DIY cotton stems

                       

     

         Keeping with the theme all things decorating, I am going to show you how to make your own cotton stems today. I've been looking at these for a while and couldn't quite find the price point I wanted, so I did a little research and found that you could make your own fairly easy. This is the way I found to be most practical. 

The materials you'll need:

Pinecones

Dry branches -I found this bunch at Michael's (but you could just gather some from the yard)

Cotton balls

Hot glue gun

Wire cutters

And I ended up not using the scissors but changing to an old potato peeler, you really just need something that can get under the pinecone pieces to help get under the pine cone prices for a good grip to pull them out. 

I started on the bottom of the pine cone..

The first couple rows are really easy just pluck out.

This is where my potato peeler came in handy, I was able to wedge it down by the root to get a firm grip and yank it out.

After stripping the pinecones of its scales, you want to gather them in groups of four in like size. The scales on the bottom of the pinecone tend to be larger and get smaller the farther up the cone. 

Now it's time to unroll your cotton balls, I found the easiest way to do this is push your finger through the middle of the cotton ball to unveil the end and unroll. Then you'll want to loosely roll it back up and play with it until you get a natural shape. 

With your hot glue gun in hand you will want to take four of the spines and glue them to the bottom of your cotton ball in a cross shape.

Once you have several of your cotton balls put together it is time to glue them onto your branches.

I like to put several on each branch and one at the very top.

And this is the finished product, I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Repurposed widow to dinning room decor

I am so excited about this window. I bought four of them for $40 off craigslist (that's a whole other story). With all of the repurposing going on in my area, that is an excellent price for for great old windows. Here is one of them before. 

They are all four are exactly alike and I'm going to show you the process of how I repurpose each one of them to hang in my home. 

So let's get started. 

First something you should know about me is I like to do things the easiest way possible. Which means I'm wasn't very excited about sanding and prepping this window. Of course I'm not a total slob, I did tape and clean the window before painting. This is a view of the back, which was already painted white. 

 So after doing some research I decided I wanted to use chalk paint. Now again being frugal, as I like to call it, I decided the best route would be to make my own chalk paint. I found this page to be most helpful. Now for this project I used the layered look. I started with a sample paint I bought from lowes, (which was not chalk paint). Next I layered on some paint that I had left over from "the drama queens" room, made into chalk paint. 

Then, you guessed it, more layering. I bought another sample paint from lowes and turned it into chalk paint using the recipe mentioned above. 

After layering on the touquise and red and black,  I wanted the finished look to be crackle. So I made my own crackle. So I layered on the Elmer's glue as I learned in the tutorial here. 

Then after it dried to a tackiness I painted it black. Here's the finished look. 

Next it was time to add my quote!! Exciting, right? Actually this, for me is most challenging because I want to just slap it on, but everything needs to be measured and planned out. This is the lettering I bought from Hobby Lobby. 

I liked everything about this except I wanted it to say Amen at the end. So I decided to match the font I would free hand the words "Bless" and "Amen". And by free hand I mean...

I used my iPad under the window, brilliant right?? So I used a glass marker to trace the word. 

Then I used a glass paint to smooth it out. I used this technique on both the "Bless" and "Amen". 

  

On a side note, I used a dry erase marker and a ruler to mark where all the words should go.

The fished project...

And I finally got it hung up!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Ok seriously going to blog routinely now..... Well maybe

So I've never been awesome at routinely blogging, updating my Facebook status, tweeting or posting to Instagram, but I'm going to give this a shot...... Again!

We have recently moved (July on 2014) that's recent right? We found our very basic dream house, and with my handy hubby's help and Pinterest we are working on making it everything we've really ever dreamed of. 

God has blessed us, in that while all the girls are at school I am still able to stay home, I'm not a perfect house wife and I don't always have the house immaculate the dinner ready by the time my man gets home, but I really do love being able to stay home, although I'm not always there. 

I have been motivated lately to decorate my very bare walls! Before we sold our last house I had almost every inch of it decorated just how I liked, and now only some of the old stuff fits in the new house. I am a newly self proclaimed DIYer. I most often will go to my local hobby lobby (which I love) and think I could buy that but I would have to change a few things and then I just think it would be easier to do it myself (and cheaper). Thus starts a vicious cycle of endless projects, which I'm hoping to showcase here!! 

Here is a picture of where we started!! But just the outside, (because not much has changed here) the inside is where the real fun begins!!

So let's get started, shall we?