Make This: Wine Cork Wreath

For the last several weeks, I've been participating in A Bowl Full of Lemons Home Organization Challenge.  To date, I've purged the kitchen, pantry and most recently our dining room.  The idea is to go through everrrryythinnnggg and rid your house of excess!  Challengers have a facebook page where organizational/functionality ideas are shared and it helps keep many of us accountable.  Sunday after I checked all the items off the list of things to do, I posted a picture on Instagram and in the facebook group to mark my weekly achievement. 

Fellow Challengers posted lovely comments about the room and the decorating style (which I'd sum up as: farmhouse, rustic and country) that we've chosen for our home.  I had questions about how I redid the chairs, the A-frame wine rack and if I had made the placemats, but folks were gaga over the wine cork wreath! Since there was such a genuine interest in how it was made, I promised a tutorial would appear on the blog this week.  So as promised....

Make This: Wine Cork Wreath

Items Needed:
Straw Wreath
Wine Corks
Toothpicks
Jute


Instructions:
First and foremost, do yourself a favor and leave the plastic wrapping on the wreath!  Your wreath will be full of corks and you won't even see it.  It's not worth the mess you'll have if you remove it. 

Cut a rather long piece of jute (or cord or some other heavy string), that will be how your wreath is hung up.  The length is purely your decision.  The jute in the tutorial was 22 inches long.  You'll double it up and lay it underneath your straw wreath.  Feed the tails through the loop at the top and finish by knotting the tails together, as shown.

Now, grab a wine cork and a toothpick.  You will carefully pierce the toothpick into one end of your cork.  You may have to wiggle the toothpick and hold your mouth just so to get it started...  Once you've got the toothpick attached to the cork, start placing the toothpicks into the straw wreath. 

You will continue the process of attaching the toothpick to the cork and place them into the wreath.  Place each cork close to it's neighbor so that you see very little of the straw wreath.  

Inevitably, you will have a toothpick break on you.  Just pull it out and start again.

As you continue to place the cork/toothpicks into the wreath you'll want to remember to fill in the middle and outside edge of the wreath. 

As I was creating this wreath several years ago, I had a couple friends saving corks for me.  I solemnly swear I didn't drink every bottle associated with each cork!  There was a point that I just started sticking the corks in the wreath and added to it as I came across more.  Just last week I added a few corks to a spot or two that was thin.  My wreath is always evolving!  I'd encourage you to jump right in and not wait until you have enough corks.  Honestly, I have no idea how many are enough...

Oh oh!!  Something else that's noteworthy... Depending on the size of your wreath it can get really HEAVY!!!  Seriously.  If you decide to hang it on your wall use an anchor or double-check it's hanging from a stud.  It would be really sad for your wall and your wreath if it came crashing down!

Go collect your supplies, open a bottle of wine because you'll need the cork and get crafting!

Nursery Reveal

Made ya look!  Ha!

So technically it IS a nursery reveal, but it's the one I help design/decorate for my sister-in-law... Not one for me or anything crazy wacky like that.

Jennifer is very much a left-brain analytical thinker.  She absolutely can be creative, but it's not her forte!  You want someone to formulate rations and get all PhD on you, she's your girl!  Back at the baby shower, I had extended an offer to come down and help trick out the nursery for the baby. 

I was really excited when she took me up on it!  So Haddie and I hightailed it down to Tennessee for a long weekend and we got to "work".  In my world, decorating and being creative is nothing like work!

Obviously, Jen had some ideas for the nursery that they put in place over the last several months.  They decided on coral paint for the walls, white wainscoting, with accents of grey and teal.  Sounds lovely, eh?! 

Armed with photos of the room and our Pinterest apps, we headed to town to shop.  We found adorable wall hangings, frames and shelf decor that would give us a nice start to our 'vision'. 

That afternoon we got crafty and made a mobile for the crib.  We used this tutorial as a guide.  Jen picked up a mobile frame at a local resale shop and we were both tickled with the end result!

Sunday morning, Kyle joined Jen and I on another shopping excursion and I'm so glad he did!  To my surprise, Kyle and I agreed that the ruffled lampshade was an absolute must...  Initially, Jen wasn't convinced.  She's come around though!

I had my work cut out bringing them both to the dark side when I said that I thought the end table would look really cool if we spray painted it and then 'dipped' the legs in gold spray paint.  Bless their hearts, I could see the doubt in their eyes!  But I think (and I got a text saying they agreed!) that it was a sound decision.

