DIY Fun

Every since preschool has been out, I've had the itch to do some DIY Pinterest inspired stuff.  I rearranged my furniture in most of the house, made myself a gallery wall, hung up new (to us) curtains, made a welcome sign for the front porch, and put new edging in the flower bed.  (Much to Justin's dismay!)

First up-my welcome sign.  I was inspired by this picture and wanted to replicate it. 

I just used some leftover pallet wood and paint that I already had.  For the lettering, I printed out a font on my computer and rubbed chalk on the back of the paper.  Then I laid it down on the sign and traced the letters with pencil.  The pencil tracing made a chalk outline on the sign-very easy to paint!  I found the burlap at Dollar Tree and used it to make the burlap roses and to hang the sign up.  I was pretty excited how it turned out since I winged it in all.

Next up-the flowerbed edging.  I showed this idea to Justin and he wasn't on board like I thought he would be.  But then a brick paver sale at Lowe's helped him changed his mind.  We purchased 150 bricks and started away on it.  This was actually kind of a pain.  You had to use a level to make sure the bricks were straight and lined up.  It was hard to make a curve with this design.  And then we ended up having monsoon rains (as it seemed) so we couldn't finish the project right away.  What should have taken a day to do, took almost a week and half to complete.  And then it rained some more so some of my bricks sunk in.  Which we thought might happen.  So I do need to fix that part.  But that's easy!  And I love the result.  It looks more polished and really defines the flowerbed. 

And now-my pickle jar vase!

Justin bought this humongous jar of pickles at Sam's.  And I knew that I wanted to do something with the jar once the pickles were finished.  So after some nagging for EVERYONE TO EAT THE PICKLES...it was finally empty.  I had some leftover white spray paint and decided to paint it with that.  I actually read somewhere on Pinterest to paint the inside of the jar to make it look more like a ceramic item.  Nope.  Don't do that.  It was a mess and for some reason when I painted the second coat on, it bubbled up the paint and it looked awful.  So I painted the outside of it and it turned out just fine.  I actually liked it better.  I used some flowers we had lying around the house and put some leftover burlap ribbon around the jar.  And I ended up loving it.  It's super bright and cheery.  Now I have a big pickled jar of okra sitting in the fridge.  I'm a little excited to get that finished off so I can paint again!

And lastly, my gallery wall.  I've been wanting to do a gallery wall and have studied them on Pinterest, but I just didn't think I had the right stuff to do it with.  So on a whim one night I gathered some fun shaped items and hung them up.  And it worked.  I still need to put some pictures in the frames but overall, I liked the look.  And it filled up a big blank wall that I had no idea what to do with. Win, win!

And of course, I still have more projects on my mind.  I would love to paint my dining room table like this.  I would love to make the "Do it all for the glory" sign for our dining room.  Or maybe this one about breaking bread?  I'd like to try to make this faux coral.  But I think my next project is this drop cloth rug for the dining room.  This would definitely help define the space.  Now, wish me luck!