Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Rearranging Furniture

One of the most fun ways to redecorate without spending any money is to rearrange your furniture. When I was little I used to change the layout of my bedroom every couple of months to make it feel new and fresh again.

We're still procrastinating about installing the crown molding, but we're also planning for a big makeover of our spare room. Right now the spare room serves as my dressing room and houses all my clothes and the curbside vanity I made over for my jewelry.  

The makeover isn't going to include the same furniture or colors and I was getting sad about parting with my vanity, until I realized I could just rearrange the existing furniture in our bedroom!

Last year I posted about our gallery wall and the trunk I made over to hold our bedding. Since the vanity and the trunk are roughly the same size I decided to switch them out. Here is what our room looked like before:


And here is it now:


I added a few new things, this cute bird jewelry holder my mom bought me for Christmas.

And my latest curbside find, an amazing antique piano bench! The top needs a little repair, but I love all the character and the awesome little feet. It fits just perfectly under the vanity.



So next time you're in the mood to redecorate, try switching up what you have first! I'm still hoping the trunk I moved out will work in our new spare room, but it will probably need a new paint job! I'll post details when we get it all planned out.

Monday, January 30, 2012

Valentine's Decor

I finally got our Valentine's decorations out over the weekend. I still have a little tweaking and a few projects on my do to list, but here is what we have so far!

I strung the mini pennant banner over our mantle and added a Be Mine banner I made a few years ago.

 The mercury glass candle sticks I use all year round and the True Love frame I made last year. The letters on the Be Mine banner and the wraps on the red candles are made from vintage raised velvet wall paper. My husband got a huge roll for me a few years ago and I've used it for several Christmas and Valentine's day projects and I still have a ton left.

 You'll also notice the felt fortune cookies in a few different places. My friend Alex and I made these last year from a Martha Stewart tutorial. They were so easy and turned out sooo cute! I will post the tutorial again if I can find it.

Our console table is also decorated. If you notice I still have out the Christmas Scentsy warmer I painted. I guess I had better buy a warmer to keep out year round, the gingerbread men need to be put away = ) The large white Love is also out all the time I just added a few Valentine's candles to go with it.

The berry heart and LOVE letters I picked up from Target on clearance a few years ago. The silver tray was a great Goodwill find for $5. It needed a good polish, but I've seen the exact same one several times for $40+ recently.


Our china cabinet is in the most need of a "tweaking" I put the rest of my Target clearance goodies over here, but will be mixing it up a little more this week! 



As you can tell, I LOVE decorating for every holiday. Do you do the same? Or just the big ones?

Friday, January 20, 2012

Mini Pennant Banner

I love decorating for holidays. In fact our attic is jam packed with decorations for every holiday, season, and special occasion. I used to hit up Target and buy all my holiday decorations, but over the past year I have been so inspired by all the ideas around blogland that I try make it myself instead!

One of my favorite trends is the pennant banner so I made a mini Valentine's version!

Start with any pink, red, or patterned paper. I went through my scrap box and used up some little pieces I had.

I could have cut out the pennants using my Silhouette machine, but I find it easier to cut them by hand, especially when I'm using the little scraps. As a template I cut out a sample pennant to make sure they were all the same size.

Since you want each pennant to fold over the string you need to line up the top of the pennant with the fold of the paper. I used my scoring board to make nice crisp lines but you could easily crease the paper by hand.

 Once you have all your pieces folded, line up your template and get cutting!


I'm making a large banner to go across our fireplace so my pile is pretty big.

I used red and white baker's twine I had left over from Christmas tags, but you can use any type of string or ribbon. Each pennant should look like this:

Put some type of adhesive on the inside and line up the twine on the fold. My favorite is my Scotch Adhesive Tape Gun (ATG) that I originally bought to do our wedding invitations/decorations. This version is a lot cheaper ($40 at Michael's) and you can use a 50% off coupon, I highly recommend it as I use mine all the time!



Press it closed and repeat, repeat, repeat! Until you end up with something like this:



I plan on decorating this weekend and hope to have pictures to show you on Monday!


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Thrifty Ribbon Rack

A while ago I found this little guy at the thrift store for $1.00 and knew he had great potential. Obviously it was for a little boys room, but I'm not sure about the original use?

I gave it a coat of primer, a few coats of gray paint, and added some vinyl wording and ended up with this:

I need to cut down the dowels and paint them either white or gray, but it will be the perfect place to store my ribbon.


BTW, did you know the dollar store sells a great selection of ribbon? I stocked up on all these colors the other day. It always comes in handy for craft projects or wrapping presents! 

Monday, January 16, 2012

Infinity Scarf

Turn any scarf into an infinity scarf in just a few simple steps! My sister has been looking for a spring (ie lightweight) infinity scarf so when we found this one I told her I could easily sew the ends together.

Start by lining up the edges and make sure all the tassles are out.

Then zig zag stitch about 1/2" from the edge.

Cut away the tassle part close to the stitches.

Turn loop inside out so your raw edge and stitches are inside.

Sew a straight stitch to enclose the raw edge and eliminate any future unraveling.


Turn inside out again to hide your stitches.

Then it's ready to loop.

How easy was that? I think I may be able to dig a few scarves out of my closet and give them a makeover. This would also be easy to do with any strip of material, it doesn't have to start out as a scarf!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Fancy Kindle Cover

Earlier this week I posted about two Kindle covers I made for my sister. I had a few requests for a tutorial for the second one so here it is... I made the pattern and tweaked everything as I went so let me know if you have any questions!

The materials:

Green outdoor fabric
Brown pattern fabric
Thin silver elastic
Thin black elastic
Blue bias tape
Coordinating button
  1. Start by cutting out all the pieces. 
 
From the green fabric you need to cut 2 pieces (11.5" by 8")
From the brown fabric cut the following:
Left Pocket (8 by 4.5") cut 2
Card Pockets (4.5" by 2.5") cut 4
Kindle Pocket (6" by 2") cut 2
Right Pocket (8" by 5.75") cut 2

3. Take each of the 4 pockets and sew bias tape along the 4.5" side. Start with the top pocket and sew it on the left pocket along the bottom edge. Continue until you get to the bottom pocket.

4. Take the second left pocket piece and put it right side down. Sew along the right side. Turn over and iron.


5. Sew both Kindle Pocket pieces right sides together. Sew a slightly smaller piece of elastic just under the seam on one side.




6. Take one piece of the right pocket and attach thin silver elastic approximately 2 inches from the top of the right pocket. Pin Kindle pocket to the bottom and put other piece of the right pocket right side down. Sew both sides of the right pocket together along the left side. Turn right side out and iron. Still with me? Here is a picture showing how the Kindle will fit in the pocket. 

7. Using one piece of the green material. Pin the left pocket on the left side (surprise!) and the right pocket on the right = ). Also, pin a loop of silver elastic with the ends just hanging over the right side.


8. Place the second piece of green fabric, right side down. Pin and stitch from the bottom around, leaving a 4" gap at the bottom so you can turn it inside out.


9. I trimmed the edges a little bit and then turned it right side out. You can use any pointed edge to push out each corner.

10. Hand stitch the bottom and attach a button and you're done!



I hope that made some sense? Let me know if you need clarification about any of the steps!