A new twist on displaying guitars!

4. A NEW way to display guitars!

So for this project, there has to be a little bit of a back story. At our old apartment, we hung all of the guitars around the room randomly, filling almost every wall. When we moved, Andrew decided to go ahead and do the same thing. Unfortunately, this room was much smaller and it never really sat right with me.

See what I mean? Kinda blah.. and didn't really fit well in the room with the piano and ridiculously large sofa.

SO... I had this amazing idea kinda pop into my head one day. I thought it would be cool to place them all together in one area in the corner, and create a fun, art piece. I layed out the guitars on the floor and came up with an arrangement I liked, and then traced them onto the wall.

I could have done regular outlines of the guitar shape, but decided to do something a bit more interesting. 

Each guitar has it's own "personality". One is melting, one is on fire, one is boxy, the ukelele, my favorite, has some Hawaiian flair, and the others just have interested shapes. 

I added the other art things I had- the melted record, the different notes with quotes on them and some other things.

I went with a pop of tangerine on a grey wall.. and black and white accessories/ pillows. 

This actually ended up taking forever. I free handed all of the orange, then painted the grey, then had to do all of the outlines of the orange back with grey. It took about an entire weekend to get the lines really crisp and finished.

I think it turned out really neat! What do you think?

Burlap Christmas Stockings

3. Christmas stockings for the door

I was given one of those door stockings as a wedding gift (3) years ago. I thought to myself...as I usually do with these kinds of gifts.. "I could totally make that myself!" Well, I tried it out that year, made 2 for some friends for Christmas, then this past Christmas I decided to finish up the burlap and paint that I already had and make more for the entire family!

Here is how to make them:

1. trace out a large stocking pattern with newspaper or poster board.
2. trace with sharpie onto the burlap, make sure to do 2 per stocking you want to make!
3. lay them out and paint...I did red spray paint for the body, and white paint (a bucket of oops paint from Home Depot in just flat white). I found that painting with actual paint was A LOT easier than spray painting the white on. Also, for the polka dots (if desired), just spin a cheap paint brush in one spot to create the perfect circle.

   

make sure you paint the backside as well, and that you do the flip side. I just do solid red and white, no polka dots

   4.   After all of the paint is dry, bring inside and pair them up!

   5.   Take a small bottle of black acrylic paint with the fine tip and draw a messy line all the way around.     

         outline the white areas as well, and add some "stitch" marks in there!

   6.   Once the black paint is dry, hot glue the bottom toe area and heel and start to stuff with whatever you

          have on hand. I used old grocery bags since I always have a million of them...

   7.   After you stuff it all the way, finish up the edges with more hot glue

   8.   After everything is set, grab some thick, but bendable wire. Poke holes through in the top corners

         leaving excess on both ends. Then just take pliers and twist into a random bundle to "tie" off the ends

Voila!

(Sorry there aren't more pictures, that was the husband's job and he kinda slacked...)

Total project cost: $10  would be more if I had to go get all new materials. 

DIY Roman Shades

2. Simple panel curtains turned into roman shades!

This next project was really one of the first we did here. I have 3 large windows that let in SO much sunlight around 2pm that we really needed to solve the issue. I know roman shades can be quite expensive, and I had 4 panels of striped curtains from our old apartment that we got with wedding money....so why not reuse them?
I decided to make the printed fabric into roman shades.. originally my idea was to do the whole pinterest "roman shades out of cheap walmart blinds" thing, but my mother suggested we do it the real way, and I have to admit, I think she was right :)

 I also kept our long brown IKEA curtains which weren't quite long enough for these windows. I added a small panel of gold to the bottom which was from pieces of cheap curtains from Walmart.

The kitchen window also has the roman shade, but instead of doing it the real way, I thought tying it up with jute would look a little better.

I really like the informality of it... the nice thing is if I want it raised, I just have to adjust the knot!

total project cost: $30 for the roman shade kits

Re-Purposed Antique Sewing Table

Hello everyone! (if there's anyone...)
I am finally at the point where I can sit down and show you all of the things I have been working on in the past 6 months or so.
The last post was all about the new house. Well, since then, I have changed/ added/ decorated/ re-purposed/ salvaged/ painted/ etc. MANY things.

Let's have a look... shall we??


1. Antique sewing table turned hall entryway table!

Found this at a local flea market.. someone had painted the top a weird grey color. The first thing I did when I got home was sand it back down and stain it dark. I kinda liked some of the grey still showing, so I went with it!

Next thing I did was polish up the iron legs and pedal

Love it!