So it wasn’t too surprising (in keeping with the Olympics theme and my love for laurel wreath designs) that Liz made a little laurel wreath planter over the weekend. She LOVED the laurel wreath pillow design from Less-than-Perfect Life of Bliss that I shared on Friday and decided to use this as her guide!

Liz found the rectangular planter below on sale from her local craft store…

The only other supplies she needed were some lightweight air dry clay, a stencil, one of Martha Stewart’s silicon clay molds, a bit of paint, and some glue (she used E600).

Liz used the stencil to mold the clay lettering of our house number (making it raised from the planter) and then used the large fern shape from Martha’s silicon mold to create ten laurel wreath leaves.

She positioned the leaves into their arc shapes and let them dry overnight…

Once the leaves and letters were dry she painted them grey and black and then glued them to the planter!

I just love how it turned out!

Hope you had a great Monday :)

-Charlie

P.S. I’ll be linking this post to my friends’ blogs listed below — be sure to check out their link parties (also listed in the Links section on my right sidebar)!

C.R.A.F.T., CraftOManiac, Serendipity and Spice, Under the Table and Dreaming, Boogieboard Cottage, Skip to my Lou, Polly Want a Crafter, Between Naps on the Porch, A Stroll Thru Life, Coastal Charm, Tip Junkie, Ladybug Blessings, The Stories of A2Z, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Todays Creative Blog, Sugar Bee Crafts, Thrifty Decor Chick, Mommy By Day Crafter By Night, Not Just a Housewife, Claiming Our Space, Lil’ Luna, Savvy Southern Style, DIY by Design, Trendy Treehouse, Someday Crafts, Fine Craft Guild, House of Hepworths, Embracing Change, No Minimalist Here, I Gotta Create, The 36th Avenue, The Shabby Creek Cottage, A Little Knick Knack, Tidy Mom, Somewhat Simple, French Country Cottage, Common Ground, At the Picket Fence, My Romantic Home, The Charm of Home, Tatertots and Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Home Maker in Heels, I am Only 1 Woman, Craft Envy, I {heart} Nap Time, The DIY Dreamer

{Sources: A Room for Everyone, My 3 Monsters}

Of course, the laurel wreath decals below would be great for larger displays.

{Sources: Attik 72 via Design Sponge, Tweet Heart}

There are some REALLY elegant laurel wreath stationery options though…

{Sources, clockwise from top left: Stacey Meacham, Toast & Laurel, Invitations by Dawn}

Or other paper products! I LOVE the laurel wreath designs on the library book label, personalized logo, and notebook below.

{Sources, clockwise from left: Nancy Nikko Design, Mulberry Design, An April Idea}

My favorite laurel wreaths are on pillows though :) I love all four pillows below, available for purchase…

{Sources, clockwise from top left: Rustic Country Crafts, Dear Lillie, Three Peas, Bohemiennes}

Or if you’d rather try your own hand at making the pillows, there are a couple of great DIY tutorial options below.

{Sources: Less-Than-Perfect Life of Bliss, Don’t Disturb This Groove}

As for Liz, she likes her laurel wreaths shiny and in jewelry-form :)

{Sources, clockwise from top left: Dani Makes, Jewelrism, Love Your Bling, Dreams by the Sea, Aurora Long, Jewelrism}

Not sure which of the rings, earrings, or necklaces she’d like best — they’re all so sweet!

-Charlie

Liz and Tom think the sunroom was added on to the house at some point and that this used to be where the outdoor fuse box used to rest? Regardless of what it was used for, it just stuck out in comparison to the rest of the brick wall. So Liz was pretty excited to find a few of these Charlotte Lined Wire Baskets from World Market! Only $7.99 for the small-sized baskets, so this little makeover was a steal :)

The baskets weren’t meant to be hung, but they managed to catch pretty well on flat head nails. They ended up filling the space really well — love the before and after!

And one last shot of the whole space… Now we just need to figure out what to store in the baskets :)

Hope you’re having a good start to the week!

