Wednesday, March 7, 2012

DIY Embroidery Hoop West Elm Spheres

So the other day I was browsing through the West Elm catalog, and I came across a really cool accessory. I went online to find it, and lo and behold, not for sale anymore! Boooo.

Take a look at these funky spheres.

I thought they would be perfect for our family room shelving unit (whenever we decide what look we are going for). I am trying to add in a few industrial pieces to the space and these would definitely fit the bill. I am NOT a tchotchke lover and tend to not use accessories much at all. Once we add shelving to the big, blank wall in there, I will need a few select things to put up. These are simple, minimal, and like I said, have a bit of an industrial feel with the wood and metal.

So yeah. Bummer.

Few days later I am looking for foam for that bench. Scouring the house. I am going through my big basket of miscellaneous crafty stuff, and I find two embroidery hoops. My father in law had found them in the basement and offered them up. I knew I wouldn't be embroidering anything but thought they looked useful, so I scooped 'em up (I am not normally a junk collector! I swear). So yes, there they are. Then I thought, hey, these are very similar in size as the West Elm spheres. Wonder if I could figure this out.

This is what I ended up with:

So similar! I ended up having to buy one more hoop in each size, but that brings my total cost to $2. Not bad at all. Here is how I did it.

Supplies:

2 Embroidery Hoops per sphere
Wood Stain & Foam Brush
Tacks of some sort. These are the nail head ones I bought for the bench. They were really long though, so I would suggest thumb tacks. These were $1.25 for 25.
Step 1) Separate your hoops into 4 pieces (per sphere).

Step 2) Squeeze them all together and space them evenly. You put 3 hoops vertically together and then put one hoop horizontal inside the vertical ones. Push one tack into the top, through all 3 hoops. I connected the metal brackets together, which will be the bottom.

Step 3) Add a tack to each spot where the horizontal hoop intersects the vertical hoops. You should have one tack on top, and 6 tacks on the horizontal hoop. You really have to push those babies in!! I stabbed myself with one, which wasn't pleasant, so be careful. You can see the arrangement of the hoops in the photo below.

Step 4) Stain it. I took it outside, since the stain I have is oil based. PeeeeUuuuu. Not to mention toxic. I first used American Walnut, but it was a bit lighter than I wanted, so I went over it with Dark Walnut. I just used a foam craft brush to VERY lightly spread the stain. Don't use too much because A)it will drip and B)it will take FOOOOOREVER to dry.

See, it was a bit light.

I like it much better darker. Although, it dried a smidge lighter than this.

Let it dry for a few hours.

VOILA!

I think they will be perfect for the family room, and at $2 and just 15 or so minutes of work, SO worth it! And really, what would I ever have done with those embroidery hoops anyways??




Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Table To Bench DIY

Today I worked on the entryway a bit. I wanted to make our old Ikea end table into a little bench for the kids to put their shoes on and off from. It is one of the very few things we have left from when we first got married eight years ago. It was previously living in the playroom in between the leather chairs. Before that it was in our bathroom for five years. It has experienced the variety of life and is ready for it's next adventure!

Here it is before:

Tired and ready for a change, no?

I finally found something to use as pad yesterday. I was trying to think out of the box a bit, since I didn't want to have to buy foam. I knew there HAD to be something I could use. I took a tour of the house, in hopes that something I hadn't thought of would jump out at me. Well, something did. In the linen closet. Honestly, it is irritating that I didn't think of this earlier because I specifically bought this to use as padding a couple of years ago:

Yes sirree, a mattress pad. I bought this for $4 on clearance from the college section during back to school time. I don't remember that, but, it still had the clearance sticker on it. Perfect!

Let's get started. Oh and let me just say this. This "tutorial" of sorts, it is not coming from the mouth (fingers?) of a pro. I have recovered a couple of chair pads in my past, and every time I think to myself that I should have looked up a YouTube video on how to do it even better. That said, it worked for me! I am not a craftsman, and when I do a project, I don't like to over invest in something. I don't want to spend more time on something than it is worth to me. It doesn't have to be PERFECT to be nice enough. Onward we march!

