Ahhh Spring! I am loving every minute.It has been such a mild spring here in the Midwest
and I am not complaining one bit! I’ve gone a little flower happy this year but
who doesn’t enjoy a few more flowers to brighten up their day?
My most recent project was these cute little dollar store
planters. I bought these planters with a
kid’s project in mind but that didn’t really work out as I had planned. I quickly spray painted them and added a
little sisal rope to fancy them up a bit.
Head over to The Power of Paint
for the super simple tutorial. It’s such
a quick and cheap idea to decorate your stoop, deck or wherever, really.
Make these along with the dollar store umbrella planter I previously posted and you can have some beautiful pots to dress up your backyard for super cheap.
Hope you’re
all enjoying the lovely colors this time of year!
Once again time gets away from me and it's been 3 months since I posted. You'll have to bear with me as I started back and work and the weather has finally warmed up. All I want to do is spend time with my family and be outside during my free time. Which leads me to my post for this adorable umbrella planter. Find out how to make your own here at Salt Tree.
I finally finished my stockings! Yay! I'm so happy they are done!
After seeing many ideas floating around the web, I decided to recreate a bunch of different ideas and add my own little inspiration.
The first two, for my husband and I were made from burlap and white satin. I had both the burlap and satin that I was waiting to use so this was perfect!
For my daughter I wanted something a little different but that still matched the whole scheme. This way should our family happen to grow, I can add on and it won't be too difficult to find fabric that matches.
With no pattern, stockings were a little more difficult to make than I had planned. There are some great tutorials out there for free on the web to help you along though. With some time and patience, you can have simple handmade stocking too!
A little hint: For a quicker version, skip the lining and they would be so easy and simple to make!
Being in the Christmas spirit, I have totally taken on Christmas decorating. Usually I put up the tree and a few other things and call it good.
This year I have really been in the mood of transforming our house into a Christmas wonderland. Not really but much more than I ever have tried before.
While looking at Christmas decorating ideas I noticed how much a difference simple pillows make. I didn't want to make a whole set of new pillows just for Christmas so pocket pillow covers were the perfect solution.
If you haven't tried the pocket pillow cover, you should! It is so simple and quick, you'll be making all kinds of covers! Seriously, I have already made some for my daughters room, our basement and now moving to our living room.
Here's what you will need:
Fabric (amount depends on the size of your pillow, I used about a half yard for each)
Pillow or Pillow Form
First, take your pillow and measure the sides. My measurements were one 16" square pillow and one 15" square pillow.
Then you will need to cut your fabric. You will want the width of your cut to be the size of your pillow plus 1" for seem allowance. The length of your fabric should be about 3 1/2 times the size of your pillow.
These are the measurements I ended up with:
17" (16+1) X 56" (16 X 3.5)
16" (15+1) X 52.5" (15X3.5)
Don't get hung up on making sure the length of your fabric is perfect. You just need it to be about 3.5 to 4 times the length of your pillow.
Next fold and press each short edge 4 inches.
Then comes the tricky part, it is a bit hard to explain. You will want your two ends (folded over 4 inches) to overlap in the middle and make your width the size of your pillow. Below my pillow was 16 inches so I played around with it until it lined up nice.
Then simply pin and sew the two open sides.
Now you simply turn your pillow cover right side out using the pocket you created.
And insert your pillow.
Once finished, your pillow will be completely covered.
Such a quick and simple project to add to your Christmas decorating.
If you've been following my blog for awhile you know I've been saving up my glass jars in the hopes of recycling them into something amazing. :)
I was thinking Christmas would be the perfect time to put some of these gems to use. I had been saving quite the collection on top of our fridge.
Here's a couple ideas to inspire you to recycle your glass jars.
First, is my favorite...these apothecary jars. These are all over Pinterest so you're sure to find a tutorial for something similar.
For these, I simply gathered up some wood pieces I had from previous projects (originally from Hobby Lobby) and glued them together. The jar and the lid are simply old spaghetti sauce jars. Paint them in the color of your choice and you have you're very own apothecary jars.
I painted mine brown because I plan to use them year round and fill them with different items depending on the season. For free...these will get lots of use!
Second, a tealight centerpiece. This idea is also all over Pinterest. Simply pour some Epsom salt in a jar and add a candle and you're done. It's a dramatic look for very little work!
Go create some holiday decor of you're own. This year I'm really getting into the Christmas spirit. Not sure what is in the air but I'm loving it! More Christmas ideas to come....
Chalkboard paint...it's a wonder. And even better, it comes in spray paint!
When I learned of this marvelous wonder, I knew it'd be perfect for some revamping to create a memo station.
I recently mentioned that I got rid of all junk drawers in my house. That left a little problem for the kitchen where a quick notepad and pen is often needed and spare keys are occasionally needed.
So, I present to you my new memo station:
I love it. It keeps my life organized and both my husband and I on the same page.
That chalkboard was made from this old pan.
Simply spray painted with chalkboard paint and it is an instant magnetic chalkboard.
If you're wondering about that menu board...check out my post here.
Bookcases are great until all the piles of paper take over and your bookcase ends up to be a giant mess. Or at least this is what I saw when I looked at our bookcase.
Now it is clean and organized thanks to about $10 of boxes from IKEA. IKEA is amazing for organizational items on the cheap. Unfortunately there are none around here. Thankfully I have family that brings me back stuff. :)
Our desk is nice pretty now...
These Flyt files are $1.99 for five. Simply cover them with some scrapbook paper and you have pretty paper storage.
IKEA's Kassett collection is also great for desk storage. These hold all those odds and ends that go along with computers.
