DIY These HUGE Flowers Like We Did For a Wedding

We made this beautiful backdrop for my grand daughter's wedding. Except for the hanging lanterns, we totally DIYed the vintage style doors, the hanging garlands, the petunias and geraniums in the urn planters and these luscious HUGE paper flowers for her decor.

Everything turned out AWESOME!!!

Here's a link to the door project...

http://makethebestofthings.blogspot.com/2014/06/gorgeous-wedding-doors-are-pinterest-win.html

Thanks to Pinterest, the bride had loads of ideas for her wedding and she chose these stylish flowers for a decorative highlight.

So during the course of one weekend, her mama, Insanely Creative Christy, gathered all her paper crafting wits and supplies and made these gorgeous oversize flowers. She looked at the photos and figured out just what she needed to do to make each style. 

These flowers are seriously HUGE, folks. This one is 30" across! She made them all with small paper plates for the centers and built out from there. This flower is made of poster board, coffee filters and copy paper. She used hot glue and a stapler.

The edges are curled with a bit of dowel. What a neat detail!

Here is the humongous rose. Did you notice that it looks a bit pink? Who knew that poster boards from different stores weren't the same shade of white? Now you know!

Here is the spikey chrysanthemum both during and the final. Again, the center is coffee filters and cut copy paper, with some curled tightly in the middle.

 Here is a peony style with folded, fringed poster board in the middle and the middle petals curled inward.

Another peony style with that pinkish poster board. She added beaded accents to the center of folded copy paper.

Here are the first three flowers hung together. See how the paper she used has different shades of white? We liked that sweet serendipity!

We hung them in my living room before the wedding to keep them out of harms way. They looked wonderful! By the time she was done she made a dozen blooms, all of them beautiful. The smaller ones were made of tissue and cardstock.

To hang them up we simply stapled through the back petals directly onto the wooden doors. Draped paper circle garlands gave the design a bit of movement and flow. We just LOVE how this came out!

Coming up next....what do you do with huge paper flowers like these after the wedding? We don't want to trash them and they do take a bit of space. So for now I've put them here in my master bedroom. Soon they will be props for my daughter's photography business. They will be here for a bit in a "flower cloud" above our bed, according to The Welding Man.

And again I say, "Oooh aaah!"

Book Painting For My Livingroom

My living room was looking winter dark and dreary so I decided to lighten up all my decor, 

starting with this bookcase painting in my favorite blues, reds, golds and greens.

I found a big blank thrift store canvas for the win. Three dollars!!

I Mod Podged old dictionary pages over the whole thing.

I drafted in the design and started the base book paintings.

I crackle painted several books on each shelf with Elmer's glue and craft paint.

It's an easy DIY and looks awesome!

I blogged about it here...

crackle-finish-with-elmers-glue.html

Then comes lots of details and dry brushing and even some gel markers.

And I added one of my garden orbs since they are kind of my "thing."

              

I really like the new, lighter, colorful way my livingroom is headed.

 I am sure there are more projects in store. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Love My Penny Island Project!

Way back when, we turned two of our old nightstands into this wonderfully useful kitchen island. 

It is still one of my favorite projects for our home!

Originally I used old cook book pages on top in the same hue as the floor and

 sealed them with a single coat of "bar top" resin. It looked great and held up

 for several years. BUT we should have sealed it with more resin. 

The edges started to peel and we knew it was time to replace it.

And here's what we did....

Yup, we put a penny top on our kitchen island and it came out 

AWESOME!

We like it!

We like it ALOT!

Oooh aaaah!

Here's a before and after. What a pretty solution!

I did NOT want to buy pennies so I scrounged up all our stashed pennies and saved

even more for months. Then I chose to clean and polish them using Brasso.

While watching "The West Wing" on Netflix.

It took about 12 hours total so do this part of the job. Would I do it again? 

Yes. 

Would I buy at least a few rolls of new pennies for my next project? 

YES. Lesson learned.

We had the boards in our stash, so I stained them using Minwax Polyshades in Maple. 

It is a stain and sealer in one. It was also in our stash.

I scuffed up the old cookbook top with sandpaper then painted it with flat black craft paint.

It makes the coins really pop against that dark background.

We did not glue the pennies down and we did not put them in any pattern.

               

Envirotex Lite is an improvement on the original formula we used over 5 years ago. 

It isn't smelly, it sets up fast and looks fantastic when you're done.

 I used a 50% off coupon and got it for less than $20.

Win win!

The light coming through our skylight during the day really brings 

out the many different hues of the coins.  As the light changes, the metallic colors change.

We love it!

                       THIS time we used triple the amount of resin to give a deep and shiny finish.

It's been a couple of weeks and I'm still being careful setting heavy containers on top.

And we will ALWAYS use trivets and pads for anything hot. 

It is just good sense.

And when the sun goes down and hits those shiny pennies the light is just dazzling!

