Decal Decorating

I have kind of a silly little post for you today.  I was in the mood to play with some removable decals I bought at Target, I had seen several fun Pins on Pinterest using them on a variety of surfaces.  If you know anything about me you know I could not resist getting some of my own and going wild all over the house sticking them on just about everything.  I will say some of them will not stay up very long but they were so much fun to play with I just could not stop myself. Yikes!!!! I was addicted!!!  Here’s what happened.

A shot of the container and one of the decal sheets so you can see what I used and all the great colors.

First up was my washer and dryer, I actually bought the removable decals to hide several rust spots and damaged areas on both machines. I used the retro colored flowers to match the laundry room décor; I loved them so I went onto the next room to see what else I could put them on. Guess which room was next?

You got it right if you guessed the downstairs guest bath. The little white cabinet was super basic so it got a face lift with some decals inside and out.

I could not stop there so the tank and lid got some too, kind of funny if you think about it, how cute is that!  I probably won’t leave them there but they were a kick to do.

Why stop there, I still had more decals leftover in the upstairs guest bath colors, so up the stairs I ran to see what I could use them on next!  (I think I probably lost my mind by then but I was having a great time!)

The medicine cabinet was driving me nuts due to some rust and stains which would not come off even after using some heavy duty cleaners.  Those decals would do the trick and cover up the imperfections I did not want my guests to see when they came to stay.  Woohoo!!! I was a very happy camper when the stains just disappeared under the flowers, not to mention it was cute too.

I still had two more decals left; guess where those went, right onto the tank and seat cover is where they went. Darn it, I was finally out of decals, oh well that was enough crazy for one day anyway.

I hope you enjoyed my adventures with decal decorating all over my home, I had a great time and I hope you got a little chuckle out of it too.  I think that about wraps up the decorating with decals, decorative tapes and adhesives but you just never know what I will come up with next. Next up should be a new Easter Tablescape post so watch for that one.

See you soon.

Laurette

Seashell Picture Frame

I have a quick little project for you today, this one only took me about an hour to make maybe a little less; I hope it encourages you to make one too.  My guestroom/office is an ocean inspired room with hints of the sea sprinkled throughout the space, when it came time to frame my granddaughter’s new school picture I knew just what I wanted to do with the basic boring frame I had laying around.  The inspiration came form Simply Handmade, the June/July 2011 issue, it was jam packed with lots of great projects and the photo frame was one of them.  This project was in my “To Do” pile ever since that magazine came out; I finally had the perfect reason to make it, no more moving it around the studio to make room for other projects.

Here is what you will need to make your own frame:

Photo frame

Pearls

Assorted Shells

Starfish

Sand dollars

Moss

Hot glue gun, hot glue sticks

**Note:  All my supplies came from Michael's Crafts, except my sand dollars those came from one of my beach excursions, but you can buy those as well.

The first thing I did was place my sand dollars at each edge of the frame to give it the stop and start boundaries, about half way down one side and half way across the top edge.  Next I glued the starfish in the center point between the two sand dollars and worked my way around the frame with several of the larger sea snails and scalloped shells, filling in with smaller shells and finally the pearls.  The book calls for moss around the edges, corners and to fill between the shells, I forgot the moss and added it after I took the photo. It was much easier to work from the larger shells inward toward the starfish and filling in with the smaller shells and pearls, it took away the confusion of what to do first and shows off the focal point items around the frame.  It was just that easy, all done and ready for the photo.

*Tip of the day: use a hair dryer to melt any glue threads left from your glue gun, it will make your project look much sharper.

My granddaughters outfit makes the frame and shells really pop on the ice blue walls. I love it and the frame looks just right in the room.

I hope you enjoyed my seashore photo frame project and it inspires you to make one of your own. I have a lot more projects to share with you on this blog and my other blog as well. Coming up are more decal decorating projects, an Easter tablescape, the family room/kitchen makeover, charming chairs rehab project and so much more.  On the Buttons, Bows & Bling blog there are several sewing projects for the family room/kitchen makeover and a darling knit dress I recently made, keep watching for all of them, they will be posting in the next few days.

