TuTu Tutorial ----Flower Pin Tutorial

A few days ago, I shared Jenny's TuTu Tutorial for how to make this adorable skirt.  Today, I'm sharing with you her tutorial for how to make the silk flower. 

There are a lot of tutorials and ideas out in blogland for these flowers.  You can make them from organza the same way and attach them to barrettes and headbands or sew them to t-shirts.....endless possibilities!

Materials Needed: 

Fabric
Scissors
Candle
Needle/Thread
Bead, button, or any kind of embellishment
Felt
Hot glue/gun

Take your material and cut out different size circles.  You can trace jars, cups, anything round and in different sizes.  I used four circles, but you can use as many as you like.  (You can also alternate your materials..... silk, organza, silk, organza.....that's Nikki's sidenote!)

Using a candle, gently burn the edges of the circle.  Be very careful to not get the fabric too close to the flame.  If your edges happen to burn, you can trim that black part off.  You just want to fabric to curl up.

After you have curled your circles, stack them in layers.  You can then stitch the flower together using any type of beans, buttons, or embellishments.

To attach your flower to your skirt (or headband, barrette, etc) take a circle of felt and cut out a circle smaller than  your flower.  Glue your felt to the back of your satin flower.  At this point you can glue, pin or sew the flower to your skirt or your can glue it to a barrette or headband.......wherever you'd like to put it!

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Cheap Accessories

I've been a little broke recently, so when it came to accessorizing my bathroom re-do  I didn't have any money to spend.....so I shopped around my house for stuff to use! 

The first things that I found were the old pictures on my bathroom wall....

I just replaced them with pieces of scrapbook paper that I already had.....

Something old made new for FREE!!

Toothbrush holders are expensive and quite honestly, after 2 days, they are all a gross mixture of spit and used toothpaste, anyway!

How about a green bean can covered in the matching scrapbook paper?  I just mod podged it on!  It's going to get gross eventually, so I'll replace it in a month or so.....

My boys are hitting pre-teen and are starting to accumulate boy "cosmetic stuff".....(does that sound manly enough??)  I had these bread tins that I purchased for about $0.75 that I was going to use to hold silverware at picnics this summer.....it works great for a tube of clearsil and even makes it look cute!

You can see my Ruffled Shower Curtain in the reflection of the mirror (ignore my crazy..it's 10 pm hair!).  If you missed the tutorial for it, you can find it HERE.  I took an old king-sized sheet from the Goodwill and transformed it into a shower curtain.

So you can see....it doesn't take a whole lot of money to make BIG changes!

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Finally....my $20 bathroom redo!

I have been promising pictures for over a month.....well, here they are!

Before you look at the bathroom before pictures, let me just explain that the green paint was FREE!  It matched my free shower curtain and now that the walls are no longer green.....I have no idea why I ever kept that color for as long as I did!

One of the first things that I did was remove my towel rack....underneath the brackets are teeny little screws.....unscrew them...and you are left with a bracket on the wall to take off.

What inspired this project was my friend, Erin....she had FREE paint that she was offering me....a beautiful calming and soothing blue....her blue paint helped inspired the idea of a white Board and Batten bottom...

Board and batten is cheap and easy.....the wood for this cost about $15 and I did TWO bathrooms and had wood leftover!  We (my husband since I am terrified of the table saw!) ripped 2 x 4's and one 2x6 in half.....that way we doubled our amount of wood!

To do Board and Batten you just take wood and adhere it to the wall with nails and glue.  We just used liquid nails.  You then paint over it with a glossy white paint.  They key is to make sure that everything is level!  That's were I needed the hubby to come in and help.

HERE is an amazing tutorial for how to install Board and Batten if you'd like more assistance.

My next project was to cut down the mirror......although now I wish that I hadn't.  I found an AMAZING way to frame out the whole thing, but it was after I had it cut....grrr!  I found a local man who did an awesome job of cutting it for $5.00.  He even smoothed the very sharp edges.

  

 And the after......

        

I'd love to add beadboard to my bathroom sink like Stacy did HERE at The Creative Crate.  She added it to the doors and side of her sink base and then painted it in white....very pretty!  (Her mirror is what I wish I had done to mine!)

We framed the mirror with an old piece of baseboard.  Attaching it was difficult because my husband refused to just glue it to the mirror....so it was a bit of a project!

