2011 Wrap Up

Hello friends! 2011 has been a big year and I can't wait to share with you some of my favorite posts and happenings.

My five most popular posts this year have been:

#5

Easy DIY Art

I love these in my bedroom. The cream color adds some much needed light to the space!

#4

Another Waverly Fabric SCORE!

I paid $14 for 2.75 yards of this gorgeous Sun N Shade fabric and am planning on finishing up my deck project this summer. Here are the fabrics I'll be using.

#3

Downstairs Bathroom - DONE!

This summer I did a mini re-do of my downstairs bathroom. It was just the freshening up I needed...and SO simple! I've since added a DIY Sunburst Mirror to the spot next to the mirror. It's the perfect finishing touch!

#2

Craigslist Dresser...Done?

This was another one of those never ending projects. I had so many problems with the paint bubbling up and I spent so much time sanding and re-sanding. In the end, it was worth it! This is the perfect storage solution for DVDs, diapers and wipes, toys...I love it! I do still need to buy the hardware I've got picked out but I'm having a difficult time getting myself to spend the money. The knobs and pulls are $5 each and I know that doesn't sound like much but that's $60 total and I just don't want to take it out of my budget. I am planning on a re-do of this whole space sometime this year so when I begin that, I'll buy my knobs :)

#1

New Reading Bench

This was by far my most popular post this year and one of my favorite projects. This goes to show you what a little bit of elbow grease can do. I bought the bench for $20 on Craigslist, pulled off some nasty upholstry and padding, repainted and reupholstered it. For a $30 total investment, I have a fun new piece of furniture and a great addition to my little girl's room.

So, those were my most popular posts of 2011. I want to share a few of my personal favorites.

#3

Valentine Wrap-Up

I loved the Valentine's Day crafts I did this year and I smiled every time I looked at them. I can't wait to get them back up and to do even more this year :)

#2

Owl Love You... (Before & After)

I love this little guy. He just makes me happy :)

#1

Lattice Entertain You...

These are my absolute favorite project from this past year. I fell in love with the fabric and got an awesome deal when I found it in the clearance bin at Joann. Unfortunately, I only had enough for one window. I hunted and hunted for this online but this color isn't made anymore. (It's Waverly Lovely Lattice in mocha. They do make this in the Sun N Shade fabric but I had the 100% cotton and needed the same to match up to what I already had.) Finally, I tripped over a store that had this online.

I love everything about this fabric. The weight, color and pattern are perfect and the curtains are perfect for my living/dining area. Almost every time I look at them, I can't believe how lucky I was to find that second five yards :)

2012 is going to be a busy year for me too. I've got a monster list of projects and to-dos that I'm planning on posting soon. Included in that list will be converting my guest room/office into a nursery for a baby boy coming in April. That's my biggest DIY project planned for 2012. (The baby, not the room!)

I've had so much fun looking back on 2011 and it's inspired me to forge ahead in the coming year. I've loved all the friendships that have developed through this blog and all the support I've received. Thank you ALL for making it wonderful :)

Linking up to:

Surprisingly AWESOME Christmas Decor!

My mom sent me this image today from House Beautiful. Awesome!! I don't really have anywhere to put it but I wish I did! This would be such a simple and inexpensive DIY - they're just paper wedding bells!

(click pic for source)

Anyway, I was just so struck by this that I had to share. What do you think? Am I way off with my love of this idea?

DIY Sunburst Mirrors - On The Cheap!

Hello! So, I realize there are about a million tutorials all over the blogosphere for these and I'm probably on the back side of the trend but I was so excited about these that I figured I'd share anyway.

I made two mirrors. I wanted one large and one small so I bought two different sizes of mirrors. The larger of the two was $1.49 and the smaller was $0.99. I picked up two packages of barbeque skewers and a sheet of foam core poster board at the Dollar Tree.

I placed both mirrors on the board and traced them...

...then I cut out the circles.

I found the center of each circle and stuck a skewer in it to mark it off.

Then, I hot glued the skewers around, meeting in the middle and trying to evenly space them.

Then, I glued a skewer at the edge of the board between each of the skewers affixed at the middle.

Then, I glued more on either side of those glued at the edge of the board but glued them at the in-between point of the other skewers.

Finally, just for good measure, I glued the crap out of it. I put a thick coat of hot glue over the whole thing just to make sure it all stuck together.

View from the top :)

I painted one oil-rubbed bronze and the other heirloom white, making sure to evenly coat all sides of the skewers and the piece of foam board.

I poked a hole in the back of the foam board for hanging. I love the finished product! This one is big - almost three feet wide.

(Yes, I realize this isn't perfectly centered on the wall. For now, it's good enough!)

For the smaller one, I used the same process but first cut the skewers in half.

It's just what my downstairs bath needed!

The total cost for this project was $5 - for BOTH MIRRORS! $2.50 for the mirrors themselves, $2.00 for two packages of skewers and $0.50 for the foam board. I had the paint on hand.

For $5.00, I don't care if I'm behind the times or coming in at the tail end of this trend. I love my mirrors :)

Have you made any DIY sunburst mirrors like this? I know I've seen so many beautiful variations out in blogland...if you have, link it up in the comments below! I'd love to see!

