From The Couch: Easy Bathroom Decor

HEY HEY!!!

What up y'all?! I have been SO MIA the past two weeks.

I PROMISE to try harder to be present! We are so so busy with work and then weekend/evening activities, I can't believe how fast the days are flying by!! I'm CRAZY busy at work and then it is time to leave, get my work out on, eat dinner, then it is practically time to go to bed! Lately I have been staying up MUCH later than necessary; last night for example, I was up until 1 am! Why??? I don't know - i just wasn't ready to go back to work today haha! 

This weekend I became Pinspired =) I have wanted something little to add to our master bathroom. It needed to be something cute and something that wouldn't be too expensive to create. I am finding that my best inspiration happens when I'm not looking for anything in particular.  For those of you who have been around - that gets difficult because I am constantly looking for something SPECIFIC. I was surfing pinterest last week and found this. 

My results are SUPER similar to that of My Heart's Desires. My rosettes are a little more 'disheveled' than the ones she made but I really like the way it turned out! 

 

This project cost me a total of $12!!!!

Large Vase: Walmart $4

Medium Vase: Walmart $3

Tall Candle: $2.50

Small Candle: $1.50

3 bags split peas: $2

 

AND best of all - I did this from the comfort of the couch while we watched a movie =) 

I don't LOVE the little rosette on the smaller vase - I may have to redo that one. It won't be tonight - I have too much going on right now to be re-doing something that NO ONE should be judging lol 

Where do you get your decor inspiration?

DIY Window Frosting

We have these small windows that run the height of the front door.

I love it during the day when all the light can stream in.

At night, however, I'm mildly creeped out because you can see RIGHT in the house.

PLUS when we aren't home, I don't people peeking in! 

So I got this grand idea to frost the windows!

I didn't want to ETCH them because seriously that's intense!

so to Google search I went!

I found this happy little spray paint that mimics window frost.

YAY! This was hopefully going to be awesome!

 

I didn't want to just frost the entire windows,

I wanted a design so it looked 'fancy'!

I had no clue how to attain this...then I thought of my amazing Cricut!

Seriously - if you craft at all, this should definitely be in your arsenal!

I use mine ALL the time!! 

Anyhow, I started looking through my images and found one that we both liked.

First things first - I CLEANED the windows.

I had severe puppy nose art on the bottom two.

see how clearly you can see RIGHT to the street. 

Well at night people can see RIGHT in the house.

Not OK!

I cut out the image on scrap paper to make sure I had the proper size.

THEN I cut it out on my vinyl - you can get this stuff at most craft stores.

After cutting it out, we had to remove all the extra vinyl that wouldn't be used.

I didn't take a picture of this because I couldn't get a good one

We went to the window and marked where each decal should go.

If you ever need to mark measurements on a window, use crayola markers.

They wipe RIGHT off with your finger - like a dry erase board =)

Once the measurements were marked, I used transfer paper on the design.

Side Note: I didn't use transfer paper until like 5 months ago.  

This is something you should use - seriously! 

It makes messing with the sticky vinyl so much easier!

Once the decal is in the right place, I rubbed it down so there weren't bubbles.

I peeled off the transfer paper; it comes off pretty easily.

Ta-da! Vinyl on the window successfully! =) 

Next step - SPRAY the frost on the windows

while it is wet, it seems like you will still be able to see through the window.

This is quite the illusion, because i ASSURE you when it dries, you can't!

The stuff dries in about 5-10 minutes. 

We sprayed 2 coats on the windows just to make sure there was good coverage.

Once it completely dried, we removed the vinyl.

 

And that is how it is done! 

This was pretty easy and made a HUGE difference!

I'm still getting use to not being able to see out the windows.

I LOVE it though =) 

AND since the bottom pane has the design - the pup can still peek out! yay!

Have you done any DIY lately??

Where do you get your ideas?

DIY Makeup Organization

Hey hey!! Happy Thursday! 

So this past weekend, The Husband and I did a couple quick and easy DIY projects in an effort to make me more organized.  In his words, I have a lot of clutter.  Any girl knows that I don't have clutter - everything I have out (makeup and accessories) are tools to make me more amazing =) 

Anyhow - I saw on Pinterest that some people were up-cycling spice racks as a nail polish organizer. I think this is a great idea. The problem I found was that I couldn't find a wooden spice rack...or a wall spice rack of any kind for that matter! SO I talked to The Husband and we opted to build our own =) 

Materials:

2 - 6' 1X2 boards

chop saw/saw of some type

Nails/nail gun

6' piece of trim

spray paint

Liquid Nail

ratchet strap

OK so first thing - I wanted to mount this thing INSIDE the door on my side of the vanity. We SHOULD have measured the door but we didn't - off we went to the store. We over bought in material BUT it worked out perfectly for the second part of this post =) 

When we got home, we measured the door of the vanity.

We decided to make the shelf 14.5" tall and 9" wide. 

Then it was time to decide how many shelves - we agreed on four. 

Make sure at LEAST one shelf is tall enough to accommodate your tallest polish.

After you measure and decide on a size, make the cuts for your shelves and sides.

Nail these pieces together -- so you should have 2 long pieces for the sides and 4 shelves.

Measure and cut the lengths of the trim.  (4 pieces)

Nail the trim to the from of each shelf - this will keep your nail polish from jumping off the shelf =) 

We filled the nail holes with Spackle and waited for it to dry/set.

This is before the spray paint. I feel like you can see a little better what I am talking about in the directions.

I took this outside and spray painted it white. 

Once the paint was dry, we put liquid nail on the back side, stuck it to the shelf.  We used the ratchet strap to hold the shelf up tight against the cabinet door until the liquid nail dried.

Load with nail polish! =) I LOVE that it can see all my polish AND it is out of the way. This beats the heck out of having them in a drawer or box all piled up on one another!

So since we OVER PURCHASED on the 1X2, I decided I wanted a little more organization in my makeup drawer. Make some measurements, cut the wood, nail it in the drawer and TA-DA!

I can actually fit all my makeup in the drawer AND the more amazing thing...

I can FIND it all!! No more staring blindly into my messy make up drawer =)

Each piece has it's own designated area =) YAY!

So that's it =) These projects took all of 2 hours combined. We - well I -- was also cleaning out under my sink cabinet and getting rid of old makeup so it probably could have been done quicker =) 

Oh and speaking of under the cabinet, does anyone else think it is absolutely preposterous that they don't automatically put some sort of shelf on at least ONE side in the bathroom vanity cabinet?!

Have you done any DIY projects lately?
How do you keep your makeup and nail polish organized?

DIY Photo Canvas

I LOVE LOVE LOVE photo canvases...I do NOT love love love the prices! Nor do I enjoy waiting for them to be delivered. As I have discussed before - I am an instant gratification kinda girl.  So when we moved into our house I knew that I wanted to hang pictures from weddings we had been in or attended in the time we have been together. So far we are at 8 plus ours. I thought it would be really neat to figure out a way to do canvas prints for these photos. But like I said, those things are NOT cheap.

I have seen various tutorials and different variations of creating your own photo canvas. I decided to try out this one - tissue paper to canvas.

I have to admit - I was a little intimidated by this project. So I made my way to Hobby Lobby and I saw a 2 pack of 8X10 canvases for $3.99! AND I had a 40% off coupon. Ok that was totally going to be worth a go ESPECIALLY since tissue paper costs nothing! Seriously - 10 sheets cost me $0.99!! So at this point I had spent a total of $5 for 2 canvases and 10 sheets of tissue paper which will make at LEAST 20 canvases....assuming I can figure this out and I like the way it looks.

First I cut the tissue paper to be bigger than a normal size sheet of printer paper and taped the tissue paper to the printer paper.

Note: I used masking tape...it was all I had and it worked quite nicely =)

My first attempt, I loaded it into the back for the manual feeder - like I normally would when printing pictures. This is a BIG no-no! it crumpled up the tissue paper and I had to emergency stop the job! DEFINITELY use the normal feeder try -  but be sure you know which side it will print on so you have the tissue paper facing the right direction.

 

PRINT!

Please ignore that I needed to dust when this picture was taken...I'm pretty sure the printer itself hadn't been dusted since the old house! This has been remedied and NO JUDGING lol
On to making the canvas - remove the tissue paper from the printer paper...I trimmed the edges ever so slightly with my rotary cutter.

Now - I tried a couple different methods to this next step. I found that the BEST way to apply the tissue paper to the canvas without creating lines in the photo, is to mod podge the ENTIRE canvas before adhering the tissue paper to it. Make sure it isn't too wet when you place the tissue paper on it or the tissue paper will tear and you have to start all over and possibly lose a canvas =/ this is what happened on my first attempt.

I am really happy with the way they turned out!

I did three different styles -

Close-up of The Husband and I from our wedding

 

a photo of the 6 of us from my sister's wedding

 

a huge family picture from my cousin's wedding last May

 

Here is what I noticed - the close up is AWESOME! I love it!! The further out you are, the more detail you lose. I don't know if it is because the tissue paper is so thin and you lose some of the dimension? The closer shots, definitely show a lot of detail and you don't lose a whole lot of depth in the image.

Something else to note - they will probably turn out better in black and white or at least, with less saturation. The next one I try is going to be from our wedding and will be a black and white (or sepia) shot. I will let you know how that turns out next time I can get to Hobby Lobby for more canvases...I used the 4 I had =( and had a casualty learning this project lol!

Do you like the look of photo canvases?
Have you tried to DIY? If yes, what was your method?

{Tutorial} Earring Display

Hello!! Happy Valentine's Day!!!

This past week The Husband and I worked on a project together. It was a lot of fun working with him and completing a project together. We have done a lot of projects together but it is like painting, installing floors, etc. We haven't done anything like this together - where it is 100% me telling him what I want/need and him trying to execute it. I was really pleased with the way it turned out =) You have seen this around Pinterest I am sure - if you are addicted like me lol - and I thought it looked really simple.

Hanging Earring Display

First I went to Home Depot and bought a 7' piece of moulding. It was $4.98 =)
Then, I went home and figured out where I would want to hang it. I thought I wanted to hang it right by the mirror in the master but turns out, I decided to hang it to the left of the bathroom door. We did the math and determined how much waste we would have and what was the biggest we could make it. I believe we decided that each side would be 20".
J measured the pieces, marked, and cut them.

  

It is a really good thing he did this because I would have wasted more than necessary. I didn't think about having to cut off the edge flat and making a new angle. Ladies - if you haven't cut wood for a project, maybe look up a tutorial or have your man do it. I don't mean to sound like a girl who can't handle a power tool - I can, I promise. I just didn't think about that tiny little detail of creating a new edge to make the correct angle =)

After he cut them, we laid them out on the floor to make sure all the cuts/angles lined up properly =)

The Husband used his nail gun to put it together and siliconed the joints so that when I painted it, there wouldn't be gaps =)

After the silicon dried, I took it outside and spray painted it with Rustoleum Satin Lagoon.

While it was drying, I unrolled some chicken wire and put some weight on each end, so it would flatten out some. Once the frame was completely dry, I cut chicken wire to fit and stapled it to the back of the frame.

 

The last thing I did was add a picture bracket so that I could hang it =)

I would do one of two things here - if you have a small hammer, USE IT. The EASIER option is to buy the brackets with the nails already secured to the bracket =) It is about $0.50 more than the one I bought.  It totally would have been worth it - however, at the time, I didn't think it would be a very big deal.

Last but not least - HANG it and add earrings =) WOO!

This project took probably 2 hours with the dry time. I sprayed a couple coats to make sure it was even and no white was showing through.

I made a thing for my necklaces that I will be sharing later this week AND I plan on making another for sunnies and other miscellaneous accessories =)

I hope y'all have a wonderful day today! =)

Eat, Drink, & be Merry

Happy Friday Eve!!!

My days are flying by but I find it hard to believe that it is only Thursday!

So the kitchen in our new house is pretty big -- if nothing else, there is a lot of wall space above the cabinets.  We have been brainstorming to see if we could come up with anything to put up there. I had the light-bulb-on-moment! I would make a big sign that reads "Eat, Drink, & be Merry"!!! And we can put them over the cabinets on the big empty wall space! BRILLIANT!

The requirement: it had to be BIG!

So as we were packing up our things last weekend, I noticed that the shelves in the closets were actually 2 big pieces of wood.

(Pretend I'm showing you two)

I went to Home Depot and looked at the spray paint.  I found a warm, pretty brown that I thought would be perfect in the kitchen. I went home and spray painted the boards with the brown.

While this was drying I went inside and hopped on the cricut.  I knew I could cut out the letters on scrapbook paper and use the 'scrap' part as the stencil.

This took a little trial and error to figure out the font style and the size I wanted/needed it to be.

I cut out the letters -- YAY cricut!!!

I laid the cut out pieces on the boards to see how I wanted it to look

SIDE NOTE/TIP:  put aluminum foil in the bottom of your paint pan so that you can just throw the aluminum away at the end of the project instead of dealing with the mess of cleaning it AND you don't have to buy another for the next project =)

While I was at the Depot - I checked out the clearance paints -- I found a pretty sage sample color marked down to $0.50!!!! You read that correctly =)

I put down the stencils where the letters were and, using the small roller, I stenciled the wood.

All finished!

I took a damp paper towel and rubbed a smidge of paint on it to give the project more of a 'distressed' TYPE of look, I didn't want the signs to look perfect, so it is great that the paint smudged a little under the paper where I went heavy with the paint/roller.

The total cost of this project was $4.50! =) WOOO!!! Crafting on a budget over here =)

Have you done any projects lately??

Knife Block Re-Vamp

Hello Hello!!!

We are moments away from getting a closing date! YAY us! AND they want to close in a matter of 2-3 weeks. SO big things will be happening here!

This weekend I worked on several DIY projects, one of which was re-vamping our knife block.  It wasn't ugly - it was just.....well, boring!  SO The Husband and I .... well actually he picked the color.  We bought some spray paint that would match the color scheme we will have going in the main area of the house.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 



We bought the Krylon Fusion Spray paint -- it has the primer already mixed into the paint.  I coated the block with 2 coats of color. 

While it was drying, I cut out the flourished 'W' with my cricut.  I cut out 2 because we don't know exactly where we will be placing the knife block. (2 - one for each side)

I used my little roller and a $0.50 messed up custom color sample paint (you can find this in the 'clearance' section at your Lowe's or Home Depot for SUPER cheap!!!)

no the color is NOT gray - it is a sage green color...

After the monograms dried, I pulled out my Mod Podge and stuck it to each side of the block.

And VIOLA!

All done! Easy-peasy! And it gives the block a whole new, SASSY look =)