If you get bored tonight...

Here is a little idea I stole from ALL over the blog world. Where it originated I have no idea.  I have seen these twine wrapped bottles so many times; I finally just made them one night because I was bored with the TV. I used my 99 cent store twine, and some different shaped wine bottles I had used. Its usually not too hard to collect empty wine bottles around here. ;)    I did this about 2 months ago. Better late then never I guess.


I had saved this small port bottle because I wanted to use it as a flower vase. But the contrasting size was needed, so I stole it from my vase stash. I only took pictures of making the small one, but its not like this is rocket science. It is however, a little time consuming when you are wrapping and wrapping and more wrapping. I just sat on the couch and watched whatever was on while I got my fingers all gluey. Gluey...? Someone should add that to the dictionary, it sounds nice.

Just apply glue in sections of the bottle then start working your way up towards the neck.

The "hardest" part is wrapping it around the neck where it begins to get smaller. The twine seems to want to travel upward and leave big gaps. Mine are is no way perfect, but who cares... this is twine wrapped trash were talkin' about here!

Then I cut some of the "fuzzies" off.

And put them in my china cabinet...

Crafty Can

I received a couple emails about my "No. 5" kitchen utensil can. One reader, Laura, guessed it! It was just a coffee can with burlap and paint. Cheapest craft I've ever done, since I already had everything laying around. This old coffee can sat in my backyard full of clothes pins, until one day when I busted out the burlap and glue gun.

I loosely stole the idea from these Pottery Barn cans...

Pottery Barn

I cut out a burlap scrap with 5 extra inces for the bottom and inside....

Applied hot glue to a section of the can....

Once the sides were complete, I pleated the bottom and glued it to the can.

I did the same inside, with less pleating.

Then I used tracing paper to copy a the "No. 5" that I wrote up on a Word document. I just messed with the size and font until I found what I liked. Then I traced in onto some black craft paper that I had and cut out the stencil with an exacto knife.

I taped the home-made stencil onto the can and painted in on with some 99 cent acrylic craft paint. Thats it folks. Easy Peasy.

This has been linked to...

DIY Spring Wreath

I was inspired by all of the cute wreaths I've been seeing out there. Since everyone is getting ready for spring, the pinecones are coming down and the flowers are coming out. I'm not a huge fan of fake flowers so I decided to go with a Mossy wreath. I stole the idea to put our last name intial in the middle from Morning T's wreath which you can see here on her house tour.

I started with a grape vine wreath from Michaels, and a $4 bag of moss. I just grabbed clumps of moss and starting hot glueing them to the wreath. I filled in all the wholes until it was comlete.

You can buy the letters at Michaels, I spray painted mine black then glued it to the moss. 

I purchased a mini nest, and glued some little eggs in it, and then just stuck the blue bird right in the moss. Ta Da. Easy but a tad messy from all the dirt falling off the moss when your glueing it. Make sure you use a table cloth that can get dirty.

Before & After: Frame turned Memo Board

While flipping through the Wisteria Catalog, I saw this bad boy and thought, "So Easy To Make!". Instead of spending $39 on a little one, I made my own.

When we moved into the house, there was a few old frames left in the garage (along with a lot of other random things). I used on of the largest frames for this.

It was super dusty and gross, so I cleaned it up then taped it off. There is a cream stripe through the middle of the frame, and I wanted to keep that, so I did two seperate "tapings" so I could spray paint from both sides of the stripe.

 

  

 Once the paint was completely dry, I brought it inside, turned on the hot glue gun and grabbed my 99 cent store twine.

  

  I cut up five pieces of twine.I glued one end of each piece to one side of the back of the frame.

Once the left side was all dry, I glued each opposite end of twine to the right side of the back of the frame. I did it this way for a reason. I was able to keep the twine much more taunt when one end was already glued into place. I could pull it tight while the glue dried. If it is not taunt enough it will droop when you hang things to it.

 

 Then I just put a bunch of clothes pins to it, and hung it in my kitchen. It holds a few photos and lots of "inspiration images".

I also hung my home-made apron that I sewed a couple years ago. I love it, and it matches my kitchen actaully. It is usually hidden away in a drawer, but now I have a place to hang it. 

 

 

  

 

While I was taking these photos, I was also in the middle of emptying my dishwasher. I left the door of it open, and forgot. I had my eye in the camera, and backed up right over it. I fell over backwards, lost my slippers, dropped the camera, and landed on a pile of knifes. Luckily I, as well as my dishwasher & camera was not hurt. I was lying on the ground cracking up at my clumbsiness.

 

  

 

What's Black & White and READ all over?

Answer:  My new diy book wreaths!

Okay, bad joke. 

Click here for an update to this post. I have altered my wreaths a bit!!! Much better now. 

  

I have been eying these book wreaths all over the net. They are made out of book pages. They feel like they would be a display in Anthrpologie, so of course I loved them. Once I realized how easy they are to make, I was on it like white on rice. The two I loved the most were from The Shabby Nest and My Pink Life

 

The Shabby Nest

My Pink Life

After completing (not one, not two, but THREE wreaths) I still like their's better. Mine came out too round. Okay, that sounds crazy that a wreath is round and I don't like it that way, but look back at the photos above. They are not a perfect circle, I see a bit of jaggedness. That non- perfect circle is what drew me in. Maybe I will make some new ones and give mine away. Anyways, enough of my blabbering. Here is how I made my wreaths:

I started with a regular ol' book. Wait... let me back up a minute and tell a quick story. I kind of got in trouble with this book. See, I have this pile of books that I am giving away to Goodwill. Well Ryan must not have known that this was a "give-a-way" pile because he came home with some books that our friends gave him. (Sorry Matt & Sam, but that means you.) He set them in this pile. So naturally I went to get a book out of my "getting rid of pile". There was a book about the symbolism of a dollar bill. The pages looked really cool, there was some black and white images and a cool boarder aorund each page. I thought it would be great for a wreath. Since it was in the no longer being used pile, I tore it up and used it. When I finished it, he asked what book this wreath was made from. Whooops... I guess that one was suppose to be a keeper. He gave me a little bit of a hard time until I told him I would go check it out from the Library for him. Problem solved. 

Moral of the Story: make sure you definitely have a book that can be torn up, and then double check!

I painted the edges with some brown paint. I read to do that somewhere, but I don't think this step is nessasary at all! I only did this to my first wreath and skipped the paint for the others.

  

 Then I tore out a bunch of pages as close to the spine as I could. I rolled them in cone shapes, and put a bit of hot glue on each.

 

 For my first wreath I purchased a wooden wreath base from Michaels for $1.99. For my other two I just cut out a circle with a hole in the middle of it. I used thick craft paper that I had around, and traced the circles with a dinner plate, and a salad plate.

  

 Wine was an important step in this process! Sip, glue, sip glue, glue glue, sip, sip. It goes much better this way.

Above, you can see another wreath that I was working on that night. I'll show you that soon. 

Once I had the base of paper cones, I just kept on glueing them on to fill any holes. I did about 3 layers. 

Here is my first wreath (my favorite because of the images, and boarders on the pages). I hung it on my kitchen door. The door that has still not been painted white, just primed (over really old oil based paint). 

  

  

  

  

Since my other two were going to be be near each other I used the same book, a book with more pages. I had two copies of Pride & Prejudice, so there was my answer. Jane Austin became a wreath, or two. I added some purple ribbon and hung them from two old windows that came from my parents rental property when they had new windows put in. I hung the windows on each side of the fireplace a while ago, but they just looked so plain. I think this is exactly what they needed.

.