Crafts, crafts, and more crafts!

Chicken coop renovations

2013-06-22T12:48:00.002-04:00

So last year my husband built me a chicken coop. We never finished it and it was just a practical thing. A place for the chickens to lay eggs.

However, Pinterest has shown me that a chicken coop does not only have to be practical, it HAS ( yes HAS) to be pretty too.

So my sweet husband offered to work on it this summer and finish it. We are making the pen area bigger for the chickens, we are also going to paint and add some trim to the actual coop.

This is the before picture. Notice hot husband on right :).

Chickens!

2013-06-17T19:03:00.001-04:00

My chickens are getting a chicken coop makeover this week!

We built our chicken coop last spring but we never painted it. Then this spring we realized that the chickens learned out to get out since we never put a door in the pen area. So we are re doing the pen area giving them more room, and yesterday I picked up some red barn paint for the coop! I'm excited!
I will post pictures when it's all done. Maybe I will do a before and after shot!

Coffee Quote DIY

2013-06-11T18:49:00.000-04:00

I have a lot of free time it seems right now. So I'm just working on all the little crafts I have started, or bought material for.

This little craft has been painted for a while, and I was searching for a good coffee quote, but really it does not need to be simpler than this. I say this every morning to kids, husband, and dogs.

I used my Cricut Machine to cut out the vinyl words and painted it a warm yellow to match my kitchen decor.
This is also available for sale on my Etsy page!

DIY Wreath

2013-06-10T18:55:00.002-04:00

So this weekend I convinced the hubby to take a trip up to the mall and visit my favorite store ever: Michael's.
I had a discount coupon so I picked up this wreath, I had the letter A for our last name and I found this little pot with flowers at the dollar store the other day for a dollar so I picked it up.
I cut out all the flowers from the pot and just glued them to the wreath. For the hanger I just cut out a small strip of burlap and ta daa! Nothing too complicated!

Signs for garden -DIY pallets

2013-06-04T20:15:00.002-04:00

Still on the garden subject, I'm trying to make some lawn ornaments on the cheap. I had some left over pallets and I wanted to use them outside.

I will post a picture when it's outside in the garden!

Plant Signs DIY

2013-06-04T20:08:00.003-04:00

Hello! I have not had the time to update my blog with school, work, and my child! I have some crafts that I have worked on, especially for our yard that I will be posting! So look out for them!

I did this one today. My sweet husband built me a planter for my herbs for the deck, (which still needs to be painted) and I thought it would be cute to add a couple of plant signs in fun colors to spice things up! What do you think?

DIY Clothing Rack

2013-02-26T08:03:00.001-05:00

So my daughter has been asking my for princess dresses. If you know me, you know I don't really like them, but I decided to embrace it since it's the first girly thing she has ever shown any interest in. But then I decided I did not like the dresses laying all over the place, so I thought it would be cute to have a place for her to hang them.
I painted a board hot pink, then used a coat of crackle paint and an antique white. Instead of painting the letter, I used my Cricut and just cut them out and mod podged them on. Added three hooks and it's ready to be hung!

Barn Window

2013-02-17T17:01:00.001-05:00

I have finally found a barn window that I love! My hubby put it up for me and now I need to decide if I will put pictures, or use the cricut for some words or just add a wreath for each season!

Decisions, decisions!

Chevron Everywhere!

2013-02-17T16:59:00.001-05:00

I decided to give in the chevron craziness that I have seen on Pinterest (of course) so I wanted to do something for above our bed, since it was still empty.

I had made the Amore sign not so long ago, and I thought it went perfectly with the canvases. I made my own chevron pattern , it's really not that difficult.
I am still thinking if I want to add vinyl words to the canvases or leave them as is!

New desk

2013-02-17T16:57:00.001-05:00

I have been wanting a new desk, since the one I bought from Target was just too small for me! So of course, after searching Pinterest, I decided that instead of paying lots of money for one, the hubby could build one for me!
Since I am slowly changing the color of my furniture in the house to the two tone shown in this picture, of course we decided to use antique white and stain the top part and do the same thing with the shelf we put on top.

I think it came out really well!

Eat Sign, new spot!

2013-02-10T15:52:00.001-05:00

I have seen these signs a lot on Pinterest, so I decided to make one for my kitchen. The spot above my baker's rack was empty so it was a perfect fit!

I am very pleased how it came out!

"EAT" Sign

2013-02-03T17:23:00.001-05:00

Laundry Sign

2013-01-26T09:55:00.003-05:00

Burlap "Love" Banner

2013-01-26T09:53:00.001-05:00

Just in time for Valentine's Day!

Another owl canvas

2012-07-19T17:08:00.000-04:00

This is another canvas that I made! I like the contrast of the vanilla color in the background! :)

DIY owl canvas

2012-06-25T15:26:00.000-04:00

I have been eyeing the owl canvas at Target for a while now, for my daughter's room. The owls seem to be in right now and we fell for it too. I have done several little project for the theme without buying much made items... And this is one I did not want to pay an arm and a leg for! I saw a blog on pinterest, and she had the template for the owls, so I went to work and I must say it was fun! I'm looking forward to making a few more.

I started with a plain canvas that I bought on sale from Joann's :

I decided to paint it rather than covering it with scrapbook paper, much easier and I love painting. Here is a pic of the color , half way painted :

After it dried for several hours, I started to pick the patterns for my owl, I had pretty scrapbook paper from a pack and since my daughter's room is pink and blue, I tried to match it and here is some of the colors :

After cutting the outlines, I traced it all on the scrapbook paper and set it up before I actually started to glue it all together with Mod Podge:

I then used a few layers of Mod Podge and let it dry before trying to hang it in her room. Here is the final result! It looks great and now I will work on two smaller canvases that I also bought on sale to put on the sides of this one with cute little birds!

