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: , , , , , , , ,

Another cord/outlet domination

May 11, 2012 17 Comments

If you are anything like me, you hate cords. Like, REALLY hate them. They clutter the look of a space and turn what could be a quiet, pretty vignette into a tangled mess. But sometimes the placement of outlets makes visible cordage an unavoidable necessity. You’ve seen me tackle one problem area here (back in the early days of DG-DIY and bad photography skills), by taping the cord string along the back of a table’s leg to mask it. That one worked like a charm, but we had one other area that couldn’t be helped without some rewiring and drywall patching.

Until we feel brave enough to do some permanent rearranging with the outlet placements, our current television/cable outlet situation in the living room was giving me a massive headache.

I had managed to hide the mess of cables behind the record shelf, but those outlet plates were still screaming for attention.

My temporary solution for the issue was to stack books in front of them – About 100 pounds of books, to be exact. I took a leisurely stroll through the house one afternoon, rounding up all of the biggest and heaviest art books that I owned. I had a bunch and they stacked up nicely (literally and figuratively), but there was still something about it that didn’t look quite right.

I still don’t know how West Elm makes their stacks of art books look so unintentional and home-y…

Not only was the look a bit off, but you could still catch a glimpse of the outlets behind the spines, making the purpose of the arrangement painfully obvious. So I redistributed the stack back into the bookshelves throughout the house and started back at square one. My dream was to find some kind of vintage laundry basket, something tall but relatively thin, to put in front of the outlets. Something like that would serve double duty, covering the nasty imperfection and also acting as throw blanket storage.

As a back up, I also kept my eye out for things like large vessels or a vintage speaker with a woven front ala the ’60s or ’70s – I figured both could work in the event that my laundry basket idea (a) took too long to come to fruition, or (2) failed completely.

Fast forward about a month and a half and a miracle occurred. A family friend (who also happens to have been our fabulous wedding planner) hosted a yard sale at her house – As an event planner, and this being only a few weeks before our wedding, I decided we’d go check out what she was offering in case any of it could be useful at our event. Not only did we find tons of fun stuff for the reception, but we also stumbled upon the perfect solution for my “ugly outlet situation.”

Is that hamper not exactly what I had described in my vision??? In fact, I think it’s even better than perfect – I couldn’t have hoped for a vintage style laundry basket with more style and character. Check out that neat cross weave in the wicker and the buckled belt closure! And just as I’d longed for, it has a great big opening for blankets galore!!

I try to limit my use of exclamation points on this blog, but this find definitely deserves a few…It’s one of those times when patience and waiting for just the right piece really does pay off.

Cbeck out the new yard-saled hamper below taking care of our ugly outlet situation in style. You may also notice a furniture shift…I decided to switch things up in the living room, turning the sofa at an angle and pulling our new yellow chair out into the open edge of the space. I think it opens the room to more flow and certainly better conversation. Seems far more welcoming to me.

Here’s the photo of it again before rearranging, so that you don’t need to scroll back up to the top for reference/comparison.

…And now again with the new arrangement:

So what do you think? Do you guys have any other creative solutions for hiding ugly cords and outlets? I could still use all the help I can get…

Have a great weekend!

Filed Under: Living Room, Simple Fixes, Thrift Store Tell All Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Guest Post: 3 tips make eating right a breeze

May 4, 2012 Leave a Comment

Thank goodness it’s Friday!! Although maybe I shouldn’t be saying that since it means we only have 1½ more days here in the tropics…No doubt, we are having the time of our lives, but family, our furry kiddos and home are definitely calling our names. To keep you occupied on your Friday morning, we have Jessi Haggerty of Bee Rooted with us to talk about good health. You may remember her from this post of yore, where I expressed my deepest thanks for her help in steering me in the right direction when it comes to my diet. Her advice has been invaluable and I am so pleased that she is here to share some more tips with you, my faithful, enthusiastic, creative readers. We’ve all made excuses for ignoring the facts when it comes to eating a balanced diet. She’s here today to kick those excuses to the curb and supply you with the motivation to get back on track.