The rest of the nursery came together pretty quickly and quite well, in my humble opinion!!  You'll notice that we incorporated several of the shower decorations into the nursery as well.

 

 

I'm also proud to report that our niece, Adelyn Margaret, joined the world on Sunday, July 12!!  She weighed 6 lb, 13 oz and was 20 1/4 inches long.  She's such a cutie!!

Rustic Chic Baby Shower Decor

Last month I had the honor of hosting my sister-in-laws baby shower!  You may have seen several teaser shots on Instagram because I started planning it months in advance.  #compulsiveoverplanner

The guest list was relatively small and my 'vision' for the shower was going to most easily created if I could start putting things together over the course of a few weeks.  So the decision to host the shower at our house was made relatively quickly!  Thankfully, we have the extra space and we borrowed the tables and chairs from Matt's office.

Jennifer and I spent several hours on the phone talking about what she didn't want for the shower (hot pink, lambs or shower games) and things she did (ice cream, rustic/vintage and not too much of a fuss... Ya, that didn't happen!).  Armed with that knowledge and what I had in my party planning/catering stash, I settled on  subtle feminine touches with lots of burlap, barn wood and pastels.  Rustic Chic, if you will!

The first thing I started obsessing over on was the invitation and book request cards!  Thank goodness for free graphics and PicMonkey.

Once I was satisfied with the invites, all my attention was turned towards decorations!  Using some leftover vintage fabric, I sewed napkins.

I made pink tulle pom poms, burlap pennants and paper fans to hang as the backdrop for the food table.  The straps of fabric I tied in little bows around jute.  The white curtains?  Plastic tablecloths hung with fishing line!  Thank you, Husband!  Matt also cut and built the barnwood 'canvas' that I painted to say "You're our greatest adventure!!". 

I also came across some really cute clothespins at TJ Maxx and figured out a way to incorporate them as well with some paper doilies!

All of the linens were freebie fabric that I was given by a friend and the burlap runners were leftovers from our wedding decorations!  I don't save everything, but what I do I know I'll use again.

For the table decorations, I borrowed wood slices to set burlap wrapped cans, wine bottles wrapped in jute and old hinge topped Ball jars.

By the grace of God, I was able to track down peonies and force bloom them just in time for the shower!  The pops of pink and green from the store bought flowers coordinated nicely with the pink center in the peony!

 

Let's talk table service, shall we?  I decided early on that I wanted to use 'real' plates, so I hit up The Dollar Tree for plates and bowls for a $1.00 each.  Since the shower, we retired our existing plateware and are using these!  I pretty much dig 'em. 

 

When the new purple Ball Heritage Collection came out late this winter, I had already decided that I needed a pack.  You know, just because.  The shower gave me a perfect excuse to buy three boxes!  I tied some jute in a bow around the neck and popped in a paper straw.  Done!  And cute to boot.

To finish off the tables, I used Marisa's amazing recipes for Blueberry Butter and Orange Rhubarb Butter to give everyone as a favor for attending.  After scouring Pinterest high and low, I found the perfect printable to accessorize each little jar!

I {big puffy heart} love how it all turned out!  More importantly, Jennifer loved it too!!!

A post fully dedicated to food and drink will be next!  Come back, you'll be glad you did.

Make This: Stenciled Burlap Placemats

When I was showboating with all the pictures of the peonies that I force bloomed, did anyone notice the burlap placemats on the dining room table? 
 

Cute, eh?  Say they're cute.

It probably safe to say that everyone knows that I'm a big fan of burlap!  Things like that happen when you buy a bolt of 100 yards, yes... one hundred, of it for your wedding and are still coming up with ways to use it almost five years later. 

I had originally pinned to my burlap board a similar tutorial, but when it came down to it I made some modifications based on what I had on hand.  The burlap that I have is actually landscaping burlap, not the burlap you'd get at Hobby Lobby or Michael's, which is why I modified the original tutorial.  Keep reading to see how I made mine!

Stenciled Burlap Placemats

Items Needed:
Burlap
Permanent Marker
Scissors
Stencil

Decide what you want your stencil to be.  Fire up your computer and print off those puppies.  I decided to do words, but a monogram would be cute too!  Use all caps or all lowercase, let your imagination run wild!

Cut your burlap to size.  Mine are 19"x14".  This is a super handy tip for cutting burlap and making sure you have a straight cut!

Create fray on each placemat.  I wanted to have a "frame" of frayed threads around each one.  To achieve this I pulled 4 strands out around each side.

