Your friend, Spray Paint.

So, this blog will be somewhat short and sweet! I just wanted to do a quick blog about the beauty of Spray Paint! I think we often see things at Thrift Stores and think to ourselves, “I like that, but not in that color, and it would be a pain to paint.” and we forget HOW SIMPLE SPRAY PAINT IS! So, I just wanted to show you a few things that I’ve done to remind you that spray paint is simple, easy, and relatively cheap!

This first “Simple Spray Paint Upgrade” was crazy cheap! The two picture frames were .45¢ each and the sconces were .75¢ each from my local Salvation Army Thrift Store. HOWEVER, they were super chincy, the off white looked dated and cheap, but I KNEW they had potential! Two layers of metallic gold paint later and they look like this! The picture frames will soon hold ultrasound photos of my little one 🙂

“Simple Spray Paint Upgrade” number two was just as simple as number one! I was given these drawer pulls for my dresser (For Free!) they are a beautiful French Provincial style, but they didn’t look good AT ALL with the dresser. The dresser is pure white and grey, and these pulls were a kind of strange off-white color that just looked completely off with the dresser. SO, just like the above project, I sprayed those puppies gold (since it’s the accent color in my nursery, anyways!) and now they look awesome!

AND on top of the fact that I spray painted the drawer pulls, I also spray painted these drawers grey! The whole dresser used to be white, and I wanted to throw in some grey to make it match my crib, which I ALSO SPRAY PAINTED! So, if you’re keeping up, that’s now number 3 & 4 for “Simple Spray Paint Upgrades.”

I could probably go on for a really long time, but y’all probably wouldn’t actually appreciate that. So I’ll leave you with these simple thoughts:

1. Spray Paint is your friend.
2. If you see something that you’re not in love with the color, remember that changing it is relatively simple.
3. Don’t ever let a color get you down!
4. Spray Paint isn’t just for color, it’s for texture and style too! So don’t forget that you can make something look like stone or metal!

Are Your Boots a Slouchy Mess?

Ya’ll. I have a LOT of boots. I moved to Illinois right before this winter started and boots are kind of a necessity in the Midwest (even though it’s been a mild winter.) So I acquired quite a few pairs this season (thanks to my awesome Sister-in-law who found me a bunch of really nice ones at some consignment stores in Georgia!!)

However, my boots were all slouchy. And I don’t mean “I got these super cute slouch boots” I mean, my boots were slouching when I wasn’t wearing them because I didn’t have boot shapers. I know I’ve read that you can cut a pool noodle down and use that to keep your boots standing, HOWEVER, newsflash –No one in the Midwest carries pool noodles in January and February (nor did I want to pay for any.)

So, when you buy new boots, but there are no pool noodles, what do you do? Buy the fancy boot shapers? (Which, my local Target has to the tune of like $20.00!) They have a variety of them on Amazon from $6-$30, however, then you add shipping and in general, Why spend money if you don’t have to?? So, this is my solution!

Do you use canned goods? Do you have fabric? Do you have a hot glue gun and hot glue? Then you are SET for this DIY!

So, here we go. You’ll need four cans, the cans that are the standard size are best (The big Progresso soup cans are too big, and a lot of the smaller “Cream of” soups are too small depending on the brand. So I used four of the standard size cans that had veggies in them.

You’ll start with your can, and put hot glue around the ridge of the can so you can stack the second can on top of the first one. I originally used Krazy glue, but when I made a second set, I realized that hot glue was easier. When you’re done with this step you’ll have two stacks of two cans each. These are your Boot Shapers. But they’re obviously not very “pretty.” They’re just silver cans.

This is where the fabric comes in. I had an old plaid skirt that was in my fabric drawer that I decided to use for this. I cut the fabric so that it was about an inch longer than the two cans, and wide enough to wrap around the cans with a little extra fabric.Put a line of hot glue across the length of your cans and set the cans on the fabric. Glue your fabric to your cans line by line so you can make sure the fabric is smooth and well attached to the cans. Once you’ve got your entire cans covered, use glue to attach folded over fabric to the inside of the top of the can. And fold carefully to attach the extra fabric to the bottom of the can.

Once you’ve finished this step, you’re done! Put those puppies inside your boots and you’ve got boots that can stand proud!

I’ve made two sets so far! But I only need one more can and I can make set three. But I’ve got pictures of my first two sets for now!