I'm still not sure about the shelf....it may go and the Board and Batten may continue under the mirror.  Your thoughts??

Tomorrow I'll show you how I added cheap accessories like the art work, the toothbrush holder and my containers for all the s-t-u-f-f that usually is sitting on my sink like this...

Can someone please tell me WHY there is a little green man face-down on my sink???  Really....that's a tad bit disturbing!



Cost Breakdown:

Wood---$7.50  (since I got 2 bathrooms out of the $15.00 of wood)
Paint---free....already had the white and the blue was from Erin
Shower curtain----$2.50...an old sheet from Goodwill  (HERE is a tutorial for how to make the shower curtain...the curtains are just a smaller variation of it.)
Curtains----Free....an old white sheet of mine
Artwork---$1.00 piece of scrapbook paper
Shelf---$4.00 from the Goodwill
Frame for the Mirror----extra piece of baseboard laying around in the basement
Mirror---$5.00 to get it cut down

TOTAL:  $20.00!!!*

Update:  The Blue paint color is Benjamin Moore Wedgewood Gray HC-146 but mixed in the Behr Premium Plus Ultra Paint and Primer in one (Looks like blue to me....)

*If you had to buy a quart of paint for the white then add another $10.00 and another $20.00 for a gallon of blue if you were buying it....although a quart may be enough.

Overall....a HUGE difference for very little money!!

I'm linking up with:

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Easy Tutu Tutorial

My friend, Jenny, is from the South....the "y'all" South......the I'm eat'n boil'd peanuts South.....and her daughter is always dressed so beautiful on a Sunday mornin'!  She has started making some adorable outfits for her daughter (and niece) to wear.


Over the next few days I will be posting Jenny's tutorial for how to make this complete outfit:

She is a beginner when it comes to sewing so you CAN do this!

Today.....we'll learn how to make the tu-tu!

 

Materials:  Tulle (2-5 yards depending on child's size)
                  Elastic
                  Needle and Thread

To make the waistband....cut a piece of elastic and measure it around your child's waist.  Find a comfortable length and sew the ends together.

Take the tulle and roll it up or fold it to a 3-4 inch width.  Cut 3-4 inch strips of tulle. These will become your strips to tie around the elastic.     

Once you  have your strips of tulle cut you are ready to tie them around the elastic.  Just tie the strips in a square knot.

To keep the tulle out of your way, loop the band of elastic around your leg like a garter and just keep rotating it around your leg.

Once you are finished you might want to trim up the bottom to even your skirt.  The more tulle, the more "foo-foo" (Is that a word?) it will be.  Super easy.  Hope you have fun with it:)

--Jenny

Over the next couple of days I will be posting Jenny's tutorial for the flower and the shirt!

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PB Knock-off

I love Pottery Barn....I collect their catalogs until they stop sending them because I never buy anything....

This lantern makes my heart flutter....the simplicy of it......but the price tag also makes my heart flutter.....it's not even near my price range....not....even...CLOSE!

But over at The Hand-Me-Down House, Amanda shows you how to take this:

and transform it into THIS!!!

She has an amazing tutorial HERE.

Side note: You can find those brassy lights at your Habitat Restore and also a lot of Thrift stores for next to nothing!



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Last minute Valentine shirt...

Truly, this project took all of 15 minutes and I am not even good at sewing!  I know that it's late for Valentine's day, but I was also thinking that green fabric and a clover would be a good idea for St. Patrick's Day!

Grab a white shirt from Goodwill and trace a heart....I folded my shirt and heart so that it would be centered. (Sorry, everytime I load this picture it flips it....grr!)

I just traced with a pencil....you will be sewing fabric over the lines so they will not show...

Cut strips of red fabric.....I folded over about 2 inches and cut a strip....

Then, cut your 2 inch strip down the seam so that you have 2 two-inch strips.

Follow my Ruffle Tutorial for how to make the ruffles....Now, I only had about 10 minutes at this point because I had to make lunch before our afternoon at basketball......if I had more time, I would have pinned the heart ruffles down to the pencil markings....I just eye-balled it along the pencil line...

I may just rip the heart off tomorrow and then put a clover on for March.....who knows, maybe I'll just keep recycling it.....Easter egg, American flag......



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If You Give a Mother a Minute.....