-Charlie

P.S. I’ll be linking this post to my friends’ blogs listed below — be sure to check out their link parties (also listed in the Links section on my right sidebar)!

C.R.A.F.T., CraftOManiac, Serendipity and Spice, Under the Table and Dreaming, Boogieboard Cottage, Skip to my Lou, Polly Want a Crafter, Between Naps on the Porch, A Stroll Thru Life, Coastal Charm, Tip Junkie, Ladybug Blessings, The Stories of A2Z, My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Todays Creative Blog, Sugar Bee Crafts, Thrifty Decor Chick, Mommy By Day Crafter By Night, Not Just a Housewife, Claiming Our Space, Lil’ Luna, Savvy Southern Style, DIY by Design, Trendy Treehouse, Someday Crafts, Fine Craft Guild, House of Hepworths, Embracing Change, No Minimalist Here, I Gotta Create, The 36th Avenue, The Shabby Creek Cottage, A Little Knick Knack, Tidy Mom, Somewhat Simple, French Country Cottage, Common Ground, At the Picket Fence, My Romantic Home, The Charm of Home, Tatertots and Jello, Funky Junk Interiors, Home Maker in Heels, I am Only 1 Woman, Craft Envy, I {heart} Nap Time

It definitely won’t ever end up over our fireplace mantle and probably won’t ever get painted blue (although Liz can’t promise this) — it’s such a fun little decoration for one of our bookshelves though!

Hope you’re having a good weekend and are enjoying the Olympics as much as I am!

-Charlie

If you’ll be entertaining anytime in the next two weeks, be sure to check out the amazing Olympics party spreads below…

{Sources: Project Nursery, Hostess with the Mostess, U Create}

I love every single detail from each of these Olympics parties :)

-Charlie

And now… A big congratulations to Julianne, with lucky comment #21!

Julianne, we’ll be in contact by e-mail with your Amazon gift card!

-Charlie

Again, a little bit of silver polish did the trick. I love how the dish looks — so shiny (see Liz and our dining room ceiling in the reflection? Hah!).

I’m not entirely sure what they’re going to do with all this silver though… I LOVE how Antique Chase turned an antique silver butter dish into a succulent planter, although I don’t think ours is quite big enough.

What I REALLY want is a silver orb to use as a vase. The photo below (from La Dolce Vita) is SO sweet.

Hope you’re having a great weekend :)

-Charlie

Now that that’s out of the way (and you’re all entered, of course)… I started this post thinking it would be about painted floors in general. And then I saw the two pictures below on Design Sponge. Holy, lace stenciled floors!

How have I not seen these photos before?! The floor might be the most beautiful floor I’ve ever seen. And in my opinion, this design would look PERFECT in our little sunroom off of the kitchen. The wood floors in the room are already painted an off-white color, so why not add some lace?! If it were up to me, I’d stencil the whole house in lace :)

And anything that couldn’t be stenciled would get actual lace Mod Podged onto it (like Liz’s lace vase)! But I digress…

Anyways, you can read more about the floor stenciling at Design Amour or My Marrakesh. Or go ahead and buy yourself Skylar’s Lace Floral Stencil from Royal Design Studio (also available from Royal Design’s Etsy shop). While you’re there, you may notice that the stencil even looks great in blue. Gah, so cute…

And $149 well spent! You really could use the stencil for anything, not just floors. I love the tutorial from Urban Comfort, using the stencil to create the awesome placemats below with Inkodye.

For another lace stencil option, check out the sweet floor below — created using Blue Door 17′s lace stencil.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

-Charlie

I found an awesome tutorial from Three Boys for reupholstering a chair. The tutorial was really well explained, and the finished product looks amazing!

I THINK Liz and Tom could use the tutorial as a rough guide to refinish our couch, but this may be getting WAY over their heads :)

-Charlie

P.S. Only two more days for our Amazon gift card giveaway!