So, what do you think? Did you try it? Do you have another easy way to keep your boots standing that doesn’t require you to spend money? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section!

Let’s get Floral

Here’s a SUPER simple DIY for anyone wanting to add a little touch of floral into their daughter’s room/nursery, or even your own room! This would probably look super cute above your vanity or if you have a giant room for a closet! I was making mine for Violet’s nursery!

Here’s what you need:
-Wooden letter
-Silk Flowers
-Hot Glue Gun/Hot Glue
-Paint (If you want it.)

I got this “V” at Hobby Lobby for $3.99. It’s just a simple particle board V. They had larger ones but they (obviously) get more expensive the larger you get, and I was gonna cover it to make it cute anyway, so I didn’t really care that it was just particle board.

I looked at the silk flowers at Hobby Lobby but holy wow they were pricey. I could not even FATHOM spending the amount that I would have needed to spend to get all the flowers I wanted. They were anywhere from a $1.99 a stem (with literally only one flower on it) to $10.99 (with still only ONE flower on it.) So I quickly abandoned that idea and went to the Dollar Tree. For about ten bucks I bought a ton of silk flowers (and I actually bought wayyyy too many and had tons left. I’ve been using the extra flowers to make little baby headbands!)

Basically, this is the easiest DIY ever. Plug in your glue gun, grab your flowers and get to gluing! Whatever pattern you like! Could be completely random, could be ombre, let your creativity run wild! (One note: You WILL want to trim your flowers so that they are easier to glue down. If you leave little chunks of the stems they wont adhere easily.)

I was originally going to cover the entire “V” in flowers, but I realized after I started, that the V that I bought didn’t really have enough definition to it to cover it completely. the flowers would have just been too close together. So, I stopped using flowers about halfway up and decided to paint it white. After I painted it white, I added gold glitter for just a touch of sparkle.

I picked up a gold frame at a local thrift store for $7.00 and when I hung the V up, I hung the gold frame around it.

I typically do not spend $7.00 on a frame (that’s just too rich for my  blood) HOWEVER, it was the exact size I needed, the exact shape I wanted, and I’d looked at one at Hobby Lobby (that I would have still had to paint) and it was $40.00. I could never do $40. Ever. So, $7.00 seemed much more doable 🙂

So, there you have it! Easy as pie!

Bridesmaids dress…no, Pillow.

Have you ever had a dress/sweater/shirt that you liked, but you couldn’t wear anymore? That was the case for this DIY. My brother got married in December and I was a “Groomsmaid.” (Basically a bridesmaid, but on my brother’s side of the attendants.) And I had to buy a dress for the wedding. Well, since I’m pregnant, I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to wear this dress again, and I couldn’t imagine spending money on something I’d only wear once. SO, what does a thrifty person do when they can only wear a dress once and that dress just happens to be the color that you’re using in your nursery? You make an accent pillow for your nursery!

I dug around in my fabric drawer to find an accent fabric for my pillow since I didn’t want to make a simple grey pillow. I wanted something else with it. I’ve seen lots of pillows that have designs on the front out of a second fabric with exposed stitching, so I decided to make something like that.

I started by cutting out “Flower Petals” for my floral design. I just free-handed the shape. So they weren’t at all perfect, but I kind of liked that. I cut the dress in half, and set the top aside. Once I had the skirt prepped to become a pillow I pinned my first petal to the skirt so that I could start sewing. Once you’ve got one petal on you can start sewing others on. Again, it might look a little messy, but I kind of liked that it wasn’t perfect. It just seemed a little more realistic.

Once I had all my petals attached, I wanted to add something in the center for the center of the flower. I cut a circle out of a pink fabric that I had scraps of in my spare fabric. Once I cut the first circle, I continued to cut circles out of it until it got smaller and smaller until I had a sort of swirled circle for the center.

So, once this part was done, I’d actually finished the “hard part” of the pillow. Now I needed to actually make it look like a pillow rather than an unfinished skirt with a flower on it!

Turn your skirt inside out and pin it along the top edge. You’ll sew the top of the pillow here.

Turn your “skirt” back to the right side and now you can put a pillow into it. I used a pillow that I got at a local thrift store here in town for $2.00. Buying pillow forms can be expensive, and just stuffing a pillow sometimes means that you can end up with it being uneven or uncomfortable. Once you’ve got your pillow inserted into your “skirt” you need to be able to seal up the unsewn end. There are a number of ways to do this; you can insert a zipper, you can do buttons and button holes, or you can stitch it, amongst other things. I decided that my best option was to permanently seal the pillow. I chose to fold the end sort of the way that you tape up the end of a wrapped gift. But rather than tape, I sewed it shut with buttons. I had plenty of matching buttons, but I decided it would be more fun to use a bunch of similarly shaped but different colored buttons.

So, there you have it! A relatively simple way to make a pillow from an old dress! Once I have our glider all put together, this pillow will sit in the glider. For right now, it’s sitting in the crib.

 

 

So much to do, so little time!

So, it’s been 6 days since my last DIY post, which is crazy because I’ve been working on projects like mad! However, I haven’t actually finished any of them! But I didn’t want you guys to feel like I’d abandoned you! I promise I’m working on stuff and it’ll probably all get finished at approximately the same time, meaning, there will most likely be a FLOOD of posts all very close together! I’d love to show you what I’ve been working on, but I’m weird about showing half finished projects. So I figured I’d touch base and let you know that I am indeed working on some really cool stuff that you guys are gonna go bananas over!

HOWEVER, I figured I’d show you my January/February wreath so that you’d at least get to see SOMETHING I’d worked on. Even though I didn’t take pictures along the way for a true step-by-step guide.

Everything on this wreath I already had at my house, so I didn’t have to buy ANYTHING! I used the form from my Christmas wreath, wrapped half in a pink lace “baby ribbon” and the other half in a white rosette ribbon. The hearts are backed in cardboard to keep them solid and they have stick pins in them that I put between the cardboard and the paper so they would stick into the foam wreath without showing on the front of the heart. The arrow at the top was the same concept; cardboard covered in paper that I colored for the pink gradient. I sadly forgot to put the stick pins in before I added the paper so it’s on top, and kind of caused a wrinkle in it paper. All around, a super simple wreath that I think turned out pretty well!

That’s all I have for y’all for today, but I’ve got a lot of really awesome stuff coming for you!!!

So, I got creative with my front door…

So, I’ve been trying to think of something for my front door for the Holiday season, something kind of Christmas-y, but also just something different for the new season. (I’ve had my Cork Wreath up on my door since we …

DIY Watercolor Coffee Mugs!

So, I found a DIY tutorial awhile ago on how to make some really cool Watercolor Coffee Mugs, and all you need is 4 items!

1.) A mug

2.) A Bowl of warm water

3.) Nail Polish

4.) A Toothpick

I mean, most of us have all of those things in our home anyway! So, I buy plain mugs, whether white or another color, just as long as it’s a plain solid color, at places like the Dollar Tree or on sale at Target. Then I choose my colors. It’s best if you choose two colors that contrast or look good together so the watercolor marbleized effect looks the best.

SO. To keep credit where credit is due, I saw this DIY on Youtube by a girl named Audra Kurtz and here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL5oBMF7zNQ. This girl does a MUCH better job at explaining it than I would simply because she actually shows you step by step in a video and you have to move pretty quickly or your polish will set in the water and I knew I couldn’t take pictures fast enough. So watch the video! It’s not even 3 minutes long!

In case you can’t watch the video, here’s the run down. (But seriously, watch the video.)

1.) You’re going to start with a plastic bowl (like a tupperware container or one of those little containers that lunch meat comes in). Fill the bowl with warm water.

2.) Take your nail polish and pour it into the water. If you’re adding a second color, pour that in as well.

3.) Grab your toothpick and run it through the polish giving it more of a marbleized effect. But you have to be fast during this part because the nail polish WILL HARDEN so you can’t really “take your time,” So you have to move pretty quickly.

4.) Dip your mug into the water, directly into the polish and then remove it. This is another thing that needs to happen pretty quickly. Dip it straight in and pull it straight back out.

5.) Set the mug out to dry and leave it for 24 hours. Don’t touch it!

6.) Spray the mug down with a clear acrylic spray to seal the work 😀

And you’re all done!

I like to do these mugs and add quotes to them! Here are some pictures of mine! 

 

 

And just so ya’ll know, these beauties are all for sale in my etsy store! https://www.etsy.com/shop/EmilyYakshDesigns?ref=hdr_shop_menu