Pin Up.

That title seems fitting considering this post is all about the infamous, yet unofficial, Pinterest Challenge.  This thing has taken on a life of it's own, and I mean, how could it not?  It's hosted by these amazing ladies!

-Michelle at Decor And The Dog
-Sherry at Young House Love
-Katie at Bower Power
-Megan at The Remodeled Life

This is the first time I participated, and I'm actually surprised I was able to pull something together because my schedule has been a little packed lately.  Work has been front row, so I'm not surprised that my project ended up being something office-{p}inspired.

You see...I've had my humble cube decorated the same way for oh, I don't know, three years-ish.  That's just ridiculous in my world...especially considering how much I love to decorate and switch things up!!  So I decided it's high time for a change.  One of the small details for my grand plans {as grand as cubicle decorations can go} revolved around upgrading the typical push pins I was using on the bulletin boards that surround my cube.

When I found these, I fell in love.

via pinterest

Detailed, beautiful buttons glued to push pins...seemed easy enough!!  So I headed out to Michael's to find some cute buttons.  While strolling the aisles {I could spend way too much time in there}, I came across something different to use for my push pins.

Enter in cheap looking "jewels".  A little too cheesy for my taste, but after some gold spray paint, I figured they'd be just what my office cube needs.  And instead of traditional push pins, I used some thumb tacks I already had on hand.

Using a little liquid nails adhesive, I got down to gluing.

Per the instructions, I used a damp paper towel to wipe each surface I was working with, and then put a little glue on each side, and stuck them together.

After I let them set and dry for over an hour, I stuck each tack into a leftover piece of wood I had in the basement.

First, I sprayed them with some primer.

And then I gave them two coats of gold spray paint {the same I used for this project}.  Not too bad for spending less than $4.  I can't wait to use them!!

Rugs, Revealed.

This post has been a long time coming.  I 100% blame the procrastination on the awful pain it is to put an 8 x 10 rug under a crazy heavy king bed, with a million supports beneath it.  Hubby and I just did not feel like tackling that task.  That meant the living room and guest room rugs were in place for a long time, and the rug for our master bedroom sat, rolled up, in our living room for weeks.

Thankfully, due to a fun Super Bowl party we hosted, we were forced to cross things off our to-do list...so we put on our big girl/boy pants, and maneuvered that sucker into place.

If you are new to my blog, and my rug issues, I have made it pretty clear that I have a fear of buying rugs, especially from online retailers.  1) Rugs are usually such an investment, and 2) 99.9% of rugs I want to buy are online, and therefore I can’t see or feel them before I take the plunge.  Well one day I threw caution to the wind and went for it.  Yup, I ordered three rugs from Rugs USA...all at one time.

I didn’t know what to expect, so I was super anxious for them to arrive.  Luckily, when I unrolled each one, I was more and more pleased.  They were all prettier in person than they were online, and I couldn’t be happier with my decision to place the order.  {Plus it didn’t hurt that I got them extremely discounted at 65% off...which is the only way we could afford 3 of them!}

Now I know there are all sorts of "rules" when it comes to rug size and placement...but I'm pretty sure those rules are for people who can afford to follow them.  And we aren't those people. :-/  That means I bought a smaller 5 x 8 rug for our living room space...because really, my main concern was having a cushy rug under foot for relaxing on the couch, or in case some young kids were over and wanted to snuggle on the floor to watch a movie or to play. 

And the guest bedroom rug could probably be bigger too, but I just wanted something to give people's feet a nice place to land when they got out of bed.  Plus, it can also be swapped out for the living room rug in case we wanted a pop of color out there in the spring and summer months.  Like I said, we are working with a budget, people!

For our master bedroom, we had to go with an 8 x 10 rug because anything smaller would have looked ridiculous.  Since we bought two smaller rugs for the other spaces, we could afford to go bigger here.  I love the comfort it adds to our room.

I am so thankful our big purchase wasn't a bust!  I think they add a little something to each room.  And hopefully you'll be seeing more of them soon because I'm determined to pick up my house tour posts again!  I might even re-do the living space because it's changed so much from my original post.

Anyone else on the cusp of purchasing a rug??  Anyone else laugh in the face of rug rules??  {Please tell me I'm not the only one!!}

Ombre Art.

