Yellow Ruffles N Rosette Felt Wreath

Lately I've seen these gorgeous felt valentines wreaths all over blog land and as most of my family and friends know I looove making wreaths but this one just seemed really time consuming and quite honestly I was a little afraid to try this project!  I started working up the nerve to try it after seeing Maryanna's beautiful red heart shaped one over on her blog http://maggiepinkcheeks.blogspot.com/.   I then found the instructions on Domestifluff.com and finally decided to visit the Hancock fabric store near our house.  Well it turns out that they had no red felt left so I guess everyone else is Alexandria VA is making a red felt ruffle rosette wreath!  I made an executive decision right then and there and decided to use yellow felt, it made perfect sense since yellow roses are my favorite color of rose and this way I could leave it up well past Valentines Day:)  It took me two days to complete and about six hours worth of work but if you have an entire day to yourself you could easily crank it out in a day.   The Domestifluff  site says they used 2 1/2 yards of fabric which is what I ended up buying although I only ended up using about a yard and a quarter of it, it just depends on how large your wreath form is and how tight you want your rosettes/ruffles to look.  This is what I used:

1 1/4 yards of yellow felt
1 10 1/2 inch styrofoam wreath form

straight pins (maybe 200?)
scissors
a 3 inch circle template - I used a pillar holder from my dining room table as a template
a pencil to trace your template onto the cloth
ribbon for hanging

Domestifluff has really good directions and since I'm not so good with that sort of thing I'm going to post the link to her tutorial, check it out here - http://www.domestifluff.com/2009/11/how-to-make-a-ruffly-felt-rosette-wreath/

Here is the final wreath in all it's yellow glory! I love it and may make another for my bathroom since I have all this left over yellow felt... 

My Newest Obsession: Woven Dining Chairs

I apologize for not posting for over a month but right before Christmas my father was having major health complications and had to go into the hospital for pneumonia.  He is doing better now that he is over the pneumonia but still in the hospital so the past month has been really hectic with going back and forth to the hospital with a little toddler in tow so it hasn't left much time for blogging!  I hope to do some projects soon and maybe even a couple of tutorials of my own:)  For now I just wanted to share what has been a new decor obsession for me and has me dreaming of decorating our don't have yet but will hopefully in the near future house we've been dreaming about for a while now!  A few months ago was when my obsession with woven dining chairs began, after seeing this in the Pottery Barn catalog

I just love that the chairs look relaxed and formal at the same time!  So began my search for other woven chairs and ideas to creat the same look...

I came upon this photo and became even more inspired

from the blog http://www.paintingtheroseswhite.com/.  I loved her mix of the woven chairs and the white slipcovered chairs!  Love how beachy and airy yet still formal her dining room is.

Below is the Kaya chair from World Market which was given 5 out of 5 stars on the site

Here it is in GiGi's dining room from the World Market site

In World market user Azn's dining space done in bold colors!

And finally in World Market user Mel's dining room for a contemporary look

I am really in love with these chairs and trying to convince my husband that these would be great in our future home but he doesn't love them quite as much as I do...

Here are a couple more

From Pier 1, unfortunately these are not in the store at this time, I'm hoping they will bring them back because I love them and would love to see how they look in person

The Hyacinth Chair From Z Gallerie

And finally from Ikea, the Majby Chair

And seen here in their 2010 catalog

I Dream of Decor: DIY Butterfly Collage Wall Art

I Dream of Decor: DIY Butterfly Collage Wall Art

DIY Butterfly Collage Wall Art

I got the idea of this project from an Australian artist's website by the name of Catherine Swan who does these amazing paper butterfly collages and sells them for hundreds of dollars!

Her work is amazing isn't it?, check her out here http://www.paperbutterfly.com.au/story.html.  So I was thinking hey I have that wonderful Martha Stewart butterfly punch that I've used a bunch of times making cupcake toppers so I thought I'd make it earn it's keep some more and try a smaller version of Ms. Swan's artwork.  I used about 4 different patterns of aqua, cream, brown and green scrapbook cardstock that I bought especially for this project at Michaels and a 11x14 frame and started punching out butterflies for what seemed like days but that's probably because everytime I would start my 1 year old would try to climb into my lap:)  I used a small salad plate to trace the largest circle very lightly in pencil, the 2nd circle I used the wide part of a pillar candle holder and the 3rd circle I used  that same candle holder but used the skinnier bottom part. I then used regular ol Scotch brand glue stick to secure the butterflies to my circles and erased any faint lines that were still visible and here is my final project! 

