Showing posts with label thrift store. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thrift store. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Fall Wreath Tutorial

Leslie here again. First off, can I just say that I love Clarissa? How cute are those Tinkerbell slippers? I can't wait to see Little #1's Halloween costume! But, in the meantime, since Clarissa is a busy and amazing mother, I will post a wreath that I made today. I bought most of my supplies at a local thrift store, except for the leaves. I got a huge (well, not huge, it was little, but probably had over 25 leaves in it) bag of leaves from Target for $1. I love that store! I mostly only buy the items in those discount bins when you first come in (well, at my store at least), but it's still a great store.

So, Step 1: Buy and gather supplies. A wreath, some ribbon, some leaves, and a garland (or you could do picks, flowers, etc.)
Step 2: Disassemble garland and place leaves, flowers, etc. in individual piles.

Step 3: Make a bow. I didn't take a picture of bow making, but it's pretty simple. You start with a small loop first (this will become the little loop in the center of the bow), then make progressively bigger loops behind/underneath it until you get to your desired fullness. I did three on each side. Then, before cutting the ribbon off the spool, leave a tail on one side. For your other tail, you will cut another piece of ribbon, of equal length and attach it with wire. I used a tie from a bread bag, but took the paper coating off. That same piece of ribbon is used to tie the bow together, so it doesn't fall apart. Use one end of the center loop to hide the wire under. Voila! You made a bow!

Step 4: Arrange your pretty things into desired design. I didn't quite do this, which I should have done.

Step 5: Start gluing things on. I started at the center, which was kinda good, kinda not. The smart thing would have been to arrange everything first, then glue, starting with the bottom layer, but I forgot to do that, as illustrated by my picture.
Voila! You have made a cute fall wreath.
The awesome thing about this wreath is that when I added up how much I spent on this wreath, it came to $5, and I didn't even use everything. I only used about 1/4 of one garland (I got two four foot garlands for $2), less than a yard of the ribbon, and six leaves from the bag from Target. So now I have a ton of leaves from the garland, and a few flowers and stuff to make a centerpiece. I want to make one of those horizontal wreath things to go around a raised bowl I have on my table with a candle in it right now.

Friday, June 5, 2009

My chic trunk!

Remember my junk find? The beautiful trunk from Goodwill? Well, I finally finished the outside of it! I know your dying to see what it looks like...but first you have to listen to me ramble about beautification process...or you could just scroll down and check it out. My original plans for this trunk were altered twice-but I am so happy with how it turned out! Originally I was planning on doing the brass hardware a silver color-because I think that is soooo classy. I roughed it up a little bit with sandpaper and found that it was extremely difficult to get the paint to stick in any way where it didn't look painted...so I decided to go with the flow of it and painted the trim white, I was hoping it would turn out to look vintage chic-or purposely obvious that I had painted it. The rest was a breeze to paint-just took a little bit of sweet time, and 2 coats. I sealed it with a spray sealant so that it wouldn't get roughed up too bad in the toy room. After all---poor girl has been through a lot! I think she turned out lovely-and she matches my LR couches, so when she has retired from the baby toy business I will move her in to be a coffee table or a blanket storage for those cold Houston nights. LOL. As if that ever happened!
Before:After:
What do you think?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Hello Gorgeous!

I want you all to meet the most beautiful treasure I found at our local thrift store.
She was burried under smelly junk. No, really-she was. (someone please tell me why they don't spray some febreeze!) I spotted her from across the store and knew she had to be mine...even when we couldn't pry her open to check her insides-I knew that whatever she came as I could fix. Kudos to my husband who bravely tried to bargain down the cashier. I was proud of him, even if she looked at him like he was a lunatic and said "..uh we don't bargain prices..." That's ok. $10 for the most beautiful toy/blanket/storage chest? Sold. I haven't decided on what direction I am going to take the transformation...but stay tuned. Its sure to be good.