recommendation: easy DIY jewelry organizer

I've mentioned before how easily I get distracted, but often great things come of this - remember my spray paint project in the middle of cleaning the garage?

Well this morning one thing led to the next and before I knew it, I had set out to get dressed but ended up organizing all my accessories starting with my under garments, then shoes, belts and hats, and moved on to my jewelry drawer. To be honest, I don't know how long those things will stay in their new spots, but it looks pretty awesome now. While cleaning out my jewelry drawer, I realized I have a LOT of amazing jewelry, including some really neat 'statement' necklaces. I always forget about them stuffed away in my drawer so I got to thinking... I need some way to keep them out without it looking messy. And then from there, this is what my brain thought:

-> Oh! I saw a bulletin board organizer on pinterest once!
-> walk down to basement... do I have an extra bulletin board? YES!
-> Hmm...spray paint or cover in fabric?
-> up stairs to garage, don't like my spray paint color selection for this
-> do I have fabric? back downstairs.
-> This should work. I guess. Do I want to wait? Not really. So we'll make it work.
-> Look up bulletin boards on pinterest.
-> Iron Fabric
-> lay reverse side down on board and trace square to cover with pen
-> cut fabric and hot glue corners down to board
-> pull out old acrylic paint collection - select gold color, paint edges
-> wait 30 minutes
-> back downstairs to find T-PIN push pins
-> AND.....

VOILA! This was no more than a 45 minute project and that was all because of the stair walking and paint drying time. Sometimes my random tangent projects are totally worth it!!! the only two things I would do differently next time are: 1) select non-fraying fabric - like canvas or cotton. Mine was fraying as I was cutting the edges and got a little messy and uneven. 2) do not put hot glue down, then lay out fabric - glue will harden. lay fabric down, then peel up each corner and put glue down. I only glued corners since fabric was thin and I didn't want bumpy glue showing through.

P.S. Yeah... I know I have a lot of perfumes. And yes, I wear (almost) all of them. My favorites right now are Chloe, Ralph Lauren Blue (although this is a bit summery), and a Marc Jacobs rollerball that I don't think Sephora makes anymore.

recommendation: container garden, part 4 of 4 - where to plant

Part 4: Where to plant?
(Find Part 1, What to plant, here)
(Find Part 2, How to plant, here)
(Find Part 3, How to pretty up the pots, here)

This past weekend I finished up my project and boy oh boy am I happy with the result! After all the planning, potting, painting and pondering, I realized I had to do something more with my pots than just let them sit in a pile on the deck. It looked a little messy. Hubby and I were at Meijer getting a trellis for the side of the house and he pointed out the store's genius way of displaying their flowers on sale. And so simple! Wood planks and cinder blocks. That was IT. Some displays had a built rack for hanging plants too but the only extra requirement was 3 planks and some nails.

After days of researching folding plant stands that were turning up beautiful but $100 (pretty, no?), I knew I HAD to do this project. I lucked out because I was able to save on wood costs because my parents had a bunch of old flooring in the basement. If you were to do this on your own, decide how big you want it to be and Home Depot or Lowes will cut the wood for you so its the perfect size for your space. Wood will be about $2-5 each plank so up to $50 for the project but I'm positive you can find cheaper wood somewhere - lumber yard? Yard sale? Side of the road? Look around. Cinder blocks were $1 each, so for me, the project cost $12. How?!?!

I feel like the project was pretty self explanatory - stack 4 cinder blocks on each side, put the planks across, stack 2 cinder blocks on each side in front, put planks across. Done. You can paint it, stain it, or just let it be as is. I took the three extra pieces of wood and stood two up in the cinder block slots and nailed one (with 3 nails on each side) across to hang lights or hanging plants. (And I did this whole project while hubby was taking a nap, GO ME!)

Here are my before, inspiration, and after pics! Enjoy!

BEFORE:

INSPIRATION:

AFTER:

Hope you enjoyed this series! I can't wait for things to start growing, its so satisfying knowing that you did it yourself! Happy Spring/Summer and have a fun Memorial Day weekend!

UN-recommendation: DIY stenciling & holiday rice krispies

This UN-recommendation thing was kind of fun - I got to vent about my failed projects! So you get two here. Third and final failed project was a tie between stenciling and rice krispie eggs. These are my last un-recommendations (for now). Don't try these projects, they are disappointing!

3a. DIY Stenciled Bench

inspiration:
My grandma, who cannot pass a good deal, insisted that I buy a stepping bench when we were at Value World. 1. because one day I would need it and 2. it was only $2. Two bucks does no harm to my wallet so why not. Two days later at HomeGoods, I saw some similar benches with adorable hand painted designs. Ah ha, inspiration! I decided to turn this bench into a grown up decoration. And so the failed project started...

steps:
I used leftover primer and wall paint to cover the bench after I sanded it and wiped it down. We bought a stencil from Michaels and I started using leftover blue wall paint to stencil it on.

Mistake #1. Paint brushes do not work for stenciling. #2. neither does wall paint really, its too goopy. I proceeded to hide my mistakes by painting the steps blue. Purchased ivory acrylic paint and sponge applicators. Sponged on paint. #3 give the paint a few minutes to dry before lifting up the stencil or it will smudge #4 don't use too much paint or it will smudge #5 don't paint while drinking wine, it will cause smudges. I had to use q-tips to touch it up.

final product:
smudged mess. you may think I just like saying the word smudge. but it was just too much work. i thought this would be an easy peasy project and i would finish it in a day and i'm just 'eh' about the end result.

3b. Easter Rice Krispie Eggs

inspiration:

Found this on pinterest from Food Family Finds.

steps:
Looked easy enough. I thought she hand molded them so saved a plastic egg carton to help - that didn't really work but I see now in the tutorial that she used a plastic egg, which I didn't have. When I hand rolled them into eggs, it compacted them together too much so the treats were hard to bite into. Also I melted bakers white chocolate and it was just a drippy mess to get it on the eggs. i had easter sprinkles which made the messy eggs a little cuter.

final product:

looked cute but not worth the effort in my opinion. next time i'll just make the treats, maybe cut them into an oval with a cookie cutter and decorate them that way?