And, what about those junk drawers? Mine are ALL GONE! I hate junk drawers. They are just a collection for anything you don't know what to do with (aka junk) and that is why I saw no thank you. Now we have organization....ahhhhh...
Simple and inexpensive changes have a huge impact when organizing your home. I always felt items like these were not necessary or at least not a priority at the moment but I am so in love now. They make all the difference!
As you probably figured, I decided to take a little break from blogging. It all started out by me wanting to reorganize
and clean up my blog. Then things happen
and I got caught up in life. A day
turned into a week and a week turned into a month.
I was overwhelmed and inspired by all the feedback I got
when I took my blog down. I’m so happy
to encourage others to create!
Well, since I’ve been gone, I went on somewhat of a rampage
on my house and decided anything and everything needed to be cleaned and
organized. It’s an ongoing process and
is a bit more work than I had planned; probably another reason blogging was put
on delay. But honestly, all the work is
completely worth it.
Having an organized house puts you at such peace. I will continue this voyage with the hope of
one day having a place for everything…not that necessarily means everything
will be in its place.
I hope to share some of my organizing tips in the next
couple months of course with crafty inspiration mixed in and of course some
Christmas goodness.
For now, let’s enjoy some Halloween craftiness. I realize Halloween is over and these don’t
help much this year but if you’re like me, get started on them now and quite
possibly they will be ready for next Halloween.
I have to have a little disclaimer here…all these ideas came
from Pinterest. If you haven’t checked
it out, you should!
First up, these cute little lanterns. They are made from recycled glass jars I had
been saving up and left over paint.
Which made them free! I hope to
save up some more jars and create a bunch more for next Halloween to light up
our porch windows. Get the tutorial
here.
Next up, pumpkins galore.
These pumpkins are so quick and easy…and you don’t even need a sewing
machine. Although, I’ll admit, I used
mine to speed up the process. I used some lefover fabric so mine are in more neutral colors but they'd be super cute in bright, bold colors too. Find out
how to make your own here.
Finally, our little girl’s Halloween dress. I wanted an outfit for Halloween for our
little stinker but wasn’t really finding anything I liked in the store. Then I came across this free pattern and knew
I could turn it into something perfect for Halloween. It’s such a simple and quick tutorial; I plan
to make a couple more everyday dresses as well.
For this one I just shortened the sleeves, added a bow on the collar and
some ruffles on the bottom. You could do
all kinds of things with this simple pattern.
I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. Can you believe it’s November? The holiday season is upon us!
I’m excited to be back and thank you for all your support!
I've really had a hard time coming up with storage for our little area next to our back door. We use our back door as our main door but unfortunately it does not have much space for storage. This becomes a problem during winter.
On a trip to Ikea, I saw these cool Lidan storage baskets and I thought, I could easily make that! I realize to buy 2, they are only $10 but if I could make them to $2.50 ball of yarn, why not? Plus, I already had the yarn laying around so really I was making them for nothing!
The pattern is very similar to a hat, you just make it much bigger. Next time I would probably double up on yarn to make them a bit sturdier. Since I didn't want to redo all the work I had done, I simply applied some mod podge to the inside of the baskets and that created the sturdiness I was looking for.
They are perfect for the odds and ends that come out during winter, hats, gloves, scarves...
I've recently fallen in love with this look of multiple sized vases in a group lining a shelf.
I thought to myself that could easily be made on your own by painting a bunch of different vases on your own instead of paying tons of money for ceramic ones.
Instead of simply painting the outside of each piece of glass with a sponge brush, thanks to Pinterest, I found an even quicker tutorial here.
It is so simple, just poor some paint in your bottle and swirl away. You wont be able to use them as a true vase with water inside but for me that was perfect. I wanted some to redecorate the top of my kitchen cabinets.
Save up your recyclable glass (milk bottles, spaghetti sauce jars, salsa jars, juice jars, etc.) and you can do this project for practically nothing. If you have paint on hand, it's free!! I used left over acrylic paint for these but once I get some more glassware saved up, I plan on using leftover house paint.
Such a simple project that can create a dramatic look. I love them!
(These were not my first color choices but I wanted to use the paint I already had on hand. The "coral" looks a lot more pinkish than I had planned. Im a sucker for color though, all white wouldn't have looked right to me.)
I've seen similar doily jars on the web lately but all the tutorials I could find were using spray adhesive. I have to say, I'm not a fan of spray adhesive at all. It gets everywhere and gets everything sticky and gross and I find myself cleaning it up for days to follow. So, I was not into the spray adhesive route and decided to attempt a different version. These are so easy to make and all you need is (all currently on hand and this project is $0!):
Doilies (I used old ones from my mom but I would search antique shops)
Recycled Glass Jars (I used spaghetti sauce jars for mine)
Mod Podge
Sponge Brush
Ribbon or Hemp Yarn
Tealight Candles
Sorry I don't have good pictures for this tutorial. I know, I'm not very good at capturing moments throughout my projects. This is so easy though, you don't need them.
1. Peal the label off your glass jar and clean any "gunk" off. This is seriously the hardest step of the whole project.
2. Once you have your clean glass jar, spread a thin layer of mod podge on about 1/3 of the jar. Press your the center of your doily to the area of the jar that you just applied mod podge. Slowly apply more mod podge to the jar where your doily will be attached. Once your whole doily is mod modged to the jar, press all around making sure it adheres.
3. I then applied mod podge all around my glass jar (even where the doily was not attached) in order to make it consistent around the jar. With light shining through once you add the tealight, you will notice where there is or is not mod podge applied. Set your jar aside to dry completely.
4. Once your jar is dry and your doily is attached, add your ribbon or hemp yarn to the the top ring. Embellish with buttons or beads if you like.
