Game Day Burlap & Ribbon Wreath

I got a little crafty last week and made this wreath. My inspiration came from Etsy via Pinterest and retails for $65. I was able to make it for about $25 and had ribbon leftover. Just hit up Hobby Lobby when all the ribbon is 50% off. It was really pretty easy. I think it turned out pretty well, except for the horrid shade of orange and the phrase "hook 'em" which makes me gag a little. The family loves their burnt orange & Longhorns. I do not. will one day have my own, made with crimson & cream...Boomer Sooner! 

Supplies:

• Wire wreath frame 
• Burlap ribbon (I like the wired kind)
• Wide ribbon for hanging
• Accent ribbon of choice 
• Small wooden plaque thing (they come in packs of 2 at Hobby Lobby)
• Wooden football
• Acrylic paint of choice
• Scissors
• Paintbrushes
• Good glue
• Stapler 

Process:

• Weave the burlap ribbon in-and-out of the wreath frame. Don't worry about making it super tight. 
• Cut pieces of accent ribbon and tie them on. As many as you want. There's really no technical way of doing it. 
• For the football, I used a Sharpie to write with and used paint to do the circle things around the edge (kind of hard to see in the pic).
• For the rectangle, I painted it my main color. Then I used white paint for the letters, which have little black paint accents and burnt orange polka dots. I basically just free-handed it.
• I used Gorilla glue to attach the football to the rectangle. 
• I tied a wide white ribbon through the back of the wreath frame, leaving a loop at the top for hanging and a little extra hanging out the bottom.
• I used a normal stapler to attach the sign to the ribbon. 

Ta-da! 

Headband Holder

I got a little crafty the other day.  I'm pretty sure I saw this on Pinterest a while back, but we didn't have an empty oatmeal canister until recently.  Now that I had an oatmeal can, I dug around and found some scrapbook paper and ribbon that would work.  I had my modge podge and hot glue gun ready to go in no time. 

1. Clean out your oatmeal canister.  I even cut the bottom out to make sure I got all the oats and powder out.  However, if you have other hair accessories to store, you might leave the bottom on so it can hold them too.  
2. I chose to spray paint the inside. Let that dry.
3. I used 2 different black and white patterns, so I cut my pieces down before modge podging them on.  Let that dry.
4. I added some ribbon over the edges where the 2 different patterns met.  I just used a hot glue gun for this.
5. Now you have a cute way to store your headbands and such.

If only I could track down the rest of my headbands....

Kitchen Renovation

The week before this past week, I was contracted by my father to redo the kitchen of my childhood.  The kitchen that has not been updated since 1987 and still has original light fixtures.  Got an image in your head?  Here, I'll help:

Granted, I took this picture with my phone so it's not that great anyway.  You're looking at white wall paper with some light blue and pink floral-ish design, yellowy/creamy cabinets, stove, hood and oven, white laminate counters and back splash, and burnt orange "brick" linoleum floors.  Oh, and OLD lights.

My father gets lots of home magazines.  He tells me the trend is to do black counters, if you have white cabinets.  So, it was my job to make the counters black.  Well, how am I suppose to do that and leave the back splash and cabinets alone?  Yeah...so, to his surprise, I did all that.  Under $550.  The most expensive stuff being the back splash panels and cabinet hardware (the old oiled brass stuff HAD to go).  Here's a rough breakdown of what happened:

Counters- by far the easiest part of this whole deal!

1. Clean 'em good, sand them, make sure there's no dust left.
2. Do a coat of oil-based primer.  Have the guy at the paint counter tint it towards your desired color.  Let that set for 24 hours.
3. I chose to just use Rustoleum's "Hammered Metal" paint in black.  So I did 2 coats of this, allowing ample drying time in between.  Then, let it set for 24 hours. 
4. Next, it was time for 4 coats of clear, glossy polyurethane (I used the hardcore stuff for high-traffic floors...counters get a lot of action).  You have to let that stuff dry several hours in between coats.  And you have to lightly sand with some steel wool in between too.
5. I let it set for about 2 1/2 days before putting stuff back on it.

Cabinets- by far the most time consuming and challenging!

1. Take all the knobs and pulls off (25 doors and 10 drawers).
2. Take all the doors and hinges off; pull out the drawers.
3. CLEAN all the dirt and grime that's been building up for who knows how long.
4. I used a nice can of Behr self-priming paint in "Nano" white.  I wanted the white to be really crisp and clean against the black.  I did 2 coats on the cabinets, drawers, and both front and back of the doors.  That took FOREVER.
5. Once everything was dried up.  Pretty new satin nickel hardware (knobs, pulls and hinges) went on.  The doors were hung.  The drawers slid back into place.

