Easy DIY: Distressed Metal Art

July 9, 2015September 16, 2016 spcountrygal Accessories, Craft, Decorating, DIY, Gray and White, Home Accessories, Painting, Quick Project, Spray Paint Accessories, Armchair Decorator, Craft, Decorating, DIY, Gray and White, Home Accessories, Quick and Easy, Quick Project, Spray Paint

Check out this awesome piece of metal art that I bought 4 years ago at Ross.

I thought that the design was okay-ish and the size, awesome (3 feet by 3 feet), but above all, I loved the price:

7 bucks? That, I can do! I’m thinking that it was discounted because it was kind of scraped up in a few places…

…which is ok since I didn’t like the finish on it anyway. So after moving it from place to place in my garage for the past 4 years, it got some attention today, and I LOVE it!

Wanna see how I did this uber-easy project? Of course you do! First I grabbed a can of black spray paint and mainly focused on painting the edges and raised portions:

Sorry, the dappled sunlight makes it kind of hard to see, but if you look at the upper left corner of the above pic, you can kind of see the black edges which will be visible once the piece is distressed. Next, came two coats of a semi-gloss white paint:

Of course I could have called it “Done” at this point if I was going for a clean modern look, but I wanted to take it a step further and distress it up a little to highlight some of the details. Of course that is why I painted it black in the first place.

***Very Important*** If you plan to do a similar project, spray the top coats with only a short time between coats and distress while the paint is still a bit tacky. They make spray paint so well these days that it dries to form a really tough surface, which is really what we want, right? SO, if you are distressing spray paint, you have just a short window of time to accomplish that task. Even though the distressing process took me about 10 minutes, I could tell a big difference between how easy it was when I started, compared to when I was finished. Work fast, ok? If, heaven forbid, you miss that window of time, you can try using some fingernail polish remover and a Q-tip like I did with my metal star project. Just make sure that you change Q-tips often to avoid a smudgey look. Got it? Good!

Now, do you want to see my high-tech distressing tool? Of course you do:

Let me be honest: I started out by using my thumbnail and realized that I would likely wear it away to nothing so I figured that a plastic spoon would do the trick and it did. Sometimes I scraped away with the spoon part…

…and sometimes I used the handle to cover more area at a time…

Here is the finished project…

…which I LOVE!!! With the new finish, it is no longer “okay-ish”, it is fabulous. I thought that I knew exactly where I was going to place this baby, up high in my dining room, but now I want it more front and center. Hmmm. The easy part was re-creating this piece. The hard part is deciding where to put it:

Family Room: Computer Area

Dining Room: Up High

Dining Room: Above Buffet

Family Room: Above French Doors

What do you think? Where should it go?

Yep, I can honestly say that I love this piece. Love! So, do you have something hidden away in YOUR garage that could use a couple of coats of paint and a spoon?

********* Linking up to these awesome parties!*********

Orchids: Silk versus Real

May 4, 2015January 12, 2016 spcountrygal Accessories, Decorating, Flowers, Home Accessories Accessories, Decorating, Flowers, Home Accessories

How do you feel about silk plants? Are you a purist who will only allow fresh flowers in your home? Do you frequent the silk flower section at Michaels, Hobby Lobby or Dollar Tree? Or, are you perhaps somewhere in between? I place myself in the latter category and in just a minute, I will show you why. Before I do, I wanted to show you an article that I found from Architectural Magazine. Let me quote just a little,

“Mention fake plants to most people and the response will be outrage—artificial flora is a soulless simulacrum, they moan, a horticultural travesty, and just plain tacky. John Updike, the novelist, called them an “obscene mockery”. Yet no less a design authority than Mario Buatta swears by potted silk orchids, saying they look like the real thing and are godsend for clients who travel so frequently they can’t keep real ones alive.”

I couldn’t agree more. Case in point? This little natural beauty:

Stunning, isn’t it? Ahem. Actually it looked great for about 2 months I would say. I made sure that I didn’t water it too much. I made sure that no water ever touched the leaves. I made sure that it wasn’t in direct sunlight, yadda, yadda, yadda. I was quite proud of my little orchid and of my apparent green thumb. But, like all good things, the blooms came to an end. I was left with just that one little bloom. After some research I learned that if I continued to care for the “plant” with just the right amount of watering, right placement, etc. it could bloom again! In about a year. Hmmmph. The phrase, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” comes to mind. Into the trash it went.

