Pom Pom Flowers

It is no secret that I am obsessed with pom poms poof balls. I usually make mine out of tissue paper, but I decided to create some out of yarn to give them a different feel and texture. I love the yarn because it takes the paper poof and turns it into more than just a party decoration. You can truly use this flower poof as decor in your home and not feel like you have tacky fake flowers in your house. I have really struggled with this in the past, because I love the look of flowers in the home, but hate the price tag that goes with maintaining them weekly. I rarely have plants, because I pretty much kill anything that does not meow to remind me to feed it. I used to do fake flowers from time to time (don’t hate), but I feel like fake flowers suck the energy out of a room, where as real flowers add energy. The yarn poof balls are a happy compromise for the domestic goddess with a glitter thumb rather than a green thumb. 

Supplies

• Yarn
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun
• Wrapped floral wire

Directions

Step 1. Wrap the yarn around your fingers. Use 2 fingers with 75 wraps for a small poof, 3 fingers with 100 wraps for a medium poof, and 4 fingers with 150 wraps for a large poof. Be sure to not wrap too tightly!

Step 2. Carefully slip the yarn off your fingers and tie a piece of yarn (about 6 inches long) around the center of the wrap so it makes a figure 8. Secure the tie as tight as possible.

Step 3. Cut the yarn loops all the way around, creating a shaggy poof. Then trim your poof until the desired look is achieved. 

Step 4. Decide where you want the bottom to be and place a small dab of hot glue deep in the center of your poof, stick in your stem and allow to dry. Trim any remaining uneven areas, and then stick your flower in a vase and call it a day.

Notes: I would recommend using wrapped floral wire. I only had regular floral wire and it was a tad flimsy for my medium poofs. You could also get creative with the stems and use other materials, such as pipe cleaners or even real tree branches.

DIY Outdoor Dining Table

The hubs and I spent the last month putting together a beautiful outdoor dining table for our deck. Isn’t it pretty? It took us about a month, because we mainly worked on weekends with a few weeknights sprinkled in here and there, but is also turned out to be a little more labor intensive than we thought. Cutting some boards and screwing them together always seems like an easy enough process… Skip ahead 4 hours when you only have half a bench done and you realize, ‘Hmm maybe that $799 outdoor furniture at Patio World is totally worth it.’ We ended up spending about $180 on our little labor of love ($130 lumber, $30 stain, $20 screws), which is not too bad when you leave out the cost of the crappy miter saw that died on us.

It’s official, our brand new miter saw the hubs got for his birthday is broken. The blade brake totally stopped working, so after you make your cut it just spins and spins. More annoying than anything else, but I am sure it is dangerous as well. It is too late to return it to Home Depot (you only have 90 days). Since it is under a year old, you can apparently take it to some Rigid service center here in town and they will fix it for free. The only thing that sucks about that, is they are only open 9-5 on the weekday, which means the wifey (me) has to take the hubs’ big heavy miter saw and try to explain what is wrong with it. This probably is not going to go very well.

On a positive note, we were pretty much done with all of our cuts for our table and benches before the brake went caput. After all the cuts were made, we decided to stain our wood individually, since we were using untreated “mixed” wood. We wanted to make sure we were able to cover ever inch of wood, so it would weather well outside. I learned a lot about staining with this project, but mostly that I don’t enjoy it. Staining each individual piece was such a pain in the butt. I am a perfectionist about certain things, which usually gets in my way more than it helps me (I am working on how to use it to my advantage), so when the stain drips on the edges or rubs on the bottom it drives me crazy. It is totally impossible to stain an entire piece of wood at one time, but it is even more impossible to stain a 2×4 without it getting on the edges. In retrospect, I would have loved to be able to put the table together and stain it as one piece of furniture. Staining furniture is wayyyyy easier than staining individual pieces of wood. On the other hand, I have never stained a piece of furniture, but I would imagine my last statement to be true. I will get back to you on that one.

We got the plans for our table from the Ana White Homemaker website. (That is her beautiful table pictured above.) Ana White is a wife/mother/homemaker living in Alaska, who loves building and sharing her creations with the world. Her site is pretty awesome, you should check it out. Anyway, I stumbled on her site when we were looking for woodworking plans for around the house, and the cost of her plans were right up my alley. They were $FREE! We decided on her Simple Outdoor Dining Table, wrote down the cut list and we headed to Home Depot to buy some lumber. We made a couple of mistakes along the way, but we learned from them and now I am here to share our trials, tribulations and successes with you. For the complete plans click on the links above and they will take you to Ana White’s site. She has tons of great ideas that will totally inspire you to pick up a hammer.

