craft it: a merry little banner

I have been seriously M.I.A. lately.  I'd like to take this opportunity to blame said absence on my dear husband.  See, Josh got an iphone about a month ago and since then he's been posting pictures of our fab life all over facebook and instagram.  I feel like everything I'd like to put on the blog has already been scooped by Josh.

I vow to do better about posting  though.  Because really, who wants to live via Instagram or Facebook anyways?  Exactly.

So, here's a little banner craft to get your creative juices flowing this dreary Wednesday.  You can use this craft to decorate a door, mirror, hallway or even use it to tie on top of a gift.  You can follow the tutorial HERE that I posted when I made the "give thanks" banner earlier this fall.

My office at work was in need of some serious holiday cheer.  Here's a few places I tried out the banner (excuse the poor photo quality, left camera at home and had to take pics on my cell!)

who needs curtains when you have a sweet banner?!

reminding me to be merry before going into work

a banner over a painting?  perfection!

And how could this banner making get any easier??  Click HERE and HERE and you can download PDFs of my banner to print out yourself.  I aim to please!

craft it: homemade trellis

I got Josh to craft with me! The key to getting the hubs involved: outdoor crafting. We bought and planted some Carolina Jasmine earlier this year. We used a trellis that we already owned, but knew that it wouldn't be large enough in the end. The Jasmine we bought is trailing; and trailing it was....it was starting to get a bit out of control. 

Here's a shot of the front of out house.

We planted the Jasmine in between the garage windows.

 See how sad it looks on the too-small-trellis?

The plan was to drill into the mortar and created a wire trellis running in-between the windows.  Josh picked up some garden wire at our local hardware store and that was the only cost for this project (about $5.) 

 Here's Josh using a masonry bit to drill into the mortar.  This is manly crafting for sure.

We ran the wire in a giant "X" pattern and then wove the Jasmine through.

Here are a few "after" shots:

And here are some shots at dusk:

Doesn't it look so much better?!

craft it: banner/mantle makeover

As the chiller weather has been approaching, I've been wearing more jackets and evening donning my slippers (only around the house, don't worry.)  It has made me think about this winter and warm fires and snuggles with the hubs.  Josh did a wonderful job installing this sliding doors on out over-the-fireplace-tv-nook, but the area is still feeling a little naked.  See what I mean?

 I bought several succulents (because I can't keep real plants alive) from Lowes a couple of glass vases from Anthropologie (not exactly cheap, but perfect for the space!)

But I still felt like the space needing something more.  And this is where Chelsea comes in.

My friend Chelsea is the queen of banners.  I try to copy a lot of what she does, and this is no exception.  Thanks Chelsea for still being my friend even though I copy you all.the.time.

Here's what you need for this little banner session:

1) banner paper (i used an old dictionary, because it was free)

2) sharpie

3) scissors

4) tape

5) remote control. i had to catch up on gossip girl.  yes, there is a 16 year old girl hiding inside this 28 year old mom. yikes.

If you have cute handwriting like Chelsea than you can go ahead and free-hand your letter.  I, on the other hand, printed off letters and then traced them using a lamp:

Josh was reading from 1 Corinthians the other day and it got us talking about we want to give thanks more often.  I thought putting it on the banner would put it front and center in the house:

 

I didn't know how to separate the words "give" and "thanks", so I just whipped up a coffee-filter and dictionary-page flower.  I just folded about 12 filters and 9 dictionary page circle cut-outs together and stuck a brad through them.  Easy peasy. 

 

One last look.  

Now doesn't that mantle look fresh?

craft it: monogram it!

I recently received these vintage kitchen towels from my friend Marywinn and this dress for Elliot from my mom.  They were both super cute....but definitely needed a little extra sass. 

I wasn't quite sure what to do to them.  applique? screen print? my crafty brain was stumped!  So I took them uptown and had our local monogramming lady work her magic!

I like that the monogramming lady used a number on the dish towels.  I told her that I wanted something a little different than the normal "married couple monogram" look.  I also think she did a great job on Elliot's dress!  I wanted a little less "girly" monogram and Chelsea suggested getting it done in gray and I loved the idea--of course Chelsea would have the best eye for that, have you checked out her blog??  She's styled my entire closet for me (it was like a what-not-to-wear marathon) and she always has the most  unique ideas.

So a sneaky little crafty lesson....when in doubt, have someone else do the planning and the doing of a craft.  I guess I just "managed" this craft.  Oh well, that's the life of a crafting mama...sometime you feel the urge to craft but have neither the time nor the ideas.  Hahahaha. 

craft it: jewelry display

I have some super fun pieces of jewelry.  Some were gifts from my sweet sisters and friends.  Some were impulsively purchased while others caught my eye for a while before I indulged.  But the results were always the same: a big ole dusty mess on top of my dresser:

The site is anything but inspiring folks.  I ended up just wearing my wedding bands and the same necklace every day.  I love my wedding bands and the silver everyday necklace, but I wanted my jewelry to speak to my fun personality....because all my wear-the-same-darn-thing-every-stinking-day look was saying about me was that I was boring.  And I'm not.  Trust me.  I really quite fun.  Really!

Anyways, back to the issue at hand.  I scoured Pinterest for ideas but couldn't find any that were really "me."  I felt like the whole frame-backed-with-chicken-wire was great, but a little over done.  And, as you can see in the picture above, I was trying the whole jewelry-tree idea----but was really going to need a jewelry-forest to get the problem fixed.

In walked inspiration:  a $1 bin of old cabinet inlays at a yard sale!

