DIY Christmas Candles

This year I'm trying to be good and stick to a budget on decorations. Last year we spent the extra monthly fund on a tree and stuff we needed for the house, this year I'm seeing how much I can make on my own. 

These one here is another Dollar Tree Win! I bought 2 packs of small bells (comes with 9) and 4 tall white candles in jars. Had some extra hemp laying around the house cause I'm always doing something with it and a hot glue gun. 

First parts, tying the tiny stings to the bells and making them ornaments, if I were to this this again I would just buy those hooks they sell for ornament hanging. 

Took all 18 and placed them on a dowel outside and spray painted them with the bronze looking color. 

I'm in love with Hammered Metal Dpray Paint by the way. I use the black on everything (look back to my lamp revamp post to see it there too) Aftet the bronze dried u stepped back and lightly sprayed black on top to give it a more rusty look.

There were pretty of tutorials that shows your how to rust them but I didn't want to deal with the chemicals or really wait for it and this gave me the desired color and finish.

While waiting for those to dry I went upstairs and started wrapping hemp around the candles and securing the end with hot glue. 

I wanted to add alittle more Christmas to these so I ran across the street and trimmed some branches of some really overgrown tree. 

Cut alittle here and then alittle there and glued the ends to the hemp. 

Then I glued the bells and just wrapped a tiny bit more hemp around the top to hide the glue. I think they are awesome. Came out with super rustic Christmas vibes! 👍🏼 goal achieved. 

(Will post finished project soon, got dark when I was making these) 

DIY Gourd Birdhouse

Okay, today I'm cleaning up some old gourds from my friend garden from last years crop. You really have to let gourds dry out before you start working with them. 

And FIY some will look like they have some rot to them but it's just there colors, others are rotten, just gently push againsts the discoloration with your finger, it's it's soft and bends inward alittle it has already started, you can still use these, some I put the hole the the entrance of the birdhouse. 

First we're going to wash them, this helps loosen up that dry outer skin that's going to need to come off. 

Then I used some of Billy's medium grit sand paper and these sponges I found from the dollar store. I love these sponges they work great and have a nice nail guard and grip on them. 

Most of it comes right off with the green part of the sponge. I had to alternate scrubbing and spraying it with the hose here and there do get chunks of skin off. 

And now we sand down the rough spots and the extra hard parts of the skin that wouldn't come off with the sponge. 

So naturally pretty, I couldn't imagine sanding them. 

Here I missed taking a few pictures. I took a screw gun and I don't know what it's called but I attacked the head to it that drills whole. This is using a 1 inch diameter drill. Then using just a normal drill bit. Drilled a whole underneath the big one for the perch and then drilled a few on the bottom for water drainage. Also one of the top and strung zip ties through them. 

Here I used three different colors of wood polish and used a cloth to rub it in. You can use stain which I would probably recpmmend using but this is what I had at my house at the moment and was impatient and wanted to finish these that night. 

I let them dry for about 3 days. And let the polish rely soak in. Even after a few days thru still feel greasy to the touch but I just wiped them down with paper towels. 

Took them out side and hung them up using hemp.  

I love them, I feel like I couldn't hang enough of them. 

We had a branch fall on the corner of the fence last year but when we went to move it in the spring it stayed strong and grew so we left it. It process a cute shaded corner anyways! 

Please note it can take a few years for birds to take to any type of bird house. Leave hair from you comb and strings out on your branches or fences to let them pick and play with it and help encourage best building. 

Revamped Lamps

THESE BEAUTIES!!! Have been sitting in our house collecting dust! They are ugly in every sense of the word! These were given to my mother in-law after we moved out by her mother, and she just though they were so ugly she'd give them to me and she'll just buy knew ones.... Fucking awesome! Now I'm stuck with the ugly lamps and grandma knows it, so now I have to keep them until she kicks the bucket. Well a year goes buy and I just felt it was time, I have extra spray paint and some nice weather, let's do this!

Look at these!! Hideous! And thank god the texture was on the inside because I'm just not sure how these would have looked. 

So here I just hit it with some thin layers of Hammered Metal spray paint by Rustolium that I had used on a lamp a few weeks ago, give it skittle texture. And it's kind of a semi matte look which I kinda liked. 

Added just a thin layer of just your average black spray paint from Rustolium and let that dry. 

There! Looks a little bit better, right? Half way there, now those lamp shades. I was planning on getting some new ones but I had some hemp in front of me so I thought, hmmm well worst comes to worst I'll buy new ones like I was planning on anyways. 

And I gotta say, I'm pretty happy with the results! So much better then that ugly purple mess! 

Any questions feel free to ask! 

Front Yard 2014

I'm going to have to go back onto my computer to see if I can find photos of what the front looked like before Billy started ripping it up, but it'll try describing a bit of it. About where we have the giant "M" there was an UGLY 3/4 dead hydrangea and I hate them, dead of not, I just think it's a stupid plant. Has no shape, blooms for like two days and then it just looks rotten. We think it mainly died because the way the previous owner shoveled snow off the deck. So billy went at it. 

