Pinspiration Monday: Faux tile backsplash

May 21, 2012 14 Comments

It has actually taken me two weeks to muster up the emotional courage to tell you about this project. As you can probably gather, it didn’t go quite as planned. In fact, I am now strong enough to admit that it was a complete and utter disaster. But not ALL of our grand ideas will work out, right?

So here’s the story (plus an incredible amount of photos to document the horrors – Hope you have a big cup of coffee handy!)…

After redoing our kitchen cabinets, I was dying for some kind of backsplash. I would have loved to tile, but the expense and the work deterred me from ordering anything. So instead, I scoured Pinterest for ideas. I came up inspiration like a solid accent paint color, decoupaging take-out menus beneath the cabinets and even adhering metal tile to the wall.

Source: BHG

Source: One Brooklyn Modern

Source: Casa de Valentina

But the one below was the one that stole my heart. It could have been because of the similarities to our own kitchen – cabinet/appliance arrangement, dark brown cabinets, long brushed nickel hardware – but it was also that gorgeous pastel backsplash.

In order to recreate the look of the shiny rows of thin tile without actually ordering any, I decided to use a combo of high gloss paint and extra-thin masking tape. My “faux tile” would theoretically give me the look with about half the work and a fraction of the expense.

Source: Unknown

So here is the room as it stood before leaping head first into the project – We are still loving our brown cabinets but really needed something between the cabinets and countertops to break up all of that brown and beige.

First I rolled on two thin coats of primer – The same can we used on the cabinets at the beginning of the year. In my head, I thought that the under-layer of white showing between my faux tiles would look like grout.

The nature of primer to be a little uneven in look would (again, in theory) mimic the uneven texture of mixed grout.

Time for the masking – This part ended up taking a looooooooong time, but my sister thankfully offered to help as she was visiting that weekend. It was all a matter of keeping the lines straight and also measuring equal distances between rows.

We decided to start the taping by going horizontally since it would take the most time versus the shorter strips that would go vertically. We started right under the cabinets and then measured a ruler’s-width down before starting a new line of tape.

Once we finished the entire length of the backsplash, we stepped back and took stock of things. Seeing the long green lines of tape actually really appealed to me – I began to second guess the vertical strips altogether. The look of the unhindered stripes read super “mod” to me and I actually favored the look. So out went the idea of vertical strips to create faux tiles and in came the idea of mod stripes. My thought was that I could always paint white lines over the top coat if I decided that I wanted the tile look afterall.

Time for the top coat…I bought a quart of pale, minty blue paint from Lowe’s in high gloss finish to really make it pop on the wall. Even though I was no longer trying to replicate the look of smooth glass tile, I didn’t mind the idea of a high gloss stripe, so we went with it.

Two coats later (at about 9:30 p.m.  at night – sorry for the awful lighting) and we were DONE. I already loved how the color was breaking up all of the brown surfaces. Before letting the paint dry, since I’ve heard the paint can come right off with it after it dries, I started removing the tape to reveal the undercoat of white.

This my friends is where things all went to hell.

…

…

…

Oh man, it was so so hard for me to even snap these photos for you guys. At that point, I could hardly breathe from sobbing and the shock of it all. We had been working on this project pretty much all day, sucking up an entire Saturday. I think it was even harder to accept because I had dragged my sister into it as well.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what happened. But as you can see, when I started peeling the tape back (slowly and gently, I might add) the primer and the wet top coat started coming off in strips with it. I suppose there are two possibilities: (#1) the primer SUCKS and didn’t stick to the wall correctly, or (#2) the masking tape I used was way to strong. Either way, after the initial gasp upon seeing the ruined paint job, it turned into a full on melt down as I continued to remove both the tape and my beautiful painted stripes.

Somehow, through my tears, I was able to remove the rest of the tape and repaint the entire backsplash. The only thing I could come up with was to go with a solid color paint job and call it done – At least for the moment.

In the end and after recovering from the hysteria of the failure, I actually really love the way it turned out. Sure, there’s nothing “tiled” or “striped” about it, but at least all of those brown surfaces have something cool and funky to bump up against. I adore the color.

