Chalkboard Mirror

I've had this old mirror, that has been converted into a chalkboard, for years. I used chalkboard paint and simply painted over the mirror. However, I have never really liked the gold frame so here's what I did with it:

Before:

After:

When my boyfriend and I moved into our new house we painted almost the whole house. It's difficult to pick a color. What you see on the color swatch is never the same as what the color looks like on the wall and we have a bunch of leftover paint samples to prove it. The paint samples are great for my crafting though! Here is the paint color I used for this project:

First, I taped the inside of the frame with painters tape.

Next, I started painting. I was not timid with the paint and got a good amount on the brush each time.

I made sure to get all the little crevices because I did not want any of the gold showing through. Once I was done with the first coat, I let it sit and dry over night.

Then, I put on the second coat and let it dry overnight as well. I took off the tape and voila! Transformation.

I may need to touch up a little of the inside with chalkboard paint because I am obviously terrible at taping straight :/ But, I love how it looks now!









Holiday Door Decor

How to make a holiday door décor out of things you have. That's what I did today, and I had A LOT of trial and error. I ended up with something that I really like, so it was all worth it!! And, now you will know what to do and what not to do if making something similar.

I started with these materials:

I cut some branches off the bottom of our Christmas tree, and had some leftover ribbon and ornaments after decorating our tree.

First, I got an idea of what to do. I started playing around with the branches and decided on doing a bouquet of branches.

I tied the branches together with some hemp that I had lying around. 



Then, wrapped them with burlap to cover up the hemp. 

I thought it was perfect! I took it up to put on my front door and had some issues. It was extremely top heavy and would not hang right. I tried tying some suede rope I have to the burlap and hang from that.

Unfortunately, that did not work, the whole thing still tilted really far to the front. I tried tying some ribbon to the front of it to counter balance.

I did not like how that looked and it was not very sturdy either. This was the point that I decided it was not going to work like this and I needed to change it completely. I took some time to brainstorm. After thinking about what materials I had, I decided to still do something similar but I needed something to stabilize the branches. I had some packing paper I saved from a recent package.

I thought this would work! So, I super glued the branches to the paper like so:



I kept gluing until it got as full as I wanted it. Then, wrapped the paper around like you would with a bouquet and tied the bottom with burlap. This is what I had: 



 I really liked the look of the brown paper with it!

 I hung it on my front door using a command hook and taped the sides with painters tape (as hanging on the hook was not secure enough) and once again this is what it looks like:



 I'm really happy with how it came out especially after everything that went wrong! I can even hang ornaments on it!

 

Sewing Machine





I got this beauty today as a birthday present from my boyfriend!

Since I have been crafting more, I have really been wanting a sewing machine. This is my first one, and I have a lot to learn. That being said, I cannot wait to share all of my sewing projects with you in the future!!

Also, please comment if you have any tips for a beginner :)

How to Attach Hanging Wire to Canvas

Attaching hanging wire to the back of a gallery wrapped painting is a simple task. I was intimidated at first but quickly realized how simple it is.

My boyfriend, Chris, and I ordered this gallery wrapped print from Etsy. We love it! However, it did not come with hanging wire or hardware to hang it.

Wait, that's not right... Here it is:

It reminds me of our three dogs.

Here are the materials I thought I was going to use:
(I ended up not needing the electric screwdriver- used a regular one instead) The other materials in the pictures below are wire cutters and the hanging kit.

First, I looked around the house at a few other pieces of artwork we have with hanging wire and measured how far down from the top the screw was placed. I noticed that they were all generally placed 1/3 of the way down. So, I measured the length of this print, divided that by 3 and marked that spot with a sharpie so I would know where to screw the hardware in.

I had to cut some of the canvas to make space for the screw.

Next, it was time to get the screw in. The wood was much softer than I thought it would be, that's why I decided against the electric screwdriver and went manual. I turned the screw in a little without the hardware then removed it, put the hardware on and screwed it in entirely.

I did the same on the other side.

Now it was time for the wire. I unwrapped a good bit of the wire to see what I was working with.