 Back splash- lots of cutting!

1. I got these wonderful panel things from Home Depot.  They have several colors and styles.  I went with some kind of brushed nickel.  Basically, it looks like lots of tin tiles...but so much easier to install.  
2. The trickiest part is getting them cut to fit the space and cutting for the electrical outlets and other oddities.  
3. From there, I just got some adhesive (fits in a caulk gun) and just went for it.
4. After it was good and dry, I used a clear caulk around the base. 

That's it in a nutshell.  Here's the after: 
 

Keep in mind, this was, again, taken with my phone.  Hopefully, I can get the lighting, walls, floor and appliances up to date soon.  It's a start though!

New Fan

Ever since we moved in, we needed (maybe wanted) a new ceiling fan.  The original was an ugly white with awful brass accents.  To update and save money, we spray painted the fan and blades, replaced the brass blade attachments with brushed nickel, and changed out the ugly light things.  That worked well until recently.  We started to notice that the lights were burning out faster.  And there was one socket (I guess that's what you'd call it) that was particularly difficult to deal with when changing the light bulb.  A couple weekends ago, the brother went to change that light again.  This time, the base of the light bulb with the thread got stuck in the socket.  Seeing as how the living room needs more lighting anyway, only using the 2 remaining lights wasn't going to work.  Luckily, Lowe's happened to have their Hunter ceiling fans 20% off.  So we picked one out (it's suppose to be a 5-minute fan....power to whoever can do that in five minutes) and the next day, the brother and I got it installed.  I've done lights and a ceiling fan by myself before, but considering the height and everything, and second set of hands was really helpful.  The brother is also much taller.  Now, we have a fan with 4 lights that is very efficient at cooling and quiet, and not so much of a dust collector.  Fantastic!

Before

After (Yes the downrod is much shorter, but it actually works out well.  The brother was having some issues getting his hand hit by the blades during P90X-2.  That's what he gets for being stinking tall.)

   

The Easiest Burlap Wreath...EVER!

Ever since I got hooked on Pinterest, I have wanted to make a wreath.  If you don't already know this, Pinterest has LOTS of great ideas for wreaths and tutorials on how to make them.  We have an old window on our mantel, which dons ornaments in all the panes at Christmas, but has nothing going on the rest of the year.  I decided I'd to burlap since it's pretty neutral and can be dressed up embellishments.  As I was looking for some kind of tutorial I kept running into ones where you cut lots of little burlap squares, fold them just right, and pin them just right on to a foam wreath.  While I'm probably capable of doing this, it was a bit too tedious for my taste.  Then, I found a great idea from Top This Top That.  All you really need is a metal wreath form and burlap ribbon.  Genius.  It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what I was doing.  Once I got in the groove, it was smooth sailing.  I ended up using a couple different weaves of burlap, which you can see in the picture.  I like it because it gives it a little more texture without screaming at you.  I plan to add some kind of embellishment, some color, but I haven't figured out what yet!  Any ideas?

I Can Sew...Well, Straight Seams...

It was past time for us to change out the toss pillows.  That's one of the problems with dogs.  They apparently really like toss pillows.  They like to lay on them.  Lick them.  Fortunately, knock on wood, ours don't chew or rip them.  Regardless, ours were in rough shape and smelled horrendously of dog.  At least, I thought so.  I decided it would be better to make covers, with zippers, that could go on and off a pillow insert.  That way, they could be washed.  Luckily, the pillow inserts we got can also be washed.  Bingo.  So the project was planned... I was just going to have my mother sew them, but then, after seeing what a grade school kid had sewn on Facebook, I thought I should at least know how to make pillow cases.  That's right.  I cook, bake, clean, wire lights, tile, paint, but I don't sew.  I took home whatever in 6th grade, but I don't think that really counts.  My mother was kind enough to show me how to use her machine, and got me going.  However, I did end up asking her to just put in all the zippers because that was getting complicated.  I did the rest though.  And they don't look janky at all!  It's almost miraculous that seams turned out even and straight.  Although, that could just be credited to my OCD.  Maybe it's more impressive that I didn't end up with the needle through my finger.  But seriously.  Here's a picture of one of them: