Floral Carrot Door Hanger

I've had this idea pinned to my Easter Pinterest Board for awhile and finally got around to trying it.  The original creator was Holly @ LovetheTompkins.com.  Here is the link to her door hanger instructions.

 I think hers looks more like a carrot than mine but I used whatever orange and green flowers I could find at the Dollar Tree so I had to go with fuller flowers than the tulips and ferns for the greenery.

 I didn't really follow a "plan" but just tried to cut apart the stems (removing all of the green leaves from the floral pics) and then wired them so they formed a tapered "carrot" shape.

 Since the Dollar Tree didn't have tulips I went with two different types of orange flowers, just pulling, bending and shaping them as I went.

I had a roll of this turquoise tulle so I just used that to make a bow for the door hanger.  The ferns aren't as "fine" as the carrot greenery but I think they convey the idea??

I like how bright it is and its easily seen from the street -- I think it really brightens up my drab door!

Total cost was about 15.00 because I needed enough of the flowers to make the carrot shape.  

Spring is "springing" here in Chicago after the mildest, most snowless winter on record so I feel like we cheated "Old Man Winter" this time around.  Nonetheless -- very happy to see green buds and flowers popping from the ground!

On any given week (depending on how busy I am!) I love to participate in Linky Parties.  These gals put a lot of time and effort into hosting these parties so I always want to show my appreciation by directing my readers to these blogs. 

Monday

Inspiration Mondays

Busy Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Creative Mondays

The Art of Home-Making Mondays

Metamorphosis Monday

Make It Pretty Monday

The DIY Show Off

Inspiration Monday

Show & Share

Let’s Talk Vintage

No Place Like Home

Tuesdays at Our Home

Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Ducks In A Row

Creative Spark

Penny Pinching Party

Thursday

The Homemaking Party

Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

Inspired Creations

Vintage Charm

Transformation Thursday

Friday

Simple and Sweet Friday

Home Sweet Home

Anything Blue Friday

Flaunt It Friday

 

Tea Cup Exchange

I just finished participating for the second time in the Tea Cup Exchange hosted by Stephanie at The Enchanting Rose. Stephanie is one sweet, very talented gal who graciously organizes and hosts these exchanges!  She has hosted nine of these so far (?) and here is information on the next one in September or October. Each participant is paired with another participant to exchange a cup and saucer or mug and whatever delights you want to include.  

My AMAZING gifts came from a new blogger friend, Deb who hosts the blog, Garage Sale Gal and is a woman after my own heart.  She makes beautiful cards, loves antiques (and has two booths where she sells her wares) and is a vintage lover like me.  

My box came FILLED to the brim with surprises!  Layer upon layer of boxes and tissue . . . 

Not only did I get the beautiful tea cup and saucer pictured above but note cards, notepad, stickers, gift tags . . .

 A gorgeous vintage pot holder that TOTALLY goes with my retro kitchen  . . . this beautiful tea bag holder and vintage, embroidered hankie (vintage linens are one of my many passions!)

 You can specify things like favorite colors, favorite tea, your "style" and Deb really went out of her way to fill my box with things I love!  Jasmine is my favorite tea and it came in this lovely tin accompanied by a cute, ceramic bunny.  And more vintage-style gift tags . . .

 Look at this exquisite hand made card!

I felt like it was Christmas morning  . . . the more I dug in the box . . . the more I found including chocolates, a book mark, pretty tulip tissues . . .

 

Be sure to stop over to visit both of these blogs and get lost in all of the ideas, recipes, crafts and more and don't miss out . . . get in on the next exchange!

Closet Make Over

 

This closet is right inside my front door, which is right inside my living room.  My house is small.  And I probably shouldn't be 'doing away' with closet space but I really wanted to add a little bit of 'personality' to the entry. 

 "Before" -- it was just an ugly, plain closet.  I removed the carpet, the molding where the bar was hung, the door and the door hardware.  After lots of patching and sanding and wood filling, I had a clean slate to work with. 

I found this cool, retro-looking wallpaper and put it up, painting the rest of the walls the same creamy, white color that's in the wallpaper.

 I don't have a wall switch here so it was proving to be quite a task to find a pendant light to work in here.  SO, after lots of thinking and thinking at all hours of the night, I decide to spray paint the outlet part (yeah, I missed a spot - it's dark in here with the light off!) and then I INVERTED a small lampshade and screwed the bulb in which holds the shade in place.  I found a replacement chain and 'fob' at the hardware store and added that.

 I didn't have the energy or ambition to BUILD a cute bench in here so after looking around I remembered I had my kids' old TOY BOX down in the basement!  Perfect . . . except it didn't FIT!!  I was so bummed!  But I'm like a dog with a bone when I get an idea SO, I literally 

took the toy box apart, 

removed the molding on the floor of the closet, 

sawed off some of the edges of the box (that don't show any way once it's in place!),

painted, distressed and waxed it then

reassembled it INSIDE the closet.  It was exhausting to say the least . . . but SO worth it!  The nice thing is the lid opens and we can store boots, shoes, etc. in there as well.  I bought 3" foam and covered it for the seat cushion and added the burlap pillow I had made earlier for another project.

I decided to add two shelves (all of these supplies were super cheap discards from my local ReStore.  The wire baskets were a real steal at Big Lots -- Just 8.00 each.  These are perfect for holding seasonal things like gloves, hats, etc. 

 

These are super old cupboard doors from a 100+ year old house that a friend gave me.  The only thing I did to these was patch a few holes and painted the knobs rusty orange.  I love the cracked, worn look so I didn't want to paint them at all.  I purchased the vintage, wire coat hooks from a seller on Ebay -- I definitely wanted something old for these doors.

Did I mention that at first this was going to be a small "office" space for me??  I painted a cute, little desk and chair and made the bulletin board.  It was such a cute, little space.  But then I found out I was going to be working from home and had to create a large office space in my basement.  I couldn't see the need for this little 'nook' now so that's when I decided it would be more functional for us as a little 'mud room'/closet!

I love creating little 'surprises' in my home . . . things that are unexpected, especially in a 1950's ranch home that wasn't built with a lot of 'personality'! What are some ways you've created little (or big) surprises in your home?

Happy-soon-to-be-spring!

On any given week (depending on how busy I am!) I love to participate in Linky Parties.  These gals put a lot of time and effort into hosting these parties so I always want to show my appreciation by directing my readers to these blogs. 

Monday

Inspiration Mondays

Busy Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Creative Mondays

The Art of Home-Making Mondays

Metamorphosis Monday

Make It Pretty Monday

The DIY Show Off

Inspiration Monday

Tuesday

Show & Share

Let’s Talk Vintage

No Place Like Home

Tuesdays at Our Home

Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Ducks In A Row

Creative Spark

Penny Pinching Party

Thursday

The Homemaking Party

Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

Inspired Creations

Vintage Charm

Transformation Thursday

Friday

Simple and Sweet Friday

Home Sweet Home

Anything Blue Friday

Flaunt It Friday

 

Key of David Magnets

It's been awhile since I've had time to post but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!  I've been working on lots of projects and working more hours at my "day job" so there just never seems to be time to post!  I decided since this was a quick project, I would snap a few shots and tell you about it.  These are for the Sunday school teachers I serve with (and probably a few others!).  I didn't want to have to spend money so looking at what I had, this is what I came up with.

 Scrap fence boards, cut to 4" lengths

Scrap booking paper

Old keys

Mod Podge

Screw eyes

Ribbon

Mini High-Power Magnets

 Did you know that in the song, O Come O Come Emmanuel there is this verse that says, "O come, Thou KEY of David, come, and open wide our heavenly home"?  I always thought it was saying KING of David, but nope -- it's KEY!  So it was exactly what I wanted to put on these.  I just printed on with my printer, applied to the board with Mod Podge and sanded to distress the edges.

 I've had this bag of old keys for years and I've used them for all kinds of projects.  I had the little screw in hooks so after putting those in, I simply used some vintage twill tape to tie the keys on.  These could stand on their own or be added to a vignette or as I did, added to the refrigerator with magnets.  I bought the tiny, 1/4" thin, high-power magnets on Ebay.

 Here they are packaged and ready to go.  I used scrap booking paper to make the bags and added little gift tags, embellishments and ribbon.

 Trying to keep Christmas simple this year . . . and so far succeeding!  Less stress, and more time to enjoy the season and focus on the Savior.  I hope you are able to do the same and are enjoying the season . . . it sure does come and go quickly.  What ways are YOU simplifying the season this year?

Peel & Stick Floors -- LOVE!

 Now tell me . . . what's NOT to love about this floor?  I mean, really there's the great looking seam between each tile; the deep gouges and stains; and let's not overlook the beautiful design, pink and blue flowers . . . well I could go on forever.  But instead, I'll share with you this part of my under 500.00 renovation of my kitchen (you can read the whole post here) using peel and stick vinyl floor tiles.  Since I was going with a retro design I wanted black and white which I found at Menard's.  I purchased two boxes of each (48/box) and ended up having just about 15 tiles of each left over.

If I have any advice about this project, it would be first of all about the tools and second of all the layout.  As far as tools go -- it's pretty simple:  A rolling pin, a large cutting board, quilting ruler and rotary cutter.  The rotary cutter cuts clean lines AND curves.  The ruler helps in measuring and giving straight cuts.  The rolling pin helps press the tile (especially the points) down for good adhesion. 

The second piece of advice is to lay out your tiles before you peel and stick, especially if you are doing any type of pattern like I did on the diagonal.  You want to make sure that the edges that will be seen the most do not have tiny, little pieces but nice, large pieces on the edges.

Once I knew where I wanted them to end in either direction and was satisfied with the edges, I THEN found my center tile.  The center tile was NOT in the "center" of the kitchen floor.  That didn't matter -- what was important was that the edges had nice, big pieces.

Cleaning the old floor is essential for good adhesion so be sure you scrub, scrub, scrub and let dry.  We also removed the small piece of molding around the edge of the floor and replaced that with new when we were finished.

I had a little "problem" under the refrigerator where at one time water must have leaked and rotted the flooring.  Dear husband cut out the rotten wood and laid a new piece of wood down.  So that the tiles were level, I had to lay tiles down on the wood FIRST and THEN the new tiles.  Guess what? We STILL had a box of those lovely floral tiles in the basement (pointing out here that WE didn't choose this flooring -- it was in here when we moved in!).  Funny thing, even brand new and shiny -- they were still ugly -- haha!

Ava made sure that no new tiles were damaged by the appliances.  We simply moved them gently onto old rugs and slid them over the new tiles so we could work.

Ava also gave her approval even before I was finished.  We both definitely prefer the new floor!  The whole project took me about 10 hours split between two days.  

What a difference!  The floor has been down for a month now and nothing has come loose, cracked, etc.  I'm SO pleased with how this turned out -- I highly recommend peel and stick if you are on a tight budget but want a new floor.  

On any given week (depending on how busy I am!) I love to participate in Linky Parties.  These gals put a lot of time and effort into hosting these parties so I always want to show my appreciation by directing my readers to these blogs. 

Monday

Inspiration Mondays

Busy Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Creative Mondays

The Art of Home-Making Mondays

Metamorphosis Monday

Make It Pretty Monday

The DIY Show Off

Inspiration Monday

Tuesday

Show & Share

Let’s Talk Vintage

No Place Like Home

Tuesdays at Our Home

Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Ducks In A Row

Creative Spark

Penny Pinching Party

Thursday

The Homemaking Party

Thursday Favorite Things Blog Hop

Inspired Creations

Vintage Charm

Transformation Thursday

Friday

Simple and Sweet Friday

Home Sweet Home

Anything Blue Friday

Flaunt It Friday