DIY VINTAGE BOOK FRAMES

This project was floating around Pinterest some time ago and I can't seem to find where I pinned it but it is a really fun project. All you need are some old books (got mine from the thrift store of course) and to cut out the pages. 

MATERIALS:

Vintage books

Exacto Knife

Glue

Ruler

The easiest way to do this is to run your exacto knife down the pages on each side, at the beginning of the book and the end, as close to the spine as you can get, and it will make the pages fall out in one nice chunk. After that, use the ruler to help you keep a straight edge and cut out whatever part of the cover that you would want a picture to go and in what ever size. Do whatever feels right to you! Go with the flow! Just be yourself! The sky is the limit! (I hope that helps your decision).

Shown above, I used the book pages that were cut out to create a little display of a brooch (also from thrift store). Just glue the pages together to make sure they stay together when you hang them up! 

-Amy-

TRIANGLE ART WITH PAINT SAMPLES

Another craft with a thrift store frame and paint samples! I used the card stock that was already in the back of the frame, painted it white, and used a little mod podge to glue all the triangles on. The triangles are cut from paint samples, as well as Anthropology and Urban Outfitters catalogs. Seeing as everything is too expensive for me might as well put those catalogs to good use!

-Jerica-

LAMP REVAMP WITH SPRAYPAINT

I have been wanting to try this foreverrr and I finally took the plunge. Now it's time for you to take the plunge. Spray paint an old lamp, you will be so glad you did. I used a ceramic-type lamp that I got from the thift store but I imagine you could make this work for almost any type of material. If you are painting over a lamp that has a darker color, you will want to spray a layer of white primer first. You can find this in the spray paint section at any craft store!

The color I used from Krylon is a Satin finish called Catalina Mist. I meant to pick up a high-gloss finish which is what everyone recommends, but I got too excited about the color and forgot to even look at it! But luckily it turned out with a glossy finish still.
When spraying you'll want to be sure to stay about a foot away and build the color in layers. Do not get closer than this because the spray paint will pile up too fast and create drips like mine did a little bit :( But I still just love it!

DIRECTIONS
Spray the lamp.  

*The picture is a wood transfer I did a while back. Check back for a tutorial on that!

-Jerica-

BOOKCASE UPDO

Do you have a spare hour or two? Do you have an extra bookcase already made and sitting around in your garage waiting for you to do something with it? You do?! Then this is perfect for you, PERFECT! The house I live in was from the 30's and had been in the same family from then until I came around. It was in terrible condition and my dad and I pretty much remodeled the whole thing (okay mostly just my dad). I've been living here three years now, but needless to say, I still find lots of random things around. I found this bookcase buried in the garage and unfortunately was painted a not-so-flattering lime green. I whined to my babygurllll (boyfriend) to paint it for me, and he ended up painting it a cream color that I had lying around from when the walls were painted originally. So it blended in with whatever wall I put it against. I love the trend going around of painting the back wall of shelves, so I came up with this idea to help it pop!

I used painters tape to get the edges of these lines and did not do any measurements because I wanted to have a hand-drawn look (aka I'm lazy). I also changed up the color order in each section to make it look more sporadic. For the colors, I didn't want to have to get large amounts of paint for just a few lines, so I actually used fabric paints I had lying around and they worked perfectly! After lifting the tape there will probably be some bleeding, so just use a very fine brush to touch those spots up. Now I just need a sweet color coordinated book collection like everyone else haaaas!

Sorry the lighting isn't the best in these photos, I live in the basement of the house! 

-Jerica-

HOME DECOR

I have been in the slow process of decorating my room. What has been in the way is the fact I need to clean my room first....but that will all happen in time! I am moving down to a basement room in my house that has these beautiful built in shelves that are perfect for my decanter collection. One of my favorite thrifting activities is to have a mission of finding something in particular- it makes me feel more productive rather than the feeling of me just going on a crazy shopping spree at the thrift store, (random great finds are still exciting though!). For a while in time my mission was decanters, decanters, and more decanters!  It all started with one lil guy- my first decanter that I found. Which I now use as my version of a brandy set, when in truth it holds my amaretto for my drink of choice, amaretto sours!!! The rest I am displaying on these lovely shelves- along with some other bottles and crafts!

