Felt Ruffle Christmas Wreath

So my wreath obsession continues!

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, I needed to try to get my apartment in the Christmas spirit (which is made more difficult by the 70 degree weather outside). I found this awesome looking ruffle wreath on Pinterest (http://www.designsponge.com/2009/12/diy-project-kristens-ruffly-felt-wreath.html) that I really wanted to make.

In the instructions, they say to use a 12inch styrofoam wreath, but the problem is that it's way too small for my door. You wouldn't be able to see my apartment number, and I wouldn't be able to see out the peep hole! Both important things. So, also using Pinterest and the awesome tips that site leads you to, I learned that you can use pipe insulation foam to use as a wreath!

Now, it's not a perfect circle, but it's pretty close. To make sure that you don't have the kinks with this, you just open up the slit, and tuck it in tightly, and then duct tape the ends together. The only thing that worries me with using this method, is that it'll sag, and keep sagging as the days go on. You'll see this a little later.

So I ended up getting about 4 yards of felt. This was WAY too much. It was on sale, so I figured better safe than sorry, and I'll probably end up using the extra as a tree blanket once I get a Christmas tree in here. I also decided that I wanted the wreath to be a tad more Christmasy, and a little glittery, so I also got a few fake poinsettia flowers to add to the wreath.

You want to cut three inch circles for your wreath. I used a glass which ended up making the process a lot quicker. I highly recommend that over using a paper template or something similar.

I got a lot of circles. A LOT. I decided to do it in sections to save my hands: draw, cut, pin, draw, cut, pin.

Now, to make the ruffles, you fold the circle in half, and then in half again.

And then you stick a pin at the corner of the ruffle, and then into the form. After sticking in a few pieces around the foam, fairly close together, you want to fluff them to make it nice and pretty!

In the middle of my cutting and fluffing, I had a little kitty get lost in the felt.

As far as the poinsettia's went, I just cut them off the stems and jammed them into the foam, and it worked perfectly! It also saved me from making even more ruffles because they took up some space. Now, initially, I made a little felt hook on the back of the wreath, hoping that would be the best way to hang it.

The problem with it, was that it hung way too low on the wreath hanger and you couldn't see my apartment number. So, even though it messed with the appearance of the wreath, I just put it on the hook.

 Here's a close up of the ruffles!

It took me 4.5 hours and approximately 350 circles of felt. It was a huge undertaking, but it turned out just how I wanted! Now, I'm worried about the sagging. You can already tell that it's more oblong now, and part of that might be from the weight of the felt, and hopefully it won't keep getting worse. If it does, I'll have to research a way to make it more stiff. But for now, I love it! 

Vinyl Decal Canvas Wall Art

The wall behind my couch was in desperate need of something. Big empty walls are never very attractive and just look too minimalist for my taste. So of course, I trolled Pinterest to find some inspiration.

Now, I don't know if it's because of Pinterest, or it just being my taste, but I have developed a slight obsession with flowy tree branches with birds. So when I saw this:

I just knew that that's what needed to be on my wall. Not only did I love that branch and the bird, I loved the different sized canvases and how they created an interesting dimension.

Now the problem? The person who made this used her own machine to make the decal she used. Now, I really have no need for that kind of machine, so at first I thought that I could, you know, try to free hand paint the image. Luckily, I nixed that idea fast, because as crafty as I can try to be, I most definitely am not an artist.

So then began the internet searching obsession. I was using Pinterest and Google, and checking sites such as Amazon and Target. The problem with the ones I found on those sites was that those decals weren't customizable. I wouldn't be able to change the size or the color, and to really make my vision come true, I needed to be able to do that because the ones I found were either too big or too colorful.

And then I turned to Etsy, which I really should have done in the first place. The problem I had with most of the ones I found on Etsy were that they were too....branchy. They were too winter branch like, meaning they had barely any leaves and looked too stark. I wanted something smooth  and lush looking. A lot of the ones I liked were also way overpriced in my opinion.

I finally did find one seller whose design I liked and she was willing to cut down the size to what I needed. So I ordered this branch with two birds in a white decal color, and then waited for it to arrive so I could begin putting this all together!

I bought my canvases from Michaels because it was the only place that had the size of canvas I was looking for. The two wider ones I bought were 16x20, and the longer ones were 12x24. I wish that I could have found some that were longer than 24 inches to give the whole thing a longer look, but you make do with what's out there!

Now, as far as the paint color goes, I was waffling for awhile. Green? Purple? Brown? Blue? I quickly nixed the blue because with a green chair, purple ottoman, and beige couch, adding another color in to the mix would be too much. The brown would have been fine since my tv stand and end tables are brown, but I decided that would be too drab in the end. I almost went with purple, but I decided that if I made it purple, I might grow tired of it a lot faster. So the winner was green! Which is no surprise since it is my favorite color. But the thing with the green is that it has more staying power and is a color that will stand the test of changing tastes.

When I went to AC Moore to pick out my paint, I initially got this medium dark green color. On the little example, it looks like it was a sage green, which was the color I was going for to meld with my furniture. However, after two coats on my canvases, I realized they lied about what the color looked like. It was too....green. It was too bright, it was just too much green and would not coordinate with my style at all. So back to the store I went and I ended up getting a more olive green color, which ended up being the exact shade I was looking for! So I repainted the canvases and I was very pleased with how the color turned out.

Putting the wall decal on was a bit more difficult than just peeling and sticking like you might think. The decal came in pieces, so I had to cut each out, lay them out in the correct placement, and then peel and stick each individual section on to the canvases. This was especially difficult since there wasn't a clean separation for where the canvases separated.