Do you ever have days where it's just hard to get out-of-bed?  Mornings where facing the day ahead of you is just....... plain......overwhelming.....

I have those days.....days when my mind ticks through how much I have to do that day and I have not even opened my eyes yet..........days when my arms and heart feel heavy and I just don't even want to open my eyes!


My brain works like a checklist.....I think that a lot of women are like that....we are constantly multi-tasking...constantly sorting through lists in our head....constantly trying to get the most done in the spare moments that we have....

I often think that my life is a lot like If You Give a Pig a Pancake......

"If I walk through the living room, I will see dust.......when I go to get the dust rag under the kitchen sink, I will see a load of dishes in the dishwasher that needs to be unloaded.....when I go to unload the disherwasher, I will realize that I need a clean dish towel......when I walk to the laundry room for the clean towel, I will see the broom and realize that the kitchen floor needs to be swept.......while sweeping the kitchen floor, the cat will "meow" and I will go downstairs to feed it.....while going down the stairs I will see books on the steps and need to put them back on the bookshelf.....while putting the books away, I will see dirty socks and the floor and remember a load of laundry that I need to put in the drier......."

Can you relate???

It's 7:02 am and I've been awake all of 2 minutes and my mine is whirling....cycling through the checklist of what needs to be done....and then my heart starts beating....anxious........wondering how I will get it all done and I haven't even started!


So many times in the whirling of my mind I forget that there is a quiet voice whispering to me....gently...Spend time with Me.......


But, Lord, I don't have time....if I could just keep my eyes closed and pretend that I'm still asleep......Spend time with Me....


To be honest, many days, I don't listen....I ignore that voice....instead I spend those next minutes reviewing the things that are actually making me anxious!


Today was one of those mornings.....there were emails to send, taxes to prepare, library trips to make and basketball games all afternoon....ugh!  But I felt pressed to read in the Psalms.....specifically Psalm 61-63...


This is what God was whispering:

Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
   my hope comes from him.
⁶ Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
   he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
⁷ My salvation and my honor depend on God;
   he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
⁸ Trust in him at all times, you people;
   pour out your hearts to him,
   for God is our refuge

The hardest part of being a wife....a mom...and just a woman is that there is never a break or vacation....never a moment to step away from our "job" which is really just managing the life of our family.....but God was trying to say...."No, Nikki....your refuge...your escape....your relief will be in ME."


As we were driving to basketball today....this song came on the radio....if you have a moment....listen to the words....

... it reminded me today of whose I am....and what's really important....

.......and if I just give Him a few minutes of my day, He can remind me of that.......

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Repost....ORB light switches and vent covers

Since this was one of my very first posts, I decided to re-post it.....it's so helpful and many of my newer readers may have missed this idea....

When I first started reading decorating blogs, I kept seeing the initials ORB and I had NO idea what they stood for.  Little did I know how those three little intials would change my life.....it has begun a love-affair with spray paint!


(I am sure that my neighbors think that I am absolutely INSANE.....the fumes from spray paint always lingering out from under the crack in the garage door that gives me a slight stream of fresh oxygen....the constant clanging of the metal ball in the can.....)


ORB stands for Oil-Rubbed Bronze and yes, it can change your life too.  Take for instance my vent covers and light switches....

After I finished my "fake" wainscoating in our hallway, I realized that my off-white light switches looked drab compared to the white bottom. So....Krylon's ORB to the rescue.

After a quick trip to our local True Value to see what their $8.00 switch plates look like, I realized that I could do it.

First...prime the switch plate with any Krylon primer.  I had a grey color left over so I used that.  Then....spray with Krylon ORB.  Because little fingers touch this plate alot, I sprayed it with a Krylon clear acrylic sealer.

Tip:  Do NOT drop it on the garage floor upside-down or it will look like THIS! (Oops!)

Go back to the hardware store, buy another switch plate and start over!

And the reveal.....

....it just completes the overall look that I wanted!!

I'm in the process of converting my boring brown...kind've starting to rust vent covers.....and they look GORGEOUS!!  


Here it is the ugly brown:

And with a dash of ORB:

You can't see the flecks and it's true color, but it's beautiful!


And really...even if they start to chip....what's the big deal to spray over it again!  It's SO much cheaper than buying a new one!!!

Cheap and easy!!

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