Supplies:

Stapler ($13 at Lowes), Staples, Measuring tape, Scissors

You also need a table of some sort, fabric, and a pad of course.

Step 1) Measure your table top and cut the foam to size.

Step 2) Cut your fabric, allowing room for it to be stapled under the top of the table.

Step 3) Turn the table over, with the fabric and foam underneath it.

Step 4) Pulling your fabric tight and taut, start stapling. I do the short edges first, then corners, & then long edges.

For my corners, this is what I did. First I folded in the short side and held it there.

Then I folded up the long side, trying to make the seam right on the corner.

I think they came out pretty decent!

Keep stapling around the fabric. I made them pretty close because I didn't want too much puckering or bunching. Speaking of fabric, I used Premier Prints, Chipper Twill, in Storm. It was $7.48 a yard and I used less than 1/2 a yard. You can buy it HERE.

After this, I painted mine white, to match the frames and mirror and trim in the entry. I also bought silver nail heads to add all around, but I haven't quite decided if I want to use them.

Here it is in the entry. Notice, we also decided to go with the coat hooks. For guests. I really like what they added to the space! All we did is pick up some primed MDF from Lowes, as well as some hooks. Then we screwed the boards to the wall and added the hooks. We still need to paint the MDF, but you get the gist.

Nice! It is the perfect height for the kids, yet still usable for adults. It also isn't too high, so as to interfere with things hanging on the hooks. Just what I was looking for!

In other happenings, I am working on the roman shades for the master bedroom. Here is a peek at the fabric I am using, it looks great with the gray walls. Which, Steve painted last night. Trim tonight!

Tomorrow I will be featuring a tutorial for a West Elm reproduction. Come back to see what it is!
Pin It

Monday, March 5, 2012

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho It's Off To Work We Go.

Lots of fun stuff in the works here this week! I think I'll start it off by rambling on a bit about the random things we have our hands on currently. We are ALLLL over the place for sure.

First on the docket. Master bedroom. Steve primed it last night and tonight the actual paint goes up. WOOOHOO! No more green and gold! The primer was tinted so I have a pretty good idea of how it is going to look and I am in love. Love love love. It is just the most perfect shade of gray that I was looking for in this space. PHEW! I was so nervous. I didn't even look while he was priming because I was so afraid I was going to hate it. I was already starting to feel bad that I was going to have to ask him to repaint it. When he told me I could go upstairs and look, I held my breath when I turned the corner and..... AHHHHHHHHHHHH LOVE! It is lovely. Now, it looks a little wack-a-doodle because the trim is still green and gold, but Tuesday night that will go too. Later this week you should get to see it in all it's pretty glory.

For now, here is what it looked like just before he started priming:
















Alrighty. Next up. Entry way progress. Going well. What I am working on now is a bench for the space. I am turning our old Ikea end table (one of the few things left from when we first got married) into one. Today I am making the pad and tomorrow I will be painting it.  Right now I am scrounging around for something foam or foam-ish to use for it. Have you ever tried to buy a piece of foam from Joanns or Michaels? NOT cheap. They mark that junk up like 500x I think. I *know* I have SOMETHING I can use, somewhere. I am brainstorming. I found two kneeling garden pad thingys yesterday that I thought would make a nice firm pad, but they were a couple inches too short. Then I thought of using one of our wicker chair pads (and not worry about what I was going to do about replacing it), but that too was a couple of inches too short. Grrr. Now I am looking for foam packaging in the basement, and I stumbled upon my quilting batting. So I am going to try that and see if it is squishy enough.

Oh, so I took that Ikea table from in between the two leather chairs in the playroom and put the taller, smaller one from the entry and put it there. So I swapped the two tables. I am going to try to paint the one for the playroom this week. I am thinking white with some sort of fun yellow pattern on top. Stencil magic or something. Not sure. I picked up a really playful turquoise lamp to go there this weekend too. I was feeling the need to add a swash of color to that space, since it was so brown and beige and white. Just with the lamp it looks so much better!

