Burlap Bunting

I have been seeing a ton of really cute DIY crafty ideas using burlap ever since the fall, and I just HAD to jump on the bandwagon! The other bandwagon I had to jump on was the cute maternity photo with the parents holding up a banner (some people call it bunting...?)  with their babe-to-be's name written on it. So cute. Put the two together, and this is what I came up with!

Materials needed: 

• burlap 
• paper
• fabric scraps
• ribbon 
• hot glue gun

First you need to decide how large you want each flag to be, and make a tracer template. I found a piece of paper that I liked the top width of, folded it in half to find the center, then made a little dot on the bottom. From there, I used a straight edge to connect the bottom center dot with each top corner to make a perfect triangle. 

Obviously, the next step is to cut the triangle out and trace however many flags you need onto the burlap. By the way, burlap is available at Hobby Lobby now! (I also recently stumbled upon pre-cut burlap triangular flags for a banner at Hobby Lobby in the chipboard/scrapbook section, but they are much smaller than what I wanted.) 

Also, once you know the size of your flags, you can find a font that you like and print them in that size. If you would rather free hand it, then go for it! I just didn't trust myself! Here are my letters:

Line up your flags on top of the paper and get to painting! Trust me, you CAN see the letters through the burlap.

 After I painted, I lifted the material off the paper, and just moved it. I am not sure if it would have stuck too badly, but as you can see, there was some bleed-through. 

Here is where the picture taking stopped. Ok, well, it didn't stop, but they were deleted because I thought they were already saved to my computer and I needed the space on my SD card. Boo. You can visualize it, though, because it's definitely not rocket science!

Choose a ribbon that you like, and that matches your color scheme, I chose brown. Basically, brown is part of all my color schemes... I'm pretty predictable!

I tied the ribbon across my kitchen cabinets onto the handles, and hot glued the flags on. I didn't glue them too close together because I wanted little fabric strips to hang in between. I cut thin (about an inch wide) strips of fabric that also matched my color scheme, and tied a couple in between each letter and a few the outside. After that, you're done!

I had quite a bit of burlap left, so I figured I would try another cute idea that I have seen. One of my friends got married, and I had seen this cute poster that said "Thank-you". I wasn't sure what it was for, but when I got her thank you card, it all made sense! They had taken an adorable picture of them holding the sign on their wedding day, and turned it into a notecard!

I followed the same routine, but made smaller flags since the word is longer than 'Hunter', and made a Thank-you banner! The only difference is that I free-handed the letters, which was honestly just as easy as trying to 'trace' the paper underneath. Then I googled, "postcard from photo", and snapfish pulled up exactly what I wanted.  I uploaded my photo, and was all ready to order my 99 cent per post card thank-you notes, and then thought I would try my luck with my good friend google again. This time, I tried 'snapfish coupon codes'. I found a 40% off coupon code, which saved me $10! I was pretty stoked! Here is the final product!

I have seen so many adorable burlap bunting signs on Pinterest, all you have to do is search!

Also, please keep in mind that husband did NOT want to participate in any of these photos being taken, much less have to run back and forth using the self timer on the camera. I hope it doesn't show in the pictures!

DIY Cornice Box

Well..... earlier I posted about some DIY projects that I was excited about for this summer. One that I thought would be really simple and quick. I think it would have been super quick if it had not been for a few minor hang ups. Here is my inspiration below, and an in depth tutorial here:

Hang-up One and Two: Husband has not cut crown moulding in a few years and had to do a few practice rounds with the mitering. Well, those 'practice' cuts took up our first batch of crown. Then I went to the store and wanted to buy as little crown as possible. BIG mistake. You see, we had the base of the box built, it was 6 inches on the sides, and 42 inches across. Well, I had the unhelpful man at Home Depot cut me two 9 inch pieces, and one 45 inch piece. I wanted to have a little bit extra because I knew we would lose some cutting it on an angle. Well..... mine were too short, that lost us another day, and another batch of crown. Third times a charm.


Hang-up Three: I cannot paint with oil based enamel. I hate the stuff. I sanded, primed, and lightly sanded the box (with the crown on), then painted. It looked GREAT! Except for 2 tiny spots that were only noticeable in certain lights. Well, I waited until the next day, and slapped on another coat. This coat had this odd almost crocodile skin type marks in it as it was drying. We are still not sure what happened, but the most likely is that when I cleaned the brush with paint thinner and water some of the water was still mixed in there and mixed with oily paint, it made odd marks when drying.


Hang-up Four: This super thick coat of paint was supernaturally sticky and incapable of drying. So when we tried to sand it off, it just bogged up the sandpaper. So, we waited a few days to let it dry. No dice. It did not dry. This led to us having to rub paint thinner and nail polish remover all over the front, scraping it for 45 minutes, and finally sanding it.


Ahhhhh...... after all of this fuss, I made husband paint since I have banned myself from enamel paint, and it turned out beautifully. Here are the results:

Here is the box after I filled in all of the holes with wood glue, but before we added the bottom trim:

Here it is after the first coat of paint.... the good coat:

And, again, here is the finished product... with the drapes that I made all by myself!!

Overall, if we were to make another one for another room in the house, we would say that it was a very easy project. All you need is...


1 by 6 boards measured to the width you want, and measure to how far you want it off the actual wall
crown moulding of your choice for the top trip
we used simple wood in the shape of and 'L' for the bottom
wood filler
paint for crown moulding (all of ours is the enamel, so we wanted it to match)


First make a box from the 1 by 6 boards, you just need the sides, a front, and a top piece for stabilization.
Then put your crown on the top.
Next, put your bottom moulding on.
Fill in the nail holes and joints with wood filler.
Paint.
LET DRY.
Hang with L-brackets.


Hang drapes with a tension rod inside. You're done!!!

Canine Inspiration

Dog Silhouettes

I have been reading a blog called Epoch Elly, and she recently talked all about how vintage inspired silhouettes are making a come-back in today's design. I am not a designer, and barely manage to have 75% of my house decorated, but when I see an idea that I like and that I think I can recreate..... well, darn it, I re-create it!!!

Here is how I made my dog silhouette art:

1. Find a picture and make a silhouette out of it. You can use one of your own, or search online like I did. I found a silhouette of each breed of dog that I own, and projected it on paper in my classroom. Then I traced it.

2. Next you cut out that tracing so that you have a tracer to work with on the color of paper that you ultimately want to use.

3. Trace this silhouette on the color of cardstock/scrapbook paper that you will want to use in the end. I went back and forth on the idea of having the decorative paper as the actual silhouette, or the decorative paper as the 'matting' around the silhouette. I even bought extra paper so I could try both. I ended up wanting the actual silhouette itself to be darker and defined. I went with a rich chocolately brown which can be found all over my house.

4. Cut out the background paper to fit the frame window. I used an 8 X 10 frame that I found at my 2nd home.... oops, I mean Hobby Lobby!!

5. Place the silhouette on the background, and then put it all in the frame. You are done!! All in all, it took me about an hour. Not bad!

Here is a finished product! This one is Bailey, my basset hound mix.

At the top, you can see all three of my puppies' silhouettes, Texas a Great Dane, Bailey the Basset mix, and Sophie the chihuahua. I will hang them all together somewhere.....