I laid each piece on the canvases, one by one, and smoothed out the air bubbles before pulling off the transfer paper. Whenever a piece overlapped canvases, since I kept the canvases flush to each other while transferring, after pulling off the transfer paper, I just took some scissors and sliced down the division. This ended up working really well! I thought it was going to be a disaster, but not at all.

After it was all transferred onto the canvases, I hung them up on the wall! And now the big reveal!!!!

I love it. There's something about that feeling of accomplishment once you finish a project like this. Even though it was a fairly simple idea and fairly simple to execute, I love the fact that I created it, that I made put it together, and even though it has a few imperfections, I love that it's unique to me!

Homemade Tile Coasters

I was feeling in a very crafty mood this weekend, so I referred to my Pinterest boards to decide what to make for my apartment! One thing I really needed was coasters so I could prevent condensation rings on my end tables as well as put glasses on my ottoman without them falling over.

One common pin on Pinterest is coasters made with tiles and scrapbook paper. It seemed like such a simple perfect idea! A lot of the coasters out there are not very special, but making your own with some fun paper would provide that little bit of flair to my living room. They are also good for house warming gifts or really any type of gift because you can customize them to each persons personality and decor, so it's very possible that sometime in the future, my friends will be getting some homemade coasters!

I went to Michaels to pick out my paper. That was a process! There are so many different ways you could go. You could have all of them have the exact same paper and pattern, you could get all different types of paper so they all look completely different, or you could get a paper with a different enough design that all four would look slightly different, yet very coordinated. I decided to go with the latter. It probably took me about 20 minutes to choose a paper because I couldn't decide on which one I wanted to use! There were so many patterns and so many colors, but I eventually picked out one that I absolutely love and am so excited about! I only needed one piece because I was making four coasters, and one 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper would be plenty.

The materials you need for this are:

• 4 tiles (4.25 x 4.25. I bought mine from Lowes and got very lucky because I found the last four in a "biscuit" color which is off white)
• 1 piece of scrapbook paper (or however many types you want to use...but cut into 3.75 x 3.75 pieces)
• 1 piece of felt (also cut into 3.75x3.75 pieces)
• Mod Podge (I got the gloss version. This was my first venture with Mod Podge and I didn't realize how many different kinds there were!)
• Clear Acrylic Sealer (I used Krylon's Triple-Thick Crystal Clear glaze, but the regular, non-triple-thick works fine too from the other instructions I've read)
• A sponge brush (for the Mod Podge)
• Heavy duty glue (I used Fabri-tac)

Overall, the project cost me about $20, but if you don't count the Mod Podge, sealer, and glue, which will be used for other future projects I have in mind, it's really more like $5! 

Make sure you place the tiles on some newspaper so you don't have to worry about getting Mod Podge on your carpet/hardwood/tile. You start by spreading a thin layer of Mod Podge on a tile with the sponge brush and then place one of the pieces of scrapbook paper on the tile. Make sure you push the paper down to try and get out air bubbles. Even though I did this, I will say I still ended up with one or two air bubbles. Repeat with the other three tiles.

Once the Mod Podge dries (after about 15 minutes), spread another thin layer of Mod Podge, this time on top of the paper. Make sure you get all the edges! Let the Mod Podge dry for 15 minutes. Repeat this step two more times.

Once this final layer of Mod Podge is dried, take the tiles outside, keeping them on the newspaper, so you can spray the acrylic sealer. Trust me, you do not want to do this inside, the fumes are intense! Spray the sealer about 10-12 inches away from the tiles, and make sure you cover them completely because this is what makes your coasters water resistant. You'll want to let the tiles dry for about four hours. 

Once the sealer has dried, you can bring them back inside so you can glue the felt to the bottom. The felt will keep the tiles from scratching up whatever surface you put them on because let's face it, the bottom of tiles is not as nice as the top! You can do some other variations of this, either doing a felt pad on each corner, or using cork, or some other non-slip strong medium that will protect your surface. 

And once the glue dries...you have your very own homemade coasters!! 

Pinterest Crafting - Fall Wreath

One of my favorite websites is Pinterest. It's a website where you can save anything you find on the web and have pictures for reference. It's great for saving craft ideas, recipes, decorating ideas, party planning ideas, and other random categories. Anything you can think of. It's also a huge community where you can search and see what other people are pinning and get ideas from them as well.

It's so helpful because it links back to the site that the pin is on, so you can get to the directions for whatever it is, or buy it if it's a product you love. It's much better than either printing ideas, or saving them in some other form on your computer. Plus, when you look at your boards, having the pictures for reference is an exciting way to be inspired.

Because of Pinterest, I've gotten really into wreaths. There are so many out there beyond Christmas ones! You can make yarn ones, spring themed ones, burlap ones, etc. I found a fall wreath that I absolutely loved that I just had to make. There's something so homey about coming home to a door with a nice festive wreath on it. Here is the link to my inspiration: Fall Wreath.

So armed with an AC Moore coupon, I headed out to buy my supplies. I bought a 14" grapevine wreath, four fake ranunculus flowers (I've recently become obsessed with the shape of them), and instead of plain berry springs, I got fake leaf and berry sprigs.

I started by cutting the ends off the flowers, but leaving a chunk of the stem so I could shove it through the wreath. I used some floral wire to try and secure it too (let's hope how I did it worked and I don't wake up to a bare wreath).

And then I broke up the leaf and berry sprigs to shove bits randomly into the other side.

And here's the completed wreath!

And here it is on my door!

Now, the only real problem is that the wreath is a tad small. It tries to hide my apartment number, but I luckily got it set so it's just barely below the peep hole so I can see the number while still seeing out my peep hole. Next wreath I make will be a bit bigger so I don't have to worry about those things, but all in all, for a simple craft project, I think it turned out well! It'll definitely make me happy to come home and see that on my door.