Ikea Hack

We have been wanting to add a pop of aqua in our living room as well as add a new cabinet to replace the old bookshelf we had, so off to Ikea we went.  We love Ikea!  I mean how can you not love Ikea?  It's cheap, modern, functional, and they have the #1 combo at the snack bar!  We often make a day of it when we go to Ikea.  I knew we could find a cabinet that would work; however, the old black-brown color was getting old and then inspiration hit!  Let's do an Ikea hack!  If you know me at all, you know that teal/aqua/blue-green is my favorite color in the whole world and that was the automatic thought for this cabinet.  We found the cabinet we loved and then it was on with the creative juices.  So here it is, our first Ikea hack, along with step by step instructions in case you get inspired :)

Materials:
Piece of laminate furniture
Plastic covering for floor
Zinser primer 
Paint color of your choice (we got lucky and found an "oops" paint in the exact color we wanted)
Brushes and mini rollers
Sandpaper
Minwax Polycrylic 
A handy hubby

1. Find the piece of furniture you love.  Consider the size, shape, functionality, etc.  Don't worry about the aesthetics because that's what you are going to change.  

2. Prime the bookshelf all over.  No sanding required!  Let the first coat completely dry then recoat with a second.

3. Once the primer is dry you can paint!  

4. Let the paint dry completely.  If you want to you can add some texture and distress the piece.  We used sandpaper along the edges to give it a shabby-chic look.  

5. Polyurethane the entire piece.  This will seal the look.  I recommend using a sponge instead of brush, this will avoid air bubbles.  

6. Let the poly dry and voila, you have a beautiful customized piece of furniture!!  I think it came out great!

Insta-Christmas

This is just a look around our house and at all the holiday decorations!  We love decorating for Christmas, but I refuse to put anything up before Thanksgiving.  So, the weekend after Thanksgiving it was an all go!  All the lights, sparkle, and warmth are so fun!  I finally caved this year and let Brandon have a SMALL blowup for the front yard.  What have I done??!!  Anyways, here you go Christmas at the Brown's via Instagram!
 

 

On another note, this is our Christmas card photo and I think it's super adorable!  I love my little family!

 

Pintastic

It has come that time of year where I will be heading back to work soon. Last year being my first year on the job, I really didn't have a whole lot of time to decorate my office. This year I am starting early and trying to put my personal touch on it. I want it to feel warm and inviting for the students, so I wanted to use quotes and bright colors. I am a big DIY fan and found a great way to showcase a quote on Pinterest, so I decided to use it. I found the inspiration here.  It was a fun and easy project.

What you will need:

Canvas-  Mine was 16X20

Staple gun

Fabric a little larger than your canvas

Letter stickers

Acrylic paint in your favorite color

Paint brush

A favorite inspirational quote

 

1. Staple your fabric to the cavas.  Make sure it is snug and the corners are flat. 
 

2. Use the letter stickers to put your quote on your fabric covered canvas.  I had some dead space so I used these flower stickers as well. 

3. Paint over the entire cavas, stickers included.  Also paint the edges of the cavas.

4. Let your paint dry.  Once dry, peel the letter sticker up.  The letters will be in the fabric now. I didn't pull up my flower stickers because they were too delicate, so I left them for texture.

There you have it!  Your very own quote wall art.  Some of the paint did bleed up under the stickers, but hey, it shouldn't be perfect :)  This will go in my office next week.

Get Crafty

I am in the thick of summer vacation and loving it, but sometimes I get bored.  Yesterday, I made the decision to tap into my crafty side.  I've been wanting to make a wreath for months now.  First, it was a fall wreath, then spring, and now it's summer and I still have no wreath.  Well gosh darn it, I needed a wreath.  I set out to Pinterest to look for inspiration last week and came up with a vague idea of what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted to incorporate bright colors and handmade rosettes of some sort.  I couldn't decide if I wanted to do a fabric wrapped wreath or a yarn wrapped one.  I ultimately settled on yarn.  I am really thrilled with how it turned out!  I feel so accomplished when I complete a project.

Materials:
Wreath- I got a wrapped straw wreath from AC Moore for less than $3
1 Skein of Yarn
Glue Gun and sticks
Fabric or felt to make your rosettes
Ribbon to use for hanging

How to:
1. Wrap your wreath with the yarn.  It doesn't have to be perfect the first time you go around.  I went back around to cover up holes that I missed the first time.  Make sure you start by gluing the end of the yarn on the back of wreath.  Once you finish, glue the other end down as well.