I have been on a major art-making-spree lately.  We had a lot of blank spaces on our walls, and I was determined to fill them up.  I started with some cheap and easy art for our bedroom, a mirror makeover, some DIY wood shelves, a lovey-dovey wood painted sign, and now it’s time for me to show you some ombre canvas art.

To be quite honest, the only thing I knew when I purchased this large canvas, was that it’d fill in the gaping hole above our made-over file cabinet.

To begin the piece, I grabbed my go-to paint colors {grey and blue-greens…anyone surprised?} and an old paint brush.  I started with grey at the top and thought I’d work my way down to the darkest teal I had.  After I painted the grey on, I realized it’d be fun to put a quote on the canvas…so I dug through my craft supplies until I found some vinyl letters.  I eyeballed the quote “all you need is love” onto the canvas and prayed it was semi-centered and level. 

To keep the bleeding of paint to a minimum, I painted over the letters with white paint first.  Once that was semi-dry, I poured on my next color and just worked my way down the canvas.

After all the colors were done, I carefully peeled all the letters off while things were still wet.  Then I left it to dry over night.

Although the quote is a bit off-center {I mean, I did eyeball the placement}, I'm still happy with my new ombre art!  The cool colors pop beautifully above our yellow file cabinet.

Plus, I love having positive, uplifting quotes to read when I leave our room each morning. :)

Hey Girl.

As much as I really wanted to give hubby the "Hey Girl" treatment, I'm not so sure he'd appreciate it.  Lucky for him, I had another volunteer who was ready and willing. ;)

I'm linking up to these awesome ladies who are hosting this fabulous Hey Girl Link Party.  Check 'em out! :)

-Kelly at View Along the Way
-Michelle at Decor and the Dog
-Chelsea at Two Twenty One
-Ashley at Domestic Imperfection
-Bliss at Bliss Ranch

Lyric Art...Cheap, But NOT Easy.

I'm sure some of you have romance on the brain since Valentine's Day isn't too far away.  And because of this, I figure my sappy lyric art would be a fitting post for today.

A while back I made some cheap and easy art to hang on the walls of our master bedroom.  It looked great, but it didn't last long since I decided to go and re-arrange things.  That meant I neeed to get my butt moving to fill up my walls again...leading me to my cheap and easy, part 2 post.  There was supposed to be another piece of art I revealed during that post, but I just never finished it.  Part of the delay was due to my apprehension of screwing it up, and the other part was me dreading the tedious time it'd take to complete the project.

Well, finallyyyyyy I am done with it.  So it's time for me to spill all the deets of how I made some lovey, dovey art for our bedroom.

I started out with a piece of wood from Home Depot that I had them cut to size for me {basically I asked them to cut the board into two equal pieces}.

Then it was time to get my stain on.  I used Minwax's Dark Walnut stain, because it's pretty and was leftover in my basement. ;)

I reallyyy wish I had some sort of machine that enabled me to make stencils, but I'm just not that fancy. :-/  So instead, I played around with some fonts on the computer and printed out the lyrics I wanted in a large font, on some 12 x 18 paper.

Then I cut out each line and taped it onto the board.  {I used my iPhone level app to make sure things were pretty straight.}

And thennnnnn, the "fun" began.  I used a ballpoint pen and pressed firmly into the paper while tracing the outline of each letter.  It left a faint line and imprint of each letter.  I tried to photograph it, but you probably cannot tell via pictures.  Sometimes I had to hold the board a certain way so the light just hit perfectly, and then I could see.

After all that was done, it was time to use a tiny paint brush and fill in all the letters.  I found the best technique was to dab a short, stiff paint brush around the outline of the letters, and then go back and fill things in.  Of course, it wasn't alway the easiest thing to do {especially on letters that didn't have straight edges, or ones where the outline couldn't be seen 100%}, but I made it work the best I could.

For the final word "sweetheart", I turned to a gold sharpie.  I knew I wanted that word in a different color, and we all know I'm obsessed with gold lately...so instead of torturing myself with gold paint, I just traced with a marker.  It was easier than a paint brush, but it still wasn't "easy".

Okay, so maybe "easy" isn't the right word to be using.  It was pretty "easy", but man, it was a major-pain-in-the-bootay to do.  I'm all about little, tedious jobs, but this one takes the cake.  You need patience up the wazoo to finish something with this many letters.

But I am super thankful I stuck to this project because the words ring so true for me and hubby, and it's a wonderful reminder to have on our bedroom wall. :)

DIY Wood Shelves.

Or picture ledges...whatever you want to call them.  Either way, yay me.  I built something.  I don’t really care if they were the easiest things ever to build.  I'm convinced it still counts that I friggin’ built something!!  {Picture me patting myself on the back. ;)}

Some time ago, I put together a mini-gallery wall above our buffet in the dining room.  I loved the frames, but I wasn’t in love with the statement on the wall.  I couldn’t help but think that I wanted something more for that area.

Enter in the super cheap, super easy, super “$20 Shelves Anyone Can Build” from Shanty 2 Chic.  The minute I saw these, I knew they were just what our photo wall needed.  It’d add a little rustic, dark wood into the mix of white frames I had going on.  Plus, it said in the title that anyone could build them.  Consider me sold!

I measured the area that the gallery had covered, and roughly figured that I wanted 2 three foot long ledges.  Then I did a quick inventory of what supplies we had in the basement, put a list together of what I needed and hopped online to order everything we didn't have from Home Depot.  Once I received my email letting me know my order was ready to pick up, I headed out the door.  {Totally awesome service so you don’t have to run all over the store if you don’t want to.}

Once I got to Home Depot, they let me know that my order was in the back because I had things that were too big to keep up by the counter.  {This happens every time I order something dealing with wood, and I’m fine with it because where I pick up my order is right by the guy who cuts all the wood for me.}  I ordered 1 – 1 x 2 x 6 and 2 – 1 x 4 x 6...and after making sure all the boards were straight {don’t let them give you warped wood}, I had the nice wood-cutting-man cut all my lumber in half.  That left me with 2 – 1 x 2 x 3 and 4 – 1 x 4 x 3 pieces.  I also made sure I had my wood glue, wood screws and finishing nails in my bag.

Then it was time to get to work.  First I quickly dry-fit everything, making sure the boards I put together worked okay...

 

...and I gave everything a quick sand to soften up the sharp edges of the boards.  Then I CAREFULLY pre-drilled holes into the 1 x 4’s {to keep the wood from cracking/splitting}, and ran a line of wood glue along one piece before screwing the two pieces together using wood screws. 

 

{Don’t over-do the glue, otherwise it’ll be squirting out all over the place when the boards are fit together.  If that happens, just use a damp cloth to wipe up any excess...and possibly sand it off after it’s dry.  If you are staining the wood, excess glue might keep the stain from soaking into the wood in some spots.  Yes, I’m speaking from experience.  Just keepin' it real! ;)}

After the 1 x 4’s were attached, I ran another line of glue along the 1 x 4 before hammering in 4 evenly spaced finishing nails into the 1 x 2 to attach it to the front of the shelf.  If you have a nail gun, it would greatly come in handy for this step, but you definitely don’t need one.  A hammer worked just fine.

Just like the Shanty girls, I didn’t mind that you could see the finishing nails along the front of the 1 x 2 because I was going for a rustic look...so I didn’t worry about sinking the nails below the wood and filling any holes.

Once I had both shelves put together, I applied two coats of Minwax’s Dark Walnut stain.

Over the next couple days I let everything dry and removed the frames from the wall.  I filled in any holes or dings and touched the paint up to prep the wall for the shelves.

Once I finally got around to hanging them, I pre-drilled holes in the shelves and in the wall.  I tapped some plastic anchors into the wall, and then used long screws to go right through the ledge and into the anchors in the wall.  I don't mind that the screw heads are exposed because you can't even see them with all the frames I'm displaying!  You'd never even know they are there.

I was a little apprehensive about how this project would turn out, but I really love the statement the ledges make in our dining room.  They truly are shelves that anyone could build.  You should try too! ;)

Winter Mantel.

Hubby and I want to start a new trend.  We are determined to make it totally acceptable to keep Christmas lights up throughout the winter.  And no, I’m not talking about our icicle lights hanging from the gutters. ;)  I am referring to the lovely glow that indoor Christmas lights create in a space.  We had so many lights up during the holidays that after we took everything down, it never felt quite right without that cozy factor during the dark winter nights.  We missed it like crazy.

My solution for our dilemma?  Decorate our mantel in a wintery theme, and buy a strand of white lights to give us our cozy back!  {I couldn’t use the strands of white lights I already had from Christmas...the cords on those were green, and they would have stuck out like a sore thumb.  I needed white to work with my winter theme.}

To begin the process, I wanted to transform the mirror we already had on our mantel.  The size and pattern of the frame was great, but the plastic-ish, black color just didn't do it for me.  I tried to remove the frame, keeping the mirror in tact.  I was going to use some 1 x 5's I had cut down at Home Depot to create a new frame, but for the life of me, I could NOT get the frame off of the mirror.  They used some major league, permanent adhesive on that sucker.  So it was on to plan B...spray paint.

You saw me priming the mirror here {when I transformed the quatrefoil mirror from Tar-jay}.  I'm not sure if it was the weather, or if I didn't clean the frame up enough, but the spray paint didn't seem to stick that well to the beaded part of the frame.  After one coat of spray primer, I decided to switch to my tried and true Behr Paint and Primer...in white semi-gloss.  It gives great coverage, and I already had an entire can of it leftover in the basement from when we painted our trim.  {Free = awesome.}

I painted several coats and after a few days of curing, I put the mirror back up on the mantel.  Hubby and I both agreed...we loved it 10 times more in white.  It was much more “us”.

With the mirror back in place, it was time to add some accessories from around the house, some snowy branches I found at the grocery store {Stop & Shop's floral department has some great things at even better prices} and the pièce de résistance...the white lights.

I am super happy with the mantel and we adore the light it casts at night.  Until we can get a gas fireplace installed, string lights will give us the ambiance we want at night, and for a WHOLE LOT LESS money. ;)

Anyone else want to jump on the “use Christmas lights allllllll throughout the winter months” bandwagon?!?  Come on.  You know you want to! ;)  Or do you think we are being totally tacky?  You can be honest. 

Winter Wreath. {Say That 5 Times Fast.}

Check me out...I totally just legitimized myself as a blogger.  Okay, not even close...BUT I definitely completed some sort of blogger “rite of passage”.  I made my own wreath!  Woot woot!

I was really trying to get this done as a holiday project...heck, I even bought two wreath forms because I was certain I’d have time to make one for me and one to bring up to my sister’s as a house warming gift.  HA!  It just didn’t happen.  I should have known that if I wanted one done for the holidays, I should have started well in advance.  Oh well, there is always next year, right?

So I was left with two blank forms, and lots of felt.  What was I to do?  Welp, make a wreath for a wintery mantel, of course!   Adding a little something to the mantel could help to combat the inevitable post-holiday-décor-blues!

I wanted a wreath that was grey and white, and well, wintery.  I wasn’t exactly sure what to do until I saw Mallory's wreath. 

It was a total inspiration for me.  So I headed over to Michael's, picked up some varying sized pearls and got to business.

I cut charcoal grey felt {that I already owned} into strips.  I wrapped them around the form in an overlapping pattern, hot gluing things in place as I moved along.



Once the felt was done, I started gluing various sized pearls in a random pattern on the wreath.  I didn’t have a method, I just went with it and tried not to think.  When I formed a big enough cluster, I used a couple of the smaller sized pearls and glued them around the outskirts of the main cluster.

Then it was time to add a ribbon to the top so I could hang it from my mantel mirror.  I tried white ribbon first, but it was just too bleh.  I knew the tiffany blue ribbon I used to DIY a bunch of stuff for our wedding would be perfect, so I dug through some old supplies and found just what I was looking for.  The ribbon may be a little wrinkled, but it’s nothing a little ironing can’t fix.  {Clearly, I have been too lazy to bust out the iron to fix the ribbon...maybe I'll get to it one day.  For now, just ignore it in the picture. ;)}

I really like how my very first wreath turned out, although I'm not sure it stands up to the beauty that Mallory created! :)  Head on over to her and Savannah's blog to see more of the awesome things they do!

PS - In the last picture you can catch a glimpse of the other mirror that I was priming on the back porch.  Hopefully I can share that makeover, along with my winter-ish mantel, very soon!