COOL WHIP cheesecake
homemade ice cream
grilling gear
first birthday cake
time magazine breastfeeding cover

DIY Tree Wall Mural

Feb 15, 2011 By 12 Comments

The nursery is slowly starting to come together, but it’s been missing a major component: wall decor. We’re not allowed to paint or wallpaper the walls in our apartment, so they’re completely blank and boring.

nursery wall mural

See? Boring. Definitely a work in progress. I’ve found a couple wall decals online that can easily stick up and peel off without damaging the wall, but then I had a genius idea: I can make one myself. I had some leftover contact paper that I used for drawer liner and I’d heard of people crafting DIY wall murals with it.

DIY Wall Mural
Contact paper (or similar sticky shelf liner)
Scotch tape
Scissors
Plastic card (like an ID or credit card)

wall contact paper

Tape up a long piece of shelf liner and draw the outline of the main tree trunk. Since I had appliance outlets in the way, I cut away holes so that the paper could lay flat against the wall.

tree wall mural

DIY wall mural

Cut out the tree trunk and tape it loosely in place. Beginning from the bottom, peel up the backing and press the mural against the wall, using a credit card to squeeze out any air bubbles.

tree wall mural

Cut out tree branches and apply them as you did the trunk. Cut out small pieces of contact paper fand place them around the tree where the leaves should go.

DIY wall mural

Draw leaves on the small pieces of contact paper, cut them out and affix around the wall mural.

Next, we get to tackle some shelving above the changing table. Apartments can be tricky to decorate, but a little creativity goes a long way. Our landlord won’t ever know the difference, and we think the DIY wall mural really spruces up the nursery.

Filed Under: Clever Crafts, Home & Garden, Revamps & Redesigns Tagged With: , ,

DIY Christmas Spray

Dec 14, 2010 By 1 Comment

Christmas spray

I hauled a bunch of branches home from Home Depot last weekend with the intention of creating a Christmas garland, but that quickly fell apart when I realized I have no idea how to make garland and nowhere to put one, anyway. New plan: Christmas spray! No, not the canned pine-scented stuff that you spray on fake trees to make them seem more lifelike. This is a simple decorative display made from a couple Christmas tree branches.

To make a Christmas spray, you’ll need:
At least two large Christmas tree branches (ideally cut from the bottom of a tree)
Twine or wire
Decorative accents, like bows, ornaments, holly sprigs, etc.

1) Trim excess twigs from the base of the branches so you’re left with two clean, neatly trimmed Christmas tree branches.

christmas branch spray

2) Overlap the bases of the two Christmas tree branches by about six inches.

christmas spray

3) Secure the two branches together with twine or wire, adding in smaller tree branches to fill any empty holes or gaps in the Christmas spray.

christmas spray

4) Add a bow or other decorative elements to cover the twine or wire.

christmas spray

I mounted ours on the wall above our living room TV. And yes, Nate just about had a heart attack when he walked in to find his pregnant wife atop a step ladder dangling a twig above the 52″ LCD. I’m not sure if he was more worried about the pregnant wife or the TV.

I started hanging Christmas cards from our Christmas spray as they’ve arrived. It makes a nice display out of them while also covering some slightly sparse areas in our Christmas spray!

Filed Under: Clever Crafts Tagged With: ,

Coffee Filter Wreath

Dec 6, 2010 By 1 Comment

coffee filter wreath

Last week, I was totally inspired when I saw a wreath made of coffee filters over on Imperfect Nest (a blog that I found at The Sits Girls, a supportive community of bloggers). So I tackled the coffee filter wreath project myself and was thrilled with the results!

To make a coffee filter wreath, you’ll need the following materials:
A wreath form (I didn’t have this, so I cut out a cardboard circle from a box)
Hot glue or craft glue
Coffee filters
An ornament to hang in the middle, if desired

1. Fold coffee filter into thirds as shown below.

coffee filter wreath fold

2. Glue the pointed end of the coffee filter onto the wreath as shown below.

coffee filter wreath

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, overlapping each previous coffee filter. Don’t feel like you need to cram a whole bunch on there – you can always glue more in later.

4. Glue the ornament string to the back of the wreath so that the ornament hangs down in the center of the wreath.

coffee filter wreath ornament

If I didn’t know that this wreath was made out of coffee filters, I really wouldn’t be able to tell. Since we have a screen door that we can’t put holes into, we hung our coffee filter wreath from a ribbon taped to the top of the screen door. Works like a charm!

Filed Under: Clever Crafts, Home & Garden Tagged With: ,

How to Emboss

Apr 22, 2010 By 2 Comments

how to emboss

I haven’t written about wedding planning in awhile, though not because the planning’s come to an end. Not even close. Actually, I’ve been so busy with all this wedding stuff that when I sit down to write a post, the last thing I want to think about is weddings. I’m weddinged-out. I told my caterer today that I want to meet about the menu so I can “get it out of the way.” Not your typical cheery bride, huh? I’m tired. I need to sleep more.

One of the biggest projects I’ve had on my plate lately is the embossing of all the seals to go on the invites and thank you cards. I didn’t have the first clue how to emboss – or what embossing even meant – until a fellow bride whipped out her fancy invites with raised stamps on them, sort of like a wax seal. I was instantly smitten, and harassed my local craft store employees until someone thoroughly explained the process to me. Here goes.

Supplies Needed:
Paper
Rubber stamp
Embossing inkpad
Embossing powder
Heat embossing tool
Small paint brush or Q-tip

I ordered a custom stamp with a fancy ”S” (from RubberStamps.net) since our new last name starts with the letter “S.” Since then, a couple people have told me it’s technically bad luck to use our future monogram on anything prior to the wedding, like invites. Oh ok. Guess what? I technically don’t care.

how to emboss

So I wet the stamp on a special embossing ink pad (available at any craft store) and stamp it FIRMLY onto the paper. A couple times I didn’t do it hard enough, and it didn’t transfer enough ink to emboss properly.

how to emboss powder

After removing the stamp, dust embossing powder (available at any craft store), onto the wet ink.

how to emboss powder

Shake the powder around the enitre stamp to cover the whole area, and then lift the paper and shake the excess powder off. Flick the backside of the paper to get off as much excess powder as possible. Be sure to keep this excess powder – you can funnel it back into the container for re-use later.

how to emboss

Brush away any excess powder with a small paint brush. Powder should only be sticking to the stamped design, and not to anywhere else on the paper.

how to heat emboss

Using a heat embossing tool (it’s like a super-concentrated hair dryer – available at most craft stores for about $30), heat up the powder until it liquifies.

how to emboss

The powder will dry into a slightly-shiny, raised stamp. Voila!

Filed Under: Clever Crafts, Wedding Words Tagged With:

Stapled Throw Pillows

Jan 25, 2010 By Leave a Comment

One day I will learn to sew. It’s on my list of things to do before I die, along with milking a cow and riding in a hot air balloon. In the meantime, however, I’ve learned a lot of handy tricks and devised some odd ways to avoid sewing machines, including (but not limited to) using the stapler in unconventional ways.

Here are the materials used for my staple throw pillows, along with one of the completed pillows. I did also use a needle and thread to finish one side on each of the pillows. You may recognize the fabric from my Hide Your Shelves post awhile back. Nate complained that the fabric was too “baroque” for a valance over a plain white drape - which launched an ongoing debate about whether or not he really knows what baroque means, but that’s another story.

I had an extra full-size pillow laying around, which I cut in half and stapled into two smaller pillows. I simply took the two open ends that were left after cutting the pillow in half, placed them into my stapler, and stapled just like I would with paper. I did this repeatedly along the edge until the whole thing was securely closed.

Then, I cut rectangular shapes into the size needed to cover the two pillows. I put the outside of the fabric pieces facing inward toward each other, stapled the two long sides shut and one of the shorter sides shut, and then flipped the thing right-side out so that it looked like a proper pillowcase. I inserted my pillow, folded the remaining edge inward, and sewed it shut with a hemstitch. While I really can’t sew anything extensive, learning to do a quick stitch here and there is a) totally necessary for a lot of craft projects and b) so easy a monkey could do it. Trust me, I HATE sewing machines and have an odd aversion to thimbles, but sewing this one little stitch by hand is totally doable. I just tie a knot at the end of the thread and weave it in and out of the fabric, then tie off the other end. Not perfect, but it’ll suffice for a throw pillow.

Please note, since this involves stapling in place of sewing, it will really only work for throw pillows. Please don’t do this with pillows you actually intend to use/sleep on, as I don’t want to be responsilbe for someone getting jabbed in the jaw with a rogue staple.

Filed Under: Clever Crafts Tagged With: , , , ,