And check out the orchid that I have had for almost 10 years:

It is still as beautiful as the day that I bought it. The only upkeep is a light leaf-dusting every couple of months. The only thing that I have changed is the pot color. Teal spray paint with a bit of Minwax Ebony stain to age it.

Here is my mom’s fake orchid:

It’s a beauty, isn’t it? It has been looking this fabulous for 3 or 4 years now. When my sister gave her the orchid, she started messing with the branches to reshape them, and Mom finally said, “I’m afraid that you are going to break it.” My sister then answered, “Mom, you do know that this is fake, right?” She didn’t.

Which makes my point perfectly. Is it really such a travesty to have fake plants, in this case orchids, if they can forever be in bloom, looking vivid and fabulous? My answer? An emphatic “No!” Of course I do still love real flowers, as well. I’m pretty well-rounded that way.

So, what do you think? Are silk plants/flowers allowed in YOUR home?

********* Linking up to these awesome parties!*********

Dreams of White and Gray

March 23, 2015 spcountrygal Decorating, Gray and White, Painting, Pinterest Decorating, Gray and White, Painting, Pinterest

Do you love Pinterest as much as I do? It is mind-boggling how much incredible information there is out there. Like I said in my first blog post ever: “I used to love decorating magazines. I subscribed to them. My mother-in-law gave me hers after she finished reading them. I would look for them at thrift stores and garage sales. To be honest, I didn’t necessarily read those magazines. I would (very quickly) scan through them, tear out pages that I liked and then file them away in my very organized files. Come to think of it, it was kind of a precursor to my Pinterest addiction. Pinterest is so much easier. And less messy. And cheaper. And less time consuming. OK, maybe not less time consuming, but so much more fun.” Yep. I love Pinterest.

About a month or so before I found Pinterest, in the Spring of 2011, we purchased and moved into our current home. My husband loved this house because everything inside and out, landscaping, etc. was done. Translation for him, “Everything is just perfect. We don’t need to do anything except upkeep!”. Honestly, I was a tiny bit bummed because there really was nothing that needed to be fixed, updated, redone. Well, that was my thought UNTIL Pinterest. Once I started using Pinterest I realized something… I absolutely LOVE gray and white interiors. Love. Them.

Soon thereafter I created what has become my most popular board: Shades of White and Gray. As a side note; not long after I started this board I heard about the naughty book “Fifty Shades…” (which I would never read or promote) and was a little sickened that someone might think that I was trying to copy the naughty book title. That was not the case AT ALL. An-y-way, I really love everything white and gray. What about my house? I don’t have a single white or gray room. See?

The previous owners did a fantastic job of adding beautiful wood trim everywhere, but painted everything beige. Beigggge. I once read a decorator’s opinion on beige…basically you should never paint a room the color of bad foundation. Amen. I am at the point where I realize that there is much to be done to this house. I see a lot of gray and white in my crystal ball. Until then I will dream.

Modern White and Light Gray Master Bedroom modern-bedroom

Photo by Lume Photography. See more modern bedroom designs

Photo by Sheri Olson Architecture PLLC. See more traditional living room designs

Here are some homes that have made the beige to gray/white switcheroo:

http://www.whitehouseblackshutters.com/beige-to-greige-before-and-after/

http://www.allthingsthrifty.com/2013/04/room-evolution-from-beige-to-grey.html

http://thefrugalhomemaker.com/2014/07/29/entryway-before-and-after-beige-to-greige-with-behr-paint/

Seriously, take the time to check these out! Here is one more for you to click on. This blog article from “Our Small-Town Idaho Life” shows the amazing gray colors that this couple chose for their new home. I want to copy(!):

http://andrewrachelashmore.blogspot.com/2012/01/paint-color-decisions.html

Well, now that I have a whole house of rooms that need to be painted, I have much, much, much to do. Maybe not until summer, but I have plans. You can be sure that there will plenty of Before (beige) and After (gray/white) blog posts and photos to come! Thanks, Pinterest!