Here is what it looked like before, and there is that little table, soon to be bench:

What else, what else.....ah yes. I decided I am going to stain the sunburst white. I want to keep the variation in shades but I don't want it plain because the wood tone doesn't match anything in our house. So I think white stain will give it a nice soft look with a bit of dimension still. I also feel like it will be easier than painting it too. I am fairly certain it will be going above our bed so we'll see how the cards fall. I might add some silver to it somehow as well.














My fabric arrived on Friday for our bedroom and hopefully at some point this week I'll find an hour to make a few pillow covers. I'm planning on doing a little quick tutorial on how I make them, so watch for that if you are in the market for that sort of thing.

Steve is so awesome and has been spending a lot of his evenings working on the doors for upstairs and I am happy to say they are DONE! All 13 doors have been replaced. Now we just have to paint them all, then we can reveal. I can't believe the massive difference they make. I'll talk a bit about the process of doing them, and the cost breakdown (which wasn't bad at all), later this week. That guy is so good to me (besides the fact that he tells me I'm pretty everyday). I love that we both really enjoy DIY stuff! It would stink if he wasn't on board with all my ideas and projects. It is such a fun hobby for us to do together.

So there it is. My plan for the week. Sound a little ambitious? Yeah...well, to be honest, it is mostly all small things. So long as everyone stays healthy, we should be able to manage. Check back in throughout the week to see JUST how much actually gets accomplished!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Cedar Sunburst Mirror For Under $10

I KNOW you have all seen the gobzillions of sunburst mirrors all over the decorating scene. No need to point out the HUGE trend they are right now. If you are on Pinterest, you've seen the hundreds of  very creative ways people have reinvented them. I myself absolutely love them. They are large so they can fill a big space well, they are fun, they are stylish, and you can really be creative and find unique ways to make them your own. LOVE.

I have been keeping my eye out for how I wanted to make my own. I love the idea of using bamboo sticks, but I have yet to find all the supplies to make it on a budget (a rimmed framed mirror for one). The other variety that I really like is made out of cedar shims. Shims are cheap and natural and full of great texture! The first one I ever saw was HERE . I really liked the general idea, but I wanted to make one with A) a larger mirror and B) less perfectly round.

Also, this is not my first shim sunburst. I actually made another (larger!) one last month but I have yet to completely finish it (it is super heavy so there are some technical details that need to be ironed out). I had a ton of shims leftover, so I made this:

I am really happy with how it came out! I haven't decided how I want to finish it yet though. Depending on where the final placement is, I'll decide based on that. Either natural cedar, sealed cedar, white, or silver. I don't know. If we put it above our bed, I might go with a white and silver combo. We'll have to see how that goes.

The great thing about this mirror is that it is quite simple to make and really inexpensive. I made the entire thing for under $10. Bargain! If you've shopped around, you've no doubt (is this 2001 again??) seen how pricey they can be. Especially if you want one this large. It measures just about 40" in diameter. It really can hold it's own on a big wall!

Want one of your own?? Well then, let's get started!

Supplies:
Mirror (Mine was $4 at Michaels with a coupon)
Wood Board to glue it all onto (We had peg board so that is what we used. You can use anything)
Wood Glue (I ended up using the Titebond & Gorilla Glue)
Hot Glue Gun (not pictured in this shot)
Mirror Adhesive (shown later) or super strong double sided tape

Step 1) Figure out how you want to arrange your shims. I did this by just mixing them up and playing around a bit. I knew that I didn't want it to be completely round, so that was my starting point. I came up with this:

(Sorry, it was a seriously DARK day so the lighting is a tad off)
I liked it, but I felt like I needed more than just the 2 lengths, so I figured I would do this but add in a 3rd length as well.

Here is my first layer:
Step 2) Now that you have your arrangement down, start gluing your first layer. I wanted to make sure I did them all the same-ish length, so I measured and then marked each one where I needed to glue them down.



Make sure you use enough glue so it will go right to the edges when you push it down. It's ok if a little bit squeezes out even.

Step 3) Put some heavy objects on top and let it dry for about 30 minutes (or however long your glue tells you to). That fruit bowl is deceptively heavy!


Step 4) Figure out your next layers. I liked the way this looked:

I like the 3 different lengths (tall, medium, short, then back to tall). but geez, look at the center!

What to do, what to do.... ah ha! Cut them! Since the shims are designed like this:
The one end is so thin that you can just cut it with scissors.

Step 5) Once you decide how long you want each length, cut one of each size, then use the piece you cut off as a guide for all the rest. I cut mine so they would all meet at the same spot in the middle (there is a photo in the next step).

See, here are the "templates" for cutting all the others:
Step 6) Start gluing your next layers. I did the remaining 2 layers at the same time. I also switched to Gorilla Glue for the second layer. I did this because, since I am gluing on top of the first layer, the shims would not be 100% flat on the board. Gorilla Glue foams up and expands to fill gaps. So if you use a smidge of that, it will fill in the space between layer 2 &3 and the board. Don't use too much because it expands! (Now that I think of it, there is no reason not to use Gorilla Glue from the beginning. So go ahead and do that if you want.)

See how I cut the shims so that now they are all meeting up at the same spot in the middle? That will eliminate the big huge pile and will also give your piece some dimension. You can also see how I chose 3 different lengths to layer.

Step 7) Use heavy objects to set the glue. I did this while I glued just to keep things where I wanted them.

Let is set for 30-60 minutes.

So far:

Oohhhhh nice!

Step 8) Add your mirror. This mirror adhesive was $4 at Lowes. You could also be daring and try heavy duty double sided tape. You could try other adhesives like Liquid Nails or epoxy, but we used this. It is for more heavy duty applications, like a big bathroom mirror, but it worked well for this too. That epoxy, E6000 I believe it is called, would work I'm sure.

Step 9) I didn't want my mirror to look like it was just floating, so I added some trim to the edge. I just cut the thin part of the shims and hot glued them on since they are so light and thin.

VOILA!!!!

I  love how three-dimensional it is! I think the trim around the mirror was exactly what I was looking for to make it seem more finished. Now I just have to decide how to finish it and where I want to put it!

UPDATE! Here it is once I stained it and hung it, see HERE for more:

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Help A Girl Out!

So today I am working on a second sunburst mirror, which I will show you later once it is finished, but I also need some opinions.

I am *trying* to pick our master bedroom paint color and I can't choose between two colors!! Let me paint the picture for you (hahaah). Our room is south facing, so LOTS and lots of sunlight. There is the south window and a west window. It is a good sized room with beige carpeting. ALL of our furniture and bedding is WHITE. If you get the idea, I am trying to go for a darker color to warm the space up and make it a bit more cozy. Because everything else in the room is so bright and light, I definitely think we can get away with it.

Of course we are going for gray tones throughout the house, and our bedroom is no exception. We will also be adding splashes of spa blue and maybe a teeny tiny bit of yellow too, in a pillow. You all saw the fabric I choose for the throw pillows the other day, so you get the idea. Our curtain panels are white and I think I'll be adding some white with a subtle gray pattern, panels to the outside of the white ones as well.

Here are my two color options.
 
 Galveston Gray by Benjamin Moore

  
Spalding Gray by Sherwin Williams 

As you can see, the Galveston Gray is a bit grayer, and the Spalding Gray is a bit warmer/browner. I have been going and forth in my head between more gray or more brown and I can't decide!!!! Remember we have the beige with a slight, slight yellow tone to it, carpeting, if that makes a difference.

If you could respond in the comment section below (or on Facebook, which seems to be the preferred way to comment) to the color you think would be best, I would LOVE you forever! Steve is going to pick up the paint either at lunch or after work (depending on when I decide)....agh!!