Simple DIY Art

I've been of the mentality that I have to wait until a project is totally done before I can post about it but recently I've started to move out of that mindset (as evidenced here and here) and realized that I can show you something before I'm done! In fact, I can do one even better...I can show you individual projects that make up part of a whole! Now, I realize that most bloggers have already realized this. I'm a little late to the game ;)

So, I'm in the process of a mini-redo of my downstairs bath. I had really wanted to wait until it was all done to show you but I realized...why would I do that? I can show you each project...one at a time!

First I'll tell you some basics. The room is very small. It is painted a medium greige. It has a basic builder vanity and mirror. I upgraded the light fixture so I actually like it. Here are a couple pics:

The shower curtain was an impulse buy. I just needed something to hang up. I like the blue but just not in that room. I'm going to give it to my mom :)

Here's that light fixture...

A sneak peek of my plan ;)

Okay, on to the art. I used these 16x20 canvases from a different (failed) project.

All I did was wrap the canvases with my new fabric. EASY!!

I hot glued the fabric on, starting with the middle of each side, pulling it taut as I glued.

...and here is the finished product! Seriously, this was so easy.

The fabric is Premier Prints Barber in Corn Yellow/Kelp slub. I'm a major fan of Premier Prints...I also got the fabric I'm using for the curtains in the office re-do at the same time.

I can't wait to show you everything else I've got planned. I did buy a mirror from Craigslist to replace my builder grade mirror but it was too big! That's what I get for not measuring!

So tell me, what kind of posts would you rather see? Teasers or everything at once? 

Linking up to:

Easy DIY Art (Before & After)

I recently showed you these faux bamboo frames I picked up while thrifting. I paid $3 for each of them.  I loved them right away despite the dingy paint finish and gaudy geishas. I knew right away they were going in my master but I just wasn't sure what I wanted to put in them. Well, this weekend I had an epiphany :)

I started by giving them a fresh coat of Heirloom White. They were an off white to start with but they had some sort of glaze that just made them look dirty.

Whew...better already!

I realize that the art doesn't look that bad from a distance, especially if you're into Chinoiserie like me, but trust me - they're pretty bad. They're embellished with sequins and glitter.

I took out all 50 of the little pins that were holding the back on to take the glass and backs off in order to paint. I couldn't get them back in so I improvised and used tape. Hey - it worked!

I filled them with my mocha Lovely Lattice! The color is what drew me to this fabric in the first place since it is super close to the paint color in my master and I love this fabric so much, I wanted to use every last bit of it.

I really love how they turned out and they give that corner some much needed character.

My husband isn't totally sold on them. He still thinks he's going to put up and display his autographed baseballs here...sorry, hun. Not going to happen!  What do you think? Do you like them or should I replace them with sports memorabilia?

At The End Of The Rainbow...

I've been promising a St. Patrick's Day wreath and I didn't want to close out the week without delivering. The problem was, I just couldn't decide what to do. I still wanted to do something with a rainbow but I just wasn't sure what. I was thinking that it would be fun to make a wreath into a rainbow somehow but I really didn't want to spend much money. I headed to Joann Fabrics to pick up some yarn because I really loved the texture on my Valentine's wreath. When I got there I realized that I didn't want to spend even $2.50 on each skein when I needed so little each of six different colors. I was walking around aimlessly trying to find inspiration when I saw these little spools of ribbon. The grosgrain was $1.00 per spool and the other was $0.50 each. That sealed the deal.

I grabbed a foam wreath form, two different shades of green felt and six colors of the rainbow (I don't mean to be a snob by leaving out indigo, I just didn't have room for it in my plan!).

Because I had six colors I marked off eight sections on my wreath form - six for the colors and two for the shamrocks.

I wrapped the ribbon the same way I would have my yarn, filling each section with the next color in the sequence ROY G. BiV.

I just used straight pins to secure each color in place.

I printed out a few different sizes of shamrocks to use for a pattern...

...and traced them on to my felt and cut them out.

I used straight pins to attach my shamrocks to the wreath. (I decided to wrap the last two sections with some black yarn I had on hand - just to make it look more finished.)

I used mostly green straight pins but also a few yellow and blue in places where they wouldn't be too noticeable.

For a hanger I pinned some scrap ribbon to the back. I used two pins on each end crossing over each other to make them extra secure.

And the finished product. I wasn't so thrilled with it when I just had the ribbon on but when I got the shamrocks on I started liking it a lot more. I still think I'm going to do it differently next year but for now I really am happy with the finished product!

I love the 3D effect from the shamrocks!

I was able to use a 40% off coupon on the wreath form so the total cost of this wreath (including tax) was $8.10. I've still got plenty of ribbon and felt leftover for some future use and because I didn't use any glue this can be totally taken apart if I want - perfect for some cold winter day (next year maybe?) when I'm feeling crafty but snowed in...and that happens a lot in North Dakota!

So what do you think? Do you like wreaths as much as me?  I'm off for the weekend, we're visiting family out of town. Early next week I plan to show you some fab finds from a recent thrifting excursion. Now I just need another semi-warm day to paint them up!