DIY Farmhouse Beaded Chandelier

March 19, 2018March 19, 20185 Comments

Good morning! We have had so much wonderful rain, but I am so ready for sunshine and warm days! How about you? We also found out my niece is going to have a baby boy this summer! This will be the first boy in 27 years for our family! Pretty exciting news!

I am still in the process of trying to use the supplies I already own and decided to try to find another project for the wooden beads I have in my stash. The first project I made was Minnie Mouse ornaments. I have been seeing many beaded lamps on the internet, so I thought I would give it a try for myself. I have had this hanging lamp on my patio for many years. I bought it at a yard sale and removed the wiring so it is lit with candles. Several of the glass globes were broken during the move to our ‘new’ house, so I had to figure out something else to dress it up. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but than the wooden beads came to mind.

The lamp is pretty rustic. I cleaned it up, but I decided not to repaint it, but just leave it as is. I did remove the weird little curved parts on the bottom.

I used a variety of different sizes for the beads. I first went through my stash to figure out how many of each size I had and make some kind of pattern with them. I knew I would need six strands of each set. I also used twine to thread them on to. I did end up having to buy a few beads just to finish out some of the strands.

Sorry for the blur on this picture. This is the lower section of the lamp. I measured out how long I wanted the twine to be and then threaded the beads on. I wrapped one end of the twine around the metal, hot gluing it into place. I wrapped the twine three times at this end.

This is the other end where it ends at the candle holder. I also wrapped this three times and secured it with hot glue.

For the top section of the lamp, I was able to tie a knot in one end of the twine and glue tuck it under the open edge. I also secured it at the middle. I now had my six strands on the top and bottom.

For the candle holders, I took the largest bead I had and my husband cut out the middle to fit a small tealight candle.

I tried lighting candles to take pictures, but it was pretty windy outside this day. But you get the idea. 🙂

It turned out so much better than I thought it would!

Here is a better picture of the twine wrapped around in different places.

I can’t wait to have a nice warm evening to light the candles and see how it will look on my patio.

Have you ever tried a project like this? This was the first time I have used so many wooden beads, and I am so happy I tried it! I hope you all have a great week!

DIY Driftwood Sailboat

February 26, 2018February 23, 20185 Comments

Good morning! Can you believe February is almost over? Spring should be right around the corner. We have been having some really chilly days, but it looks like things are beginning to warm up. Yay!! I don’t like the cold. At. All. I am all about summer. Which brings me to today’s DIY!

A few weeks ago I showed you my Driftwood Mirror. I have lots of driftwood left, so I came up with another project for some of my pieces.

I have seen these around Pinterest and decided it was time to make my own. I was trying to decide what fabric to use for the sails, when I remembered several vintage hankies I had. I really hadn’t done anything with them, so I decided this was a perfect project for them. The worst part was having to cut them. Eee. That was a little difficult, but the result turned out great!

Here are the supplies:

piece of driftwood
skinny sticks (from my yard)
fabric
thread and needle
eye-screws
hot glue

First you need to pick your piece of driftwood. Don’t worry if you don’t live near the ocean, I even found driftwood on Amazon! I included some links at the bottom of the post for your convenience. I picked ones that weren’t too long, but were a nice rounded shape. They also need to be able to sit flat on a surface. I drilled a small hole in the center of the top and hot glued the stick into the hole. This will be the mast of your sailboat.

I also drilled a tiny hole near each end of the driftwood. I screwed in the eye-screw. This will help hold the sail straight once it is attached.

I cut out triangles from the fabric. I used the stick for my measurement. Nothing to exact (of course) :). I used a straight edge for the part by the stick and a straight edge at the bottom. The other side is slanted to make a sail. Once I had my pieces cut out, I hot glued the point to the top of the stick. This held it in place while I stitched the bottom corners on.

I used a needle and thread to attach the bottom corner to the stick and the other corner to the eye-screw. Once those were attached, I was able to peel loose the glue and move it higher or lower on the stick, depending on where the sail was tight and straight.

I love the look of the vintage hankies with the driftwood! The perfect summery touch!

The embroidery and lace is so pretty. I’m glad I found a way to show them off a little.

Can’t you just see those sails billowing in the wind out on the ocean?

I added them to my faux mantle for now. I placed a few seashells around them and a white lantern to finish out the looks. The window and chalkboard pretty much stay in the same place and I decorate around them. They make the perfect backdrop to my other decor.

I still need a few more ideas for my driftwood, and now I need to add ideas for vintage hankies too! Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Faux Flower Heart for Valentines

February 12, 2018Leave a comment

Good morning! Well, it’s the week for love! Do you have special plans for Valentine’s Day? Do you go out for a fancy dinner, or just stay home and enjoy being with your loved ones? We don’t want to fight with the crowds, so we typically stay in. We order a coupld of heart shaped pizzas, and call it good!

I posted this DIY last year and thought I would share it again for any new followers. I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s!

Lauren and I kind of came up with the same type of Valentine project and we hadn’t even talked about it ahead of time. A little scary! We both used silk flowers and mounted them, hers is on a canvas and mine is on a weathered board. You can see hers here. Anyways, I had a bunch of small boards that Lauren had painted awhile ago, plus some silk flowers in my stash and decided to try and put them together.

I pulled out the flowers I wanted to use, I chose pink, and then decided on a grey board so the flowers would really stand out. I drew a heart on a piece of paper and then traced it onto the board so I would have a little bit of an outline to put my flowers in.

I did try this a couple of different ways, but ended up using just one type and color of flower. I was so busy gluing and placing flowers, I forgot to take any pictures during. Sorry! But it is pretty simple. I glued them really close together so they would be nice and tight. I even trimmed some of the petals to give it more of a heart shape. I think maybe smaller flowers with tighter petals would have worked better, but I still think this looks good.

I used a decorative stand to display it on and placed it my shelves in my dining room with my other pink decor.

This was really simple, but I think it looks nice and adds just a little special touch to the shelf.

Ideas for Winter Decor

January 10, 2018January 9, 2018Leave a comment

Good morning! We are into January and sometimes it is hard to know how to decorate once Christmas is over. The room look so bare and empty and it’s not really spring yet either. Especially when you have several feet of snow on the ground! But you can add some simple winter decor to your rooms to cozy them up a bit. I browsed through the internet a bit this week and found some great ideas!

Wisconsin Magpie came up with these great snowflake decorations. She used items she already had and put them all together in a creative way. I love these! They would be cute with a heart in them too for Valentines Day!

Yvonne over at Stonegable has 3 great winter wreaths! Doesn’t this pom-pom one looks so cozy and welcoming? I think I like this one the best.

These icicle candle holders are so cute! You could use any jar you have around, some glue and salt. Add some pretty pinecones and you have a pretty simple DIY! Go check it out at Sew Historically.

After all your decorating and crafting, you need something warm and cozy to drink. These polar bear marshmallows are adorable and yummy! Little Passports shares the easy instructions with us.

I hope you enjoy making your home a cozier place!

Desk Chair Makeover

January 8, 2018January 7, 20181 Comment

Good morning! Are you snowed in where you are? I hope everyone is okay! We are finally having some much needed rain! I think I write about this every year, but it’s just been so long since we really had enough. Hopefully it keeps coming! I was also able to get a few projects done during my Christmas break, so here goes!

I found this chair by some trash cans while we still lived at the old house, so that is over a year ago. It’s just been sitting in my garage waiting for me. 🙂 Haley took her desk chair to school with her and had been using one of my kitchen table chairs, so this was the perfect project for the desk in her room.

The chair was a dark brown so I primered it first. I always start with the chair upside down on a table. That way I am sure to get all the underneath parts and don’t miss anything that I have to try and touch up later. Once the underside is done, I turn it over and paint the top. So I started with the primer. I forgot to get a picture of just the primer so you can see some runs from the grey from when I painted the underneath side.

I went over the whole chair with grey paint next. This was paint I had from Haley’s bedroom. I don’t know the color because it was an ‘oops’ can at Home Depot. I found the fabric at Hobby Lobby at the after Christmas sale. I loved all the different pops of color in it! I can’t have anything too crazy in Haley’s room, so she actually helped picked it out.

I took my board for the seat of the chair and laid out the fabric under it. Then I cut the fabric to a couple of inches larger than the board. This will give me enough to staple onto the board.

Making sure the fabric is centered, I fold over the edge of the fabric to give it a little more strength. I start by stapling the fabric in the center of each side of the board, making sure it is a snug fit. Once I have the middle staple in, I do a few more on each side to keep it all even. For the corners, I fold it in to make a neat fold. I have a couple of other posts about recovering chairs if you want to check them out, here and here.

Once the fabric was stapled to the seat board, I screwed the board back onto the chair. And it was finished! Sometimes I wonder why I put off things for so long, when in reality, it doesn’t take that long to do the whole project. Who knows?!