Simple Tips:

Tip 1. First off, spend the money and get some good wood. We ended up buying “mixed” wood, which was cheaper, but still looked pretty. It worked ok, except it’s more delicate than real wood and had a tendency to split if we weren’t careful. It also warped when we stained it, but it is my understanding that all wood moves and warps with stain, time and weathering. We will see how this table does overtime, especially with winter just around the corner. Hopefully our Ikea grade wood table will hold up ok.

Tip 2. Sand  the wood splinters off the edge of your wood before you stain. This will help the table look more finished and those pesky slivers won’t end up getting in the way during the staining process. You will notice I was too lazy to sand my pieces prior to staining and those areas soaked up the stain more than the rest of the wood, making it look uneven. Laziness and perfectionism are not a good combo. Rah!

Tip 3. To stain your table, I recommend using a sponge roller… I repeat, use a sponge roller! I started with a paint brush and it was a disaster. It is very hard to control the amount and the movement of the stain with a brush and it ends up being a big ol’ mess. After the paint brush I tried the rag method, but I think that works better when staining an entire piece of furniture, not a flimsy piece of mixed wood lying on top of a tarp. The hubby suggested a roller twice apparently, but I only heard him after I suggested it and he agreed. However we got to the idea, the important part is we got to it and it worked. The sponge roller puts on an even coat and eliminates brush stroke marks. In my opinion, it is the way to go, but like I said I am a staining amateur and I am sure there are better ways to do everything I did. If you have any tips, please share in the comments below. I am always open to learning new ideas. However you do it, be sure to evenly apply your stain from head to toe. Never start or end in the middle of the wood.

Tip 4. When putting the table together getting the correct spacing is very important. No matter how many skew ups you make along the way, if the boards are evenly spaced, nobody will ever notice. To ensure even spaces we purchased tile spacers at Home Depot. They come in many different widths and luckily they had 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch. They worked perfectly and now we are prepared if we ever have to tile a bathroom. (I love how the spacers make it look like a mini graveyard. Morbid, yet kinda cute.)

Tip 5. Have fun and enjoy spending time with the person you are working with. My favorite thing about these projects is that we do them together. Sure there are times when only one of us is working, like while he is at work and I am out in the 90 degree Houston weather staining 50 boards at a time under the hot Texas sun cursing my Hubby’s name, or when I am too annoyed with the mosquitos biting my legs, arms, neck and face that I leave him in the garage to build by himself. ( Iswear I think bug spray attracts mosquitos.) Those times definitely exist, and there are moments where you think, ‘What the F are we doing?’ But at the end of the day, or in this case month, you can say, “We built this together.” I love that.

Notes: If you screw up, don’t give up. Just keep moving forward! Make the adjustments you need to make the table work for you. The slight alterations in the end will make the table unique and special just like you! If you fo’t have a kreg jig and have to screw in from the top, it is not big deal. Just buy some wood filler and cover up your nails. Nobody will ever know. We actually ended up doing both, but I have yet to fill in the holes.

Ikea Stool Makeover

I have tons of furniture makeover projects piling up around the house, so I figured it was time to start one of them to get the ball rolling. I started with a very small project, mainly to see if I liked the design. I’m sort of testing it out for a bigger project I have been mulling over for a while now. Since everything went well, and I really like the finished results, I think it is a go ahead. For this particular project, I took a basic Ikea stool and transformed turned it into a much more attractive Ikea stool. Like I said, we are talking basic stuff here… A little paint, a little Modge Podge and craft paper, and voilà! Now onto bigger and better things. I see a matching filing cabinet and a fabulous desk in my future.

Watermelon Sours in a Watermelon Keg

This post is a twofer. It is a mix of Friday’s 5 o’clock somewhere cocktail recipe, and a fun How-To tutorial on making your own watermelon keg. Sounds fun to me and brings a whole new meaning to throwing a watermelon bash! This is definitely on my two do list once I get back to the states. First lets learn how to make the keg…

Supplies

• Whole watermelon
• Apple Corer
• Shank and faucet

Directions

Prepare your watermelon by cutting a lid from the top and scooping out the fruit (save the fruit to use later to make the drinks). Use an apple corer to drill a hole just slightly smaller than the keg shank. Attach the shank and faucet and you’re ready to add your cocktail.

Ingredients

• 4 cups watermelon chunks, pureed
• 4 oz Alizé Red Passion, or any other fruit-flavored liqueur
• 8 oz gin
• 2 cups sour mix
• Sparkling rosé
• Lime slices, for garnish

Directions

After pureeing 4 cups of watermelon chunks, strain. Stir in your fruit-flavored liqueur, gin and sour mix. Chill. Add sparkling rosé before serving. Garnish with lime slice and enjoy!