There are still a few areas we need to damage control, such as the uneven edges at the ends, but I’m giving myself a little distance before working on it. I think I’ll pick up a couple pieces of decorative molding to cover the lines and be done with it. Thoughts?

Oh, and before I go, I wanted to show you a little detail – As you can see in the photos below, you can still make out the stripes left by the masking tape lines. Sort of makes for an interesting texture I guess. While I wish that those lines could have been white, it is what it is and I don’t HATE it.

The fresh mint color looks a bit retro sitting next to our brand new orange stand mixer (a gift from our wedding) – I am absolutely loving that color combo and might even try introducing a little more orange into the space just to keep it going.

So while I would still whole-heartedly call this a failure because it’s anything BUT what I had envisioned, we still managed to give the backsplash area a little pop. If you check out the “Before” and “After” photos below, you can see what a difference that mint color made.

Glad to finally get that off my chest after weeks of holding it in…

So spill the beans – What do you guys think? Have any idea what might have happened? I’m dying to solve the mystery…

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Inspiring, Kitchen, Kitchen Overhaul, Our Influences Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Painted wood

May 14, 2012 6 Comments

There’s a first time for everything. Instead of being inspired by one Pinterest image for today’s “Pinspiration Monday,” I am combining two images to customize a fun and crafty centerpiece for our dining room table.

The first kick in the pants came when I saw these curvy, colorful wooden candlesticks. I really love color, but I actually hoped (in my head) to find a pair of plain raw wood pieces to adorn our table. I love the shapely lines but think our kitchen is pretty good on pops of color (what with our plate wall and newly painted cabinets).

Source: Casa Sugar

Source: Photobucket

As luck would have it, I found these two beauties at a local estate store for only $2. They fit my curvy criteria and were the raw wood I had been hoping for. I thought they looked quite lovely against the chocolate brown wall and, although their shape is fun and eye-catching, they don’t necessarily steal the show from the plate art.

But we weren’t done yet…You see, I also was inspired by the Pinterest images below of painted wood. The idea is to paint pops of saturated color on top of wood, but still leave the grain a bit of room to shine.

Source: Swoon

Source: Unknown…

So I decided to paint the candlesticks, but only partially. Where to begin though? Do I start halfway up the candlesticks and paint little colorful rings and leave it at that? Or maybe paint an entire half of the candlesticks? In the end, John suggested stripes on the flat base and I was sold.

For the colors, I went with the two trendy colors of the season – Mint and pale coral. I also decided to incorporate more of my metallic gold craft paint (as seen here and here). As you can see below, the gold is pretty subtle, but that allows the mint and coral to really shine.

I tried eyeballing my lines at first with a steady hand, but eventually caved and broke out the masking tape to ensure nice and straight edges.

While I adore the colors and the idea of stripes on the candlesticks, I did run into one painful issue…You may have already noticed, but my stripes look pretty wonky and fat towards the actual “stick” portion of my thrifted candle holders. When you see the stripes head-on, the part that runs into the elevated stick ends up giving the optical illusion of a curve when the lines are actually straight.

Here they are all finished on the table top – You can easily see that annoying optical illusion of bulbous stripes towards the center.

Although those lines look anything but straight, when seen from above, they really are pretty spot on.

Not sure just how much that optical illusion is going to bug me…I may lightly sand down the edges of the paint so that the ridges won’t show and just paint up the stick about halfway with new color to cover it up. I’d love your thoughts and opinions on whether I should keep it as is or experiment and tweak just a little bit more until just right.

Help!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Inspiring, Kitchen, Product Search, Thrift Store Tell All, Weekly Pinspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday (a day late): DIY Paper Bunting Flag

May 9, 2012 6 Comments

This is the story of a very tired girl…She was a week and a half away from her wedding day, scrambling to get the last few projects out of the way. “I’d love to have a beautiful, whimsical bunting flag to hang as decoration, but where oh where am I going to find the time to cut and sew multiple little fabric flags??!” she lamented to herself. It was a terrible, terrible predicament to be in. But hark! What’s this?! A knight in shining armor that went by the name of “Pinterest” galloped to the rescue and saved the poor tired bride from expending her last little bit of energy on one final project!! The solution was presented and the day was saved…The end.

Source: A Subtle Revelry 

The magical solution? Instead of wasting hours and hours on cutting, hemming, sewing and stringing a dozen little triangles of fabric to a line, I was inspired to simplify into paper triangles. Eliminating the need to sew was the biggest time-saver and it gave me the motivation I needed to knock this last little project off of my mental to-do list. (I do apologize for the quality of the photos in this post…I started the project late in the afternoon of a rainy day, so there was little natural light to speak of)

Supplies:

  • Scrapbooking paper
  • Twine
  • Hot glue gun and glue stick refills
  • Wooden clothespins
  • A pen
  • Ruler
  • Scissors

First of all, I needed a template – A thick paper triangle to use as my guide for all of the little triangle “flags” I would cut out. I didn’t have any thick cardstock on hand, but I did have the back of my scrapbook paper book, which just so happened to be made of thick cardboard.

To make my flag template, I used the ruler as a straightedge and just eye-balled it. The top of the flag was shorter than the two sides. It’s not exactly perfect, but I didn’t really need it to be – You all know by now that organic is A-OK by my standards.

Then it was just a matter of cutting out my flags. I used this scrapbooking paper scrap that I had on hand as a guinea pig of sorts, just to see if the project would actually work. I  flipped the scrapbook paper over, used the pen to draw around the template and then cut it out. To my glee, it worked like a charm.

Now to cut out a dozen or so more…I wanted the bunting line to be as colorful as possible, so I didn’t bother trying to find pages that necessarily matched. I wanted vibrancy, pattern and texture – I think I managed to achieve that with my selection. Goodness gracious, I LOVE scrapbooking paper!

Fast forward twenty-five minutes or so, and we were all done with the flag portion of the project.

Next, I needed to attach them to some kind of a string. To continue the organic, garden-y feel of the piece, I used plain natural twine. To attach the paper flags, I flipped the flags over, ran a thin line of hot glue at the top and gently settled the twine into the gooey adhesive.

Using the ruler to measure out approximately an inch, I grabbed my next paper flag and ran another line of hot glue at the top and attached that to the twine – And so on and so forth…

Flipping the string over and seeing all of the pretty colors and patterns work with one another down the line, I started to get really giddy…

But I wasn’t done yet. To finish off the bunting, I took a cue from my Pinspiration image and clipped a wooden clothespin to the center of each paper flag – It obviously serves more of a decorative purpose since the hot glue is what actually holds the flag to the line, but again, it’s that little styling that gives it the casual look I was going for.

Sorry to make you guys wait for the actual “After” photo of the line decorating the reception venue, but I’ll be sure to update you once we get the wedding photos back from our (AMAZING) photographer. Stay tuned!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, How-To, Seasonal/Holiday, Wedding, Weekly Pinspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Guest Post: Keep things balanced

May 2, 2012 Leave a Comment

Good morning! Hope you are enjoying a wonderful week. Who knows what we are up to at this moment…Could be lounging on beach chairs by the pool, or maybe even floating over to the swim-up bar for a drink. Heck, we MIGHT even be sprawled out on one of the canopy beds on our private beach, ordering margaritas! Whatever the case, I am missing you guys and the blog…Luckily, I know you are in capable hands. Today, Lisa of SpareFoot Storage Finder is spilling the beans on keeping your home organized and beautiful this season.

Top Three Ways to De-Clutter Your Home

You can own a lot of attractive things, but those things won’t look good if you’re home is cluttered. De-cluttering isn’t always incredibly simple, though, especially if you’ve let things pile up in your home for a while. If your clutter situation is a little out of control, don’t worry. There are things you can do to salvage your home from disorganization and chaos. Here are some tips to help you organize your living space and minimize what you own:

Let Go

You don’t need two blenders in case one of them breaks, and you don’t need a pirate costume you wore on Halloween when you were a senior in college. If you’re holding on to things you simply don’t need or won’t use in the near future, consider letting those things go. Go through each of the rooms of your home and make piles of everything you want to keep and everything you don’t need. Donate what you won’t need any time soon to a good cause, give it to your sister, or find a way to recycle it.