Then, I wrapped one end through the hardware on the left side and followed directions on the box on how to secure the wire.

Then, I pulled the wire to the other side, leaving some give but not too much, tied it and cut it with my wire cutters (which I love using!).

And that was it!! Told you it was simple! The wire hanging kit cost us $5.

Lastly, it was time to hang. Chris and I have been using Hercules hooks/Monkey hooks to hang pretty much everything in our house. They are used on drywall and you can hang really heavy stuff on them and they do not pull out of the drywall. Plus, they leave a much smaller hole than a drywall screw. This is what they look like.

And this is that same hook in the wall.

Once, I got the hook in, it was ready to hang the print! Here it is.

I'm so happy with how it looks!!



This is the artist if anyone is interested in getting some farm animal prints on canvas to hang in their house!

Thanksgiving Table Setting

Setting the table for Holidays- one of my new favorite things to do! This year, my boyfriend Chris, and I had Thanksgiving at our house for the first time. We had 17 people total- mostly family and a few friends. It was filled with laughter, cooking, drinking, stuffing ourselves, and quality time with loved ones. I started prepping early, and only had a moment or two or being stressed during Thanksgiving week. I wanted everything to be nice, so I worked hard and once again, started early, and got everything done! And, ate dinner only 1 hour late- which is pretty successful considering everyone brought dishes that needed to be warmed, prepped, etc. Anyways, I'm getting off subject. I am going to tell you about my table setting! Leading up to Thanksgiving, I had been looking on Pinterest for ideas, and pinned some stuff, but in the end, I kind of did my own thing.

For 17 people, we needed a lot of seating and table space. So, we have our dining room table that we added a couple of chairs to, then we used a couple of plastic fold up tables and plastic folding chairs to be able to fit everyone. Luckily, the way our house lay out is, we were able to make one long table which worked out perfectly!

Initially, I was going to get some pretty and festive tablecloths and use white linen napkins. However, that idea changed when I learned that after Halloween, all Thanksgiving tablecloths are taken out of stores and Christmas everything moves in. So, I decided to go with white tablecloths ($9.99 from Amazon) and blue cotton napkins found at World Market ($9.99 for 6) with burlap for a classic, country/ farm house look. I used the same roll of burlap that I used for my fall wreath.

First, I washed and dried all of the napkins. They were wrinkled when they came out of the dryer, so I ironed them which took about 40 minutes to do all 30. I had fun with it though, listening to 60's/oldies Pandora station- feeling like I went back in time to being a housewife in the 60's.

Then, I once again looked on Pinterest for napkin folding and wow those instructions were complicated!! So, I said screw that and folded the napkins in half once and then in half again, put the silverware- knife and fork in the middle and wrapped with burlap and tied the burlap in a knot. Super simple!

 They came out better then I expected!

I was so excited to get everything on the table. I set one table the night before Thanksgiving- which I was hesitant to do since my cat, Penelope, is very curious and normally likes to walk all over the table if I put anything new on it. Luckily, she was not interested in doing that once I had the table set- big surprise to me!

Here is the first table that I did:

I bought the real pumpkins and gourds in bags at Publix and the banner at World Market. All of the glasses were mixed-matched, some bigger than other, different shapes, different designs, but they looked great together! I also found the turkey salt and pepper shakers on Amazon and the rooster napkin holder at Woodstock Market (an amazing place that I'm sure you'll hear me talk lots about in the future!). The two chairs in the middle were hand-me-downs from my mom and the blue chair I got for $15 at Junk Day at Woodstock Market. I placed the burlap wrapped napkins and silverware on the plates because I liked that better than them sitting on the side and that also gave more room for all of the food to be placed on the table.

I set the next two tables Thanksgiving morning:

I used a basket from TJ Maxx and left-over napkins for the bread basket which added to the whole look. I also added small pinecones (that I had left over from making the wreath) to the middle of the table. The last table does not have plates on it in the picture because I did not have enough. Chris' mom brought some for us to use- which was a big help!

I had so much fun decorating and setting the table, I'm ready to have another dinner party! Who's coming over?!