• Source: The Food Network Magazine
• Recipe Yields: 10-12 servings

How-To Clean Makeup Brushes

While living in Singapore my makeup brushes have gotten extremely dirty. The combination of the extra sweat and humidity, along with my own personal laziness, has not been a healthy combination for my skin. Usually I clean my brushes using baby shampoo, but I did not bring any with me and for some reason I can only find economy size bottles in the stores here. Sure it’s only $10-15, but I can’t bring myself to buy a gallon of baby shampoo if I’m only going to use a couple of ounces. So I went in search of alternative methods. There are a couple of different options out there, but I settled on one that used dish soap and olive oil, because it was super simple. Plus I already had them in the house and the theory behind the process made perfect sense. The soap is used to obviously clean the brush and the olive oil is used to condition the bristles to keep them from getting dry and brittle. So far I am pretty happy with the results, but please be sure to rinse your brushes thoroughly. I am not sure I rinsed them as well as I should have and think I may have left a little residual olive oil behind. However, so far I don’t mind it, because it gives my skin a little glow. I will keep you posted if I break out or have some horrible reaction. So far so good!

Supplies

• Dish soap
• Olive oil

Directions

Use equal parts dish soap and olive oil. (About a teaspoon of each to start – add more as needed) Mix soap and oil in a bowl and swirl brushes in the mixture and watch as the makeup starts to flush out. Squeeze suds from brush and repeat swirling motion. (Repeat as necessary. Like I said, my brushes were super dirty so I did this about 4 times. I even rinsed and used fresh soap and olive oil for round 3 and 4.)

Rinse with lukewarm water to remove all remaining soap. Continue to rinse until water runs clear. (Make sure NOT to get water in the metal part at the top of the bristles. It will ruin the integrity of the brush)

After washing all of your brushes, gently reshape and lay flat to dry. (Brushes usually need to dry overnight.)

Notes: You should clean your bushes about once a month. I don’t even want to tell you how long it had been since I washed my brushes. It was waaaaaay to long. Let’s leave it at that.

DIY Toilet Paper Roll Wall Flower

Living in Singapore has been fabulous, but it has put a little damper on my creative side. Not having all my wonderful craft tools readily available at my finger tips has been giving me anxiety, but finally I found a project that is simple enough for me to do while overseas without having to spend $$$ on tons of new $upplies. I am serious when I say this project is LOW BUDGET, but it does take a little time collecting the necessary supplies.

DIY Asian Chopstick Wrappers

Since I am living in Singapore for the next few months and much of the blog has been dedicated to our travels, I thought why not post some fun Asian DIY projects along the way. And what better place to start other than DIY chopstick wrappers? What a fun way to jazz up any Asian inspired dinner party. Not only do chopsticks alone add some necessary Asian flare, but making your own personalized wrappers will really impress your guests. These are made out of origami paper, but you can get creative and use whatever paper/design you like.

Supplies

• 1 sheet of origami paper 6 x 6 inches
• Tape (optional)

Directions

Step 1. Fold the sheet of paper in half. Open out and then fold both long edges into the midline and fold, so that the fold lines divide the paper into four columns.

Step 2. Open out so that the wrong side is facing up. On the top right hand corner, fold the corner over so that it is in line with the right fold line. On the top left hand corner, fold the corner over so that it is in line with the middle fold line.

Step 3. Fold the right side into the midline.

Step 4. Fold the left side over as photographed and fold behind. Secure with a small piece of tape if necessary.

• Source: A Spoonful of Sugar

DIY Wedding Cake Decor

Ok, so I like to think of myself as kind of creative. In other words, I have a couple of crafty bones in my body, however, I am the first to tell you that I am not an artist. I can’t draw and I can’t paint for the life of me. I definitely don’t think I could do something as artistically driven as decorate a cake and have it look professional. Well, that is until I saw this awesome DIY cake by Wild Orchid Baking Company on The Wedding Chicks. It is very reminiscent of my Poof Balls, which of course makes me love it even more! I wish I could get married again so bad. I could do that shit on the cheap this time fo sho! Check out how to become and cake artist…

Supplies

• Fruit leather (We used store bought for this project. If you wanted to match a specific color, then making your own might work better for you.)
• Round cookie cutters
• Small bowl of water
• Small paint brush
• Floral wire (tooth picks or skewers would work as well)
• Piece of foam

Directions

The Flowers:

Step 1. Using a round cookie cutter, cut circles out of the fruit leather. The size of the cutter you use will determine how large of a puff you have at the end. For these puffs we used round cutters that were 1/2” to 2” in diameter.

