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!

Wooden Buoy Ornament

December 4, 2017December 3, 2017Leave a comment

Good morning! We are in December! Can you believe it? This time of year goes by so fast! Do you have parties to go to, or family get-togethers? Or maybe your hosting this year. There is so much to do! I love to create some new ornaments this time of year too. I came up with a simple beach/ocean ornament for my tree. I made bigger ones of these earlier this year, and I thought little ones would be so cute!

I had my husband cut out some little pieces from some scrap wood we had. The tallest one is 4 1/2 inches tall and the smallest is 1 3/4 inches tall. The tops were cut in on each side and then a small hole drilled in it. I used some Waverly chalk paint to paint 2 of them ‘Mineral’ and 2 of them ‘White.’

I taped off different areas of the buoy to add the colored stripes. I used orange, turquoise and black. After the paint was dry, I added a piece of twine through the top.

Here are the finished pieces! I hung them on a little faux tree I have on my front porch.

I found the wooden bobbers this past summer at an estate sale and freshened them up with some turquoise paint.

I love the mixture of the ornaments, the rope garland and the starfish on top.

I have been busy decorating the other room in my house and hope to have tours up real soon! Have a great week!

Here are some other posts you might enjoy:

2017 ORNAMENT EXCHANGE-FROM URCHIN TO JELLY-FISH

November 16, 2017November 16, 201713 Comments

Welcome to the 2017 Ornament Exchange & Blog Hop! This year, there are 47 amazing bloggers participating in the exchange. The rules of the challenge were simple: be partnered with a fellow blogger, create a handmade ornament for $15 or under, create a tutorial, and ship the ornament off to a new home!

My partner this year is Terri Steffes. She has been married for 40 years! She has one daughter and two dogs (she would love to have a cat). I was excited to find out that she is a retired school principal who started out as a preschool teacher, just like me! She loves to read, write, decorate, travel, cook and entertain. We have a lot in common! She actually has 2 blogs, ChristmasTreeLane.blogspot.com and terristeffes.com. I can barely keep up with one! She also likes coastal decor for her Christmas tree like I do, so this was an easy one for me!

You can find all the participants and links to their blogs below. Also, if you would like to join the link-up, there is a button at the bottom to join in the fun!

Meet the 2017 Ornament Exchange Hosts

Erlene ⋅ My Pinterventures Kim · Made In A Day Amanda · Domestically Creative

Shirley · Intelligent Domesticatons Michelle · Our Crafty Mom

Beverly · Across the Blvd. Christene · Key to Inspiration Pili ⋅ My Sweet Things

Nicki · Sweet Parrish Place Megan · C’mon Get Crafty

Hilary · Raising Fairies and Knights Emily · Two Purple Couches

Tina · One Crafty Mess Marie · The Inspiration Vault Debra · Shoppe No. 5

Trisha · Rosewood and Grace Jeanie · Create and Babble Katrin ⋅ Kreativ K

Terri · Christmas Tree Lane Maureen · Red Cottage Chronicles

Toni ⋅ Small Home Soul Ula ⋅ Lulu & Celeste Sue ⋅ A Purdy Little House

Pamela · Home On The Corner Lorelai ⋅ Life with Lorelai Cindy ⋅ DIY Beautify

Debbie ⋅ Tweak and Style Stephanie ⋅ Swoodson Says Chelc ⋅ Inside the Fox Den

Susan ⋅ Super Mom – No Cape! Molly ⋅ Just a Little Creativity

Roseann ⋅ This Autoimmune Life Angela ⋅ Simply Beautiful by Angela

Vicki and Jenn ⋅ 2 Bees in a Pod Joanne ⋅ Our Unschooling Journey

Tylynn ⋅ Bitterroot DIY Sam ⋅ Raggedy Bits Mary ⋅ The Boondocks Blog

Cyn ⋅ Creative Cynchronicity Dione ⋅ Clever Chameleon Quilting

Erica ⋅ Erica Ever After Chelsea ⋅ Love Paper Crafts Evija ⋅ From Evija with Love

Samantha ⋅ Little Bits of Home Hope ⋅ Hopes Crafty Niche Anne ⋅ Orange Bettie

Pam · P.S. I Love You Crafts

When I found out that Terri liked coastal decorations like I do, I was very excited! I had an idea for some ornaments I wanted to make and now I could make them for someone else too! I love creating special gifts for others. I already had the sea urchins and I found the embellishments at Michaels. They were on clearance, so I was able to create these very reasonably. I did find sea urchin for sale on Amazon and Etsy and online at Jo-Ann’s. There were even some pink ones, which would look very cool too.

