Book print wreath

I've had wreath envy for some time now.  Weird, I know.

I recently visited Paula and was inspired by all of her home decor.  Much of her decor is hand made and so cute.  She was given a book print wreath when she worked at Stampin' Up! and I recall then that I wanted one too.  During our visit I got a closer look and decided I was going to make one.  After I left I looked online and found many examples of book wreaths but none were as cool as Paula's. Good thing I snapped phone pictures of hers...  I referenced them many, many, times.

All you need is a wreath base, an old book, stapler and glue gun. It turned out to be fairly easy and just a little time consuming.  My wreath took about 3 hours.  Here are the steps I took if you are interested in making one too.

1. Find and old book you don't care about destroying.  I found a couple of great old readers digest books at the DI (thrift store). The good thing about the readers digest books is that they were printed on CHEAP paper and so the pages are yellowed as if the book is much older.

2.  Find a wreath (again found at the DI).  Doesn't matter what it looks like because you will cover it completely. Attach ribbon to the wreath. I found this easier to do first than attaching to the back after.

3. Tear out all of the pages in the book. My wreath took over 500 pages.

4. Roll fold each page in an S shape and staple once at the bottom (torn end).

5. Start at the back of the wreath and hot glue each folded page around the wreath. Continue gluing, moving the pages forward until it fills up.

6. Randomly fill in pages to make the wreath look a little less organized.  Look for holes and fill in the holes.

7.  Hang.



I enjoyed this so much that I made a smaller version for Kylene's birthday.  For that wreath I tore out pages and cut them in half, again about 250 pages, 500 sheets once cut - this worked perfect for a smaller wreath (time 1.5 hours).

Next I want to make a burlap wreath...

Halloween Decor - front porch

One person's trash REALLY is another person's treasure...

In September we have fall cleanup around here and folks leave all sorts of random stuff on the side of the road for the dump.  Driving home from carpool I drove past these green urn planters. I made it home and realized that I wanted to reuse them. So I turned around and went back to grab them. There were five, two were broken, but three of them were in great shape, just dirty and faded from sun. I cleaned them up, spray painted them black and incorporated them into our halloween front porch decor.

I've looked at various planters before and even cheap ones can run $10-15 a piece. These are really sturdy and nice. FREE is such a bargain.

I also brought out the snake wreath and some random decor elements. Not too spooky but looking good.

Dining room wall stencil

I've tackled another home decor project.  I borrowed a stencil that a friend had made and set to work on our dining room wall.  The overall design is a french poem.  I wasn't so concerned about what it says and was more interested in the typeface as a design.  I told Chris it's says "housewives are totally awesome and rule the world" in French.

The stencil set was not repeating and had 16 stencils to assemble. Alignment was a little bit tricky.  I had to repeat the 16 stencils four times which required me to pull out my paint brush and hand finish and begin letters.  A level, pencil, painters tape, stipple brush and baby wipes were my most important tools.

Each stencil took 15 minutes to hang, align, paint and remove.  The entire project was about 14 hours over a few days.  I do like how it turned out and that it's somewhat subtle.

Nicholas helped as you can see.  The old cup of water trick worked wonders again...

Gallery Wall - downstairs

The first year we moved into this house I created a gallery wall of family photos heading to our third floor. This wall looks great and makes me smile every time I walk up the stairs.  I wanted to create a similar look heading downstairs into our basement but needed to complete this for little or no money.

Over the last fifteen years we have gathered quite a collection of random picture frames.  Many of which did not get unpacked or put to use when we moved into this house. I decided to hunt down all of these frames to see if I could make something work.  Once gathered I realized we had quite a mish-mash of sizes, textures, finishes and colors and I wanted a clean and somewhat uniform look.  Color seemed the best way to tie all of these together.

As a test I took a few of the crappiest frames and spray painted them black.  The paint covered well and they looked great so I thought I tackle painting all of them.  Running after a toddler only provides me with short intervals of time to work on projects. I have learned I cannot rush or complete projects quickly. It took me a few days to paint all of the frames.  I used a box as my spray booth and finished one to two frames at a time.  When each frame was complete I printed a new photo and reassembled the frame. Each completed frame felt like a little mini project.

Arranging them on the wall was trickier than the upstairs gallery due to all the varying sizes and backings. To get a decent idea of where I wanted each photo hung I cut paper to size and taped it to the wall until I was pleased with the arrangement.  Then I started at the top of the stairs and with a level and clear ruler worked my way down the stairs hanging frame by frame.

I really liked how it turned out and am even more pleased that I was able to reuse and keep it on the cheap. Two cans of black spray paint and some photo paper - wall-a!

Here is just one of the photos I included in the gallery.  This photo of Nicholas makes me laugh.