Step 2. Pick up a fruit leather round, and using your thumbs and forefingers, press the sides of the round together towards the center of the circle. You’ll end up with a shape resembling a ruffled “x”. Just be sure to press towards the center of the circle, so that you don’t close the “x” entirely. The open loops are what give the puff it’s shape.
(Repeat with other circles. For a nice full puff we used 6 fruit leather rounds per puff. You can use more or less depending on how full you’d like the puff to be. To begin to form a puff, press 2 of the ruffled fruit leather rounds together at their points.)

Step 3. If the fruit leather has begun to dry out, brush on a small amount of water so that they stick together. Add more ruffles until you achieve the desired puff shape. Set formed puff onto a piece of styrofoam. Use floral wires or tooth picks to prop up the fruit leather puff into it’s desired shape. Allow to dry out over night. Using the wires or toothpicks helps keep the puff from drooping or loosing it’s shape as it dries.  You may need to allow puffs to dry out longer depending on the humidity.

The Small Circles:

Step One. Add dots to your cake or cupcake design by cutting out small circles from the leftover fruit leather. Apply using royal icing or water, just like the puffs.

Step 2. Apply to a finished cake using small dots of royal icing, or if applying to fondant just brush on a small amount of water where you’d like the puff to stick.

For cupcakes: Set onto freshly piped frosting.

Notes: How easy is that? I wish I could get married again or at least one of my girlfriends so I can make this. Can’t find fun fruit leather colors? No problem. Make your flowers out of tissue paper, like Martha Stewart’s Pom Poms. Who says the flowers have to edible?

• Source: The Wedding Chicks
• Cake: Wild Orchid Baking Company
• Photography: Mark Davidson

DIY Stenciled Pillow

I found this Wit & Whistle project via Pinterest and I’m so happy I did, because it has inspired a whole chain of pillows I am interested in making. It is one of the last accessories my living room, and bedroom for that matter, is craving. Plus I am dying to take a sewing class and pillow pattern would probably be the best thing to learn on. I could start off basic and then add zippers and such as I progress. Another blog I follow, Rustic Living, made these awesome “Where He and She Became We” pillows that I just love. I feel very inspired to start fabric paint penning, but first I have to start sewing. I’ll get there. Eventually.

Supplies

• Blank pillow cover (I purchased a nice linen cover here.)
• Some cardboard
• Pencil
• Letter stencil (I have this one.)
• Fabric marker (My black Sharpie fabric marker worked great!)

Directions

After choosing your quote, stuff your pillow cover with some cardboard to keep the marker from bleeding through and to keep the fabric stretched out smooth.

Use a pencil to stencil your quote onto the pillow cover. If you mess up the spacing you can erase the pencil lines and redo them. You can’t fix mistakes when you’re using the fabric marker, so don’t skip the pencil step.

Once you’ve penciled everything in, go at it with your fabric marker! I found it easiest to use the stencil for the outline of each letter, and then remove the stencil to fill the letters in.

The packaging from the Sharpie fabric marker didn’t say anything about heat setting the ink, but I will probably press my pillow cover before I wash it, just to be safe.

Mason Jar Herb Garden

You all know how much I love mason jars. I constantly post about their endless everyday usefulness. I’ve used them as fun gift ideas, such as Cowgirl Cookies… Creative party decor at a Cowboy Chic Shower… Practical and useful home decor, such as Bathroom Storage and Soap Dispensers… And Useful and edible canning adventures. The possibilities are freaking endless, and surprise, surprise I have another fabulous idea to bring your way. Mason Jar Herb Gardens, by Camille Styles. I posted something very similar in a write up about different types of fun and interesting pots, but it was not herb specific. Personally, I have a need for fresh herbs in my life and this proves that it is possible to not only grow herbs, but grow cool herbs. As soon as I get back from Singapore this is the first thing on my To-Do List. Right next to take a sewing class, paint my doors, Modge Podge my desk, plant some vines and get my car fixed. Ok so I have a lot to do apparently. It will all get done. Eventually.

Supplies

• Old wooden board
• Mason jars
• Pipe clamps
• Triangle ring hangers
• Stainless hanging wire
• Picture hanger
• Chalkboard paint & chalk
• Brush
• Hammer, nails and screwdriver
• Herbs

Directions

1. Space mason jars evenly on wooden board, and mark placement with a pencil in order to design and me sure around.
2. Tape off rectangles on board, and paint with chalkboard paint as pictured above. This way, you can switch out herbs and change their labels accordingly.
3. Secure pipe clamps to wooden board by hammering a nail through the small holes in the pipe clamp.
4. On back of board, nail in ring hangers and tie on hanging wire.
5. Plant herbs in mason jars.
6. Place mason jars into pipe clamps and tighten with a screwdriver.
7. Nail picture hanger into the wall, and hang your herb display!

Notes: Be careful not to over water and be sure to display in a place that gets tons of light. 

•  Source: Camille Styles