2. Once your wreath is completely wrapped, begin to make your decorations.  I made fabric and felt rosettes using this Tutorial.  

3. Embelish your wreath.  I chose to put them on the lower "corner" in a cluster, but you can do it any way you want.  Pinterest has a ton of ideas.  You also want to add your ribbon to hang it by.  

4.  Voila!  You have yourself a pretty summery wreath.  

What crafts have you all been doing this summer??

 

DIY Deco Mesh Wreath

 So, as promised in my last post, we finished our wreath!  We bought the basic green wreath from Michaels for a low price of $12.50.  What a steal!  In order to spruce it up a bit we decided to go for the deco poly-mesh.  It is really popular right now and makes a fun and easy DIY project.  

Here's what you need:

• 1 wreath- we bought a large one to go over our mantle.  It has full greenery around it, but you can just buy a frame or one with less greenery

• 1 roll of Deco Poly-Mesh- we bought ours at a local Christmas shop for about $11.  It is red with metallic silver thread through it

That's it!  

Instructions:

1. Start on the outer ring of the wreath.  Pull out a little of the mesh roll, DON'T CUT!  use the greenery on your wreath to secure the end of the mesh.  Simply twist (like a twisty tie) two "branches" of greenery together around the end of the mesh to tie down.  

2. Gather the mesh together/pinch about 6-8 inches down to make a poof and secure with branches again.  

3. Continue to gather these poofs and secure them around the outer edge of the wreath.  

4. When you reach the starting point move to the inner ring of the wreath frame.  Try to position these poofs so that they are between the poofs on the outer ring.  This eliminates whole/gaps in the mesh on the two rings.

5. When you reach the end cut the mesh and twist tie the end down.  

6 TA-DA!  You have a beautiful wreath!  Ours only cost us about $25.

Fa La La La La

We are officially 5 days from Christmas, people, FIVE days.  I can't believe it.  We have been so busy with work and other things that Christmas has snuck up on us a bit this year.   We did decorate our house a few weeks ago.  It was so much fun!  We bought our house in March and this made our house feel new all over again.  I love building a home with Brandon and actually getting to decorate this year.  We put lights outside and of course decorated our tree.  We actually have a mantle this year, so we made the garland to go on top and got to hang our stockings over the fireplace.  We also bought a large wreath at Michael's for 50% off.  We plan to add poly-mesh to it.  It's still a work in progress and I plan on hitting the after-Christmas sales to add to our decoration collection.  Here are some of our decorations.

Poor Piper's stocking is taped to the mantle because it is impossible to find a dog stocking hanger.

On another note, we have also done some other fun Christmas-y things.  My sister and I baked our first batch of Christmas cookies, chocolate cookies with mint M&Ms.  We also had the amazing opportunity to give back this holiday season.  With our E-group at church we adopted a family through an organization called Hope Match.  We went to Target to go shopping together for our sweet family.  We were able to spend $100 on each person and give the family a $100 gift card.  I know they will be blessed through this just as much as we were as we did it.  

 

 What kinds of fun things have you all been doing this Christmas season?

 

Weekend Projects

We have finally set out to begin our home improvement projects.  We have a long list of things we want to get done in order to make our house feel like a home.  This weekend we made an agreement to cross some things off our list.  It feels great to have accomplished some things.  And by we, I mainly mean Brandon.  I am so blessed to have a husband who can handle projects around the house.  I can always rely on him to get it done.  Thanks boo! With that being said...here is what we got done around our house.  

We took down the ugly florescent light in our kitchen.  Thanks to Ikea for a $25 coupon we were able to buy some nice track lighting to up instead.  Brandon pulled down the old light and found a square hole in the ceiling and a couple other small holes.  It's nothing a little spackle and paint won't fix.  I think it looks so much better now.  What a difference a new fixture can make.  

Our Sunday project, after the Panthers game of course was to hang our new mirror and pair of sconces we bought a couple of weeks ago.  We got a stellar deal for the mirror and sconces from Kirkland's Home.  I love the detailing around the frame.  This was another easy fix and it makes a big difference. 

I love checking things off of my to-do list, especially when it involves home improvement!  In other news, I have to throw in some cute pictures of the furbabies. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!