Giant DIY Satin Flowers

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 spcountrygal Craft, Decorating, DIY, Home Accessories, Pillow, Super Saturday, Thrift Store Craft, Decorating, DIY, Fabric, Home Accessories, Pillow, Super Saturday, Thrift Store

Remember this post where I showed you how to make adorable satin flowers? Well, I love those little flowers so much because they can add cute touches to anything from hair, to clothing, to home accessories, to purses, to gift packages. To be honest, though, they are a bit small to add a lot of WOW to a room. You know the theory that “bigger is better”? Well, it is if we are talking about bigger budgets, bigger backyards, bigger pieces of chocolate cake. Bigger thighs? Maybe not so much. An-y-way. I thought that I could take this idea of making satin flower up a notch and make one, well, bigger. The process was pretty much the same except I added more layers. Eleven, to be exact:

For a base, I covered a circle shaped pieced of cardboard with fabric (to keep it pretty) to add stability:

Of course I glued the flower layers to the ugly side so the bottom looks nice and finished.

This finished flower turned out to be about 8 1/2 inches wide. Big enough to make a statement in a frame that I backed with unpainted textured wallpaper:

I thought that it turned out pretty good, and I’ll admit that I excitedly thought, “I MADE that!” every time that I walked past it. The above picture just doesn’t do it justice. The satin is so beautiful and I love the color that the fabric turns when the flame melts the edges. Come to my house sometime and you will see.

After I had walked past it a hundred times or more I got thinking again. Dangerous! I adopted a new theory, ” If bigger is better, gigantic is the best!”. Are you with me?

I looked in my fabric stash and found this lovely blouse that had been purchased and cut up for my daughter’s school project last year. This little number set me back probably $.50. Way cheaper than fabric store fabric. I didn’t want to ruin good fabric if my big idea didn’t work.

I totally know what you are thinking. “How could you cut up such an stylish blouse?” I know, right?

As I started cutting I realized something awesome, this 100% polyester fabric tears really easily. In no time at all I had a large stack of fabric squares. The largest squares were cut out of the back of the blouse, but I was amazed at how much fabric was in each sleeve. I didn’t even try to count how many layers this flower has. I just know it was a lot because I wanted my gigantic flower to be nice and fluffy.

Using the same process that I showed you in my Super Simple Satin Flower tutorial I started melting my edges. Unfortunately, my hubby was working at home when I made this and I knew that he would not welcome the thought of me putting fabric over a flame in the house so I did it on my front porch. Trust me, it is much faster to do indoors. Every little breeze makes the candle flicker.

I made a cool little video to show you a way that I found to speed up the process, but ding-dang-dong, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to add it in WordPress. I will keep trying to figure out how to add the video, but basically, just take one side and simply fanfold the edges (maybe a 4-6 inch section) and hold the fanned area vertically about the candle’s hot spot to melt a larger section at a time. Quickly spread out the fanned out area just in case parts fused together and then melt any sections that might have been missed. Again, don’t put the fabric IN the flame, just OVER the flame. We are melting, not burning the edges. It probably took me an hour to melt all of my edges.

Once all of your pieces are melted, start stacking, largest on the bottom and work your way to the top. Many of my pieces were similar in size and that is okay. Just do this:

See how I put the glue down and scrunched the fabric to make sure the layers beneath can be seen. This also adds wrinkles which help add volume.

When I got to the center area, I took 4 of my smaller melted shapes, pulled the center down to form a cone shape and glued them down to hide all of the hot glue spots. At this point, I still had some extra melted fabric sections so I folded them in half and glued in the bare areas.

Ta-dah! This baby is about 14 inches across! It’s gigantic!

Here, you can see how I added it to a throw pillow:

And here I attached it to a framed mirror:

In all honesty, this bright blue doesn’t go with anything in my house, BUT, my daughter is going away to BYU this fall and this BYU Blue gigantic flower will go with her. Now that I know that it IS possible to make a Gigantic Satin Flower, I’m making one for me!

So, whadda-ya think? Was my $.50 investment + 1 1/2 hours of my time worth it?

