create: my hodgepodge fall wreath!

so about a month or so ago, I gathered some fabric scraps and made this simple fabric scrap wreath:
it felt off...lame...so i removed it from the wall last week and replaced it with this festive angel made from branches and berries (no, i cant take credit for it...thanks goodwill!)

but this weekend, i was inspired to finish my fall wreath in time for thanksgiving...i hunted through my craft closet and came up with this crazy, hodgepodge wreath that i just LOVE LOVE LOVE....

basically, i took my original fabric scrap wreath and hot-glued yarn poms and lotus pods around the interior....the yarn poms were SUPER easy to make (see a tutorial here...i left mine shaggy!) and the lotus pods i found at a local antique mall for $2....

so the berry-and-twig-angel has been demoted, and my super fun fall wreath has once again earned its place back on the wall....i know this may not be everyone's style, but i just LOVE the fabric scraps, shaggy yarn poms, and lotus pods together....

...to me this just screams HAPPY FALL!

create: thanksgiving table decor

so i know i am a little early...but i am in charge of table decor for our family thanksgiving meal this year, and i felt inspired this morning...i poked around the house for things to use, and here is what i came up with...and since i used things from around my home, it cost me $0!
i had these doilies from the Dollar Store that I had picked up a few weeks ago...i found the yellow color kind of obnoxious, so I used the back...the photo doesnt show it, but the yellow still shines through :-)

using a sharpie, i simply wrote out the word "thanks"....then using clothes pins that I had painted previously (click back to my chicken wire memory frame)...i clipped each doily onto a twig (that I pulled from a floral arrangement in our living room)...

the twigs are secured in mason jars (found in various places around our home)....i raided my kitchen cabinets for autumn-friendly filler....i came up with popping corn, beans, and lentils.....the jars are then each decorated with a little piece of frayed fabric (leftover from a wreath i made a few weeks back)

i think they turned out pretty cute! and the best part is, I can spell out "thanks" or "giving" or any other 6-letter word on the reverse side (clipping another doily onto the back) so that family on both sides of the table can enjoy the decor!

im sure as thanksgiving gets closer, i will be posting more ideas....i have about 5 tables to decorate....

happy friday!

create: upcycled shipping crate

before: vintage international shipping crate that i found for $5 at my favorite STL antique mall (on Big Bend)...
after: add a little fabric, and becomes the perfect storage chest!

i saw this crate, and the $5 price tag, and i knew it had a ton of potential...after a little vacuuming out the cobwebs, it was prepped and ready for its makeover...

the exterior of the trunk is covered in all types of authentic shipping labels...like the one you see below...

here are my tools: some clearance fabric from Hancock's (sorry Hobby Lobby....i still love you, but you dont sell beautiful prints for $1.50 a yard)...my staple gun, scissors, and my DD chai latte (it was early!)

now i suppose if you are one of those have-things-well-thought-out-before-you-start types, you would measure the dimensions of the crate, cut your fabric to size, then proceed....i however, loathe accurate measurements, and thus I just took my fabric, began draping and stapling, cutting the excess as I went....

example A:

i started with the lid, moved to the large sides, then the small ones....here is a close up of one corner....i love the contrast between the worn, aged, imperfect wood and the lovely floral print behind it....

so here is my finished crate! i think i am going to use it at the foot of our bed to hold blankets/bedding, etc....you never can have too much [adorable] storage space!

create: silverware hooks

if you have been a faithful reader of my blog posts, you may remember seeing this ABC-silverware hook-business in one of my earliest posts....the photo in that post was blurry, dark, the hooks had yet to be put to use....these days they are sitting pretty in our kitchen, holding an array of vintage pot holders and oven mitts...
here is a close up of the hooks....basically, i scoured my goodwill for beautiful silverware pieces (forks or spoons...knives are too thick to manipulate)...used two pairs of pliers and broke off the head of the utensil, bending the remaining end into a slight curve....once bent, i arranged them on my ABC board (another goodwill find) and glued them down with Gorilla Glue (sealing all the edges in the back with hot glue)....

