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!

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

Breaking Radio Silence

Phew.  Life gets to be a whirlwind, eh?!? 

I'm back to show off a recent purchase that I'm picked up at TJ Maxx!!  Who else loves that place?  I spend could spend hours pouring over the clothes, shoes, household stuff, fun food... The list goes on and on!

Anyway, after originally going in to look for "necessities", I ended up in the home decor area and on the endcap was all their new Spring and Easter decor.  Let me tell you, everything was so cute!  And despite not really needing it, I couldn't pass up the adorable ceramic egg crate!

My little brown, farm fresh eggies love their new home too!

You should really go get yourself one!  It's worth the $7.99 just for all the smiles on your face each time you open the refrigerator door!