I had some off-white paint in the garage.  I wasn't even sure if the paint would be good...but I figured that the cabinet inlays were only $1, so I wasn't really ready to splurge on new paint.

The inlays cleaned up pretty good!  After arranging the panels in the order I thought I'd hang them on the wall, I added hangers to the back

 Next I used a little rub-n-buff to add a little interest to the panels

 You always need an assistant while crafting.  How cute is mine?!?!

 Yikes.  Its looks like I got a little to interested in my assistant and didn't quite see the mess I was making!  Word to the wise---rub-n-buff dries QUICK! 

 Fortunately, it covers pretty well too!  Here's a look at the edges

 Next up: drilling pilot holes for my hooks.  I covered the area with painters tape to reduce wood splitage and paint chipage.  Yep, made up two words right there.  You can do that with a blog.

 Now I had to find a spot to hang them up!  This is the wall our bed faces.  The door on the left is the door to the bathroom and the door on the right is the door to the hallway (where our media wall is!)  I chose to hang the jewelry display to the left of the bathroom door.  Why?  Because we leave that door open a lot and it would hide the display most of the time.  Hey, I married a man who for some reason doesn't want to see my jewelry all the time.  what?!?

couldn't quite get josh or elliot out of the shot. oh well!

 But, that sweet jewelry-display-hating man did actually help me measure and hang the display.  Bless him.

 I wanted to do as little damage to the wall as possible.  These furniture pads should help eliminate scratches.  The display will "rock" a little bit when taking bigger pieces of jewelry off.

 Oh.  Be still my heart.

 So fresh and so clean.  Just waiting to be filled with so much awesomeness.

Oh, my.  My name is Blair.  So nice to meet you.  You look fabulous.

 I want to get my ears pierces 204982 more times so I can wear all of you at once!

 Even after 68 hooks, I still ran out of room for my headbands and stud earrings.  Oh well.  That's a little better!

I will say that my jewelry organization has already helped my accessorizing immensely.  Its also caused more jewelry-buying though.  Eek.  Good thing I have a few more panels left over---might need to add one or two more!

craft it: butterfly wall

I've been totally inspired by my friend Maury and her entire-house transformation she's been working on.  I started thinking about how Josh and I built our house nearly 6 years ago and the changes (and lack thereof!) our house has been through.  We moved from our 2 bedroom loft apartment into our brand-new 4 bedroom home in the fall of 2005.  Since our house was as-close-to-dream as we could afford, we didn't have the money to buy anything new and we only owned enough to furnish the downstairs!  Our friends affectionately referred to this upstairs bedroom as "The Chair Room" because it held several of my friends' cast-off salvation-army-worthy arm chairs.  Sadly, the room looked like that for almost a year.  I was so overwhelmed with how to decorate the place and Josh and I were still tying to figure out how our styles merged.

Our real estate agent gave us an antique bed and we decided the room would officially become a bedroom. Hey, up until that point we were really sure what to do with the space--we'd toyed with the idea of craft room, game room and reading room.  For the past four years the space has held a bed, bedside table, armoir and arm chair.  We've switched items from various rooms over the years and the space now has a bed, bedside table, desk, arm-less chair and piano.  I'm not exactly how the piano fits into the decor.....my parents bought it for me when I was a kid and I have hopes of Elliot maybe playing it one day.  It was in my crafting room before, but now that's Elliot's room, so the piano moved down the hallway to this room.  For now I've got to decorate around it.  (Maybe we could build some snazzy sideboard type cover for it....kind of like a radiator cover?)

The big blank wall has been bugging me lately:

We also have several guitars in this room
Maybe its a music room and not a bedroom?
or maybe its a bedroom for musical guests?

I saw a friends blog about how she put 3d birds on a wall in her bathroom.  I loved the idea but thought the whole put-a-bird on it craze was getting a little over done.  Here's my interpretation:

butterfly die cut + old emmerson poetry = perfection
sidenote: aren't these linens so cute? i love you ikea!

i made about one zillion of these cut-outs
yep. a zillion.

I knew I wanted to put the butterflies up with painters tape, because I thought that'd be the least damaging and most temporary solution.  The problem was what shape to put them in!  I thought about just throwing them up on the wall, but that clearly wasn't working:

proof that not every crafting idea is a success

After several shape attempts (circle, heart, blob) I came up with the swirl idea (or maybe Chelsea came up with it?)  

finished product!

I'm still not sure that I'm 100% in love with this wall, but it's definitely an improvement.  And with the use of painters tape, I can change the design or take the entire thing down without having to worry about damaging the wall.  Perfect for modern wall art!

I already had the Emmerson book and painters tape, so I only had to purchase the butterfly die-cut ($11 on amazon.)  What inexpensive and crafty wall art have you been up to?

craft it: media wall update

One of the things that is the most fun, yet equally frustrating, part of decorating your home is that you're never quite done.  Case and point: my media wall.  I keep finding more fun items to add to the wall.  I'm afraid that what started out as an attempt to decorate one blank wall may turn into the long expanse of crazy art and nick nacks.  The line between unique and weird can just be so fine sometimes, can't it?

Here's the wall after the first attempt around 8 months ago:

Here's the updated wall:

Here are a few of my favorites:

elliot's newborn footprints and silhouette

e is for elliot

key to josh's old land rover

little butterflies

sweetgrass basket from charleston, sc

canvas of me and e by lindsey lee photography

giant embroidery hoop

As you can see, we're adding to the wall and trying to fill in several gaps.  We've found several items we like/think are funny/remind us places we love...but we aren't quite sure where/how to hang them; hence the painters tape :)