At 13 years old, I learned how to make excuses for things before I even had to. Sitting in my room participating in some mindless activity like watching re-runs of Friends, or chatting on the phone with my best friend (she’s still my best friend, by the way), I knew to pause and make up an excuse after I heard my mom yell “JESS!” from the office downstairs. Despite what I thought at the time, I didn’t really have a whole lot going on so things like “I have to do my homework,” and “I have to apply for summer jobs” were sometimes sufficient. But usually, when my mom came to me with a simple chore like cleaning up the (already clean) bathroom, or picking up my shoes that trailed throughout the house, I would find a way to say “later” in its many forms: “Not now,” “in a bit,” “after I finish this…” etc. Yet, no matter what the excuse, she and I always ended up in the same place: Mom pointing out that in the time that I spent arguing and making excuses, the task could have been done already. Touche, Mom. Touche.

Ironically, today it seems like all I do is listen to lists and lists of excuses people have for eating unhealthfully. Most common excuses are that there’s not enough time, it’s too expensive, and I’m not a good cook. What I’ve learned from my experience as a 13-year-old is this – Most of the barriers to “doing my chores” were barriers I put there myself. So, in an effort to break these 3 simple barriers to good health, I decided to find solutions by teaching you a simple method to preparing healthy food fast and cheap, while implementing simple cooking techniques that you can apply to pretty much any meal.  

Step 1:  Keep your kitchen stocked with the following…AKA the cheapest grocery list you’ll ever follow.

  • Whole Wheat Pasta (or any other whole grain like barley, quinoa or brown rice)
  • Green Frozen Vegetable (spinach, kale, broccoli)
  • Vegetable Broth
  • Canned Diced Tomatoes
  • Canned Beans (white beans have a nice neutral flavor that compliment most dishes)
  • Garlic and Onion (perishable, but keep much longer than most vegetables)
  • Salt, Pepper, Crushed Red Pepper

Step 2:  Mise En Place.  

A french term for having all of the ingredients in a recipe measured, chopped and in place before getting started. This little piece of advice was taken from Fiona Gubelmann (costar in the hit series Wilfred) in her interview in Vegetarian Times Magazine.  

For amateur cooks, or avid kitchen experimenters like myself, this is SO KEY to preventing burning, forgetting and mis-stepping (like baking your cookies before you add the sugar). It makes my least favorite part (clean-up) a breeze and makes you feel like you’re on a hit day-time cooking show. The best part? Once all of the ingredients are measured out (which can be done pretty much at any time), putting your meal together takes no time at all! 

For this meal: Chop 1 onion and 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, open all cans and spice containers and measure out about ¼ cup of vegetable broth. Place one large (empty pot) on the stove at medium heat, and 1 medium size pot filled with water for pasta or grain at medium heat. If cooking barley or rice, you will need 3 parts water to 1 part grain

Step 3:  Prepare Your Quick Dinner

Saute onion and garlic in a hot pan in a few tablespoons of vegetable broth, until tender. Mix in a dash of salt, pepper and crushed red pepper. Add 1 can of diced tomatoes, cover and let simmer.  

While that’s cooking, boil water and cook pasta or grain according to package. When tender, drain and add to tomatoes. Add 1 package of frozen greens and cover just until defrosted (over-cooking leads to nutrient degradation). Add can of beans, give it a quick stir so everything is mixed throughout. Top with optional parmesan or pecorrino cheese.    

Serve and be proud of your 15-minute healthy meal.  

It’s not rocket science, it’s faster than ordering out and all it requires is some inexpensive pantry items and the ability to boil water.  

What are some of your barriers to good health?  How do you overcome them?

Jessi is the creator of Bee Rooted a blog and business that offers a broader perspective on food and nutrition. “Healthy” is not defined by the nutrition facts label on the back of a grocery store item, but by the impact a food has from our earth, to your body. All of her advice and recipes are compiled together to provide you with solutions to sustain our earth and our food system, sustain your health and sustain your lifestyle – The ultimate definition of “sustainability.” With a love for food and knowledge, and passion for teaching others, she is always prepared with helpful tips, time-friendly, delicious recipes and creative life-management suggestions. Subscribe to her blog at www.BeeRooted.com or contact her at bee.rooted@gmail.com.