Stow Away

Your living space simply may not be big enough for you to showcase all of your favorite paintings, furniture and decorations. However, you may not want to get rid of these things. If this is the case, turn to your closets and garage and try to store what you can there. If you have a bunch of antique furniture you don’t want to part with, consider storing the furniture in a self-storage unit until you move into a bigger place. There’s no reason for everything you own to be on display, especially if the space in your home is limited. So, stow what you can away and out of sight.

Keep Things Balanced

Having four coffee tables and one sofa in your living room doesn’t quite create the kind of balance you probably want in your home. Assess each of your rooms and look for things that disrupt the balance of the rooms. We’re talking about extra things that just don’t quite “fit.” Once you identify the things that do disrupt the balance of the rooms in your home (such as the three extra coffee tables in your living room), take those things out. Put them in another room of your home, store them in your closets or garage or get rid of them.

Clearing out clutter requires physical effort and time, and it also requires mental and emotional effort. For a de-cluttering project to be successful, you have to get rid of things that might have sentimental value, and you have to commit to living a more simplistic, minimalistic lifestyle (if you want things to stay de-cluttered). Change isn’t always easy, but you’ll be surprised by how much the energy of your home is affected when you clear out the clutter. Chances are, you won’t ever want to go back to having a disorganized, cluttered home again.

Lisa is a guest blogger who writes about getting the most out of a small living space, home organization, and storage units, including storage units in Colorado Springs and storage units in McAllen.

Check back on Friday for our final guest poster, Jessi of Bee Rooted (gushed about here for her invaluable help with my own diet routine) – She’ll be sharing her top three tips for incorporating healthy eating into your busy lifestyle. 

(Photo credit for “Just let it go”: here; garage storage: here; balanced living room: here)

Filed Under: Bathroom, Bedroom, DIY Projects, How-To, Inspiring, Kitchen, Living Room, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday (Guest Post): DIY burlap-wrapped candle holder

April 30, 2012 8 Comments

Good morning and happy Monday to you! John and I are catching a plane to our tropical honeymoon destination as you read this – Wish me luck as this is my first time flying and I’m sure my nerves are a bit frayed…Can’t wait to share all of the wild stories, which I’m sure we are bound to fill up on. In the meantime, we have Amanda of Bullfrogs and Bulldogs here today to share a precious DIY craft with you. Enjoy!

Hello! I’m Amanda from over at Bullfrogs and Bulldogs and I am so excited to be guest posting today while Carrie is off on her HONEYMOON! A big congrats to you two, Carrie and John!

I’d love for you to stop by my place and say “hi” sometime! You can find me here or on facebook, twitter and pinterest as well!

Despite our mutual love of budget friendly decorating and thrift store hunting, Carrie and I actually have something else in common. She just got married and I am on my way to the alter in just about two weeks! So, in the spirit of love, today I’m here to share my super easy (and super inexpensive) DIY Burlap Love Votive Candle Holder inspired by something I saw on Pinterest a few weeks ago.

Source: Gilt Groupe

Instead of the numbers, which I may have to do down the road, I decided to stencil the word “L.O.V.E” because well, right now there is a lot of celebrating of just that very thing going around!

So here you have it! Enjoy!

How to make burlap love votive candle holders for yourself:

1. Find any votive candle holder that suits your fancy.

2. Get enough burlap (there are so many colors to choose from!) to cover the votive. Cut the burlap to fit your needs.

3. Use foam glue or some kind of clear glue to prime the edges of the burlap from fringing. I just used a paintbrush and literally painted it around the whole parameter.

4. Once I knew the look I wanted, I used masking tape as my stencil and created the lines and the lettering. Using a foam brush, I dabbed the paint on where it needed to go.

And viola! Here is the finished product!

I hope you are having the best time on your honeymoon, Carrie and John!

Amanda is the blogger behind Bullfrogs & Bulldogs, a personal account of her transition from living in the city to living a more sustainable life with her fiance on the family vineyard and farm.  Amanda’s blog is full of storytelling, beautiful photos of the farm and its many furry friends, vegan/gluten-free recipes and DIY projects – All elements that keep me coming back from more! Bullfrogs and Bulldogs can be found here, here, here, and here.

Stay tuned Wednesday for a guest post from Lisa of SpareFoot Storage Finder – She’ll be sharing her tips on achieving an organized, balanced home.

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Gifts, Gluten-Free Lifestyle, How-To, Inspiring, Our Wedding, Weekly Pinspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Chevron jewelry box

April 25, 2012 12 Comments

Hope your week is going well! I am feeling surprisingly chipper and excited about the weekend’s big event – With only three days until our wedding, there’s really nothing more that I can do. Projects are wrapped up, my planner is coming over this evening to check out all of the many DIY projects we’ve put together and now I can finally breathe knowing that I’ve done the absolute best I can.

I told John that the one time I will probably break down and cry during the big day is when I see our reception space filled with all of the things I’ve created with the help of my family and friends. I’m sure seeing everything finally pulled together, knowing that it was all thanks to dedicated creativity and effort on our part will be very emotional. (Not to say that our wedding ceremony won’t be FAR more emotional, but I have a feeling we will be so focused on saying the lines correctly that we won’t have time to cry. But I’m sure that could all change in the moment. We’ll see!)

Today, I am back to share a non-wedding-related project (I know, crazy – right?). After using Martha Stewart’s metallic craft paint on my frames, I decided that I couldn’t stop there. With a recent affinity for fashion and accessories, I decided to amp up my table-top jewelry display starting with this little wooden box that I use for my rings and stud earrings.

The piece came from a craft store and was originally raw, unfinished wood. After bringing it home I quickly took care of the plain wood situation by painting it a creamy pale green (although, based on today’s trends of color dipping, I probably would have painted it only partially green and left part of the raw wood showing, sort of like this  - Maybe next time). It turned out nicely but a couple of years later and I was ready for a little upgrade.

So, using Martha’s gold paint once again, I added a fun chevron pattern to my little green jewelry box.

To get the pattern right, I unrolled a long piece of masking tape and stuck it to the edge of my ruler. Then, using scissors, I cut a slit in the tape every inch – That way, I could remove the tape from the ruler and could carefully and accurately cut out multiple little pieces of tape in 1-inch lengths.

Then I simply smoothed the tape against the box, making a zigzag pattern by alternating the direction of the strips. I just kind of eye-balled it and used the width of the tape as a “ruler” of sorts for where to start the next one. I wasn’t going to worry about perfection with this project. It was at this point (twenty minutes into the project with only the amount of taping seen below complete) that I realized I would need to switch up my method or else I’d be there all night. So instead of using 1-inch lengths of tape, I removed what I had started and began again with 2-inch lengths. It still gave me the chevron pattern I wanted, but with a quicker completion time.

Just had to share my line of tape strips…Although tedious at times, you get a sort of system down and pretty soon I was barely paying attention, instead focusing on the Friends marathon on TV.

An hour and a half or so later, my little jewelry box was looking ziggy zaggy and ready for some gold paint.

Using a small foam paint brush, I lightly painted the box with one coat of the craft paint. I let it dry for about twenty minutes before putting on a second coat. If you want a solid finish with none of the undercoat showing through, you may want to put on a third coat. My particular box has always looked a little shabby chic, so the idea of a little undercoat showing through seemed fitting – I liked the idea of a washed look, so two coats did the trick for me.

Here is my newly styled jewelry box, sparkling it up in our master bathroom. I love how you can see the subtle sheen in the metallic finish towards the bottom of the box pictured below. It is just enough of a pattern to give it some much-needed personality, but not enough to make it scream in our soft green, peaceful space.

For a grand total of about $1, I’d say this was a DIY well done. What do you think?

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Our Influences, Simple Fixes, How-To, Bathroom Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Golden corners

April 16, 2012 8 Comments

Welcome to a new week! I am feeling super motivated and energetic right now – Probably because of a productive weekend full of knocking off wedding projects and taking care of a few things around the house that have been neglected. It feels good to come home and know that my closet is organized, I have a few new pretty things to look at on the walls, the laundry has been done and the new window treatment hardware I bought ages ago has finally been installed.

::happy sigh:: Literally.

A big “Thank you!” to my amazing fiance for his patience and help in getting all of that accomplished with me! He’s such a good sport…We even managed to sneak in a Red Box movie last night – Anyone seen “Ides of March” yet? Pretty good flick.

Today, I am sharing one of the long-awaited craft projects that I completed over the weekend – It all started with this inspiration image, snagged from Pinterest:

Source: A Thoughtful Place

As subtle as it seems, I was instantly drawn to the idea of metallic gold corners on black frames. I am all about brass and warm-toned  metals at the moment, so I just knew I had to give it a shot. If you follow the link above, you’ll see that Courtney actually used metallic spray-painted masking tape to achieve the look of gold corners without the permanence of painting directly on the surface. A genius idea for those who aren’t sure they want to commit, but I was sure about the look and decided to go for it, all in.

This is the set of frames I chose to update:

They look nice on their own, but just “nice.” In my head, I imagined that new lux gold corners would really bring some added sophistication to the frames and the art itself.

Supplies:

  • Gold paint (I got Martha Stewart brand multi-surface craft paint)
  • Masking tape
  • Small foam paint brush
  • Sand paper

First, I taped off my corners. The glass (or in this case, plastic) inside my frames is glued to the inside, so I couldn’t simply remove it and just tape the frame. I had to tape both the edges of where my gold corners would end up and the plastic surface as well. To make my corners  even, I used a ruler and measured/placed them two inches in length from the outside edge.

After all of the taping was finished, I took some medium grit sandpaper and roughed up the taped-off corners. This step helped with giving the paint something to “grab” onto. I highly recommend this step – I thought maybe I could get away with not sanding and went ahead and painted three out of four corners on one of my frames, but ended up having to give them an extra coat of paint in the end. So sand, sand, sand for best results!

Time for the paint – I brushed on a thin coat of the metallic paint between the masking tape and then allowed for 30 to 45 minutes of dry time between. I had the TV on in the background for my multiple coats to keep me occupied. I didn’t end up counting, but I think it took about four or five layers of paint for the corners to look good and gold – It probably depends on the material of your frame (wood vs. metal vs. plastic). When you can’t see the color of your frame through the paint, you are good to go.

Here’s a quick photo progression of the first couple of coats:

From this close up below, you might be able to see some scratches from sanding the surface of the frame through the paint. Don’t worry if you can see this – After you get a few coats of paint on and it dries, the texture will even out to a smooth finish.

And now for the final reveal of the gold-on-black frame collection:

I think the new golden corners add so much interest, more than I could have even anticipated. The frames originally cost me about $10 apiece and the gold paint, only $1.99. For a total of about $11 each, this project really transformed the look of the collection – Of course, it’s just my opinion, but I think they look much more expensive now. So excited about the end result!

To try to convince you further, here’s a little side-by-side action of the frame before, and then after with newly-painted corners. I think the gold really pulls out the warm tones of the print too (speaking of, these photos came from Honeytree Etsy shop).

In fact, I love the collection so much more now, that I plan on beefing up the area. If you can’t tell, they are hung in our master bedroom – We recently received the shelf pointed out below as a generous wedding gift. I think I’d like to center the leaning shelf on the wall and then stack the prints, two each, on either side of the shelf. Of course, I’ll layer in all sorts of brass animals and bowls, etc. to carry that new gold tone throughout. Can’t wait to get that project styled and ready to share – Stay tuned.

Source: Crate and Barrel

Hope you all have a great beginning to your week…

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Simple Fixes, Inspiring, Weekly Pinspiration, Gifts, How-To, Bedroom Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

In bloom

April 11, 2012 11 Comments

Now that the weather is holding steady at a comfortable temperature (well, except for this cold front which had me hurrying through a 50-something degree morning), it’s time for some outdoor projects around the house. I have been itching to whip our back deck into shape, but just haven’t budgeted enough for it. I’m also a little lacking when it comes to outdoor decor vision…But I’m not giving up yet.

Today, I wanted to rehash a very simple outdoor in-celebration-of-spring update that we recently made to the patch of grass and vegetation in front of our townhome. Meet our cheerful planter, Mr. Frog (boy am I creative at naming our inanimate objects, as also seen here).

His big gaping mouth is actually quite pretty when spilling over with blooms. Sort of reminds me of the cartoon fish in the “Kiss the Girl” segment of “The Little Mermaid” – You know, the ones that open their mouths to reveal a school of tiny singing and dancing fish inside? Well we don’t have any schools of theatrical fish for you, but we do have some lovely flowers to show off.

