Easy Peasy DIY Wall Art

If you didn’t already know, I’m a pretty frugal lady. I’ve pursued Pinterest (as I often do, especially while nursing) and seen many a gallery wall that I’ve fancied. If you’ve checked my boards you’ll know it’s no secret that I’ve been obsessed with this idea for just about, well, forever. But remember, I’m cheap. This lady isn’t going to spend even $4-5 a frame because that adds up! Soooooo, since before Eisley was born I’ve been collecting lots of frames and wall hangings from the local Goodwill here and there. One of the things I picked up was a set of embroidery hoops, one with a puffy mallard duck and another with a puffy moose. Both trimmed with lace. Yeah. Super cute.

So, Andrew and I removed the inner hoops and tore all the ‘beautiful’ fabric off. I’d gone and purchased this awesome printed burlap at Joann’s I bought a 1/2 yard at $9.99 a yard. Which was still cheap, but I have tons of leftover fabric, so I could have easily done with less (lesson learned).



Next, I took the fabric and aligned it the way that I liked and pushed the inner hoop back into the outter hoop. I then tightned the outter hoop again and pulled the burlap tight & cut the excess of so there was just enough fabric to fold over and glue.



Then, YOU GUESSED IT, fold over and hot glue that sucka! Make sure to be careful. I just used my finger to push down, but being a hairstylist, my fingers are pretty numb to heat. The burlap has small holes so I suggest using an unsharpened pencil to push the burlap down so you don’t have moten hot glue stuck to your skin.



The place and nail and hang! TADA! Pretty easy huh? I’ve got two and I thnk they’re a WONDERFUL addition to the gallery wall I’m working on!




Have you ever made your own pieces for YOUR gallery wall? Link me, I’d love to see them!



Nicole

And the transformation begins…

So I have finally started to make decisions & my husband is begrudgingly gratefully assisting me in starting the transformation. I went back and forth between doing two paint colors in the living room and decided that since a lot of my décor is only in the same color family and not the same color it would be easier to do a neutral color on the wall and use the décor as the color in my room. I like the idea of this as well because I feel the room will be ‘airier’ as well. So the plan right now is to do a grey color on all the walls and then grey and white stripes on one of the walls. I’m not sure which, but I was kind of leaning towards the wall where our TV is against. Not sure why, it just felt right. Opinions?

Don’t mind the messes tucking around our living room. Also, apologies in advance for the imbalance of décor. See, when we moved into our home there were a gazillion nails still in the walls ( And painted the same color as every inch of our walls) So since we have actually decorated our home, we tend to throw things onto the nails already in the walls in order to get them off the floor. In fact, that chalkboard is actually from Eisley’s room. OOPS. Oh well, that’s going to change soon. Oh! Don’t mind my sleeping baby on the couch.




These are the greys I’m between at the moment:

Glidden Pebble Grey

Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter

Sherwin Williams Mindful Gray

HELP ME CHOOSE PLEASE!!!!

This is the ugly built in we have in the corner. We’re planning on painting the wooden pieces white to match the trim and removing the ugly mirror tiles. I’m trying to decide if I should do a pop of color on the wall behind these  shelves or if I should stick to the grey I plan on doing in the rest of the room.




Okay, now that I’ve burned your eyes with our horrid looking living room, we move on to the kitchen. Which has been nothing but a nightmare since we moved here really.

We have dealt with with a leaky sink, a leaky ceiling, had a dishwasher crap out on us & the worst of it all, in my opinion… THIS:



Seriously?! Okay. When we first moved in I saw the wallpaper and I thought, Oh, this will be a hassle but it’s doable. LITTLE DID I KNOW that not only were there THREE LAYERS OF WALLPAPER but they had been layed DIRECTLY ON THE DRYWALL. So when we first moved in I began to remove the wallpaper and this happened:


After that happened I gave up on the kitchen for a while and then like I discussed in this post a lot of things happened in our lives and the entire house took a backseat. Any who, Andrew & I are back on the wagon and taking care of business and trying to knock as much of our DIY to do off of our ever growing list before little miss is big enough to be running around while we’re working on things. Last night we played some music while Eisley chilled in her rocker and we tried to kick some wallpaper arse.




Andrew did a lot better at removing the wallpaper than I did. I have to narrow down my choices on paint color for the kitchen, but eventually we plan on doing the white Rustoleum Cabinet Transformation on the cabinets. Anyone used the kit before? If so, what is your opinion on it? Worth it?

Nicole
Edit: I forgot to mention that the room is going to be accented in shades of blueish teal. I posted some of the decor I'm working with on my instagram [nicannette] so check that out. it might help!

Gold Dipped Feather DIY

 

I’ve been LOVING paint dipped & gold EVERYTHING lately. So when I saw THIS post on Craftaholics Anonymous I knew I wanted to add some paint dipped feathers to my décor. However, I wanted gold dipped feathers that I could incorporate into my winter décor as well. Gold and SPARKLTASTIC! Okay. That was a little much but you get the point. So, while at the store, I picked up some white feathers, gold paint and a big ol’ shaker of gold glitter. And after perusing Pinterest apparently I was spot on. My colander drying technique which I thought was OH SO INNOVATIVE was used by others as well. Great minds think alike, right?


I seriously got all these supplies, minus the feathers, at Walmart for $1.25 or less! The feathers were $1.99 at Hobby Lobby. Also, Hobby Lobby seems to always have 40% off coupons… USE THEM!

Throw a glob of paint on a plate ( or newspaper in my case) and paint as much of the feather as you would like. You can also use your sponge or brush to separate the feather a bit if that’s the look you’re going for.


Sprinkle the glitter on the wet paint &…


Shake it off! TA DA!!!!

I dried my feathers by sticking the ends in a colander. You could do this to dry a TON of feathers if you wanted to make some garland. How cute would that be?



How pretty are those? I’m in love! I actually have them decorating two different rooms. I can’t help it, they’re so pretty!


Like I said, you could make them into garland if you like or you could hang them from a dream catcher! I decided to put mine in jars. This one above is in my living room in a large jar filled with dry lima beans and the ones in our dining room are in a smaller jar without any filler. It looks great either way, really!

Any other paint dipped or gold crafts you’ve seen lately? Link me up, I’d love to try them! Hope you’ve all had a wonderful week so far!

Nicole

Our Weekend in Picture

We’re taking a page from Mandy at HelloJaxon and posting our weekend in photos!




This weekend I continued on my crazy lady venture into all things DIY this fall. I’m loving it! I feel like I’m constantly making mental lists of things to buy so I can continue to create. I finished off my second full week of being at work 12 hours a week. DAUNTING, I KNOW! Any moment away from my mini sucks, though. I am always so anxious to get home and smooch Miss Eisley. She is my favorite part of every single day.



Andrew is going on a work trip, so this weekend has involved a lot of bumming around and snuggling. I did some work for my etsy shop (which I will hopefully be opening soon) & we all snuggled up and played games and watched crime shows on Netflix.


(Unimpressed baby.)
Today we’re going to lunch with Andrew, thrifting a little & doing Taco Tuesday a day early. Then Eisley & I will be having a girls week! Because boys smell anyway.

I hope y’all are ready for some more DIY because it’s coming your way this week (as hinted in the first photo, hehehe).

Nicole

“It’s fall, y’all!”

Well since the past weekend OFFICALLY rang in Fall, I thought it was time for some fall craftin’! I’d been wanting to make a monogrammed wreath for a while so went searching for supplies and created this little number.



The wooden H was $1.49 at Hobby Lobby & the paint I painted it with was only 59 cents! The wreath was about $3-4 dollars at Walmart & the fabric was on clearance at Walmart for $1.59 a yard and it takes WAY less than a yard of fabric to make the flowers!

Earlier this week I saw this post on Craftaholics Anonymous® & I couldn’t wait to run to the craft store to get supplies!




And of course, Mr. Hoot the one eared decorative owl I found at Goodwill years ago. Okay, we don’t really call him that, but I thought it was rude to post him on here without giving him a name, so there you go.

Have you gals been making any fall crafts lately? Post them, I’d seriously love to seem!



Nicole