Filed Under: Healthy Living, How-To, Inspiring, Kitchen, Kitchen Overhaul, Our Influences, Simple Fixes, Yummmm 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: , , , , , , , ,

Pinspiration Monday: Wooden hangers

April 23, 2012 16 Comments

I have really been into fashion lately…Not sure when my focus shifted from home style to clothing and accessories, but I can’t deny my love of a great outfit any longer. Now, I wake up every morning motivated to craft a colorful, cohesive ensemble down to the bracelet. It’s fun to mix and match patterns, colors and metals to make a balanced and sophisticated look – In fact, it’s really not much different than styling a shelf or arranging fabrics in a living space. The same principles still count here, just in clothes.

Obviously, a new love and longing for style means a little shopping was in order. I’ve bought a good amount of new clothes in the last month, but to keep myself on track I kept a list of must-have essentials with me and have kept to it like it was the law. So now I am rewarded with a closet of thought out pieces – Here’s my latest (and, as promised to my bank account, my LAST) big haul, this time from Target and T.J. Maxx.

One of the most affordable ways I’ve been able to feed my new need for fashion and style in my closet (beyond sticking to a list when shopping) is to work on making the most of what I already have. In the past month I have spent long periods of time in my closet getting rid of things I no longer fit into or that no longer fit into my style. Shout out to our local consignment shop though (Salvaged), I don’t donate clothes anymore – I bag them up and take them straight to consignment. So far, I’ve made over $100 – Pretty fabulous when I think about how I was just going to take everything to Goodwill for zero profit…

Another thing I decided to do was find ways to amp up the display in my closet, right on down to the hangers…After seeing these two Pinterest images of clothing hung on natural wood hangers and how it gave it a high-end boutique look, I knew I had to upgrade.

Source: The Everygirl

 

Source: barefoot contessa

My closet as it was, came dominated by plastic hangers. Now, I do think that plastic is a big upgrade from plain wire hangers, which tend to bend…But I could envision just how much better and more cohesive the space would look with matching wooden hangers.

Have you guys seen on Pinterest or heard this tip from a friend? Essentially, to make the most of your clothing, you turn all of the hangers backwards and then, as you wear something, you turn the hanger right-ways. That way at the end of the season, you’ll know what clothes you didn’t utilize by seeing their hangers still turned backwards – Time to get rid of them. I attempted this at one point (as you can see in the photo above and below), but eventually gave up. I have a pretty good handle on what piece make me feel good and what don’t. It was just about finding the motivation to actually get rid of things that I’d been holding onto for years.

My motivation? Upgrading the hangers. I eventually found my collection on Ebay for about $50 shipped for 80 wooden hangers (with pant bar in the middle). I knew that 80 wouldn’t be enough for the amount of clothes I had, but figured it would be that motivator for purging that I was looking for – Only the best and most important pieces would get hung back up in the closet, while the rest would get consigned.

First things to get lovingly hung on their new boutique hangers? The three pieces I bought for myself at T.J. Maxx. I could already get the sense that the new wooden hangers made them feel straight out of a fancy designer clothing store – In my own home, no less! Exciting news for a girl like me…

I spent about two hours in my closet that afternoon, making sure to choose wisely as to what stayed and what would be bagged up for consignment. With each new hanger put into place on the bar, the whole feel of the wardrobe started to shift from cheap to luxurious. It really is amazing how wooden hangers can do that to your clothes. As I purged and rehung, I started a new pile of plastic hangers – They eventually made their way into the box that the wooden hangers came in. SO MANY HANGERS!! I plan on donating them to a thrift store soon.

And now to show off the new look – Again, I just love how things look more high-end after the hanger upgrade. No more light “click click” of plastic hangers when I go to pick out an outfit. I’m loving the more substantial wooden ones.

Unfortunately, despite letting go of what felt like a TON of clothes and half of my wardrobe, I still ran out of wooden hangers. I just couldn’t muster the will to get rid of the last bit of dresses to make it even. I resolved to get some more hangers later on to remedy the mismatched situation.