John and I picked up these two pots of pansies at the grocery store for under $10, planning to fill Mr. Frog’s wide-open jaws with them.

Time for the rest of the supplies:

  • Potting soil
  • Gardening gloves
  • Trowel

For some, properly filling a planter isn’t rocket science – But I actually had quite a time with it. So much so that my mother, who was coming over to help with wedding crafts at the time, had to take the project on for me as I stood over her shoulder trying to get the steps down mentally for the future. From what I could gather, this is what you need to do:

  1. Fill your planter with potting soil, and a lot of it – The more soil the better.
  2. Use your hands to shift some of the soil to the back and/or sides of the planter to make room for your flowers.
  3. Remove flowers from their temporary containers (if they came in plastic pots, just squeeze the sides a few times all the way around, tip over and they should come out intact).
  4. Nestle the flowers+roots into the space dug out of your potting soil and gently push down into the space. It’s okay to be kind of rough with the roots to make them fit since they’ll grow back to adjust to their new space.
  5. Fill in with more potting soil around the flowers and water according to the tag’s instructions.

After admiring Mr. Frog and his new blooms, we trekked out front to situate him amongst his live-in green neighbors. As you can see, our bushes are a little worse for wear – They seem awfully threadbare to me. We are just coming out of winter, but do you guys have any suggestions for weak-looking bushes? Are they worth keeping? We have landscapers come out and take care of our lawn and plants every few weeks, so I’m quietly hoping that they will do something about it…

On a happy note, isn’t Mr. Frog looking oh-so-happy with his new flowers greeting passers-by and visitors?

Any tips for sprucing up an outdoor space would be vastly appreciated. I think everyone has a certain aspect of their home that they just don’t know where to begin – This is mine. It’s possibly the only project list that I would happily outsource to a willing professional or friend. Help!

P.S. In an effort to purge some things from the house, I’ve decided to sell a few pieces of furniture. I wanted to throw out the offer to our locals (or willing near-locals who don’t mind traveling) first before Craig’s listing things or taking them to a consignement shop. Here is the short list in case anyone’s interested:

Two mid-century office chairs: $50 for the pair

Retro queen bed frame (mattress/box spring not included): $150

Grass cloth/wooden arm chair (pillow not included): $45

(If anyone is interested in the upholstered vanity bench, let me know – I might be persuaded to part with that too)

Solid wood nightstand with drawer and lower shelf, recently revamped: $50

If you are interested, email me at DreamGreenDIY@gmail.com (or if a friend of ours, just shoot me a text or Facebook message).

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Simple Fixes, How-To, Curb Appeal Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Wedding sign

April 9, 2012 4 Comments

Only 19 days to go until the big day!!

With our wedding right around the corner, I am in “go” mode with all of the little details we still need to get done. There are a few more crafts that I want to finish up before April 28th, but luckily I was able to wrap up a few and call them DONE over the weekend. Today’s post will focus on a reclaimed pallet wood sign that I had my dad build for me. I’ve seen sweet little rustic wedding signs all over Pinterest when searching DIY wedding crafts, and knew that I just had to try it out for myself.

Source: Unknown

Source: True Connection (via Etsy)

Source: Southern Weddings

Sometime last year, John and I managed to snag some weathered pallet wood with big plans to use it in a neat way. Search “pallet wood” on Pinterest and you are bound to see miles-worth of scrollable projects using this inexpensive, pre-distressed wood. Unfortunately, no one aptly explained just how difficult it is to use. I don’t know if it was just our pallets or what, but the wood was nearly impossible to dismantle from the structure and kept breaking/splintering apart. We managed to save one slab of wood before John and I both gave up and took the rest of the pallet to the dump.

With that one little piece of wood in hand, I finally decided that it would be perfect for a weathered, rustic wedding sign – One with a little arrow to direct guests to the reception venue. So I asked my dad to cut the piece of wood in half and attach it to a stake, which is exactly what he did:

Alas, I forgot to mention that I actually wanted the weathered, darker side to be the front of the sign rather than the brighter, fresh-looking side. Here’s the sign flipped around so that you can see the more rustic edge on the back. You can probably notice the darker, almost gray coloration from sitting in the sun and rain for who knows how long. Love those rusty nail heads peeking through too.

