DIY Tutorial: Upcycled Headband Holder Board {ART}

Being a creator of headbands, you can just about imagine how many headbands I have for my own baby girl!  I'm not gonna lie, it's a little ridiculous!  And up until now, they'd been piled up in a little wicker basket in her room for no one to see....oh, the horror!!!!  Sooo....I wanted to come up with something ultra chic on which to display them in her room!

While you could always just hang hooks directly to the wall, I wanted something a bit more artsy and part of the room decor.  So I decided to turn some ultra ugly old cupboard doors (yes, a plural here - we need TWO boards to hold all hers! Ha!) into awesome displays/pieces of art for her walls {yes! upcycling at its finest!}.  My first step was heading to a salvage warehouse here in Phoenix.  And much to my liking, I snatched up two super ugly cupboard doors for like 5 bucks each! SCORE!  And while they were obviously from the same kitchen cupboards, they are NOT an exact match - one is from a horizontal opening door, and the other, a vertical.  I actually love this aspect - matching but not too "matchy-matchy"!!

So here's what you need to

{create your own headband board holder}:

*old cupboard door (or maybe get a few to make at the same time - these would not only make for fantastic gifts, but also be great for your own room - I'm wishing now I would have gotten more to hold my necklaces!)
*spray paint in color/s of choice
*lace
*hot glue gun
*hammer & nails
*decorative hooks
*fabric
*sandpaper
*cloth (to wipe clean)
*newspaper/kraft paper (large) for overspray of spray paint
*mounting hook/s
*spackle (optional)

1. Once you have your {cupboard} doors, you'll need to sand them down a little.  Not to completely remove the paint -- just to rough them up a little so that they can hold new paint on top.  So give them a good sanding (you might want to wear gloves and a mask for this - especially if working with old doors, as it may have lead paint on it!), then wipe clean. 

2.I also had to fill in a couple holes in my cupboard with some nail hole filler (a.k.a. spackle) at this point.  If you found old cupboard doors, you may have to do the same, if they happened to have handles on them before.  So if you do, do that now, and let dry (about 10 minutes).

3. Okay, now we're ready to {spray} paint!  So I wanted to make the inset part of my boards a different color than the border {This is one reason in particular why I LOVE using cupboard doors for this project - because it already has a nice "frame" for your creation, right from the get-go!}.  So since I knew I'd be painting the rest of the board after I had the inset color chosen, I didn't worry about covering the border portion of the board.  I just went to town, spraying about 3 coats of a light pink spray paint on the inset portion of the board {you'll probably need to wait about 30 minutes in between coats). 

4. Now you may want to add a stencil background to your inset.  I thought about sponging on some damask print or using doilies as stencils {which I know would be super cute!}, but ultimately decided on doing a subtle lace backdrop.  So I just cut some lace to fit the board, and then started spraying the entire board a creamy, vintage ivory color {right on over the lace}.  Again, about 3 coats for full coverage, with drying time in between coats.

5. Once dry, you can remove the lace.  Now it's time to distress and age our piece by sanding it down again!  But this time, we're going to focus on sanding edges and parts of it that you think might naturally wear off over time if left up to nature.  This is another HUGE REASON why you want to look for cupboard doors, as they have that border around the edge with grooves that make for interesting distressing points for your art!!  (NOTE: You can skip this part if you do NOT want a shabby chic, distressed finish!)  This will give a nice worn, vintage feel to your piece (which I just love myself!).

