A Week of Christmas Crafts - Day 1: DIY Ornament Wreath

So, it's been awhile since I've posted. My poor blog has been *so* neglected. Sometimes life catches up with you, ya know?

Recently I've felt pretty crafty and inspired. I have a few Christmas crafts up my sleeve that I plan to do this year, and figured I'd share with you! Hopefully life doesn't get in the way, but the goal is to start posting weekly...it's a goal, but I can't make any guarantees!

If you have $5 to spare, love pizza, and own a glue gun, you can make this super cute ornament wreath!

Here's the backstory:

A few weeks months ago, I went to Dollar Tree (or as my family calls it, "The Dolla Dolla Bill Store") with my sister to pick up some Halloween decorations. I saw this bright ray of light over in the corner, and couldn't help but gravitate toward it. It was like the sunshine you'd imagine seeing when Jesus returns back to Earth. Behind the light I saw what I'd been waiting for all year...Christmas decor!

(If you knew me well, you'd know I'm a total Christmas FREAK. Christmas is my favorite holiday to decorate for. Not only that, but I looooooooooooovvveee giving gifts! We can't forget I was also born with craftiness in my blood!)

So I check out the Christmas decor the Dollar Tree staff have already stocked on the shelves, and found pretty good-looking ornaments. A few of them had minuscule little scratches or dings, but hey...what do you expect from The Dolla Dolla Bill Store? Overall, they looked pretty fancy though, and I loved that I could find 15 small golf ball sized ornaments, or 12 small apple sized ornaments, for only $1!

I immediately grabbed 3 of the 15-packs, and 2 of the 12-packs, because I knew I wanted to do something fun. And for only $5, I could justify buying 60 ornaments! Even if my project ended up as one of those Pinterest Fails, $5 isn't much to be disappointed about. :)

Last year, my Pinterest feed blew UP with different Christmas crafts, and I kept finding myself going back to the ornament wreaths. One of my favorite DIY bloggers is Virginia at LiveLoveDIY. A few years back she made an ornament wreath and I thought, I can do that!

I rounded up all the supplies I needed for my wreath. I used a glue gun and glue sticks, the ornaments, a small plate, and the cardboard cut out that comes in a frozen pizza box. (If you're a pizza lover like me, you're likely to have one of these in your refrigerator or freezer as we speak!)

I found that having so many dogs means buying lots of treats, and when those treat boxes are empty they make for great storage! I currently keep my glue sticks in an old Milkbone treat box. Dorky, I know, but it's perfect!

To start this project, set out your pizza cardboard insert and set your ornaments around it, with the hook-side facing upward. This will give you an idea about spacing and placing the ornaments in a circular form, making sure you have enough ornaments to complete the circle without having any gaps in the wreath you'll be creating.

Once you've figured out placement, it's time to whip out your trusty glue gun. Keeping your ornaments with the hooks facing upward, place a dot of glue between each ornament. No need to over do it, but make sure there's enough there so the ornaments don't pop apart from each other.

Here's my wreath after the first round is glued together.

Once the first round is complete, remove the pizza cardboard insert and place the small plate in the center of the ornament circle you just made.

This will act as the guide for creating your second round of ornaments.

Place ornaments hook-side up between the edge of the plate and the first round of ornaments. Glue the second round of ornaments just the same as you did before, but also attach them to the outer ornaments so all one piece.

Remove the plate, and flip the wreath upside down so the hooks are facing downward.

You'll find there are some gaps between the rows of ornaments, so you'll want to fill them in with the ornaments you haven't yet used.

Place the ornaments between the gaps, and attach them hook-side *down* this time, until you've either run out of ornaments or are satisfied with the look of your wreath.

My wreath isn't perfectly round, but it gives it a little character...I like it!

You could string a piece of ribbon through a few of the hooks in the back to make a hanger, or even loop a ribbon through the wreath to make a hanger like the one pictured below.

(source)

I actually hung the wreath I made on my downstairs bathroom door and it's SO cute!

Tomorrow I'm going to share another DIY Christmas Craft, so stay tuned!

Until next time :)

DIY Laundry Room Wreath!

Hi everyone, welcome back!

We have been so busy, and this project took 2 weekends to complete because of it. Anyway, I'm ready to share a wreath I made for my mom for Mother's Day! Her laundry room was pretty drab, so my sister gave me the idea to make my mom a wreath to spruce it up a little bit.

(Sorry for the poor iPhone quality. :) )

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Here's what you'll need to make a wreath of your own:

* 12" metal wreath form

* Roll of Burlap (I used a 10 ft roll that was 5.5" wide)

* Hot glue gun and glue sticks

* Jute/Hemp String

* Floral wire

* Scissors

* Artificial Flowers

* Scrap Burlap (mine is printed)

* Buttons

* Sharpie

*Wire Cutters (optional)

* Ribbon

* Small clothespins (optional)

Here's how to make your own laundry room wreath!