(Here is a different blouse makeover project that I made)

DIY: Super Simple Satin Flowers

January 24, 2015September 19, 2016 spcountrygal Craft, Decorating, DIY, Gift Idea, Home Accessories, Quick Project Craft, Decorating, DIY, Fabric, Gift Idea, Home Accessories, Quick and Easy, Super Saturday

There is something incredibly awesome about being able to take a flat piece of fabric and turn it into something 3 dimensional, useful and beautiful. I don’t consider myself to be an expert seamstress, but I still love to create with fabric. I’m in no way the inventor of this simple satin flower, but I thought that I would share how I make them.

First of all, you will need some sort of a polyester satin-like fabric. You can find it everywhere. Since you don’t really need very much fabric for each flower, it helps to check the remnants section of your fabric store. I have even cut up items of clothing to make these. Check out your own fabric stash. Or, someone else’s fabric stash…with their permission, of course. Seriously you only need a tiny bit of fabric. How much depends on the flower size that you want.

I had a few different fabrics that were satiny that I quickly found they weren’t polyester. To see if a fabric is polyester, just place an edge of the fabric above (not into) a candle flame. Polyester will melt on the edge, which is just plain neat-o. This melted part will darken in color, which makes a pretty cool effect. The fabric will pucker and bend, making the previously flat fabric more flower petal-like.

To get started, cut out your fabric. If you are a perfectionist, you might have a problem with this, because it really doesn’t matter how you cut the fabric. I usually just roughly cut squares, but circles or cloud-like shapes will work. Play around with it…that’s half of the fun.

For each flower you will cut 4 or more shapes in descending size and a thin rectangle for the back so you can attach a hair clip. The more layers you add, the fuller the flower will be.

See how imperfect my cuts are? I will admit that the white fabric isn’t satin, it is more of a sheer fabric, but it must be polyester because it melts. It is fun to see what fabrics will work.

Next step, grab a candle. I prefer small-ish candles in jars. Think dollar store. I’m not going to lie… when I first started making these, I just used the flame on my gas stove. Works seriously fast. If you are worried about fumes, I haven’t really had a problem with this… maybe do it under the stove vent.

The process is simple. Run the entire edge of each piece of fabric above- not inside- of the flame. As you get going, you will notice that there is a hot spot and that is where you want to place the edge of your fabric.

The fabric will curl up as it melts, and that is great. I like to have the shiny side of the fabric facing me as I do this, but play around and see what works for you. The cool thing about the square edges is that they seem to disappear, get rounded, as they melt. I like to mess around a bit and even allow the heat to “cut” in a bit. Experiment with it… it is seriously fun.

Here are my same pieces, after melting the edges:

Now it is time to layer the pieces. Start with the largest one first, add a drop of hot glue to the center, then place the next smallest piece, and so on until you have used all of the pieces except for the thin rectangle that goes on back. For the center, you can get creative with buttons, gems, beads, whatever. As an alternative, just scrunch up a couple smaller melted pieces of fabric to form the center of your flower (see brown flower at the top of this post).

Of course you can be done right here and just hot glue the thing on a frame or pillow or whatever, but if you want your flower to be a hair clip or easily moveable, add a hair clip to the back. Michaels has them, but a beauty supply store (Sally’s) seems to have them cheaper and of higher quality.

To attach, clip the center of your melted thin rectangle piece, with the flat side of the clip facing down, then glue onto your flower like so:

Now flip it over, ooh and ahh over it, run to the mirror and put it in your hair and admire it…

…or grab the closest nearby child (with this excitement, it doesn’t matter if it is a girl or boy… well, I’m sure it matters to the boy). Doesn’t it look great?

What else can you do with these beautiful flowers?

My Scriptures bag that I take to church gets changed out regularly now:

Here’s how I packaged a pair that I made for a baby gift: I just printed up the words on cardstock and cut to size.

Classy, huh? Or you can make it the “bow” on your gift. Get your thinking cap on… I know that you will come up with a hundred ways to use these awesome flowers that you made. What was once a boring, flat piece of fabric is now an awesome accessory. How simple was that?

Stay tuned to see how I took this project and amped it up for home décor. You’re gonna love it!

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