i had tampered with boiling the silverware prior to working with it, but i found it didnt make much difference....patience, a little arm strength, and a steady hand made the most difference...also, i found that the older the silverware, the more likely it is to be made of a pliable material....these days i dont know if i could bend my ikea spoons if i tried!

this is totally unrelated to silverware hooks, but isnt this little basket of apples adorable?... call me crazy, but i have found that the more adorable my fruit looks (piled in a basket vs. hidden away in the crisper drawer) the more likely i am to eat it....silly, i know, but it works for me :-)

happy friday! eat an apple and bend your own silverware hooks this weekend!

create: cheap bookcase makeover

on the same note as the mid century table that i made over earlier this week, here is a project from a few weeks back using decoupage and book pages....

if you were perched in my windowsill, this is the view you would have of the living room wall.... (yes, i am perched as i take this photo)...the sign that hangs above our doorway is the one that i painted and used to direct guests into the parking lot at our wedding....a lasting memory from a lovely day :-)
we were desperate for bookshelves (my husband and i = massive book hoarders)...so we finally broke down and bought these cheap ones from Target...i liked the espresso color, but the construction left a little to be desired....so i grabbed a duplicate copy of Jane Austin's Emma, ripped out the pages, and decoupaged the interior of these cheap Target shelves... in addition to the decoupaging, i overloaded the shelves with fun junk like candles, decorative balls, quirky little figurines, etc.... above this bookshelf hangs this AMAZING antique bubble frame photo of my great grandmother and her brother...

a close up of the 2nd book shelf....you can see the book page background a little more clearly....and do you notice those silly president busts from an earlier post? i think they look quite dashing on my bookshelf :-)

as you may notice in the first photo, i hung these fun grapevine baskets on the sides of each bookcase, filling them with yummy red and orange foliage (hurray for autumn!)

another close up of the Emma pages....a fun bookend (hobby lobby, 60 cent clearance find) and decorative ball (salvation army)...and a copy of "Godless Morality", if that interests you :-)...i suppose i should have chosen some less weighty reading to photograph...

president truman hanging out with a few votives from my "crazy-awesome-vintage-votive-holder" collection...and a copy of Winnie the Pooh...also the Jesus Storybook Bible...this is our "kid section" if you hadn't noticed...no "Godless Morality" here :-)

so thats just about it....a simple bookcase makeover....thank you Jane Austin. thank you President Truman....thank you cheap Target bookshelves....

P.S. one last plug for the Jesus Storybook Bible: do you have kids? do you own this? if not, RUN out and SNATCH up a copy....im telling you, this is the most amazing child-themed story of salvation i have ever read....as in: i cant make it through one story with out losing it and crying all over the place...your kids will think you are nuts for becoming so emotional over a children's book, but its AMAZING. i just thought i would let you know :-)

happy thursday!

create: mid century side table revamp

So our friends Todd and Juliette (their blog love:stl here) gave me this mid century side table that they found out by their apartment dumpsters... it was dusty, worn, and covered in blotches of random white stuff (i hope it wasnt bird poop!)...but it certainly had potential. I was excited for the opportunity to glam it up and pass it on to someone else....share the dumpster-treasure love, i suppose :-)
So first step: sand. wash. dry. then i covered the table in a few coats of gloss black spray paint...because the faux wood veneer business was so worn, black was really my only option...i tried and failed to use a lighter, more burnt orange shade...but the table was having none of it...so black it was!

then i broke out my decoupage and used these pages from a 1909 copy of the Sears-Roebuck catalogue...a $1 find at Dunaway Books on South Grand...i loved these pages because they were so worn and water-damaged that they gave a great multi-dimensional feel to the table....

once decoupaged on to the table, i finished it with a few coats of triple-thick gloss sealer...making it waterproof, shiny, and ready to adorn someone's living room!

