Another Pinterest inspired DIY project!  I have been looking at various different themes for the nursery…as we won’t be finding out the gender, I need to keep things neutral.  (I’m actually not a fan of everything pink or blue anyways).  I debated over a few different ideas and then I remembered buying an ornament during a trip to Turkey in Cappadocia (Most awesome place to see!) which was a little hot air balloon in honour of our balloon ride during sunrise.  Then started googling/Pinterest-ing “Hot Air Balloon decor” and through various different DIYers’ projects, I made the first decor for the newly decided Hot Air Balloon theme for the nursery!

It was actually fairly simple, but lots of little steps and patience and time.  As usual, I just did it at my home office, in front of the PC/TV so I can watch movies/tv while crafting.  I first went to get all the supplies:

• Chinese paper lantern (found at Toronto’s chinatown on Spadina for about $2 each)
• Basket (Found at Dollarama for $1.50 each)
• scrap cardstock paper in various colours and designs (already have)
• Twine and Ribbon (already have)
• Glue gun/Scissors
• Paint (craft acrylic paint) and paint brushes

This is the chinese paper lantern unfolded:

Then very carefully and lightly paint the lantern in alternating fashion. I chose white and grey to offset the light green lantern.  On a whim, I decided to paint little dots on it in opposite colours as well to make it more interesting.  Use a paperclip and a clothe hanger to let dry.

For the first time ever, I have decided to decorate my house other than just the put up the Christmas Tree 3 days prior.  A lot of fun DIY projects, and cheap finds. Fairly happy with the results.  Think Christmas decor 2016 will have a good foundation to build on!

DIY Snowman from socks and rice…inspired by Pinterest

Upcycled Mirror painted and distressed

DIY sparkly and glittery pinecones from outside

So just for fun, and to be goofy, decided to make a DIY antler headband for Ellie for Christmas.  Figure it’s not worth spending more than $3 to buy one, might as well make it from materials I already have at home.

Equipment:

Sticky backed foam pieces in brown
white pipecleaners
headband in white

I looked at a picture from google and free-handed the shape of the antler on the back of the foam.

Cut out the shape, 2 mirror images so I have 4 individual pieces all together. The sticky back version just made it that much easier and quicker to put together as oppose to adding glue etc

with 2 pieces of the pipecleaner, shape it to the cut out shape of the antler. remove the sticky back and laid down the pipecleaner to one side (make sure to leave some hanging at the end to tie it to the headband).

Inspired to do more than put up a Christmas tree this year to decorate our house, I rolled up my sleeves and got right into a mix of DIY and cheap finds. It’s been a rolling process through the month of November, and the house is nearly done.  There will be an overall reveal by next week of all the little touches throughout the main floor of the house.  For now, I want to show one of the cutest DIY Christmas project this year – the DIY Mistletoe Ball.  Extremely simple, but need patience and the vision that it’s gonna be good when it’s done.  (trust me, there was doubts when I first started!)

Materials required:

2 strands of mistletoe garlands from Dollarama ($3 each)
1 styrofoam ball (already had)
Hot glue gun (already had)
wired ribbon of any width and about 3′ (already had)

For me, this project literally cost me $6 + tax – funny how the more you craft, the cheaper things get as you start accumulating a lot of spare stuff!

Start by yanking the little leaves out of the garland – at first I thought I would have to cut them off, but then quickly realizes it snaps off quite easily with a little pull.

with the glue gun, put a dab of glue at the ends and bottom of the twig and stick it to the styrofoam ball.  I started gluing it more horizontally at first, but as I did more, start layering it to lift up the previous leaf to give it more structure.  It gets easier as it gets fuller.  This was also the part where I started doubting if it would work out as it was rather sparse and hard to glue at this point.

so this fun little project is one of my favourite things made – likely ever.  (as valley girl as that sounds).  I’m incredibly proud of how it turned out and it looks wonderful and perfect on my bathroom wall. No more tangled bundled of necklace mess in the AM when all I want to do is choose something to go with my outfit!  It’s finally time to get organized while doing something crafty (and easy!)

I started by scouting out garage sales – physical ones – over the summer, but didn’t really see anything that I like. Then I moved onto the internet (this new fangle thing) and did searches on Kijiji and VarageSale.  Both equally good for searching what I was looking for.  My search terms were “antique”, “victorian”, “picture frame”, or something to that effect.  I didn’t care how it looked, more on the size, and the ornate design of the frame as I knew I was going to paint it.  Took around 2 weeks of scouting ads, but then finally found the perfect one!  It was a bronze metal frame with a glass covered picture of a plant.  I got it for $12.  yahoooo!

On to the crafting part – started by tapping the glass by the edge of frame, and then applied a white primer.  I already loved the look of it.

Skipping some photo taking here, but once the primer dried (an hour or so), I painted one layer of grey paint I bought at Home Depot in the “as is” section for $3.  used this same paint in other projects.  I thought it looked great with the blue walls in the bathroom.  Also found this cute flowered light grey contact paper from Dollarama for $2 (i think).  it was just perfect.  I wasn’t sure until then what I was going to do to cover up the picture, was tossing up thoughts of gluing fabric or pretty wrapping paper.  This just made it that much easier.  Just start at one end, and use a straight edge (i used a card board from a package) to apply pressure on the top as I pull the sticker back off slowly.