  -Amy-

WHITE ON WHITE ON WHITE ON WHITE

I don't know about you, but I am OBSESSED with white spaces. Maybe not obsessed, but I do like em. They're just so clean, light, and airy and you can play around with the decor as much as you want, or keep all the decor white too! Here are some of my favorite white spaces from around something I like to call, the internet.

Sources from L to R
 1, 2, 3, & 4

-Jerica-

CHALKBOARD PICTURE FRAMES

Another simple and easy project. I realize that when it comes to crafting I have ADD. It takes me forever to finish one project before I start the next. And Pinterest does not help that little problem at all. This little project I have been meaning to do for over a year! 

I have been collecting picture frames for quite some bit of time. I am attempting to fill up one whole wall with scattered frames. but due to extreme laziness and being cheap I have been avoiding printing pictures that aren’t the regular 5x7. Soooo they have basically been hanging up on my wall blank for a good year. Did it look cool? Not even a little bit. So today I finally decided to do something about it with my handy dandy chalk board spray paint.i think the pictures are pretty clear on how I did it…. but if it requires some directions here is a very very simple step by step.

1. Run the glass in a dishwasher on hot and steam dry to get those stubborn thrift store tags off. Or soak in hot soapy water for a half hour.
2. Follow instructions on the Chalk Board spray paint. It will require a couple of layers and time between each layer to dry.
3. Put back in frame and draw to your heart’s content.

I should also note that I did use white paint on two of the chalk board frames to make the texts more permanent and visible. Sooooo essentially I could have just used black spray paint…but I didn’t.  =)

-Amy-

BUNTING IDEAS

Here are a couple examples of bunting I have around the house! These are very easy and require no sewing. For the one in the bedroom I used fabric, scrapbook paper, and some paint samples, which are great because they’re free and you can get any colors you want! For the one above the table I used fabric paint on white fabric I cut up from an old sheet. To string I just took a needle and threaded it once in and once out, so it was just one large stitch.

 -Jerica-

IS IT POSSIBLE TO PUT THIS NIGHT TO TUNE AND MOVE IT TO YOU?

I am getting at that age when all of my dear friends (myself included) are graduating and getting to that point where we are starting to figure what we are doing with our lives and where we are going. Quite the turning point in our lives- I am still trying to figure out if I want to stay here in Colorado or go somewhere far and new. I just need to take that leap! Just like my dear friend Alix! She is off to California in the next few weeks to begin her sweet adventures.

Since she is leaving soon last night we had a little get together with drinks at 303 Distillery in Boulder. One of my favorite place for a chill night. We had a late night out the night before so we wanted to take it easy and shared a few drinks, a Vootbeer and a Dreamsickle. Deliciousssss- both made with gluten free potato vodka.  As a goodbye present I made Alix this map highlighting her two homes!

This was inspired by a pin on Pinterest- well many pins. I am not sure which is the original but props to them for their clever creativity!  This is my version of it. Since Alix was moving I wanted to make her something related to Colorado and I loved this state/nail/tread art project. However Colorado is possibly the most boring shaped state on the map. Seriously it would have just looked like a box on a board. So I had to brainstorm! I decided to go with the whole country and highlight her two homes California and Colorado.

The process is pretty simple- sorry I didn't document it with photos on my camera so I have a lower resolution version from my ipad that I will include.

It is a lot easier than it looks for the most part.

Materials:

Wooden Plaque

Nails ( 3/4 inch)- try to pick something with a larger head

Hammer

Tread

Print out 

Wood Stain

Super glue- with brush

1. Print out shape of the state or shape of whatever it is you want to do for this project.

2.Varnish your wooden plaque with whatever stain you want and let it dry a bit. I was impatient and immediately started working on the nail parts before it dried and pretty much stained my hands and my clothes with the varnish. I also hammered the plaque all over the place to create a beat up old version.