See you soon.

Laurette

Southern Carriage House

Today’s topic is how to spruce up your curb appeal by adding decorative items to the outside of your home and porch.  A couple of years ago we purchased our current home leaving behind one I truly loved in a neighborhood gone bad. Our home had been newly painted a pretty sandy taupe with white trim, white lattice work fencing, black shutters and rod iron accents, it was so pretty. The new home was newly painted tan with dark brown trim and light cocoa accents on the shutters and front door, can you say colorless! (I absolutely hated it but loved the size of the house so we bought it anyway) Last year I began the curb appeal process by painting our front door a dark red so guests could find the door when stepping onto the porch.  This year I am determined to get all of the trim painted a nice white with the shutters painted in a sharp glossy black, more like our last home.  I wish I could repaint the body of the house but a two story home this size is pretty costly to repaint after only three years, trim work and embellishments will just have to do for now. 

To give our cookie cutter home some individual personality and a bit of southern carriage house flare I unpacked all my rod iron accents and added a few new pieces to my collection to place around the outside of the house. Upon inspection of all my treasures I noticed rust had taken over several of my outside décor items.  That was just not going to work on the house if everything was in less then perfect condition, so I cleaned all my pieces prepping for a new coat of Hammered Black Spray Paint by RUST-OLEUM, perfect for my outdoor decorations.  Everything got a new coat of paint, nice and fresh and ready to find homes on the front of the house.

Before:

This is the front window of the house, nothing stellar to look at, not even any shutters, (I plan to remedy that when the trim gets painted) a perfect place to add curb appeal.

After:

We placed an elegant half round over the window and two rod iron carriage lights on each side of the window giving the front of the house some dimension and making it pop, love it!

The front porch got a few pieces as well which stand out against the tan color of the house; it is not a large porch, leaving room for just a small bistro set and a plant, it is bigger then the one I had before giving me some room for a little decorating.

Last but not least, the house numbers and the hose reel.  The numbers were a faded light brown which you could not read from the street and were so flimsy they threatened to crack when I tried to take them down.  I decided to paint them in place using a very tiny paint brush, they came out great and you can see them from the street.  The hose reel got a coat of hammered black paint as well to make everything cohesive straight across the front of the house.  My ultimate goal is to put some carriage house hardware on the roll up garage door to make it look like two doors opening in the middle, I think that will get done after the new paint on the house; then I will truly have my cozy cottage carriage house. Did I mention I live in California in a subdivision and almost all of the houses look the same in each housing tract; boring! Not for me, you just wait and see what happens!

Thanks for letting me share my new curb appeal project, I had a great time adding some much needed color and dimension to my home; I can’t wait to finish the rest.  Oops!!! I forgot to take a photo of the front of the house so you could see it all pulled together, I will do that soon, watch for it.

See you soon.

Laurette

Adventures With Adhesives

I am obsessed with all the new adhesive products I keep finding out there on the crafting market, I am having a great time working with several different kinds of adhesive products as I clean out and organize my creative spaces.  My last post featured the Duck Tape sticky sheets, printed tapes and the new products by Scotch Tape.  Today’s project will feature some Adhesive Mat papers and the Scotch Expressions Tape which I will be using to bling up some office supply accessories and some storage containers in my kitchen pantry, every girl needs a little bling in her everyday world.

First up were the cookbooks in my pantry, some of those books are very old and kind of falling apart, I wanted a place to keep them for easy access so into the pantry they went.  Unfortunately I found a problem with the wire shelving we used for storage, (it was a re-use/re-purpose project) the books kept falling through the wire and would not line up leaving it looking messy no matter what I did.  While cleaning out my office shelves I came across several old magazine holders which had seen better days but were still in pretty good shape, the light bulb went on.

I went looking for something to cover up the steel gray color of the holders, they were kind of boring and had old super stuck on labels which were not coming off.  I went to my scrapbook paper stash to see what pretty prints I could stick onto the front of the holders and found some great adhesive paper mats, no double stick tape or hot glue needed, just peel and stick. I was very careful to measure and line up all the stripes as I cut them out and stuck each paper to the magazine holders. All lined up with everything nice and neat, it only took about 10 minutes to give my pantry shelves some color, the new jumping off point for all the rest of the storage containers I plan to use to organize that closet space very soon.

