DIY T-Shirt Flowers

I heard one of those super-organized people on HGTV or TLC say once that every time you buy an article of clothing, you should get rid of one, that way your closet won't look like an episode of Hoarders. I've been pretty good about getting rid of clothing I don't wear anymore because it no longer fits or I just don't like, but I always wish I had the time or the creativity to do something fun with them instead of throwing them out. 

Back when I was a working woman, Matt and I would set aside clothing we no longer wore with the intentions of me turning them into something really cool and really useful but since I never had the time, the pile of clothes would sit in the closest until we cleaned again and then they would be sent to Good-Will. 

Well, now that I am home full-time and with the help of the wonderful site that is Pinterest, I've found a new use for my old t-shirts and the time to put it all together. I turned my old t-shirts into flowers!

Using this turtorial from A Bit of Sunshine, I gathered my old t-shirts and got my DIY on.

I cut the shirts into flower shapes, using a stencil I made out of cardstock paper. I traced along the flower stencil using a black maker. If you are going to do this project, I would recommend using a pencil or something lighter. I had to cover up places where the maker showed later.

 After folding the cut-outs four times, I glued them onto a circular piece of felt. 

To finish the flowers, I hot-glued buttons and pearls to the center.

Aren't they fun?

 For this flower, I used a shirt that had some sort of funny saying on the front and I really like how it gave it a different look.

I loved how easy and inexpensive this project was. The only supplies I had to purchase were the buttons and piece of felt. Cutting out the flowers was a little time-consuming but definitely worth it.

The only problem with a craft like this is that now, I keep scanning my closest to see what else I can turn into flowers. No piece of clothing is safe!


Linking up with Gussy!

Addy's Room Reveal

Back when I was pregnant and Addy was in the tum tum,

Back when we didn't know she was a she,

Back when we called her Carlos,

We picked out a theme for Baby Danner's nursery and I loved it!

Inspired by a piece of scrapbook paper I had, we choose to go with forest animals. I pictured cute little owls, baby deer and birds with reds, greens, browns and yellow; very gender neutral. My Mom and I made a crib skirt and Matt and I spent an evening painting a tree on the wall as we watched the Fox and the Hound. We were renting at the time and not supposed to do any painting, but we thought we could bend the rules a little to prepare for the arrival of our first child.

And then Miss Addy came into our lives. She's sweet and dainty and she doesn't really belong in the forest. So, when we moved into our new house, we decided to give her a totally new, super girly room.

Here is the grand reveal of Addy's room.
The photos aren't great, I don't own a fancy smanchy camera or any photography skills.

Can you see Addy in there?
I sewed new fabric over the crib skirt I had made with my Mom. There are no close up photos because I put it together really quickly and there are a lot of mistakes.

This chandelier was in the dinning room when we purchased the house. It's not really our style so we spray painted it pink and stuck it in Addy's room.

I crocheted this bunting using a pattern I found on Pinterest

Addy's grandpa made this changing table and I had fun putting together a little collage to go above it.

Here we have Addy's collage featuring her announcement, crocheted flowers, her hospital bracelet and some old family photos.

The pink and white frames were from the Target dollar spot.

The larger white frames were actually in Matt's nursery. I made this with some inspiration from Pinterest.

This is Matt as a baby, Addy looks just like him.

And her room wouldn't be complete without her best friends, Mr. Monkey, George and Mr. Lady Bug.

We're glad to finally have a room completed in the house and we're hoping Addy can grow into it because I don't think either of us are in a big hurry to change it.

Don't Try This At Home

I am all about finding fun, money saving projects online and love to get tips from other bloggers, so here's a tip on a project to avoid. Seriously, don't try this at home.

Source: grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

I found this tutorial on how to turn an old bath towel into a bath mat and I thought "hey, I could do that!" I had two old bath towels and only needed the matting, which cost like two bucks. What a cheap, easy, resourceful project! Super excited to get my DIY on, I told almost everyone about it and what a great idea I thought it was. I could just hear the compliments from my house guests, telling me how happy their feet were to get out of the shower and step onto a soft, fluffy rug. "And you made that?" They would say in awe.

Well, about twenty minutes into this project, with little pieces of my dark blue towel all over the floor and only a corner of the rug completed, I decided I didn't really care about how happy the feet of my house guests were.

This project was taking up way to much of my precious nap time and I wasn't that happy with the results. The towel was really hard to cut into and it turned out to be a super messy project. So now, I have one and half old blue bath towels and a whole lot of gridded matting. Is it bad if I just throw it all away? At least I tried right?

Good thing I wasn't entering one of those Pinterest Challenges, because I would have seriously failed.

A Homemade Chalk Board

Lately, I have been neglecting my 101 in 1001 list, but this weekend I was able to complete another item.

(40) Find something to put on that bare wall in our dinning room)

We've lived in our current home for almost a year and our dinning room has been somewhat bare this whole time. We have a rather large wall that we struggled to decorate until my sister-in-law had a great idea that we totally went with. We decided to hang a black chalk board, much like ones used as menus in small restaurants, to go along with the french/country/bistro theme we think we like.

I did a little shopping online and found out that decorative chalk boards are not cheap. Pottery Barn had one for $150.00, which is just a little ridiculous, so we made our own! On Saturday morning, we headed to Lowe's to pick up our supplies.

• 3x4 inch piece of wood: $5.00 (There happened to be a piece of "scrap" hanging out by the wood cutting place and we were able to have it cut to the size we wanted and ended up paying less than half the original price)
• 1 qt of chalk board paint: $12.98
• 1 qt of water based primer: $5.98
• 2 foam brushes: $0.89 each
• 1 Package of wall anchors: $1.90

Total with tax: $29.26

Take that Pottery Barn!

After a very successful trip to Lowe's, (the people are just as helpful as they are on the commercials!) we began our project by applying a coat of primer to the wood.

Did you know primer was white? Apparently, I've never used primer before, because I was expecting it to be clear. Anyways, after we added a few more coats of primer, Matt filed the rough edges down.

Can I just say that I am so thankful for a husband who not only knows how to use tools but who is very meticulous too. I would have never thought about, known how to or had the patience to do this part.

Our next step was to add the black chalk paint and let it dry for 24 hours.

The next day, we hung the board using 6 screws and anchors. We then covered the screws with the paint and wa la! We had our chalk board!

My next task, which I thought would be easy, was to buy white chalk. I couldn't find it anywhere, so I settled for a box of colored chalk. When I got home, we finally got to do what we had been looking forward to during this whole project; Make an NCAA bracket, of course!

When all the "madness" is over, I plan on finding fun quotes and verses to write on the board. We're pretty excited about our homemade chalk board and how our dinning room is starting to come together.