Sprucing up a ceiling fan with red washi tape stripes

So my craft room is slowly coming together, in all its red and white glory. One of the things that has been bugging me is the ceiling fan.
Now I HATE ceiling fans- except when it is crazy hot out, even then, they kind of creep me out- I've always had this fear they were going to fall on me.
Anyways, I have a ceiling fan in pretty much every room upstairs, so I decided to spruce it up with some stripes. I read somewhere that an easy way to do this was Washi tape, so I thought- "what the heck, I'll give it a shot."
 So, I went to town and added a few stripes to the tips of the fan.

I reccommend to dust the darn thing ahead of time so
a) you don't get dust all in your eyes when you are putting the tape on and
b) the tape sticks more.

So, it was a simple spruce up, but I'm happy to say it turned out just the way I wanted.
Cute, right?

Anyways, hope this gives ya'll the inspiration to spruce up your fans too.
-M

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Simple cheap Valentine's day banner and ongoing projects

So I knew I wanted to make a Valentine's day banner, but didn't have a LOT of money to make it. So, I managed to scrounge around the dollar store and home to make this cutie.

Heart-shaped doilies, foam hearts, pom-poms, needle and thread, and sparkle chipboard letters- tada!
I dig it. And it was super easy.

I also made a mini one (not shown) for my dining room v-day setup, to match the dining room decor for the table- which is where I moved the decor to, when we made the buffet into a bar.

 I added this cute little frame! I got it at Michael's. super cute!

As for other projects, now that the dining room is pretty close to complete and the breakfast nook is complete, include:

Saving these cute pillows I picked up at the SalVal, for updating our outdoor summer seating

Putting up shelves that I just painted white, in my craft room and organizing it all with the dollar store red organization crates i picked up

Finishing the heart in my "LOVE" yarn wrapped letters wall art for the bedroom and painting the mirror for that room

(I made them from leftover cardboard- like a beer box. haha)

And getting more corks to finish my cork tray

All-in-all, I got a LOT of projects done this past few weeks, and there still is more to come, but it just might take me a little bit longer. haha

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my simple V-day banner. :D
Happy DIY!
-M

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DIY breakfast nook and Ikea stool lime green update

So this whole idea started with my co-worker. He asked me if I wanted these stools his wife wanted him to take to the Goodwill. I took one look at them and knew what I wanted to do. Ever since we bought our house, I've wanted to do a "breakfast nook" in our kitchen. Our kitchen is silver, black, wood cabinets, white/cream countertops, with hints of lime green. This ment to me- I knew I just HAD to make the stools green.

So first I painted the stools green with spray paint. Boy where they brightly colored. It was tough, because it was a tiny bit winding out (being winter and all), but I got them both painted (one can each, though I could of probably had one more can and gave them both a greater coverage).

Then I thought- I want some black to be a part of the chairs, so I decided to wrap the X part of the chair with black yarn. Boy was it a long process having to weave and wrap, but I slapped in some "Supernatural" dvds and I was set. haha

The hubs meanwhile, when to town with a board, brackets and a leg and made me a table.
I already made the wall art to begin with, so in the end, it all came together so nicely.

I also had these cute green mini sprite glass bottles, where I dressed them up with leftover fabric!

I am in love. To be honest, I think this is my FAVORITE DIY project thus far.
woo!
Believe me, this process was fairly cheap. Just the cost of wood, paint, yarn and the brackets. Super fab!
Anyways, I love it and so happy it came together so nicely.
Happy DIY!
-M

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Turning a coffee table into a bench for the dining room

So, I have had this idea bouncing around in my head to turn this small coffee table we've had, into a bench. I then decided I wanted it in the dining room. So when we have guests over for dinner, you can fit 2-3 on the bench, along with the 3 chairs we have.  Sadly, the most expensive part of this project was the darn foam. Who knew that foam is so expensive!

Basically we picked up 3 square foam squares, upholstery fabric, stapled the fabric around the edges to the bottom, and tada! Bench!

 (the hubs after it is all stapled, before we cut the loose threads. lol)

I also added some gold pillows I had already, and they work nicely.
When we have parties and gatherings where the layout needs to be more open, the bench easily goes against the wall by the window, out of the way.

I think it looks fab and matches our newly upholstered chairs. I dig it!
DIY for the win!
-M

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Chalkboard wall in dining room and DIY bar

So my husband REALLY wanted a bar. Like super badly wanted one. We both thought the dining room would be the best place, but were not sure where to put it. Then, we got the brilliant ideas at 5am on a Sunday evening to basically re-arrange the entire dining room, paint the wall with chalkboard paint, cover the back of our buffet with fabric and make it into a bar, and re-upholster chairs and make a bench. Yeah, we're a little crazy like that in the DIY department.
So here is the end result.

All in all, it wasn't really that bad. We chalkboard painted the one wall.

Covered our buffet that we flipped around, with fabric (stapled it to the back, and the lined the edges with ribbon).

Then took our wine rack and flipped it around and attached a piece of board that was also painted with chalkboard paint, for a mini menu board. (in the original photos you will notice the beer sign and the fabric on that too, but after staring at it for a few days, I realized I didn't like it like that, and we added the chalkboard backing, and I like it so much better).

Added numbers to 3 stools we picked up at target

added our dart board to the wall and added 3 shelves to the left side wall, and tada! Bar.

Our friends all came over yesterday, and had a blast as my hubs played bartender in the back. Already we've added 2 quotes to the "quote" part of the wall, since I photographed everything. haha
All in all, it was fun, and since we like to entertain, it is perfect for us.
We used the Rust-oleum black chalkboard paint (below). I <3 br="" paints="" rust-oleum="">



Happy DIY.
-M

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Simple DIY re-upholstering dining room chairs

So, we got the bright idea to re-upholster 3 chairs (and then turn a coffee-table into a bench, which I'll post the link later) for our dining room.

We've had these chairs for over 5 years now, got them for free, and finally decided they needed an update (along with pretty much our entire dining room getting a makeover).
We got 4 chairs with our newer dining room set from a friend, however they were just so big for our dining room, that people didn't have much room to move around, since they had arms. So we brought these chairs back into commission and spruced them up with a little loving re-upholstery.
Luckily, these chairs were super easy to update with new fabric. We also lucked out and found this up-holstery fabric for 60% off! (was originally $22 a yard, and we got 3 yards for that price!)

All we had to do was unscrew the seat

cut the fabric to size

staple the new fabric down

rescrew the seat back on

and tada! new pretty seats!

 It was a super easy project, and didn't take that long with the help of my hubs, since I'm a weakling when it comes to the staple gun. haha
 I think these babies look super cute with our tan walls.
Yay for DIY projects!
-M

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