Time to get back to organizing my office storage spaces.  I have a secret, I have a love affair with good old fashioned pencils and I just adore the pretty printed ones the most.  I actually lust after all the pencils in the dollar bins at Target and Michael’s; if I see them I have to have them, needless to say I am getting quite a collection of pencils and had nowhere to put them without creating more clutter.  Ah oh!!! Now what? I looked around for several containers to put them in and found two choices, a clear recycled pickle jar and a rod iron basket.  The pencils looked great in the iron basket but they kept falling through the openings as I filled up the basket, which was just not going to work so the pickle jar was the best choice.

I could see all the lovely colors but the jar was very plain so I brought out my favorite tape to add some bling to my jars, I needed three jars to hold all my pencils and a few special pens. I alternated the tapes on each jar to give each one its own personality making them a nice set which would look very pretty when I placed them on my shelves together.

Here they are in their new home next to my resource file box and another magazine holder I covered with the adhesive mat paper. They are bright and cheerful sitting there together, I just love the look.  You will see the rest of the bookcase makeover in a later post when I finish the rest of the clean up and storage solutions, keep reading to see that one soon.

Thanks for joining me today to see my newest adhesive projects, there are probably still a few more items I will be using some kind of adhesive products on since I am on a mission to re-purpose as many objects as I can for storage.  Keep reading to see what I am up to next.

I want to wish each of you a very Happy Valentine’s Day!!!! Enjoy the Love!!!

See you soon.

Laurette

Upcycle With Duck Tape

I must confess I have fallen in love with some new products over the last couple of months.  I am crazy about the new Duck Tape printed adhesive sheets and rolls of color Duck Tape; I want to put them on everything! I also fell hard for the new Scotch Expressions tape, they are so pretty in a variety of colors, the pinks and blues are among my favorites so far.  I had a great time finding projects I could try them on, here is what I did.

I went to may shelf of ordinary notebooks; this one is by Mead, pulled it off the shelf and gave it a quick and easy makeover.  I chose a cool black and white Zebra print Duck Tape sheet to paper over the existing cover.  The adhesive back makes it easy to create a fast cover giving the front of the notebook more body and making it sturdy and resistant to spills and stains. The sheet was not quite long enough to cover the book top to bottom so I centered it then used two layers of the Scotch Expressions tape to fill in the top, bottom and left side of the book cover. Last but not least I labeled it with my label maker so I would know the contents, all done and ready to use.  I have a bunch of those notebooks in boring basic colors which need a bit of bling, I can not wait to get going on the rest.

The very first project I ever created with a Duck Tape sheet was my Creative Inspiration Journal.  My journal kept getting fatter and fatter and the cover was not holding up well at all, it was getting very ragged.  In the past I covered basic sketch books with scrapbook papers, embellishments and clear plastic covers, all of which took a lot of time and effort.  I thought about using the same materials again for my newest inspiration journal but kept putting it off until I stumbled (literally) into the Duck Tape display at Staples.  Here was something to give my journal some stability and bling without all the time and expense.  Leopard is my all time favorite print and there it was on the stand, I bought several, you never know when you might need some leopard print for something.  Thanks to the tape sheet the cover is holding up well, at least until the pages start to fall out, I will just hole punch them and use the cover on the binder they will go into, I always have a backup plan!

This was a quick little project using a roll of Duck Tape with the 49er Football team logo on it.  For my husband’s birthday I threw him a football themed party featuring his favorite team the San Francisco 49ers.  I collected all kinds of themed items for several months before the party, but I could not find drinking cups to go with our theme so my daughter and I decided to make our own.  We purchased some red cups and cut out the logos from the tape and put them on each cup, no one even knew we made them, mission accomplished. Quick, easy and lots of fun to make!  You really have to get some of these products and see what you can do with them.

