Sunday, February 28, 2010

Boxwood Wreath: St. Patty's Day





When I made this boxwood wreath for Christmas last year, little did I know how fun it would be to transform seasonally. For Christmas, I kept it pretty plain and simple...with a handmade monogram and ribbonFor Valentine's, transformed with ribbon, hearts and heart garland...very festive!








...and now for St Patty's Day: clover garland, ribbon and my little handmade lucky clover transforms it once again!







Now I know that turquoise isn't a traditional St.Patty's Day color, but when you try to put all green on a green boxwood wreath, it gets, well: green. Really, really, REALLY green!






I must say that I really love the combination!





Easter next???


Thanks for stopping by! I hope you're inspired!


The Shabby Chic Cottage



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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Lucky Clover

Do you know what 3 wooden heart shapes make?


That's right...a lucky clover!
When I was making my Valentine's Day Heart ornaments, I bought two different sizes of wooden hearts...and ended up using the elongated one for the Valentine's
And it occurred to me that I can use the other heart shape to make a clover!

I had everything on hand
Scrapbooking paper, ribbon, buttons, paint...according to my husband I always have too much stuff seem to have everything on hand...


I like to call it industrious!
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Thanks for stopping by! I hope your inspired! I hope to get a couple more things done...come back soon!





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Thursday, February 25, 2010

A Change of Color

Inspired by Turquoise!
Decisions, decisions....





When I come up with ideas like this, I get a little nervous. Painting a perfectly good home accessory is serious commitment...I sometimes have issues with commitment....I mean I like the red. It's really cute in red. It will look really cute hanging in my kitchen with 4 cute mugs hanging on the pegs...the thing is: I want to see it turquoise.



what's the worst that can happen?


I bought this cute "fresh" sign at Michael's on clearance...I think it was under $3.oo.

I gave it two coats of Krylon's Blue Ocean Breeze in gloss. Can I just say how much I love the spray paint from Krylon...from the smooth flawless finish to the ease of use spray trigger...it's a really great product.








There's no going back now!





These are the colors that are predominate in our kitchen...I love all the shades of blue with the green and grey...I think this is a good commitment!



What I liked about the original sign is the distressed finish. I decided to recreate the black distressing over the blue

The process was quite easy. Using black acrylic craft paint, I hand painted all the nooks and worm holes.

Moving quickly, I washed the entire sign in black wiping it back down with a damp towel.


The pegs had great texture, painting on the black...







Wiping it off to reveal the detail




Around the letters I used a very fine brush and carefully painted around the outer edge. This was the only time consuming part of the project


I am really happy with the final result! I love my crate and barrel mugs hanging on it!


As far as projects go, this is really simple. Just a new paint job really.


I hope you're inspired !


Be sure to visit Donna and Melissa

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Friday, February 19, 2010

Pillow Project



I can't sew. Because of this fact, the following project might be offensive to those of you who can. I have a machine and I can basically {sort of} sew a straight line....but when it comes to entricate design, skill and God help me patterns....it's not pretty.


The other ladies in my family can sew....my grandmother was a seamstress for crying out loud, but along with the cooking gene, I didn't get the sewing gene. dagnabit.


Am I gonna let a little thing like ability stop me? Nooooo....


Like I said I can sew a straight line, and if you can we are golden!!!




I was leisurely strolling through one of my favorite antique shops and someone had an entire rack of discontinued fabric samples for sale. Still very pretty fabrics, just no longer being manufactured, and for 25 cents each, a whole stack-a-roo came home with me.



I thought these two fabrics coordinated very well and then I did that thing that I don't do very well....and things were going pretty, well: good!




I used an old pillow that with three kids {including my husband} had seen better days as a filler...it looked really nice and I only had to rip out 1 seam-those fabric samples are not as straight as they look! It looked awesome! But then I got to looking some more and I put it on the sofa and looked at it again and I decided it didn't look finished. A lot of head tilting went on...So then I {finally} thought about a button..yes that would do the trick!

So I eye-balled it in the center and sewed it on with jute twine {is there nothing you can't do with jute? or is it: is there anything that you can't do with jute. either way jute is awesome!}




I think the jute adds a little more detail




I think I like it! It is certainly better than it was!!!




I think it picks up all the color in the rug too!



Thanks for stopping by! I hope you're inspired!

Visit these ladies to see a lot more!!


Donna

Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special


Kim


Cindy


Susan