My Picture Wall

I have wanted to start a picture wall in my house for quite some time now.  A few weeks ago I finally got around to starting my wall o’pictures.  I bought the saying in the center from the Dollar Store and collected old picture frames from around the house or I bought a couple from Dollar Store as well.  I put my wall in the middle of the hallway in between the master bedroom and the loft.  All my frames are black or black/silver for uniformity. 
Here is just a sneak peek of my picture wall.  There are no pictures in the frames as of yet since I am still working on finding the right pics to go in each frame. 

I love how it is coming along.  I can’t wait to fill it with pictures and even add more frames to it later on down the line. 

Baby Shower!

One of my good friends is due in February and a small group of us hosted a baby shower for her last month.  It was a lot of fun and I got to make some really cute stuff for the precious little girl that we are all anticipating.  I got to make the momma to be a three tier diaper cake, baby booties, baby legs, a ruffle butt onesie and a couple of bibs and birb cloths.  It was tons of fun buying all the pink cute girlie stuff!

Here are pictures of the things I made.
Diaper Cake

Booties

Baby Legs

Ruffle butt Onesie

Bibs and burp cloths

I also made the favors for the party.  I found a cute recipe online and had to give it a try!  They were really easy and quick to make!  They are little pink pacifiers!  Here is the link to a recipe that is identical to the one I used.



It was so much fun making all this cute stuff!

DIY Felt Wreath

I finally made one!  A felt wreath that I have longed to make for about a year now!  I found a couple of tutorials around the interwebs for a cute and easy to make wreath.  It took me a while to actually sit down and make it but when I did, I realized that I didn’t have a wreath which I thought for sure I have bought at the Dollar Store.  So two days ago, I made it out to Michael’s and found my wreath so that I could get started.  And here is my beautiful wreath

!

 

The pic came out rather fuzzy but oh well.

My Foyer Make-Over Part 1

Ever since we moved into our house a year and almost a half ago, I’ve wanted to repaint the trim in our foyer.  The previous owners had the trim painted an ugly ‘purple’ color as I call it.  It’s probably really called ‘mauve’ but it still looks purple to me.  Well we I finally got around to repaint it white.  Unfortunately we don’t have the paint for the trim in the rest of the house so I had to do my best to find a pretty white.  I started the first coat the other day and finished the second coat today and am now waiting for it to dry so I can take the tape off and clean up the newspaper.  Here is a sneak peak of how it looks.

Before:

The new color is on the left… old yucky purple color on the left.
 
After: During:
 

I can see the improvement already!  I will post final pictures when I am done.

Doorknob revamp!

So I saw on a blog that I came across that someone had spray painted their ugly brass doorknobs a pretty brushed nickel color.  I really hate the fact that our downstairs doorknobs are all an ugly brass color that is very dingy looking and discolored. (For some reason all of the upstairs doorknobs are silver.)  I had contemplated about just buying new doorknobs since I only have 4 doorknobs that I would want to replace.  But since I saw this post I thought it would a better more inexpensive way to give my doorknobs a new look.

I decided to test the look on my pantry doorknob. 

Here is what my doorknob looks before:

Ugly huh?!

Here is the contraption I made to hold all my pieces.
 

After I washed and sanded the pieces, I sprayed it with primer.

I had to give the pieces a few coats before they looked like I wanted them to look but I think my DIY revamp came out great! 

Here is my doorknob on the door.

I plan to do the rest of the doorknobs downstairs next weekend.  I have the half bath, laundry room and coat closet doorknobs left to do. 

My Cheap and Simple DIY Decor

I really do love the Dollar Store.  It is possibly the best store ever!  You can create so many useful things from items bought from there.  Well after reading through about 4 or 5 blogs that had the same idea of hot glue-ing a couple of crystal pieces together to create some really neat decor items, I decided to try and make my own! 

The first thing I made was a potpourri holder.  I found some really pretty potpourri at Ross for $2.99.  I bought a candlestick holder from the dollar store and I had a glass bowl leftover from the wedding.  So I decided to get the hot glue gun out and get started. 

This is what I used:
 
The directions are pretty simple.  Hot glue the candlestick holder to the bottom of the glass bowl.  Pour potpourri into the bowl.  Place decor item in desired place around the house.  =)

And here it is my half bath:

The other thing that I created was a large candle.  I created it using these items:

The directions are pretty much the same as the other item.  Hot glue the candle (found in the candle section of the dollar store near the other religious candles) inside the glass hurricane.  Hot glue the candlestick holder to the bottom of the glass hurricane.   Place completed item in a special place around your home.  To add a decorative flair, you can add leaves, twine, or other decorative foliage in between the candle and hurricane.

Here is the completed candle in my half bath:

I plan to make one more of these and add it to my entry table or on my mantel.  I just haven’t made and haven’t decided exactly where I want it.  I will post pics when I complete it. 

Cost Breakdown:
Glue gun and glue sticks --- I had already.  --- $0
2 Candlestick holders ---- 1 I already had at home. --- $1
1 glass bowl ---  I had already at home. ---$0
1 glass hurricane --- I had already at home --- $0
1 package of potpourri --- $2.99
1 tall candle in glass holder --- $1
For a total of roughly -----  $5 What a steal!

As you can see this a very inexpensive project.  Something else that you can do that is unique is spray paint the glass, that will give it a very unique look as well.

Ball Ornament Wreath DIY

I found this website and fell in love with this easy DIY project for the upcoming holidays.  It shows you how to use those glass ball ornaments to make wreath.  I will definitely will have to try it out.

Here is the website and tutorial from the Eddie Ross website.

And here is a picture of the finished product taken from the website.