Thanks for letting me share my Duck Tape projects with you today, there are more to come in the very near future.  Remember to think outside the box and you will have a colorful and creative environment to work and play in.

See you soon.

Laurette

Please Note: I have not been paid or sponsored to promote any of the above products; I just love to share great products and projects with all of you as I happen upon them.  Maybe someday that will be the case but not at the present time, I will let you know if and when that ever happens.

Small Office Organization Part 2

I have a very small office which resides in the guest bedroom, I really don’t need a very big space since I pretty much just use it to write my blog and store some paperwork.  Even though I don’t need much space it still has to be attractive and efficient so I can prepare for guests at a moments notice, without having to scoop up pile of papers and shove them into any available space.  My biggest problem is all the misc pieces of paper, receipts and statements and all the rest waiting to be dealt with then filed away, they tend to pile up fast. I do not have room for a filing cabinet or in and out boxes so I improvised, here is what I did.

I purchased some blue plastic wall mount envelopes from the Martha Stewart Home Office Collection; I thought they might work on the side of the bookcase next to my printer.  They were kind of plain looking, but the right color for the room, so I purchased some Scotch Expressions Tape I thought would look good as an embellishment on the envelopes.  I placed the tape horizontally in several spots along the width of each of them then added some labels to identify what would be in each one. They fit perfectly within easy reach right down the side of the bookcase, great for holding all the bits of paper I seem to collect. They are so cute with their blue polka dots and they pick up the colors in the room too! There you have it, a quick little project for organizing all those pieces of paper just waiting for attention.

Thanks for letting me share my quick and easy organization project with you, there are still a few more to show you as I go along.  Now that I am done with the big party I hosted for my Husband’s birthday last weekend I can get back to working on my office clean up.

See you soon.

Laurette

Small Office Organization - Part 1

Finally I have my first project ready to share with all of you, I was inspired by Jen over at her IHeart Organizing Blog, this month the theme is Home Office  Organizing.  This was a much needed project in my own little office, which is part of the guest room so it has to stay neat and confined. Lately, I find my office expanding onto the bed behind my desk and surrounding surfaces due to a lack of good organization for my small space, not a good thing if company suddenly arrives, time to get to work. When I saw Jen’s desk drawer makeover it motivated me to do something for my less then stellar little drawer. Take a look at what I did to clean it up and make it easier to find all my little goodies.

Here it is my dirty little secret, my junk desk drawer the only one in a very small desk.  I had this desk as a kid; it belonged to my Dad who used it to study at while in law school.  My daughter had it to study on all through school then it was left behind to sit in my attic for years and years. When we moved into our newest home I rescued it from storage and gave it a complete face lift then placed the desk in my guestroom/office.  (You can see the complete makeover on my blog Buttons, Bows & Bling in the archives.) As you can see the drawer was a jumbled mess which got that way every time I opened and closed the drawer, things would always slide around no matter how many times I straightened it up.

The first thing I did was to empty the drawer, give it good wipe down then add some pretty scrapbook paper to the bottom to line it. Once the drawer was ready I created piles out of all the contents: keep, trash and file elsewhere.

Since it is a small space I did not want to spend much money to organize it so I pulled items from my office supplies and some other things hanging around the office shelves and put them to good use. I had some purple pencil boxes I kept paint brushes in and opened one up to help divide the drawer into different size spaces.  The only thing I purchased was a shorter pencil size box from the Martha Stewart Home Office collection at Staples; it was on clearance, lucky me. Those two items helped to give the drawer division and keep everything from moving around every time it was opened.

Last but not least and very important were the clear binder pockets I chose to corral all my address labels, stamps, stickers and notepads.  I love those binder pockets I use them for things like sewing pattern prototypes, kit pieces and a whole host of other projects I need to see while they are in progress. They seemed like the perfect solution to all the clutter and I was right, it worked.

There you have it my small desk drawer re-organization, thanks for letting me share it with you today; I hope it inspires you to clean up your office desk drawer soon. Next up are more of my small office clean ups and cleaver ways to create attractive storage.

See you soon.

Laurette