3.Cut out as close as you can to create a template.

4. Lay it down on your plaque. You can also tape it down so it doesn't shift when you're hammering to keep it from sliding around.

5. Hammer the edges down to create an outline. I just eyeballed the spacing. I did them pretty close to create a more defined outline.

6. Once the outline is nailed down you can just rip it out and begin threading!

7. Threading was the most frustrating part- mainly because the nails I chose had pretty much no head to them. This caused the thread to slide right off every time I tried to wrap them around. But if you get a better type of nail then this wont be a problem for you at all. I had to hold each piece down as I wrapped and create a lot of tension to keep it in place. I didn't have superglue till the end of the project but if I did I would brush each nail tip after I was done with the thread to keep them from moving. Instead I did it at the end to sealllll the dealllllllllll!

For the treading pattern all the ones on Pinterest had strings either did it  in random directions and colors or one color all coming to one point to make a uniformed looked. I tried both- but with doing the entire United States it just did not look as good to me. So I played around for a bit and eventually made each point to make a triangle. I redid this shape in different sizes and directions until it covered most of the open space. I then did the same with the highlighted states but with a brighter color tread.  I also kept all the thread ends hanging to create a vintage vibe to it.

-Amy-

DIY INSPIRATION BOARD

Here’s a project I did recently that only took me about 45 minutes! I wanted to redo my desk area and found inspiration here. All you need is some cork board (I got a pack of four with a sheet of double sided tape at hobby lobby for $9) some white paint, and painter’s tape. Because they are stuck on the wall with double sided tape, you can remove them and switch the pattern so it looks more like this. Either way is great!

MATERIALS
Cork Board
Painters Tape
White paint
Double sided tape to hang

DIRECTIONS
1. Take the painter’s tape and line it up on the cork board.
2, Take the second square and place the tape strips diagonally, making sure the tape lines up with the tape from the first one. I didn’t do any measuring and just eyeballed it because I was doing it on my lunch break from work and was too excited!
3. Paint a few layers of white paint on the open spots and be careful around the edges of the tape so it won't bleed. I had to do a few touch ups where the lines didn’t quite match up, but I think it turned out pretty gooood.

-Jerica-

DIY WALL PLAQUES

On a random shopping spree at Walmart I came across this awesomeness! A two in one burning tool for wood or stenciling. Check it out here: you will LOVE it. It has become my new favorite crafting tool! I had some extra wood plaques that was left over from my picture transferring onto wood project, I decided to put them to use and see what happens.

During a moment lapses of creativity (and as a practice piece) I decided to use the blog title and play with a font I found on Jerica’s Pinterest and one of my logo ideas. I did some accents with some acrylic paint and voila! On another plaque I decided to burn lyrics from one of my favorite songs, Pachuca Sunrise by Minus the Bear. The lyrics are “This is a city for not sleeping and the clocks are set by feel, at this moment from where I sit none of it seems real”. ooooo so deep and meaningful haha. But really it is one of my favorite songs.

The only thing with using this tool is that its hard to get the fonts exactly how you want them especially when they have curves in them. It could possibly be because of the head I used but the other additional heads that came with the kit did not heat up as hot. I am definitely one that likes instant gratification so I didn't want to wait around redoing each letter to get the dark scorch marks on each of the letters. The tip I used was the angled tip.

Since the plaques were a light color and looked unfinished I tried a stain that has been all over Pinterest! Are you seeing a theme here? Pinterest Pinterest Pinterest. I soaked some old nails and steel wool in apple cider and absamic vinegar to get a gray wood stain. I had to let the mixture sit for almost 24 hours before the color actually started to become apparent. So hard for me to wait that long but I did it! Add a coat or 2 for a darker shade.

-Amy-