So I bit the bullet and decided to flip the wood slats. I did mess up my dad’s beautifully calculated drill holes by flipping the wood around, but it’s still nice and steady in the end. Sorry dad!

Next, I needed to figure out what to write on the sign…I would have loved to put something like “Waller/Williams Wedding” or something descriptive, but I didn’t really have that much room. The wooden slat, once cut in half to create a rectangular sign big enough for writing, was only about a foot and a half across – Not a huge amount of space, and definitely not enough for a long cutesy phrase. So I opted for short and sweet and decided to write one single word across the sign: Wedding.

Not wanting to risk ruining the sign with a typo or botched design, I grabbed some black paint and a sheet of extra paper to practice. I painted the word both in print and in cursive and then asked the opinion of my sister who was in town for Easter. She immediately voted for print, so print it was.

I went slowly during this phase and did my best to take in the entire space visually while painting the words. I wanted to be sure I had enough room, so I just kept looking beyond the letter I was painting to envision the entire word on the sign. Somehow, I managed to fit the whole word and it seems pretty centered too.

Beneath the word, I painted on a simple arrow pointing to the left. My sister and I debated about which way to point the arrow since I’m not entirely sure where this sign will go, but my gut was telling me to make it go to the left so that’s where it went.

After painting another layer of white paint over each word and the arrow for a nice saturated color, we were all done.

I can’t wait to be able to share photos of all of these little crafts I’ve done once they are all situated and in-place at the wedding. Between this project, this project, this project and today’s post, I know it’s a little difficult to see how it will all come together, so I’ll definitely share the wedding photos once we get them back. Then you can truly see my vision.

Hope everyone enjoyed a lovely Easter weekend!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Inspiring, Our Wedding, Simple Fixes, Weekly Pinspiration Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

How to fix a leaning candle

April 4, 2012 4 Comments

Like any gal, I’m a fan of candle-lit dinners. Stricking a match on two tapered candles at our dining room table can easily turn a normal meal into a special one, and we are all about making cheap meals at home seem like a date night out in this economy. We always have a little collection of them acting as a centerpiece at our kitchen table, but they were recently upgraded to the two lovely brass ones seen below – They came from my parents’ house after mom read my “Love of brass” post (seen here).

Heralding from one of my family’s top vacation spots, Colonial Williamsburg, these lovely candle holders elevate the entire look of the space. Even though they are a taaaaaaad traditional for our tastes, I think the rest of the vintage-mod room (plate wall, modern table and rug) balance them out.

But we had one small problem…

One of the tapered candle sticks I squeezed into the new brass holder just wouldn’t stand upright. When we were growing up, I remember my mom used to remedy this issue with a wad of plastic wrap twisted around the very base of the candle. It seemed to work for her, but I’ve never been able to get it just so. Instead, I devised my own little trick.

The only supply required for this project is a roll of masking tape – I think I used a fairly thin roll, maybe ½ an inch thick.

To begin, you stick the end of the tape to the bottom of the candle stick and get to wrapping. Once it’s started, you can pretty much stick your hand through the roll and wheel it quickly around and around the candle stick – The tape will unwind from the spool while simultaneously winding right onto the candle.

After you’ve gotten it to the right thickness, break the tape – You might need to play around with it based on how much wiggle room you have within the candle holder. Below you’ll see the bit of extra width added to the candle stick from the tape. I actually ended up putting too much on and the candle wouldn’t go into the new brass holder at all…But I just unwound a few lengths until it fit snugly.

No more lean! I suppose, more than a looks thing, a leaning/loose candle could also pose a fire hazard – So I guess I killed two birds with one stone.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, you won’t have to worry about seeing the tape as long as you use one with a thin width. The candle with the wrapping on it is the one to the right in the photo below – No tape to be seen, even from an aerial view!

I think this calls for a fancy date night candle-lit dinner at home! Anyone have a good recipe to try out? Send us some links!!

Before I leave you…I was able to snap this quick photo of Rocky the dog who was keeping me company during my candle project. Isn’t he a doll??

Hope you have a great Wednesday!!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, How-To, Kitchen, Simple Fixes Tagged With: , , , , ,
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