create: house numbers

so with the big move coming up in a few weeks....i have houses on the brain....and our new place in STL is lacking something very essential to house-ness......house numbers....im surprised the mailman knows where to deliver the mail, seeing as how the mailbox is rusted through and the house number is simply printed on a piece of paper and taped to the box....classy :-)

so i found this DIY house number demo on design sponge...and was inspired to hunt down mismatch house numbers of my own at my local hardware store....

for my signage, i spray painted a metal decorative sign that I found on Hobby Lobby clearance....something like this one below.....(and yes, I felt much joy spray painting over the corny saying)
i also spray painted my mismatch house numbers....my sign was black, and my numbers varied in colors....white, my favorite Krylon green, red, brown, etc....

heres a close up of one of my green numbers....the number was originally black, so i loved how with just one coat of paint, the texture and blackness still shone through....

this number was first sprayed white, then while it was still wet, I sprayed red over....it created this fun fusion of red and white...paired with the texture of the plastic coating...i love it! and it ties in my fire engine red porch light too!

our apartment is one of many, so a letter was an essential part of our house number (thats the white portion that you see below)....and take my word for it, "house letters" dont exist.....so this was a decorative metal letter from Hobby Lobby ( i used my coupon!)...i sprayed it white, then rubbed brown acrylic around the edges....

after everything was painted, i used a little Gorilla Glue to secure things in place....placing a few encyclopedias on top of the sign for about 30 minutes.... once dry, i took some teal paint and rubbed it along the outside edge.....im in love with our new, eclectic house numbers!

love: golden retrievers

i just wanted to say that i am obessessing over golden retrievers lately.....

can i please just take any of these guys home?

all photos courtesy of flickr.com.

create: porch light revamp

Our moving countdown has begun! Only a few more weeks until we move!!! That being said, I have shifted my decorating and crafting attention from my current home to my new one in STL!!! As I have shared before, we have chosen the lovely Soulard neighborhood to call home. One reason is the beauty of the old brick buildings...and the bright colors that grace all of the doors and windows.... here is a sampling, thanks to flickr.com:

our new apartment has these same shades of windows and doors....thus prompting me to get creative with our other outdoor decor....walking around soulard, i am so inspired by patio furniture like this and color schemes like this...so i decided that the current porch light at our new apartment (something very similar to this) needed an update....

and when my parents gave me this brand new light fixture (never out of the box that is....it had been in their basement for several years!) i decided to take some spray paint to it!

i chose a fire engine red... i thought it would compliment both the brick exterior and the teal-ish trim of our windows beautifully....

here is the body of the lamp drying...i threw some masking tape around the light socket and wires, so to keep the paint out of the nooks and crannies....i let it dry overnight, then put it together to give you a glimpse of what it will look like installed at our new apartment.... the color is super vibrant, and i love it!

heres a pic of a teal door that i found on flickr for reference....i love the fire engine red with the teal.....yum! Very Soulard! Just wait until you see the house numbers i made....will post tomorrow!

love: vintage mailboxes

so nothing much has happened on create.love.grow for the past few days....sorry! In addition to having a crafter's-block (is that possible?) I have been down in STL...job interviews and finalizing things on our new apartment! I took some pics of the new place on my phone, and I am in the process of figuring out how to get them on here....

in the mean time, i will say that one of the first things to update in our new place will be the mailbox....a small piece of the housing puzzle, but the current mailbox is rusted through and nasty....thus, i have been searching online for mailbox inspiration (theres not much out there!)...and here is what i have found....enjoy!

*all photos courtesy of flickr.com

love: country living's spring florals

im shamelessly addicted to magazines...no joke, in any given month, i will get at least five different magazines in the mail....and my husband always knows one way to cheer me up...grabbing me the latest copy of Real Simple or Glamour while hes at the grocery store....what a guy :-)

well, i just got my latest Country Living today....and i fell in love....so many pretty ideas for Spring...between last month's copy and this months, i had to share some photos with you....
flowers flowers flowers! i love the floral decoupaged vases....and of course the floral shoes, below....i think i also fell in love with this photo because of the rolled-up jeans and tire swing....

and this necklace! dont you want it? too bad its Kate Spade and runs for like $300.....but it did remind me of this DIY version posted on oneprettything today...i might have to go buy some shrinky plastic after reading that DIY tutorial.....

this photo struck me because i am constantly finding various vintage hankies at antique shops...but with no idea what to use them for....i have been thinking of table runners anyway because of this tutorial for a DIY doily runner...

and i just love this last pic...the simplicity of wildflowers and random glass bottles, all tied up with string....