UPDATE:  I went out to Target over the weekend for wooden hanger supplements hoping to buy no more than 10, but left with a value pack of 24 hangers for only $14. They don’t match the Ebay hangers perfectly, but they certainly do the trick, and I doubt anyone would notice the inconsistency other than me.

So what tricks do you all have up your sleeves (pun intended) for making the most of your closet space and wardrobe? How do you “dress things up”?

Filed Under: Simple Fixes, Product Search, Product Review, Inspiring, Weekly Pinspiration, Bedroom Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Wedding favors = DONE!

April 20, 2012 12 Comments

So pleased to have finally finished up our wedding favors. This project took a bit longer than originally planned, but I suppose that’s bound to happen when dealing with lots of fragile and tiny materials. When last I left you, we had completed 1/3 of the project, having filled the first round of test tubes with wildflower seeds.

The other two batches of test tubes were to be filled with mini m&ms and lavender-infused bath salts (not together – m&ms + bath salts = yuckkkk). These two took a bit longer to complete because apparently mini m&ms are nearly impossible to track down (we finally found them at Sam’s) and I was waiting on mom to make the bath salts (I’ll share the recipe for that in a post after the honeymoon).

Soon enough, the supplies were acquired and the rest of the test tubes were filled to the brim and topped with a pretty natural cork. As you can see pictured below, the test tubes fill a large basket nicely, but they crowd each other so much that there would be a lot of digging to find the favor of choice.

To make things easier on our guests, we (“we” being mom and I) decided to separate the three types of favors into individual baskets. We found these for 40% off at Michael’s craft store for only a few bucks apiece. They are long and thin, perfect for our long, thin test tubes. Plus, the natural wicker texture is pretty, simple and a nod to the vintage garden party theme that has emerged.

But you know I couldn’t just leave it at that…

To dress up the baskets a bit, I picked up three solid-colored cloth napkins at Pier One. This decision was sort of more complicated than that though…You see, I stood in the aisle for about five minutes staring at the array of cloth napkin options (while John found a comfy perch on a bar stool for sale, occupied by his smart phone). The issue was that I really wanted a patterned napkin, but all they had were solid colors and a stripe that just wasn’t “us.” With fingers to chin in thought (no kidding), I contemplated making my own from the box full of fabric at home, but did I really want to add ANOTHER project to my always overflowing list of things to do for this event?

After finally breaking John’s concentration from his phone and asking his thoughts, he quickly suggested just getting the solid colors because “No” I did not want to add more projects to my list.

Isn’t it funny how men can sometimes break down a decision in .3 seconds?

In the end, I brought home a white napkin, a yellow napkin and a blue one. There is a little bit of detail in the stitch work, which almost satisfied my desire for pattern.

When opened to their full capacity, they were way too big – I really just wanted something to lay across the bottom and inside edges of the basket. But keeping them folded into small squares and laying them at a diagonal did the trick.

Once I finally was able to lay the three different types of favors into their respective baskets, I knew John had steered me in the right direction. If I had gone with patterned fabric, the look would have been entirely too busy. All of the colors and natural texture in the seeds, candy and salts would have been lost in patterned liners. Hooray for happy accidents!

And now for tons of aerial and side detail shots!!!

To accompany the presentation, I used one of my revamped wedding frames (although, if you click back, you’ll notice that I redid the insert text). I think the neon blue kind of balances out all of those spring time pastels. Gotta have a little bit of a pop somewhere, after all.

If you can’t quite read the swirly text via the computer screen, it says “Please take your pick! Grow a plot of wild flowers. Indulge in sweet candy pieces. Relax with lavender bath salts.” Also, I added a little note about the glass test tubes being fragile: “Please handle with care.”

Sorry to any wedding guests who are missing out on the surprise come wedding day by seeing these in advance! I hope they are enjoyed by all next week.

P.S. If you didn’t see via my Facebook page and Twitter feed, I guest blogged for Breathe Magazine yesterday – This time, I shared my tutorial on how to make silhouette portraits. Click here to check that out!

Filed Under: DIY Projects, Gifts, How-To, Our Wedding, The Big Reveal 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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