We are very pleased with the way this project came out. The most time consuming 

part was polishing pennies. Would we do it again? 

Yes!

I'm thinking.....backsplash!

There are so very many penny projects online that I did not go into alot of detail here. If you want to tackle this project I say do your research, gather your supplies and GO! 

Even if you bought everything at full price and new, this is not an expensive project.

Try it!

Silver Button Blingy Decor Ball

 I decided to change that big silver Christmas ball looking orb because that's just what it is.
A big silver Christmas ball.

. You know when you go to someone's house and you see a decor item that just draws you in 

and you want to pick it up and handle it and 

say, "What is it? This is so cool!" 

That's what I was shooting for.

In my craft room I have a huge stash of stuff, including silverish buttons and doodads.

I roughed up the ball surface with sandpaper
and used hot glue then E6000 adhesive.

 I used wire cutters to trim 

 the hasps off the back of the buttons so they would lay flat.

Then I went to town and attached every silvery button and trim I could lay my hands on. 

                                                                                                                                           

Buttons and bottle caps and watch faces and silvery beads and glass half marbles...

and jewelry parts and necklace clasps and scrapbook gems and even glitter.

Oooh! I like it alot!

               
             

Or right there where it started, at the end of the counter when you come in the door? 

Yeah. That's the place.

 I love the way this came out! 

Don't you want to pick it up and turn it over and check it out? 

So do I! 

Five Gallon Bucket Table With Blingy Blue Top

You know the drill by now. I wanted something but didn't want to spend any money. 

In this case, a nice little side table for our front deck....just a pretty little place to put things when we're sitting out there visiting or enjoying the sun.

I knew we had to have something in all of our stuff that I could use for this project.

Heeeeyyyyy....

We have a stack of five gallon buckets in storage. Sure, they smell like pickles but 

they are free and they are also the perfect height! In this case, 13" tall.

Here is the spray paint I keep on hand for our plastic patio chairs that are still sturdy and I am too cheap to replace. Painted this beautiful turquoise blue they even look good. 

The bucket is now Lagoon blue. And soon the boards will be, too.

Pallet wood scraps, baby!

I knew if I rummaged around enough in the scrap barrel I'd find enough to cover this bucket.

Yeah, they look rough but they're scraps and they're free and it was starting to get hot....

Okay, used air nailer to attach boards to bucket. Easy peasy.

Checking the kitchen I found this 15" microwave plate under the counter. We've never had a microwave large enough for this plate so I must have bought it at some point,

 but hey, serendipity! Perfect for the table top I have in mind.

Yeah, I have a stash of blue gems from the Dollar Store and thrift stores and yard sales. Don't judge me, I use these all the time! Shhh, they're pretty and they're cheap and perfect for this next step.

I laid them out in different ways and decided I liked the random look. I used a caulking gun and that tube of silicone sealer and added a small cookie sized blob of silicone in each area of the plate and smooshed each glass marble into the blob, giving each one a twist to seat it. In a bit I was looking at.....

A five gallon bucket table with a blingy glass top! 

I made this photo all gauzy and glamorous on purpose. Because I'm not quite sure if the style

 of the top goes with the style of the base, even after I painted the base turquoise blue.

Hmmmmm.

Look! All's well that ends well! The silicone dries clear and makes the glass marbles look like they are surrounded by water.

This pretty little FREE table is perfect for the purpose I had in mind. With a bit

 of ingenuity and time and a bit of work, I now have a blingy blue glass table for our front deck. Not only is it FREE, but it is totally waterproof and can stay outside all year long. 

Plastic bucket.

Reclaimed pallet boards.

Silicone sealant.

Blue glass gems.

ALL totally weatherproof.

I am calling this a win win, even if I'm not completely satisfied that the top goes with the bottom. But I've got a few ideas, and a few more five gallon buckets, to try and change things up.

Stay tuned!!

Here's my second table, so pleased with it!

DIY "Rock" Planters from Styrofoam Boxes

What to do with those 

styro foam boxes

 you get with Christmas goodies inside?

Here's a great solution and it's easy to do.

Make faux rock planters out of them.

Yup!

Here's one finished planter with a succulent that's loving it's new home. 

This planter is a few months old so you can see I have to touch up a few spots 

but really, it looks like an old stone planter covered with moss!!

This was a box for our Christmas ham. I trimmed it down then roughed up the sides 

with a wire brush. Then I scored rough rock shapes into the foam.

I took my regular acrylic craft paints in rock and moss colors and started layering

 and layering until it looked authentic. 

I used spray paint sparingly at some of the joints and I loved

 the cool rocky texture it made.

So now I tried some more light sprays of paint in little areas and loved it even more!

This is definitely a stony, rocky look right there.

Then I layered on more acrylic paint to blend the colors and cover up 

any white foam showing through.

I'm in love with this project!

I already had a pot of mixed sedum on my deck so I

popped it into the new planter.

Oooh aaaaah!