*one last plug for Dunaway Books....scour their shelves, and you will find vintage and antique books that, due to their damaged condition, are priced anywhere from 25 cents to $1! A great find for crafters like me that simply want to tear the pages out of the books anyway! If you stop in, peek at the children's books....so many amazing vintage storybooks with beautiful artwork just waiting to crafted into something amazing!

create: chicken wire memory frame

here is a super fun and easy project that i got from ashleyannphotography.com...click HERE to see her original design....heres mine:

basically, take an old frame (i found mine in a dumpster)....paint it up with your favorite color (i used the same yellow that was used for my shutter headboard)....while you have your paint out, go ahead and paint up some clothes pins in complimenting colors (mine are barn red, avocado green, and yellow).....staple some chicken wire (thanks Ace Hardware!) to the back, along with something to hang it with (i chose knotted twine)....mount on the wall, clip up your photos, and you are done!

and heres the best part about this project...my step-sister-in-law (long title!) gave me these BEAUTIFUL frames this past weekend...which will be perfect for trying out variations of this project...im thinking...smaller chicken wire could turn this into an earring/jewelry holder? does anyone have any brilliant ideas of how else to use these lovely frames?

create: upcycled shutter headboard

i found this photo a while ago...fell in love...and vowed to recreate it in my own home...eventually :-)
so when i noticed some old broken shutters leaned up against a dumpster near our house, i IMMEDIATELY enlisted my husband to carry them home!

they were a dirty white color, so i brought them to life with this fun antique yellow...a color inspired by our new bed linens (thank you Better Homes and Gardens!)

so i brushed a quick, imperfect coat of paint over the shutters, let them dry, then brought them in and stood them up behind our antique sleigh bed (thanks craigslist!)...they seemed a bit plain, so i grabbed a stack of old frames, and a family name plaque i had painted up a while ago...everything is attached with twine (my favorite of craft supplies)....

the family name plaque is hung with a long, oddly knotted piece of twine...i honestly couldnt explain to you how it worked out...but for the rest, i used my staple gun to attach a short piece of twine to the back of each frame, then strung it through the shutter slats and tied it in the back...super easy, minimal tools needed....

you will notice that some frames are empty, while others have doilies inside...i simply grabbed some scrap fabric, doilies, and placed them behind the glass (well, plexiglass type stuff actually...i feel safer having that suspended above my head!)...

and there you have it...old shutters reborn! i love the color that they bring to our room (since we decided not to change the boring white walls)...and the backdrop they provide for all my mismatched picture frames...

happy tuesday!

create: alphabet graffiti table revamp

today was a productive saturday....in addition to doing a lot of apartment cleaning, i was able to sneak in a few projects :-) during an early morning run to my local Dollar Tree, I was delighted to snag this super-fun alphabet stencil....which i promptly used to give new life to a tired, old sewing table my hubby had found on the side of the road....

basically, i attacked this project with no preparation...just me, the table, stencil, can of spray paint, and a drop cloth....i half-hazardly held the stencil up against the table, spraying a quick coat of white spray paint as I went...as you can see, the paint job is FAR from perfect, but that was exactly the look i was going for....something a little crazy, a little fun.
once dry, i brought the table back inside and fitted it with a wooden knob that compliments the other navy blue furniture in the room....

heres a close-up of the legs: basically, i just held the stencil up, sprayed randomly, and hoped that i didnt miss any spots :-)

so, im kind of in love with this little table...if you reference the first photo at the top, you will see that it compliments the mismatched chairs in our little sitting area very nicely....one spray-painted the same shade of white, and the other whose seat is covered with a burlap "leap frog" bag left over from the potato-sack races at our wedding reception picnic (if you were there, you may share my fond memories!)

happy saturday!

create: nightstand revamp

so my parents will be visiting us for the first time down in STL in two weeks...which means i have two weeks to get life in order, finishing several projects that have remained 1/2 done over the last months....

one such project is a makeover for our nightstands that we found on craigslist....i was drawn to them not only for the ridiculously low price, but the rustic feel...
i spent a while searching for the right handles, but i thought it easiest to follow suit with my red dresser, using twine to create a handle...

i simply took three strands of twine, braided them, then secured them inside the drawer with double knots...

for the rest of the "revamp" i simply brushed a coat of my favorite antique gold paint on the interior of each drawer, as well as the little decorative wooden knobs on the corners and lining the top. Once dry, I used a little square of sandpaper to rough-up the paint job...

so thats my super-simple nightstand revamp....you will see more bedroom projects in the coming days....a new bed set, throw pillows, shutter decor, etc....