6. Now it's time for the most fun part: embellishing!  I had just purchased some amazing fabric and KNEW it would be perfect for these boards!  So I cut the fabric into a rectangle (but feel free to choose whatever shape {or non-shape}you want!), and then added some decorative stitched borders with my sewing machine to them.  {NOTE: The sewing part is totally UNnecessary, but I do have the machine with the capacity to do so, so I figured, "Why not?!"  Especially since I used some lace-looking borders to go with my vintage, old-fashioned feel to these lovelies!}.  Then I cut some hearts from totally different fabrics and stitched around their edges, too.  I love the eclectic look, so I went for the opposite of my rectangle fabric pieces here - I went bold and more geometric (versus the paler, non-patterened rectangle pieces).  I also decided to use some of the lace for a part of one of the boards, too.  I cut a strip from the lace as well as a heart to add some depth and texture.  I also added some lace trim to the board's backdrop, as well.  Feel free to GO WILD here!  Add doilies, buttons, stamps, jewels ~ whatever your little heart desires, just go for it!

7. So here's my BIG TIP for the backdrop part: Layer and layer and layer and layer!!  In other words, do NOT just spread it all out, without some overlapping of your elements!!  It adds depth and character and really makes the piece!   Also, try some ANGLES - don't just square everything up!  Keep trying different layouts, and once you are satisfied with the positioning of all your embellishments, it's time to start hot-gluing them down, one by one!

8.  Then you just nail in your hooks and/or knobs (I found mine at Pier I Imports, by the way, but they also have some truly amazing knobs at both Hobby Lobby and Anthropologie!).

9.  And the final step (which I actually have yet to do) is to add some mounting hooks to the back of your boards, and then hang them up obviously.  I love that they are pieces of art in and of themselves, too!  And now her headbands just SCREAM to be worn!  Love, love, love!! {and hope you do, too!} :)

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Color Fad

Move over, Pink, and make way for PURPLE!

Is it just me, or have you all been noticing more and more purple around {been to Target lately? They have a whole slew of purple home decorative items}?  It seems that I have started to notice a trend of purple popping up here and there more and more....  From children's clothing to home decor, I think it just might be trying to give pink a run for its money!  And to this I say, "It's about stinkin' time!"  I mean, I love me some good pink and all, but seriously.  How. long. must. "it". be. PINK!?!!  {Although I'm STILL waiting for the "pink and brown" and "blue and brown" fad to leave the baby industry.  C'mon now! Any day, peeps!}

So I just recently made this custom headband for a friend of mine who's brother is getting married soon. It's for her 6 month old daughter to wear to the wedding.  The wedding color?  Yup, you guessed it ~ PURPLE!

I'm digging it, and am find myself wondering, "Hmmm...where can I add some purple in my house?"  I love plum purple with mustard yellow...so maybe once we redo the nursery, our daughter's room could be in those hues...mmmm...my mouth is almost. almost. salivating. ;)

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Owl Bookends: DIY Tutorial

I've seen many different versions of these cuties around, and when I saw them, I just knew that I'd have to make them! And beyond just being used as bookends, they obviously serve as cute decor, as well.  What's that mean?  These are well worth your time to make. :)

 {Materials Required}:
cotton fabric
felt {white, black and an additional color of choice is optional}
sewing machine
rice
fiberfill
scissors
pen
funnel

Okay, so first you need to decide how big you want your owl/s.  I decided to go with two different sizes: one baby and one mama owl.  (But please KEEP IN MIND: if you're using them for bookends, the bigger the better, to hold all that book weight.  I decided I only needed one bookend, and am going to use my smaller one as a play, beanbag sort of toy).  For the small one, I cut a rectangle about 7x8 inches, and for the larger one, a square about 11x11 inches.  Then I freehanded an owl shape onto the backside of one of my smaller cotton rectangular pieces of fabric.  I drew only HALF of the owl, then layed it on top of my other small rectangular pieces of fabric.  Next, I folded the fabric over (length-wise), and cut along my owl shape.  By using this folding & layering method, you'll get symmetrical sides for your owl and matching sides for the front and back of him, too.

half of my owl shape (the smaller owl)

how it looks folded, before cuting

Now place your two large rectangular pieces of fabric together, with the right sides facing each other.  Go ahead and take your cut out owl shape and pin it onto the wrong side of your large pieces of fabric.  Cut our your large owl shape, using the smaller one you already cut out as your pattern.  Basically, you're just going to cut the same shape as the one you already did, but go out a couple inches from the smaller one's edges.