I'm feeling proud about it even though my husband didn't seem too impressed with it, he thought the colors looked to washed out but I actually wanted it to look sort of like a watercolor. I'm hoping my older sister will like it since it's a belated birthday present for her (she loves all things butterfly:) Thanks so much for looking, I truly appreciate your comments and suggestions!

More DIY Christmas Decor

We just got a Goodwill in our city no more than a couple weeks old and I've been meaning to check it out but thrift shopping is not much fun with the baby in tow so I waited til my husband was home from work last Friday and told him I was in desperate need of a project or I was going to go craaazy! so he agreed and pushed me out the door (he doesn't like when I act nutty).  My main reason for checking out the store was trying to find a few more Christmas decor projects to pass the time until the big day and while they had a couple of things I liked and could possibly redo I wasn't very happy with the selection until I saw these!

Yep I was excited and saw all kinds of potential because I had recently came across the instrucions for make beaded and sequined ornaments here http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf95179616.tip.html and wanted to try it with all the crystal beads I had left over from all my jewelry making endeavors.  So out of the bag of goodwill ornaments I ended up with 6 medium satin ornaments and 2 small satin ornaments to cover.  To say I was excited is putting it mildly, I couldn't wait to get started on this project the next day and first thing Saturday morning I ran up to the fabric store to get some straight pins, there were 250 in the package I bought and though surely I wouldn't use all of them for one ornament.  I was dead WRONG, it took about 260 straight pins and 260 beads to cover one ornament and it was a very time consuming project to boot but I love the outcome!

I am currently working on the 2nd and 3rd ornaments but I'm running out of beads so I'll have to take a trip to the bead store that sells these czech glass beads.  I hope to make these throughout the year so I can have a tree full of them next Christmas. 

Okay so my next quick project was to find an interesting way to cover the ever present Dollar tree disco trees

I thought of using feather boas from the fabric store (I'd seen another blogger do this) but they were $4.99 a piece and didn't want to spend $10 on this project so while wandering through Walgreens on Saturday looking for ideas I came across this

I wouldn't put this on my tree but to cover my little mirror trees I thought it might be pefect and here they are

I am pretty pleased with how they turned out and can't wait to use them on my tv stand, still trying to figure out what else to put on there that my little one can't grab off...

Another potential project I came across but haven't started yet is this garish gold hope plaque I found on sale at the Family Dollar for $2.50

When I saw it I knew it had potential but I'm still trying to figure out if  want to spray it a bright red for Christmas or maybe silver so I can use it throughout the year and hang it in my bathroom or somewhere else... I'll post pics of the final project but in the meantime I'll be sanding/scraping off mounds of gold glitter:)  As always I really appreciate you checking out my blog and of course I love comments, thanks so much!

More DIY Christmas Projects

Now that the ball is rolling on Christmas I am just loving looking through all the blogs/website and trying to find decor ideas.  This afternoon I hung a garland over my dining room (uh I mean dining room space, it's tiny) wall mirror that I made with all Dollar Tree supplies, I originally saw the idea on the Pier 1 Website and loved it but I surely wasn't going to run out and buy it for $35, so I headed down to Dollar Tree and bought one of those 6 foot garlands they have and a few red and green ornaments.  Here is the Pier 1 garland from one of their online circular, I love it but we can't do much faux snow in our house since the little guy puts EVERYTHING in his mouth! so I couldn't do the snowy part... This is a horrible photo but for some reason their website is acting up when you try to copy photos...

Anyway here is the garland I made, my camera is crappy so the photo's just don't come out very well, it loks alot better in person.

I actually ended up doubling the garland before tacking it up around the mirror because the Dollar Tree quality is really skimpy but it was easy as pie to make and for about $3 including the ornaments you can't beat it.  I'm thinking of making one to go around my front door.

Another project I did today was to make this wreath to hang above our tv, just a cheap wreath from Michael's, some small Christmas balls from the dollar tree and  about 10 small poinsettia flowers.