Since my sea urchins came from the California coast, I made sure they were clean before starting. 🙂

I took a small piece of white ribbon, folded it and hot glued it into the small hole on top of the urchin.

I put the ribbon on before the glitter, so that I would have something to hold onto while gluing and glittering. I brushed regular Elmer’s glue all over the urchin and sprinkled on the glitter. I used in iridescent glitter, but you could use other colors too. I made sure to rub it all over the shell. I had a hard time showing you how glittery they are, but they look so nice.

I love the purple one!

Here are the embellishments I found. I didn’t end up using everything, mainly just the different ribbons. I did add some small beads to some of them with some beads I already had on hand.

I cut each type of ribbon into small lengths and then hot-glued them, in the middle, on top of each other, one at a time. Now I had 6 ends hanging down. I made two sets for each urchin.

Once the pieces were glued together, I hot-glued them into the bottom of the urchin, pushing them way up inside using a pencil so I didn’t burn my fingers.

Ready to hang on the tree!

You can see some of the turquoise beads I used on this one.

I also glued some individual beads onto the white ribbon.

I love how the tails turned sea urchins into jelly-fish!

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to make these for my new blogger friend, Terri! Thanks to Erlene, from My Pinterventures, for hosting another year of Ornament Exchange! Remember to check out all the other ornaments below! Have fun creating!

FIND ALL 47 HANDMADE ORNAMENT TUTORIALS BELOW AND SHARE YOURS TOO! Use Hashtag #2017OrnamentExchange so we can see your creations on social media.

An InLinkz Link-up

My Recent Photography Ventures

November 3, 2017November 2, 2017Leave a comment

Hello! How was everyone’s week? I hope you all had a great week and you are all ready for the weekend!

Unfortunately I have to work this weekend…oh well.

But, last week and this week I was able to go on some photography adventures. So I wanted to share my favorite photos with you.

Last week my friend Rachel and I went to the beach. We went to Morro Bay and had the best time ever. It was very relaxing to get away and sit by the ocean. So enjoy my beach photos.

By the way, the otters were so close to shore! They are so cute!

Now 2 days ago I went to visit the local zoo (again). And because my friend Elise (shocking that I have more than 1 friend) has a season pass and also likes photography, we made a trip out of it. So here are my photos!

I love taking photos of animals and I hope you enjoy looking at them.

Sorry for this being such a random blog post, but it’s that weird time between Halloween and Thanksgiving where I don’t know how to feel about stuff. You know, do I wear a sweater and boots or flip flops and a sweatshirt? Who knows (stupid weather).

From Black Lace to Turquoise Beachy

August 14, 2017August 12, 20178 Comments

Hello! Sorry about missing last week Monday! Between being gone two weekends in a row, getting stuff done at school, working at the animal shelter, and just life, a post didn’t get written! Just the way it goes sometimes. This week we take Haley to college. Wah! How did it come to this!? I’m going to miss her greatly, but I am also excited to see where this takes her and to see everything I know she is capable of accomplishing!

Remember when Lauren painted these bar stools? After moving this summer, she decided she didn’t need them at her new apartment. So guess where they end up? That’s right…mom’s house! They don’t really fit in my decor with the black and white, so I went with a more beachy look.

I sanded down the top first, not completely down to the wood, but just to get most of the black off. I kept a bit of it because I knew I wanted to sand down whatever I painted and let some of the black show through. The next step was primer. I used my favorite Kilz Primer.

I used my Benjamin Moore Simply White over the whole stool. After the paint dried, I used painters tape to make stripes on the seat of the stool. I’m not very good at measuring things out, so I just eyeballed it, trying to keep my lines as straight as possible. I actually did pretty well!

I pressed down the edges of the tape really well and then I used the same ‘unknown paint color’ that I used in my bedroom and the front door. You can see it here.

After the paint dried a bit, I peeled off the tape. The lines look pretty good!

I used an orbital sander over the seat and around the edges. I sanded down to the black in some places and to the wood in other places.

Here it is in the bathroom. You can still see some of the black showing through.

I also used one in my entryway. It’s the perfect place to take off your shoes or leave a bag for a moment.

So what do you think? I love how these turned out! I have two more and I am thinking about painting them the same. I’m so glad I got this project done! On to the next project!