Place the words/monogram/what-have-you underneath the burlap and use a permanent marker to copy the word from the paper to the burlap.  Remember, my burlap is landscaping burlap.  It has a really loose weave and is really easy to see through to the words below.  Just something to be aware of as you're crafting! 

Dress your table with your new placemats!

Is anyone else a sucker for burlap or is it just me? 

Just One Blister

Holy productive weekend, Batman!

I couldn't tell you the last time I've spent the bulk of Saturday and Sunday at home, but this past weekend was different!  And I made darn good use of the time too!  Knowing that the weeks are going to really start flying by now that horse show season kicks off this weekend, I knew I had to get cracking on my list of projects. 

Hosting a baby shower at your house will, none the less, light a fire under ya!

The project of redoing our very formal dining room chairs has been in the works for, oh six years or so!  Obviously they weren't too high up the list.  Since the new floors went in (hand-scraped engineered hardwood) the chairs were really sticking out like sore thumbs and something needed to be done!  Here's the before...

A fine chair, but far too stuffy and formal for our house's "style".  I knew I was going to take them in the 'farmhouse' direction by painting them white-ish and then roughing them up to make them look worn and well loved!

Friday afternoon I made collected all the necessary supplies and started by first reupholstering the seats with a new 'farmhouse style' fabric.  Learning from past mistakes, I measured twice and cut once, that part was smooth sailing!  I finished up the seats just as Matt walked in the door, he did stop to say how nice they looked before he ushered me out the door to meet friends for supper.  Bonus points, husband.  Bonus points.

Saturday morning I started off by using flat black spray paint and spraying all six chairs.  Living on the prairie, I lucked out with an almost windless day!  While the paint was drying, I took the dogs for a run and then came back and did a second coat.  The weather was so gorgeous that I left the chairs out in the yard while I drove down and rode Louie. 

After getting back that afternoon, I busted out the paint.  I went with Glidden's Antique Beige, which coordinated nicely with the cream in the fabric.  By the end of Saturday, I had three of the six chairs painted!  Makin' progress.

Sunday morning after my workout, I went back to painting the rest of chairs.  For whatever reason it took an extra coat of the beige paint to cover the black?  Who knows why?  I had to stop occasionally for snacks and to play with the dogs, but by 8:30pm Sunday all six chairs were painted, distressed, reassembled and back in the dining room! 

And despite the one blister, I'm so stinking thrilled with the end product!

Did anyone else work on projects this weekend? 

Linking up with B Loved Boston

Two in a Row, Whoa!

Watch out world!  Okay, maybe not the world... but you get the idea.

I'm breaking off the rust and getting back in the blogging game.  I've missed all my Friday link-up pals and if it wasn't for Instagram, y'all may have thought I fell of the planet! 

ONE, Life Updates

I really do have a good reason for it being so quiet on the home front.  Work has been cray cray, lots of exciting things coming up from fundraisers to summer workshops for teachers.  Throw in coordinating a golf scramble!  Have I ever mentioned that I know little to nothing about golf?  In addition to work, there's all the fun stuff that's going on personally!  We are redoing some flooring in the house, horse show season is kicking off soon and I'm hosting my sister-in-law's baby shower.  Making all the decor for the shower has been such a blast!  Last weekend I cut and sewed napkins from some scrap fabric.  I love the vintage pieces!

TWO, New Boots

Picky.  Picky is the best word to describe how I am when it comes to buying new cowboy boots.  It takes me for.ev.er. to find a pair that hits all the requirements.  And the requirements are typically a mile long.  It's because I'm a purist when it comes to my boots!  Hearts, wings, peace signs, crosses...need not apply.  I've been looking for a pair of classic, not plain, black boots for over a year and I FINALLY found a pair that fit all my requirements.  And they were on sale!

They're Justin's for inquiring minds.

THREE, The Easter Bunny

So Miss Haddie may have killed the Easter Bunny!  Oopsies.  Okay, it may not be the actual Easter Bunny, but doesn't little miss look awfully proud of her recent slaying?  

FOUR, Leadership Skills

While being told I'm "bossy" doesn't really bother me, I think "leadership skills" sounds much nicer!

FIVE, The Underdog

 Aaron Watson's newest CD, The Underdog, has been on repeat since I bought it the day it was released!  I love his traditional country sound and the messages in each of his songs.  I mean, you can't write and sing a song about the death of your child without tugging on a few heart strings!  Do yourself a favor and give it a listen!

Linking up with Five on Friday, Friday Favorites and Oh, Hey Friday!