Now take your white felt, and cut out 2 circles (layer two small squares together, and then cut the circles from that), which will make up part of the owl's eyes.  You're going to need to cut out 4 white circles altogether - one smaller pair for the baby owl, and one larger pair for the mama owl. (You can't go wrong with a size here...just eyeball what size you think looks best).  HINT: use some sort of round thing you have in your house to make the perfect circle...a biscuit cutter (as I did, shown below), tupperware lid, etc.

For the eyes & beak, you're going to use your felt.  Cut out two small black circles for the baby owl's pupils.  Cut out two larger black circles for the mama owl.  OPTIONAL: I decided to add another dimension to mama's eyes, by adding a pair of pink circles to her eyes...right in between the white & black circles for her eyes.  Now you can also cut out a beak to match: for the smaller owl, I did a little triangle, and for the mama owl, I did a diamond shape - both in an orangey-yellow color of felt.

Take just one of the pieces of one of your owl bodies, and lay the eyes & beaks on it to see where you want them to be.  Now pin down the beak and remove the eyes from the body.  Sew the beak on - be sure you're sewing onto the RIGHT side of your fabric, and sewing onto only ONE of the body pieces!

Now take your white eyes, and pin them in place on your body, right above the beak.  Sew them on.  You can do a straight stitch or zigzag in a matching or contrasting color - whatever you prefer!  I chose a soft pink for my baby owl, and a green thread for my mama owl (to complement her baby green owl!), and did mine in a zigzag stitch for fun.

After you've stitched on the whites, stitch on the middle color (if you chose to do so), and last, the pupils.

Here is what your owl will look like so far:

Okay, time to put the owl together!  Go ahead and put the pieces of the owl's body together, being sure the "right" sides are together and matched up along the edges.  Pin in place. 

Sew (I chose about a 1/2" seam for my larger owl, and just 1/4" seam for my smaller one) along the edges, leaving about 2 inch opening at the bottom of your owl (be sure to backstitch when you start & stop, to secure your seams).

Clip the curves. (If you're new to sewing, this means that wherever there is a curve (at the top between the ears, and on both sides of the body), you're going to need to take your scissors and cut little slits just about to the seam.  This will allow for the curves to lay right).

Now turn your body right-sides out.  (You're almost there!)  You're going to take some of your fiberfill and stuff this into the head part of your owl.  Be sure to really get it into the ears and in their points. This will help your owl keep its shape and stay 3-dimensional.

Once you have enough fiberfill to fill the ears and about halfway down the eyes, you're going to start adding the rice.  This will help weigh him down...necessary if you want your owl to be able to "stand" and definitely necessary if you're using as bookends.  Use your funnel for less mess.

Once he's filled about 85 -90 percent of the way, you can stop filling.  Now you just need to turn in the seams, and either sew straight across with your sewing machine, or hand-stitch it shut, along the bottom.

 

Now just follow the above steps for your second owl, and you're done! Enjoy!

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Spring Decor: Take Three

I think I'm finally done decorating for Spring!  Yay!  I love all the vibrant colors this time of year, and I find it especially easy to decorate for because a lot of your inspiration and actual elements can come from the great outdoors.  That's right, just trim & clip and bring it inside!

So this is my third {and probably last} post regarding Spring decor.  {In case you're wondering, I have decided to decorate more for Spring {versus Easter} because it's more versatile and can stay up longer.  That being said, I do have some Eastery things, of course, but it's mostly just Spring-themed}.  In case you missed the last two, you can check this one out for a nice Do-It-Yourself Spring Flower Wreath, or click here to check out our DIY cupcake liner wreath, garland and trees!

So the last bits of my Spring decor include a branch centerpiece with some owl and egg images hung from it, my pink tree branch with paper butterflies {left over from our sweetie's first birthday celebration this past weekend!}, and some eggs nestled in moss.

For the Owl branches...just trim branches off your trees, and strip off most of their leaves.  You can leave more or less, but I wanted mine to have just a few, to make it seem Spring-like with just a few leaves budding on it.  I purchased the .pdf file from Land of Enchantment {on Etsy, but of course!}, then printed, cut, hole-punched their tops, and hung them from the branches with a thin twine. I added some moss to the bottom of the glass hurricane, as well. It's a very vibrant-colored green moss, which I LOVE ~ very Spring-like!

Here is the Butterfly Tree branch. For this one, I clipped a LARGE branch {versus a few small ones for the smaller owl tree display}.  Then I spray-painted it pink.  Next I found a butterfly silhouette clip art from the web, printed it out, cut it out, and then traced it onto scrapbook papers.  I mod-podges two pieces of paper together to make them two-sided.  While wet from the mod-podge, I also bent some of them so that they'd dry more realistically, that is, more 3-dimensional {instead of just flat}.  After that, I just hot-glued them all over the branch, and then stuck the whole thing in a large glass hurricane.  She's sitting in our entry-way now, but will take up permanent residence in our daughter's bird and flower-themed room after Spring.

Lastly, I got some gorgeous little eggs and set them in a basket filled with moss, and a glass flower bloom {from Michael's} on a large candlestick holder that I had purchased years ago and repainted ivory recently.  {I couldn't believe how well these 2 decorative pieces fit together!} I clipped off a few of our pink twigs from our large pink butterfly tree to make it more nest-like {I think it's always a good idea to have pairings of the same elements around, but utilized differently, if you can.  Makes it all more cohesive but not too matchy-matchy, if you will}.

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{Happy} Spring Wreath

Just wanted to say "Happy Spring!" to you all...even if I'm just a few days shy of welcoming it in!  For most of you, this is a happy welcome...and for those of you like me, living in the desert, this begins a sorry farewell to our nice, cool winter weather.  But I'm enjoying these last couple weeks of gorgeous weather here...hoping it can hang on through April!

So to celebrate, I made this happy, bright wreath using fabric scraps and many different methods for making fabric flowers.  I used just a simple wooden picture frame I found at the thrift store for $1.50 as my form {much cheaper than buying actual wreath forms at craft stores, by the way!}.  Then I made tons of different types of flowers and hot glued them on. 


Happy thoughts come to me each time I pass it by in our home.  {love}.  So what about you? Do you decorate your home for Spring?  What do you decorate with?  Anything crafty?  Or do you purchase it all?  Would love to hear {and see!} your ideas!

Happy Spring, everyone!

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Decorating with Cupcake Liners

I have a new obsession.  It's decorating with paper.  Not scrapbooking paper.  But party papers.  As in, cupcake liners and crepe papers.  LOVE!

So the past couple weeks, I decided to do some trees, a wreath and a garland.  I went with all white liners for the trees and wreath.  Why?  Ultimate versatility.  These will be able to be used for just about any occasion!  From a baby or wedding shower to Easter and Christmas, I think they'll be making frequent guest appearances in our house!

 

"Luck O' The IRISH" block letters are from Sassy Talk!

So the two trees above are made from two different sized styrofoam tree forms with hot-glued mini white cupcake liners all over. The glass jar on the left has some moss and one of my rosette-covered balls inside. {If you missed the post on these, the tutorial to make these are available in our shop!}.  The garland is made from all kinds of cupcake liners {both regular and mini-sized} along with some wire-edge satin polka-dotted ribbon throughout.  I just used a needle and thread for the garland. I turned the liners all different ways, including folding them into halves and fourths before threading through.  There's no way to mess these up ~ just sew through any way you like, and the results are guaranteed to please!

{SIDE NOTE: I don't usually mix my seasonal decor, but I just decided to leave my Irish blocks in the picture for some color.  I'm working with Dawn from Sassy Talk on getting a couple super cute Spring & Easter pieces of art...will show those once I get them designed and over to my house!}

And below is the wreath, which is made from the regular-sized white cupcake liners.

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How to Make a Ruffle {Paper Ribbon and Flower}

I have never been a big fan of that plasticky thin type of "birthday party ribbon."  You know the kind.  The kind that goes on packages and is all "frizzed up" on top.  It's the same kind tied to every balloon, as well.  Anyway.  Not a huge fan of it.  But I DO love me a pretty package.  Now, you could always buy pretty ribbon to atop a gift.  But at about $3 or more for less than 10 feet usually, this can get spendy.  Afterall, you don't want to be spending another $5 just for the gift topper, ya know?

So I came up with doing a ruffled crepe paper ribbon and flower to top your gift instead.  It's super cost-effective {you can get a whole roll for just 99 cents, which would last you through OODLES of presents!} and looks just plain pretty.  I'm a fan.  Heck, I'm a fan of anything ruffled!!  

I'm going to take you through how to make these yourself!  Keep in mind, you can use these same steps to ruffle anything!  From fabric and paper to ribbon and more!  So here's how you do it:

Take your crepe paper and wrap it around the gift two times.  Cut your paper there.

Now you're going to set your sewing machine to the loosest setting and the longest stitch {these numbers area  "0" and "5" respectively, on my machine} to make our basting stitch.   Be sure to leave "tails" for you to pull when you sew this, and do NOT do a backstitch ~ we do NOT want the basting stitch secured!  Just sew right on down the middle of your crepe paper.

Once you've sewn all the way down the middle {length-wise, of course}, you're going to form your ruffle.  Do this by using one hand to hold just one tail on one end.  And use your other hand to gently {especially since we're working with crepe paper!} start pulling the crepe paper over the thread, forming a ruffle.  Keep doing this until you have ruffled your entire paper length.  At this point, you'll want to wrap the paper around your package to see if you need to make your paper more ruffly {meaning, keep ruffling as you were} or less ruffly {meaning, pull some of the ruffles off} to fit the package right.

 Once you have it fitting around your package properly, you're going to set your sewing machine back to its "normal" sewing tension and stitch length.  Sew right back over your ruffle down the middle; this time DO your backstitch when you both start and stop to secure your seams.

Once you've secured your ruffle, go ahead and trim off all the loose threads on the end.  Normally, we'd remove our basting stitch {more for when working with ruffles on permanent items {i.e., curtains, clothing, etc.}, but since this is just going to be thrown away, don't even both with that extra step.

Wrap it around your package and secure with clear tape on the bottom of your gift.  You could also make another ruffled ribbon to go around the other length of your gift.  I just chose not to here, as these are just for my daughter's first birthday, and the less "ribbon" for her to get off, the better!

For the flower on top, you're going to do the same steps above.  I cut about 30 inches for my crepe paper length for the flower.  Feel free to use your judgment here, though.  The longer your crepe paper, the bigger the flower will be, of course!

After you've ruffled and secured your ruffle for the flower, simply take one end and fold it 180 degrees, back onto the rest of the ruffled paper ribbon.  Hold it in place there with one thumb.

Using your other hand, begin turning the paper around the center "bud" you formed with your thumb.  If you're right-handed like I am, you will be holding the "bud" with your right thumb, and using your left hand to form the outer petals of your flower.  Do this by just turning the remainder of the paper around and under your bud.  Be sure that each layer of flowers keeps going farther away from your bud, so that you can see all the layers.  Once the way you want it, head on back to your sewing machine and just tack it down {stitch in place} in a few areas to secure your flower.  Then just trim off all the threads {be sure NOT to cut your paper!}, and fluff up a little.

That's it!  Just put a little double-stick tape on the bottom of your flower and secure to your ruffled ribbon on your package already!

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