Hey, y'all! I'm back from an unintended blogging break--life just got super busy--to share a fun post with y'all.
Last week I was on spring break. I was so happy! On one of my vacation days, I went to visit my sister, and we went to IKEA. I was in sensory overload because there were so many things to look at. I wanted to buy pretty much everything! I ended up buying a couple of big pieces for my living room makeover, and I bought several small items to revamp. One of the items I bought was this rug.
It's the SINDAL Door Mat. It cost me $4.99, which is definitely in my price range! I had recently seen Pottery Barn's Hello Doormat, and I knew it was the perfect inspiration for my rug revamp.
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I'm sure the PB rug is of a higher quality than the IKEA rug, but it costs ten times what my IKEA rug cost! The first step in my rug overhaul was taping off a border on the rug and spray painting it.
I put tape all around the edge of the rug. Then the width of a ruler from the outer border of tape, I put another border of tape. I covered the middle of the rug with newspaper. I then spray painted the border with Valspar's gloss spray paint in Exotic Sea. It took several coats to get good coverage because of all the nooks and crannies in the rug. When that dried, I removed the tape and newspaper.
I used my Silhouette to cut a card stock "Hello" stencil. I used a font called Respective and made sure to weld all the letters together before cutting the stencil. I used tape to adhere the stencil to the rug. I put double stick tape under the small parts of the stencil. Then I used a stencil brush to dry brush black craft paint on the stencil.
When I removed the stencil, there were parts of the word that needed to be darkened. (It's hard to stencil on a woven rug like this.) I used an Elmer's Painter's pen to remedy this.
I love how the rug turned out! It's not exactly like the PB rug, but I like my version of it.
And what I love most of all is that my rug cost ten times less than the PB rug!
So now I'm curious. What greeting would you stencil on your doormat? I'm thinking I'd also love one that says, "Hey, y'all!" :)
Hey, y'all! Last week I professed my new-found love for Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy with my Divergent-Inspired Dauntless Quote T-shirt. Well, I found out that a couple of my bloggy friends are also in love with the series, so we decided to each come up with a Divergent-Inspired post to share today in honor of the movie's debut this week.
I came up with this fun keychain that is soooo easy to make!
I started with an unfinished wooden rectangle from my craft supply stash.
Through a Google image search, I found a picture of Tris's bird tattoo, and I traced it with my Silhouette program. I cut a stencil of the birds from card stock.
I used a stencil brush to paint the birds with black paint. (The birds should then be sealed with Mod Podge, clear spray paint, or some other type of clear coat.)
Then I drilled a hole in the top of the rectangle.
I used my pliers to attach a jump ring through the hole of the rectangle. Then I threaded a key ring through the jump ring. Well, we're going to pretend that it's a key ring. It's actually a book ring, but it'll pass for a key ring in a bind. (Do you get my super-cheesy joke? Book ring? BIND?! Okay, I know it's not funny.)
That's all it took to create my Divergent-Inspired keychain, and I love it! It'll go great with my Divergent-Inspired Dauntless Quote T-shirt.
It will also go great with these fabulous projects from my bloggy friends.
Sky from Capital B created this awesome Dauntless-Inspired Bracelet.
And yesterday, she posted these awesome printables featuring her favorite quotes from Divergent. You can download the printables {HERE}.
And Emily from The Benson Street created this gorgeous Divergent-Inspired Bird Necklace!
So are we the only ones totally excited about the movie debut this week?! What part of the book are you most looking forward to seeing onscreen?
Hey, y'all! I took an unplanned blogging break due to the simple fact that my life was crazy for a couple of weeks, but I'm back today with a project I'm in love with. Do we have any Divergent fans in the house?! I recently read the first book of Veronica Roth's trilogy, and I am most definitely hooked. I literally read it in a day. No lie. There was a quote from the book that I really loved: "We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another." The quote comes from the Dauntless Manifesto. Don't you just love it? It inspired me to create a custom t-shirt that I can wear to the movie, which I cannot wait to see!
I started with an inexpensive t-shirt from Walmart.
I used my Silhouette to design my graphic.
I found a Dauntless symbol using a Google image search. I traced it with my Silhouette program, and paired it with different fonts, arrows, lines, and a banner until I had a graphic I liked. Then I cut the design from Silhouette brand glitter heat transfer vinyl and weeded it, much like I did with my DIY Monogrammed Shirt.
I'm cheap, so I haven't bought a weeding tool yet. I just use a straight pin. :)
I then ironed the design on the t-shirt following the directions on the vinyl packaging and a little advice from my friend Lil' Mrs. Tori.
I love the way the shirt turned out!
I can't wait to wear it to the movie!
This project has me thinking. What's your favorite quote? I always love to read inspiring quotes. :)
Hey, y'all! Are you ready for spring yet? I know I am. Yesterday it was seventy degrees here! After having what seemed like a blizzard last week here in the South, seventy sure did feel nice. One of my favorite things about the spring is pretty flowers, minus the pollen of course! In honor of my longing for spring and the flowers it brings, today I'm sharing a tutorial for a Duck tape vase that costs pennies to make. And as a special treat, at the end of the tutorial you will find links to ten other spring-inspired posts from #MyFavoriteBloggers!
The first step to creating a Duck tape vase is finding a jar the right size to hold flowers. I used an empty salsa jar.
I washed the jar, peeled off the label, and used some Goo Gone to remove the sticky residue left over by the label.
I was then left with a blank slate for my Duck tape design.
I stuck a strip of gold Duck tape to my rotary cutting board, and used my clear ruler and rotary cutter to cut little triangles from the tape, much like I did with my Duck tape decorated dollar store pumpkin during Thanksgiving. I stuck the gold triangles to the jar in a fun geometric pattern, and my vase was complete.
It's the perfect vase to hold a pretty pink carnation, and it looks lovely paired with the decor in my living room.
You could easily and inexpensively make a lot of these vases for a wedding reception or baby shower decor. There are so many different Duck tape designs now that you're sure to find one to match almost any color scheme! Or you can simply make one vase like I did to make sure Spring knows that you're ready and waiting for her. ;) If you're in the mood for more spring-inspired projects, you're going to love the posts from #MyFavoriteBloggers!
From top down, left to right:
Stamped "Bloom" Necklace from One Artsy Mama
Spring Centerpiece from Happy Go Lucky
Washi Tape Popsicle Stick Flowers from The Benson Street
Simple Circle Pinwheels from Creative Capital B
Semi-Homemade Strawberry Shortcake from Seven Alive
Five Minute Hair Pins from It Happens in a Blink and Suburble
Kool-Aid Dyed Yarn in Your Microwave from 4 You with Love
Color-able Free Printable Spring Banner from Do Small Things with Love
Fairy Guesthouse from Happy Hour Projects
Geometric Print Vase from Me
I hope you'll check out these awesome projects from some of my favorite gals. Here's wishing you warm, spring-y weather!
Hey, y'all! I have a really quick and easy tutorial for you today. I confessed my stereotypical Southern love for monograms a couple of weeks ago when I showed you how to create a monogrammed t-shirt, and I warned you that I wanted to monogram everything. Well, today's craft is another monogrammed project.
This past week, one of my good friends had a birthday. I wanted to give her something special. While at Hobby Lobby over the weekend, I found the cutest mason jar wine glass in the spring section of the store, and I just had to buy it. (You could totally make your own mason jar wine glass much like I made my Dollar Store Cupcake Stand by replacing the pillar candle holder with a mason jar.)
The glass was adorable already, but I knew it could be cuter with a monogram. (Isn't everything?) I simply used my Silhouette to cut a vinyl monogram sized to fit the jar. (You can see my tutorial for creating a monogram with the Silhouette program HERE.) I applied the monogram to the glass, and my friend's personalized birthday gift was complete. (Well, minus the ice and sweet tea!)
She loved it, and I loved the smile the gift brought to her face. And now to find something else to monogram... ;)
Hey, y'all! I am so excited to share my latest makeover with you. This week, I took a circa 1990 thrift store goose picture and transformed it into a beautiful, modern piece of art.
I love to stop by my local thrift store on the way home from school. I'm always on the lookout for unique frames, and whenever I find one, I can't keep myself from buying it. Recently I found this goose picture.
I think it first caught my eye because my grandmother loved geese. She had a lot of ceramic geese, and I think she would have liked this picture. But besides the nostalgia that it brought, I wasn't really digging the picture. I was, however, digging the frame. You don't often see oval frames, so for a mere fifty cents, I purchased it in hopes of making it beautiful.
I started the makeover by disassembling the frame. I cleaned the frame really well with a Clorox wipe and sprayed it with gold spray paint. Then I had to decide what I was going to put in the frame. Around Christmas-time during the big Silhouette sale, I bought some sketch pens. I had been wanting to try them out, so I decided to create some sketched Silhouette art to go in the frame.
Here's a fun little tip that you might not realize. The Silhouette program can trace images that you can then cut or sketch. I don't know about you, but I am completely in love with the Rhonna Designs App. I use it so much, and I love all the stickers in the app. So I had a light bulb moment when trying to decide what to sketch with my Silhouette. I realized that if I used the white background in the Rhonna Designs App and decorated it with black stickers, I could then email that to myself, save the image, open it in the Silhouette program, and trace it. So I did just that. I drew an oval the size of my frame and placed one of the feathers in the middle of the oval. I sketched that on watercolor paper. (You could use card stock.)
I really liked the feather in black and white, but I wanted to add a little something extra to it.
I colored some of the little shapes with a gold Sharpie, but that still wasn't enough of that "something extra" for me.
I decided to add some stitching to the feather. I used a straight pin to pierce holes around some of the shapes on the feather, and then I used different color embroidery thread to stitch around them. I was totally in love then. I cut out the oval and popped the feather into the frame.
I have to say that I love how the art turned out.
The random stitches here and there just make the piece.
Who would think that this chic piece of art started out as a fifty cent goose picture? All that remains of those geese is, well, a feather. ;)
This feather art is going to go on my gallery wall that is going to be in my newly decorated living room. I have been working hard on the room makeover. I'm waiting for my new couch to come in. (Eeeek! So exciting!) It should come in at the end of the month or the beginning of next month. That will be the final piece to the puzzle, and then I can share the makeover with y'all. I can't wait! If you want sneak peeks of my progress, make sure you follow me on Instagram. You can find me {HERE}. Happy crafting!