Unravel your burlap, and pinch the end like so.

Stick the pinched end of the burlap through the center slot of the wreath form.

Push the burlap through the slot until you can wrap it around that vertical bar.

Secure the burlap to the wreath form with some floral wire. It's pretty thin, so you can use scissors or wire cutters. I just used scissors to cut it.

Turn your wreath form over and pinch the burlap about 6-8" down from where you secured the burlap the first time. Bubble it up so it's sort of rounded like this:

Attach to the wreath form with your floral wire. My wreath form had 6 of those small vertical bars I mentioned a few photos ago, I repeated the process of bubbling up the burlap and attaching with floral wire at each of the vertical bars until my wreath looked like this:

You can stop there, but I didn't feel like my wreath was full enough, so I went around the wreath once more. Following the same process, I bubbled up the burlap and secured to the wreath form at every place I secured the burlap to for the first round.

Once I got all the way around the wreath, I secured the burlap to the last section. I did not cut off the tail quite yet.

I turned the wreath around, and took the burlap (before cutting it) and wrapped it around the last place I secured the burlap to cover the floral wire.

Then I secured it through the back (so you can't see the floral wire on the front) and cut the burlap.

Tuck in the ends of the floral wire so they don't poke you (or the future owner of the wreath).

When you've cut the burlap, if you used the same size roll I did, you should have just enough to cut 5 little strips about 1 1/2-2" wide.

Use these to cover the floral wire that still peeks through the front of the wreath where you secured the burlap. I just wrapped it around and hot glued the ends together.

Here is what your wreath should look like at this point:

Set your wreath off to the side and grab your hemp string or jute. I measured and cut enough for it to drape across the front of the wreath with 2" added to each end to allow me to tie to the back of the wreath form.

Take your scrap burlap and cut it into 7 triangles. They don't need to be perfect. Mine were about an inch across, and about 2" long.

Organize your triangles in the order you like them arranged. Then, with one letter per triangle, spell out the word "laundry" with your Sharpie marker.

**(Sorry for the change in "color", this is where I had to pick up my project and used another camera to take the rest of the photos!)**

Evenly space out your triangles, and make sure you have them in the correct order. I may or may not be providing this tip based on my own experience. ;)

Hot glue the triangles to your jute or hemp, leaving an inch or so between each one.

Secure each end of your little laundry "banner" around the back of the wreath.

Here is what your wreath should look like now:

Next, take your artificial flowers and place them around your wreath. I clipped the little knobby things off once I figured out where I want the flowers to go. A flat back makes it easier to glue to your wreath.

Once you've placed your flowers and like how they are arranged, hot glue them to the wreath.

I decided the wreath needed a little more detail, so I decided to add a little bow. I cut some ribbon and tied it up, and hot glued it by the "L".

I thought it could still use a few more "pretties". I found some pink buttons and glued one to each of the letters in the laundry "banner".

You're done! I purchased some small clothespins to attach to the wreath, but decided I didn't want the wreath to feel too cluttered. You can add whatever other details you want though!

Also, if you want, you can secure another ribbon to the back to make a "hanger", but I chose to just leave it as is and hang it up using just the wire form.

That's all I have for now. :) I hope you all enjoyed this project! If there are any suggestions or custom requests I can make for you (or do a tutorial on), let me know! I'm always up for new things. :)

Also, please don't forget to visit my Etsy shop, here.

You can also follow my Facebook page for contests and updates to my Etsy store.

Until next time, my friends!

Hello!

Hi there! Welcome to our home!

My long-time boyfriend, Deeds (one of his many nicknames), and I dreamt of buying a home after an awful landlord experience. We decided we wanted to be our own landlords, and made that dream a reality in December 2013.

Since it was our first home, we couldn't afford much. We decided to build our home from the ground up - that way, we could find a large piece of property to suit our family's needs (we have a "pack" of Pomeranian Chihuahuas :) ), and pick out our own designs, colors, cabinets, flooring, etc. Since it was our "starter" home, we were sort of financially stuck with a lot of the builder-grade materials. They're nice, but not our "dream", or what we really wanted to pick for our home.

Over time, we've realized the colors we I chose just don't work. Our home feels so dark and gloomy. Sort of dungeon-y. Is that a word?

This blog will serve as my own personal diary to show all the progress we have made in renovating and decorating our home. (I think it will make me feel better when looking back on what our home used to be...you know, when I'm feeling down about not being where I want to be with the design of our home.)

I'll share updates, DIY home decor, and all sorts of other fun stuff along the way.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Home Tour - The Beginning

I'm not really a fan of the blue, but since I chose (almost) everything else in the house, I gave Deeds free reign on picking the exterior colors. The house was originally painted the wrong color, so the color our house looks now isn't really true to the colors he picked. It turned out darker than we he wanted. I'm hoping we can eventually paint it another color that isn't such an eyesore. Sorry, Deeds!

Main Level

When we bought our house and picked colors, we picked a really pretty, neutral tan color. The builder we used, picked one of the paint companies with the worst reputation in town to mix the color we chose, and it turned out yellow. If you can imagine someone smoking inside of their home for 20 years and never washing the walls, you can imagine the color our walls turned out to be. It feels so gross. I've tried to edit the terrible color out of most of the photos, but some just can't hide the nasty color.

When you first walk into our house, you enter the foyer/front entryway. There is a coat closet to the left, then stairs leading to the bedrooms, followed by a powder room. Straight ahead is the living room.

The 1/2 bath felt dark and depressing. It didn't help that this bathroom has no windows. We painted it grey and replaced the tile backsplash. It feels brighter in here, but I'm contemplating repainting it a softer grey in the future. Since we are working on finding a nicer mirror to put in here, as well as finding a lighter, brighter light fixture, I don't really have any current photos. I just have a picture of how it looked when we moved in.

I love our couch. It's really nice (I think it's called Kendall by Ashley Furniture), and we got an incredible deal on it. The only thing is the couch:living room size ratio. It's a tight fit, especially considering we came from a home with 2 living spaces and now we only have 1. We will learn as we go!

(Don't mind Deeds; he's just playing some scratch off tickets!)

(The rug was rolled and curled up when I first set it out...The mess around the edge is supposed to flatten the rug out.)

As you walk into the living room, you will see our kitchen and dining areas. Once you get past the foyer area, it's pretty open. So far, we've only added some cheap curtains from Ross - thanks to some neighbors that liked to be a little bit nosy...but aren't we all? :) Oh, and Deeds found a 5' x 7' zebra rug for my birthday last year from Hobby Lobby that was 80% off! This area is definitely in need of a face lift.

Upstairs

There is no natural light in the stairway going upstairs + a horrendous paint color = awful design. It's so dark I can't get a good picture, even with lights on. The stairs are only 36" wide, and are enclosed for the most part so it feels sort of claustrophobic. Trying to decorate the stairway (and include some of my younger sisters' homemade art) has proven to be a difficult task.

Upstairs, you will find 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and the laundry room.

I don't have pictures of the two spare bedrooms, mostly because they're still somewhat packed up. They say it takes 12+ months from moving in to actually be completely finished unpacking...I don't think most people actually ever completely unpack all of their belongings.

I enjoy crafting in what little spare time I have, and I'll also (hopefully soon) be working from home. The first spare room at the top of the stairs is my "quiet zone" when I need a moment to hide out alone...and maybe sneak a few chocolates. :)

Our second bedroom serves as a guest room, my closet, and Deeds' gaming area. Well, in the future it will be his gaming area...more on that later.

Not much to say here, but this is where I get ready every day. Very minimal and needs some serious help! I also hate the builder grade mirror. I've taken down the shower curtain and replaced it, but I'm not so sure I like the replacement either. It's all trial and error, baby!

Ick! I hate the look of wire shelving. The paint color is so "dirty" or "grungy" feeling...laundry rooms should feel clean! Oh, and that boob light! Well, you can't see it, but it's there! I wish there was a way we could bring some natural light into the space.

I have a picture of the space when we stayed our first night in the house, and that's about it so far. I cannot figure out a nice layout for this room. It has a dorky shape, and the window isn't even centered on the wall (but the bed is, in the above picture)...I guess it sort of is okay for just starting out, but I am envisioning how much potential this space has...or, at least I'm trying! We have a small closet, but it's so cramped and cluttered that no one needs to see it right now. :) I have a picture of it when we had our walk-through appointment before we closed on the purchase of our house.

More builder grade stuff - specifically the tacky shower insert. We're dreaming of a fully-tiled shower...someday. :) To the right of this doorway (and the right of the shower), there is a small linen closet.

We have a 12,000 square foot lot - that translated to a $10-20k+ backyard! We didn't have that kind of money, so we left it unfinished. We've since added a walk-out to a fire pit area, but that's it. Our house is situated on property that used to be an apple orchard. When the orchard was shut down, the trees were taken out of the ground...but one grew back, and it's right in the very corner of our yard where two of the fence lines meet. We're still learning how to take care of the apple tree. Our dogs love eating the fallen apples, which has led to some, let's say, "interesting" experiences.

I can't wait to share all of the updates and changes that we make (and have already made) over time. Progress makes me happy!

See you next time!