I hope you enjoy it!

Wood Blocks

2012-06-19T20:06:00.001-04:00

I have an obsession with saving anything that could be used for anything lately and it really is against everything I have ever believed in! I used to hate clutter and I never keep boxes for more than 10 minutes or anything else.
Well since I have started crafting more and spending hours and hours on Pinterest, I have decided that everything has an ulterior use in our home. My husband says I've hit rock bottom when I saved a pickle jar! We all know how many uses we have for jars! Anyway this brings me to this new project that I did today using scraps of wood we had left over from our work bench in the basement.
I hope you enjoy it!

Started out with wood blocks, I sanded them down and made the corners just a little smooth and round.. not too much!

I used a foam brush, some black acrylic paint and painted the 4 sides, don't worry about getting some on the front, it will be covered anyway.

Then I used some scrapbook paper from a pack so it was all color coordinated. I then used my x-acto knife to trim the extra paper. Make sure to have a sharp blade so the paper doesn't rip!

I used my beloved Cricut to cut out the word Home in a pretty orange that matches my living room just right.
These are the words still not glued yet :

I used Mod Podge to glue them down and this is what it looks like now:

I'm still debating if I want to screw some nails and use black ribbon to hang it on the wall or leave them in a shelf like this... but either way I think it works well and it was very very cheap to make!

Another DIY Frame

2012-06-18T12:50:00.003-04:00

I found some cheap (.59) frames at the Goodwill store still wrapped and I thought they had a cute look to them and I could totally do something to embellish them.

Well one of them I turned into art for our bedroom :

I have a post just below on how I did this one.

Then I decided it was time to start some projects for my niece's first birthday which is coming up in Septbemer. I live far from her so I don't get to shower her with gifts often so I want to make sure to have enough things to bring her , and actually my very handy hubby will be making a toy box so that we can stuff it with all sorts of goodies..
Anyway I do not have pictures for this DIY but it was very simple, I painted it pink, used my new cricut to cut out her name from cardstock, and then I had this little wooden owl that I had found at Walmart and I just decorated it a bit and this is what it all looks like:

What do you guys think?

Another frame covered with paper

2012-06-18T12:46:00.002-04:00

These are addicting! I've actually decided to do a wall in my living room with all my covered frames from Michael's.

Here is a picture of another one I just finished with different paper from the same coordinated pack!

picture frame DIY

2012-06-14T17:06:00.002-04:00

I saw this on Pinterest somewhere, and I thought it was a neat and easy DIY. So here is my spin on it! :)

I started with a plain frame from Michael's.

I painted the outside of it with some acrylic paint diluted in water, and I used a sponge to get it to the right color and texture I wanted.

I picked some pretty scrapbook paper and drew the frame with a pencil lightly and cut out the frame .

After my paint was dried, I used Mod podge, a light coat all over the front of the frame and then applied the paper that I had cut out, I made sure to smooth out the paper so that there weren't any bubbles or bumps on it. With my x-acto knife I made sure to trim out the edges if there was paper sticking out.
I also used some more of the paint and gave a little more paint on the edges to give it that antique look.
Final result:

Old chair, new look

2012-06-11T22:27:00.000-04:00

I found this old chair at the antique store and gave it a coat of black paint, only one coat to give it that dark cherry look to it and then painted the engraved flower with an accent color that matches my bedroom.

Here it is in my bedroom with the "Relax" sign I just finished painting as well! I think it looks lovely!

Decorate letters

2012-06-11T17:53:00.001-04:00

I started with a cardboard letter that I found in the clearance isle at our local grocery store.

I traced out the letter from scrapbook paper, pink for the outside and blue for the inside since Isabella's room is pink and blue!

Then I went to work with my favorite thing. Mod Podge. I used a sponge and carefully glued all the pieces to the cardboard letter.

This is what it looks like half way through my gluing work.

After it was completely dried, I glued some cute little buttons and a bow with my glue gun on the side.

Here is a close up of the buttons. The only thing left was to trim some of the paper that was sticking out with my x-acto knife!

various DIY

2012-06-11T16:54:00.001-04:00

This was a chair that I found at a garage sale, I spray painted red for our living room!

I made this out of shutters and some shelves! I found the shutters at an antique store so they were cheaper and recycled! It took several coats to achieve the red but I love how it turned out!

I always have left over wood as my husband is constantly doing projects around the house so I found these letters that spelled Memories at the Goodwill for 59 cents so I painted them to match my decor and glued them to the wood board!

I had my husband shape this curvy so that I could paint the flag on it! Love it!

Keep calm and craft on

2012-06-11T15:00:00.003-04:00

I know there are so many of these "keep calm" posters out there but what kind of crafting blog would it be without it? I do have this printed and posted in my craft room which is still a work in progress. I will post pictures of what I have done so far later :)

2012-06-11T14:29:00.001-04:00

Hello everyone! This is my first time blogging so please be kind and understanding as I figure out the ropes!
I am constantly working on crafts and cooking delicious meals and taking lots of pictures of them. I usually post them on my Facebook page but I thought it would be fun to start a blog and hopefully have tutorials for all the crafts I have worked on and will work on.

My "specialty" is finding old furniture and giving it a new life. I love painting, love working with wood. I also spend a lot of time cooking and finding new recipes to share with my family so from time to time I will post those as well!

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog!