pinterest board that I am madly in love with.  So I decided to try to recreate them for my house's spring facelift.  Of course, the Pinterest pics are still MUCH prettier.  But I'm happy to have a little of their beauty in my own home.

Something about this picture just screams spring to me.  Its light and air and simple.  I love the flowering branches.  They are the perfect transition from winter to spring.


I did my version on top of our entertainment center.  We have 13 foot ceilings in our living room and its always difficult for me to find things with some height to fill the empty space.   This worked perfectly.  All of the branches are from Hobby Lobby.  The vases are all clear glass vases that I had in my storage closet.  I painted them Mod Podge mixed with blue and green food coloring.  Simple, quick, and cheap but it made a big impact!

 

 

I love the sweet, vintage look of this picture.  The colors are and light are so beautiful.

My version lacks the light of the original, even though there is a window directly to the right of this table.  I just cannot capture natural light.  I'm not sure if its me, the camera, or a combination of the two.  Its pretty pitiful though!  For my version I just bought a couple of pieces of pretty scrapbook paper and wrapped it around some hardcover books we had on our book shelf.  I tied them with some brown lace ribbon I had laying around.  The flower is from Hobby Lobby but I plan to change it out with fresh flowers as soon as it stops snowing here and the flowers actually start growing!

Week 3: Ruffle Curtains

I found some white ruffled fabric in Hobby Lobby that I fell in love with. I knew I could use it to make some adorable curtains.

The only thing holding me back was the price.  At $10.99 a yard and needing 2 1/2 yards (to make the floor length curtains I originally planned to make) even if the fabric was on sale for 40% off I was still looking at spending $16.50.  Which I realize is still very cheap for curtains but it was a little more than I was wanting to invest in a project that I wasn't completely sure I could pull off or what like the finished product, even if I could.  Then last week I found 1/2 a yard in the remnants bin for $2.74.  At first I thought I would just buy it to play around with and make sure I could execute the curtains the way I wanted.  I cut the width of the fabric in half and was able to make two panels and I started to have a vision for how I could make the curtains out of just the remnant fabric.  Since it wasn't long enough I added some of the red polka dot fabric I had left over from the bulletin board project to the top.  I pinned it first before sewing the pieces together but decided I actually liked the way it looked with the pins.  I felt like it gave it an unfinished craft in progress look that worked since it is a craft room.  Then I worked with different ways to attach the panels without having to use a curtain rod (since that would be an added expense).  I took off the piece of trim that covered the top of the blinds and used clothes pins (continuing with the unfinished project theme) to attach the panels to the blinds. They aren't what I originally had in mind but for $2.74 I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

Week 2: Chalkboard Tray

This week's project was a cute chalk board to hang on my wall.  I had this pretty tray that a friend gave me a few years ago.  I love the shape of it and thought it would make a perfect chalk board.  Sorry for some of the awful pictures.  Aside from painting the tray this project, like most of my projects, was done late at night with horrible lighting.

I spray painted it red to match my red and aqua color scheme.

I didn't worry about the middle since it would be covered by the chalk board vinyl.

I had tried to use chalk board paint before and didn't have very good luck with it.  So I was super excited to find this chalk board vinyl at Hobby Lobby.  Its $7.99 for a big roll, and of course I used a 40% off coupon on mine.

Figuring out how to cut the vinyl the match the shape of the tray was a little tricky.  I finally decided to lay some thin tissue paper on top of the tray and used a highlighter to trace the shape.  You could use any writing utensil, I just happened to have a highlighter near.

 

I taped the tissue paper to the chalk board vinyl and cut it out.

At first the vinyl had lots of bubbles in it from being rolled up.  You can smooth these right out.

I added a bow to hand the chalk board from and ta da!
I still have a little touch up to do (the perfectionist in me isn't completely satisfied with it yet) but overall I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Since I already had the paint, tray, and ribbon for the bow the entire project only cost $4.79.