Sugared Lime Spring Wreath DIY

I found this website, Design Seeds, through my sister Katie. Anyway, I need I wanted to make a spring wreath, and when I saw this beautiful color scheme of various limes on Design Seeds that I had my inspiration. I love how bright lime can be, yet in this color scheme, the lime is subtle and serene. Enjoy my wreath tutorial below and my take on these beautiful shades of spring green.

Supplies:

Paper Flowers

Ribbon Scraps in different shades of lime green

Plain Straw Wreath

Muslin or Canvas Scrap 12" long (to hang the wreath with)

White Acrylic Paint

Lace Paper Doilies

1. Paint on polka dots first. I used a cosmetic sponge to make my dots, but if you don't already have a circular sponge, you could easily cut one from a regular sponge.

2. Tie your muslin scrap onto the top of the wreath. Layer your ribbons on one side of the wreath and pin in place. 

3. Hot glue ribbons in place at the top of each ribbon. Add a lace paper doily on top of the ribbons.

4. Glue paper flowers on top of lace doily. Arrange the flowers in an odd number for the most aesthetic appeal. Three or five flowers will look best. 

5. Enjoy your wreath, hang it in the sunshine to greet your spring visitors and enjoy your spring!

Quick and Easy Painted Bunnies

Hello everyone,

It's been awhile. Sometimes I just need to step back. Take a break, breathe, have some "think" time. I've been extremely busy teaching this semester, and doing lots of my own writing as well. For a few weeks, I kept thinking, "I just can't do this blog thing anymore, it's just too much." Now, I think, for the moment, I want to continue. But my posts will be a little less frequent for the time being. Sanity throughout the semester is important. 

This project was a wild goose chase. I had this great idea that I would paint plastic bunnies shiny and gold and use them for crafts this spring. So I go looking for plastic bunnies and couldn't find them anywhere. I checked Target, Hobby Lobby, Michael's, etc, and couldn't find small plastic ones, only plus bunnies. Finally, I found some at Wal-mart, who knew, right? Then I went to paint them with my favorite gold paint, Liquid Leaf, but the bottle had self-sealed and I couldn't open it. I was about to give up on the bunnies when my sister suggested nail polish. Genius! So, the DIY was still on. Enjoy the pics! These cute little bunnies have so many possible projects waiting on them! I decorated a candle (see pic above), but there are so many more DIYs just waiting to happen!

1. Prep: I used white polish to paint over the bright pink and black details.

2. Painting the bunnies took about 2 coats each. I painted them neon yellow, pink, gold, and mint. (My current favorite colors!)

 3. Let them dry between coats!

Recycled Message Vase DIY

I'm happy to share with you today a recycle-themed DIY. There are several photos of vases and jars similar to this going around the internet (but I cannot seem to track down the original source) but mine involves glitter (of course!). I'm recycling an old bottle in this tutorial and giving it a beautiful purpose. See the tutorial below!

Supplies: 

An old bottle

Hot glue gun

Gold Liquid Leaf paint (or any acrylic paint)

Gold Glitter

Glue Stick

Sponge paint brush

1. Using your hot glue gun, write out a word on the bottle. I chose the word "free."

Here's an up close shot of mine: be sure to make your letters with lots of glue (volume) so it stands out against the bottle. Don't forget to rub off the hot glue stringies!

2. Sponge on gold leaf paint. It's really important to use a sponge brush so that the paint doesn't create streaks up and down the bottle. It also covers the hot glue better.

Here's a photo of the finished paint job: I really like the antique-y look gold leaf paint gives it.

3. Rub your glue stick over the word that you've glued on. Be sure to get glue only on your letters!

4. Sprinkle glitter over the glue. Using a paintbrush, brush away excess glitter. Let dry.

5. Fill with flowers and display!

Living Room Makeover

I'm so excited to share pictures of my living room makeover. I painted my couch mint green (one of my favorite colors!!) sewed some new pillows, made new wall art, and incorporated some of previous craft projects. Unfortunately...I managed to delete my "before" pictures. The only one I have to share with you is a photo of my cat asleep on my couch, just so you can see how wild (awful) the cover for this sofa really was. 

Really crazy, huh? Anyway, there were just too many colors in that pattern, it was so overwhelming. I gave my living room a pastel-themed makeover, (pastels are super in right now, aren't they?) mainly coral and mint, gold and silver. See the pics below.

I am in love with the minty-ness of my couch. Plus, it's now much more durable thanks to the paint. In case you're wondering, I mixed regular interior semi-gloss paint with textile medium, which turns regular paint into "fabric paint." It's going to be super easy to keep clean, dirt just wipes right off. I also think that with a solid colored couch, it will be much easier to change trends/designs now. FYI, this is an IKEA Klippan Sofa. 

See how I did the chair restyle here. Want to make your own tribal baskets? See the tutorial here. Confetti art? Tutorial here. Also, keep an eye out for a tutorial on how to make your own geometric art soon!

Adventures in Nail Art Part II: Accent Nails

 Here's a fun and quick way to jazz up your wardrobe: accessorize your nails! This is so much fun to do to match your nails to your outfit or to experiment with nail art in small (one nail!) doses. Enjoy the step-by-step tutorial.

 Here are the colors I used, in case you are wondering: steel gray, metallic gold, and gold glitter of course (my favorite color!).

This is the second part of a series of tutorials in simple nail art. To learn how to make polka dots, see this post! 

Hand Painted Tribal Baskets DIY

I was super excited to do this project from the moment I was inspired by these at the Marion House Book. These are part of my upcoming living room makeover so I dashed over to my local thrift store to pick up some old baskets that would be perfect for a restyle. 

Supplies:

Acrylic Paints

Brushes

Woven Baskets

 1. Choose baskets with fairly solid weaving. If you have too many holes or empty spaces, your paint will leak and/or get very messy.

 2. Choose a color scheme. I l-o-v-e pale mint green, so I paired it with black and white. If you are doing a collection of baskets, they work best when you stick with the same color scheme throughout different patterns. 

3. Choose your patterns. I liked the simplicity of these Native American designs (easy to freehand paint!). I used the "Little Goose" and the "Big Foot" designs.

 4. The key to making these baskets is to paint in layers. Add your background paint first, then build up layers of details. Start simple and paint on the accents last. 

 Want to see more pictures? Here are some photos of how I painted my baskets step-by-step. 

Painted Polka Dots Chair Restyle

This chair is part of my living room makeover. It's an IKEA Poang chair that has been claimed for cat naps by my kitten Sisko. It started out black and I simply painted white polka dots onto it with acrylic paint and a pencil eraser. Note to all who craft with cats: This is a really fascinating project to cats and was interrupted by a flying kitten who landed in the white paint and attempted to leave white paw prints all of my apartment..so be careful :)

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you, and will feature pictures of the whole living room soon! My inspiration for this project was to create an "ombre of polka dots" and I think I succeeded!

-Taylor