I love you Country Living!

create: cookie jars reused

every few months, my hubby and i pull out our wedding album...flipping through the pages and trying to remember the details of our 2008 nuptials....the people, the conversations, the decor that i SLAVED over for months....



well, we did just that the other day, which prompted me to post about these cookie jars. i may post in the future about our un-bridal-industry-wedding, but for now, you can see one of many items that i invested in for our reception...



in lieu of hiring a caterer ,we invited our families to contribute to our wedding via baking/cooking (whatever their specialty was)....as you see below, i had my grandmas and aunts bake their famous cookies for the reception....those cookies were housed in these lovely jars from Target...

after the wedding was over, when all the snicker doodles had been gobbled up, i saved the jars...and over time, they began to fill with various objects from nature....pinecones from the tree at our first apartment...woodchips from the landscaping....dried branches that had fallen from trees....along with other faux natural objects....jasmine scented balls, nuts, etc....

now, these jars grace the top of our hutch, bringing life to our sometimes dark basement apartment....sometimes i add seasonal items....gourds and mini pumpkins for the fall....flowers for the summer.....just an easy way to bring natural, rustic visual interest to our apartment... i suppose this would also be a great teaching tool for kids....

create: ribbon camera strap

so just yesterday, i got a belated graduation gift in the mail from my wonderfully generous parents.....a new camera! Until now, I have been using a little FujiFilm pocket camera, struggling to produce pictures decent enough to post on here...

heres a shot of me and my new camera....it looks like i am smelling it, but i thought i would post (mostly because i was having a good curl day!)
if you notice, my camera strap isnt the traditional Canon one that comes in the case....while I am waiting on my memory card to arrive, i thought i would tackle a DIY project that i see on crafty blogs/etsy a lot....a homemade camera strap....
most tutorials that you see are for strap COVERS, but i had this adorable measuring tape ribbon that i wanted to use, so i made my own strap, stealing the little black hardware from the original strap that came with the camera....

i simply hot glued a piece of measuring tape ribbon and a yummy yellow ribbon to each other (creating stiffness to hold the weight of the camera)....then i threaded it through the original hardware, and that was it! I did have to taper cut the edges of the ribbon to get them through the little hardware...

so as soon as i get my memory card, you will (hopefully) start seeing more quality pics on create.love.grow!

create: DIY chalkboards

do you remember this post about the frames that i snatched up for my friend leigh's wedding reception photo booth? well...along with large frames, i have also been on the hunt for small chalkboards that wedding guests can write messages on like you see below.....
i had found some little chalkboards at Hobby Lobby for around $4/piece...not bad, but they werent exactly what i wanted.....so when i came across this Krylon Chalkboard Spray Paint, i decided i would simply make my own chalkboards!

I collected four random frames...two black and two silver (though they look a little gold here)...took out the glass, and spray painted it with my chalkboard paint... they dried within an hour out in the sun, and voila! my own DIY chalkboards! Much more stylish than what Hobby Lobby had to offer!
heres a close up of two of the little frames...i chose all different sizes to give it more of an eclectic feel.... and the best part is that this entire project cost me right around $5!

and since these little chalkboards will be used in wedding photos... i thought i would demonstrate! (forgive the messy, unwashed Saturday hair....a day of crafting demands a low-maintenance do!)

while i took the first photo, my hubby was on the other side of the living room playing video games...so i asked him to pause his game (yes, i interrupted his gaming concentration) and come take a pic with me....so cute...so in love.....so lazy saturday :-)

unrelated to the chalkboard frames....as you can see in the photos above, our walls are getting more and more bare....and if you know me well at all, you know that bare walls are something i am not prone to being plagued with....its a sign that our big move to STL is getting nearer and nearer!

create: framing wedding photos

so during the months post-wedding (back in '08)...i was on a frenzy to display our photos from our wedding....we had WONDERFUL photographers....Mikey and Katie from KDesign...who happen to be old classmates from high school :-)

i put some in albums...others in frames that we had received as wedding gifts....the frame you see below was a christmas gift (if i remember correctly) from my MIL...i scratched the frame up with a car key...added some photos from our wedding and a few left-over invitations....
and heres a close-up of my favorite photo...."THE" kiss....im not sure what i like more....the simplicity of our first kiss as married folk or the smile on Jon's face (who married us)....

this next framing situation, however, didnt turn out as well as i had planned...this frame was one of those "wedding memory kits" that you can find on clearance at almost any craft store....complete with traditional wedding-ish paper and fancy little pearl-headed pins to attach your photos....its cute, i guess, but a little....mainstream....pearl-headed pins are just NOT me....

So the other night, as i gazed at that frame across the room, i became inspired to make it a little more whitney-fied....thus, the car key came out again to scratch up the frame...the dainty wedding paper and pearl-headed pins were replaced with acrylic dyed doilies (one of my favorite activities!)...then i sighed....this is MUCH more me.... :-)

heres a close up of my acrylic dyed doilies....if you havent seen this in previous posts, basically all i do is knead a little acrylic paint (in this case an antique yellow and aged tan) into the doily in random places (so as not to FULLY cover the doily in color), then dry it in front of a hair dryer or space heater....obviously this process isnt perfect...i would imagine that with a lot of wear-and-tear my acrylic dyed doilies may not hold up...but inside a frame they are safe and sound!

also, a note on scratching up your frames with a car key: i like using a key more than traditional sandpaper....its faster, scratchier, and gives a more dramatic result....just be careful that you arent taking wood away when removing the paint/veneer finish....

oh, and a note from my husband....while i would tend to grab the nearest key on my keyring, my husband suggested i use an old key from a now totalled vehicle...something about ruining the grooves in the key and thus rendering it useless.....woops :-)

husbands are so useful sometimes :-)