And here it is hanging over our tv, so boring, oh and please ignore my unfinished Christmas display on the tv stand.  I gotta figure out a way to spruce this wall up BIG TIME, ladies if you are reading please tell me what to add to this wall that isn't going to cost me much (oh and as a side note I can't move the smoke detector since it is where our landlord placed it:(.  I thought about hanging stockings but thought it might look weird hung so high up... I'm lost

Christmas Decor On a Dollar Tree/WalMart Budget!

I've been a stay at home mom for about a year and a half now and although the money is a lot tighter than it used to be when I was working, I have to say I love being at home with my little guy:)  We cut corners a lot nowadays, I clip coupons a lot more than I used to and I mostly shop at Wal-mart, Target and Kohls, oh and The Dollar Tree has become a personal friend of mine.  So when the Christmas season came around I kind of made it my own personal mission to do as much decorating as I could as inexpensivley as I could!  I have learned  a ton by reading other ladies blogs but I still have much to learn.  Here are a couple of projects I've done for our home for the Christmas season.  Happy Holiday's everyone!

I bought 3 of these trees not knowing what I would do with them or use them in my decor.  I actually am not a fan of the disco mirrored look but loved the height and look of the tree and for $1 how could I resist.  It wasn't until I stumbled across a blog entry from the Let It Shine blog (love her blog so much), http://let--it--shine.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-topiaries.html, she actually had the same tree and actually put some sort of glaze on it to tone down the bright silver I think.   I decided to use a couple strands of pearl garland from the Dollar Tree and hot glue it around the tree form.  Unfortunately I ran out of garland as I was almost at the top, I'll have to run out tomorrow and get more so I can finish it..

Here it is on my linen chest along with a photo of my two oldest boys taken years ago, a silver wreath made with all Dollar Tree stuff and the white tree skirt is also from Dollar Tree. The silver tree was made with a cylinder vase  from Dollar Tree filled with snow from Michael's and the snowflake oranments I believe from either Dollar Tree or Wal-mart.  I spray painted some branches from my yard silver and stuck them in the vase with the fake snow and just hung the ornaments from them. I originally wanted to get curly willow branches because I am so in love with curly willow but I ran out of money that day so had to settle for branches from our yard.

Here is a photo of our current Christmas tree.  We decided to go with a table top tree this year after trying to put our 6 footer up and our 16 month old trying to yank all the lights off!   Most of the Christmas balls are from the dollar tree, a few we got from Michael's on sale. The apothecary jars are from the candy bar we did for my son's first birthday party, candy canes and all christmas balls in the jars are from the Dollar Tree.  The little angel on the table was something I won from a raffle at a little community festival here in Alexandria a couple years ago.  I put everything up on a little shelf we have and covered it with a red tablecloth.

After looking at it I just thought it needed a little something extra on the table and remembered I had some ivy from Dollar Tree that I hadn't used yet so here it is after adding the ivy to the tabletop, I think it looks so much better!

I had also been trying to figure out how to find some nice table setting without spending a fortune and lo and behold while Jerry (the husband) and I were wandering through Wal-Mart the day after Thanksgiving I spotted a set of white porcelain dishes for $12!!! I was so excited because I had just seen some red chargers that I wanted to use with white plates.  I had been thinking of those dishes since the day after thanksgiving so tonight I gave in and made a run to Wal-Mart and got those dishes and the red chargers to go with them.  I paid $12 for the dishes and $5.99 for the charges so for under $20 I got some nice place settings for Christmas Eve dinner. I would like to add some napkins and dress up the table a bit with a runner but so far here is what I have,

I threw the centerpiece together using a vase I purchased a while back from A.C. Moore for $9, some votives I had from Thanksgiving, some fake snow, a berry garland from last years Christmas decor and 4 $1 bunches of white poinsettias from Michael's.  I think it turned out nicely especially since it wasn't thought out very much.  Okay and here is one last photo I had to share of my little one Brendon checking out the Christmas lights that Jerry had plugged in to make sure they still worked before hanging them outside.  He was so enamored with those lights, it was such a cute moment:)  Thanks for checking out my blog, I really appreciate it!

Kelly