The giant "M" was given to me by a girl friend for my birthday. She didn't realize just how big it was when she bought it online from Home Goods. It's made from steel too. I bet it was funny watching guys try to fit it in her tiny little car. 

Here billy got all fancy with his edge work. We found a bunch of bricks along side the driveway that just looked dumb and reused those. I think my husbands going to turn into a hoarder.he won't throw scraps away cause he thinks he can use them later... Also this is the first time I've ever really seen him be handy... But shhh don't tell him that! 

Looks real good though! His OCD kicks in hardcore and he'll be out here for hours making sure every brick is perfect. 

Fancy fancy. We added a solar powered spot light to it with makes it look pretty rad at night. 

Don't mind me, just taking a breather! 

And now... We must remove the lily's!!! I love lily's but... Not when they are this out of control. 

Little Bit Of Color

Well it's only like week 2 of living in the new house and the first thing we really decided to make our own was the front of the house. We've been exploring our local Lowes and Home Depot quite frequently and I ended up stumbling upon these guys. 

 

We love oranges and reds so these were just a no brainer. These are Dahlias and Lillies. I have never had Dahlias before so was a little skeptical, on top of that I had never really had flowers that I needed to care for so this expierience is all very new to me.

We have these two cement pillars on both sides of our stairs which are pretty cool. The lady that lived here prior to our move had them filled with rocks, weeds and a huge mailbox!

Aren't these just full of cool colors, I'm kinda just happy to really plant my own flowers, just hoping I can actually keep them growing and not kill them.

I went throw more then half an extra large bag of potting soil, turns out these boxes were super deep. Was not expecting that, but at the same time when it rains it will hold a lot of moisture so I don't have to worry about them. It getting enough water or having to run out everyday to water them. 

There is just a bunch of cool colors in these, that are all a little different, some. Some more yellow, some more more red, then they meet in the middle with some orange.

These guys... Bit of a pain, I LOVE Lillies, they are my favorite flower, in fact we used these exact kind for our wedding, but lillies suck for the pure fact of them only really living for like 2 weeks, and seeing as they are already in bloom when purchased I only got about 6 days out of them, so for now I just sat them in their containers on my stairs for a bit of color and then transferred them later to be along side the driveway. I probably would not have purchased these if I really had a minute to put thought into it BUT they will look pretty cool next year when he blossom.

We also snagged a new mail box and this cute sign from the local craft fair :)

EDIT // 

So it's now the end of August and I just wanted to post a picture of how my dahlias are doing. They aren't just 4 flitted flowers anymore.  

This side is a little bit kore sad, I have a few chipmunks living under the porch, and they decided they wanted to eat some of my flowers. 

I have actually done little to no maintenance on these wich is nice, it's busy season at our family restaurant so I just don't have the time. I WILL definitely buy more of these next year because they are just so pretty and awesome. 

DIY Scrabble Tile Coasters

Well let's start with a game called Scrabble. For this project, I ended up using two game boards. One was really old and from my in-laws and the other one I unfortunately had to purchase. If you had more time to hunt, ask around! I guarantee you most of your friends and family have an old board laying around, even if it's missing a few letters it's better then buying them. Also these games are little pricier now adays. 

So I just started off by laying out some letters, I looked on Pinterest and looked up a couple of word ideas and then made up a few on my own. You could totally make these bigger if you wanted to. 

Next was cork board, I went to Lowes and got a 4 pack of 12x12 cork board sheets. These were pretty hard to find actually. So when looking, look in the section where you would buy collage dorm room stuff. I was originally looking for just a cheap roll but I couldn't spot any and actually had to go to two stores just to find this stuff. 

Get good glue! I've used this glue on so many projects, from jewelry making, to cork board coasters!

Sharpen your exacto knifes, it'll make this go way smoother so you don't have those weird cork chunks and flakes. 

Unfortunately, I need just a few more letters to complete my set, they don't have you to many M's, but here's mine. Endless possibilities for lettering.

So grab some cardboard or an old shirt and bring these guys outside. Time to Shellac! I probably did about 3 or 4 coats, they seemed to absorb quickly. 

 

And tadaa!! I'll figure out how rotate this picture in later but you all get the idea! 

Tag me in your cork coaster designs! 

Much Needed Storage

Yesterday we kinda realized we couldn't unpack much more until we had more storage space. That was the only downfall to this house is we did loose closet space. So we went on an adventure to Home Depot, The Dollar Tree and Walmart. 

Our cart at both walmart and Home Depot were full before we actually started grabbing things on our list. Needless to say most of yesterday was not in out budget. 

We needed some sort of small table to put Sadiea dog treats on to give to when she comes back in from doin her business. This was an under 20 dollar Walmart buy. 

We snagged a swifter bookshelf, that was a bit taller then we thought it was going to be and we swapped that out with a tiny dinky one I had my printer on. They don't match but my OCD can handle this one for right now. This was an under $25 dollar buy at Walmart. 

 

Then there is this tall boy. It actually held a lot more then expected which is great cause it eliminated to tiny ones we had that we can now use in our bedroom.