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"DIY"
A couple of years ago I made a wreath to show our home some Valentines Day love. I used an old wreath form and a knit sweater from Goodwill for the base. Then I made an owl couple and the “XOXO” out of felt. I pinned the embellishments on with sewing pins in case I wanted to change them out over time.
In our old home we couldn’t hang a wreath on the front door due to the screen door, so I just hung the wreath up on the back of our door and called it a day.
When we moved into our new house, putting a wreath on that front door was one of my top priorities. Second only to taking down the mirrored wall. Ha! I spent days trying to decide what kind of fancy, intricate wreath I wanted to make. (Weirdo alert.) But the problem was that we moved in right before Christmas, and I didn’t have too much extra time on my hands.
Enter: the Valentine wreath. I pulled off the embellishments and grabbed some cranberry-colored yarn. I used this pattern to crochet up a bow. I just doubled the pattern to make the bow twice as big as it was supposed to be. And I’ve got to admit, I still wish I would have made it a bit bigger. You can never have too big of a bow.
This is the second time that I’ve used this pattern to make a bow, and I made a mistake both times. Somehow I got off on my rows and the bow comes out with a little lopsided twist. I have no idea what I’m doing or how not to do it, but I really like the effect it gives. So let’s just say the mistake was on purpose.
I used sewing pins to pin it into place, and voila! A happy little wreath for our front door. As soon as spring comes, I’m painting the front door. I can’t wait! Right now it’s some sort of tan color. I’m thinking celery green or eggplant purple or peacock blue? Can’t.wait.
As far as wreaths go, I think you either are or are not a wreath person. I think they make entrances look so homey. But a front door painted an amazing color without a wreath can look so modern. Where do you guys come in? Pro-wreath, anti-wreath, or it depends? Have you ever made your own wreath?
~Whitney
A dear friend recently asked me if I was ever going to post pictures of my Christmas decorations … from last year. Haha! Decorating for Christmas is one of my very favorite things.
Our first Christmas, Timothy and I had only been married a month and I wasn’t too sure of my aesthetic. So we had a hot pink, silver, and bright blue tree. All the ornaments were bought from Wal-Mart with a hoarded wedding gift card.
The next Christmas, armed with a new DIY attitude and zero money, I decked the house out in a candy theme. It was a lot of fun, cheap, colorful, and sticky. But none of the ornaments lasted.
So last year I decided to finally make some ornaments and decorations that we’d keep for a while. Felt was cheap, came in great colors, and can last as long as you take care of it, so I went that route.
There were felt ball ornaments.
A felt garland that was a lot easier than it looks.
I experimented with embroidery.
And I sewed a felt tree topper. The Purl Bee’s version is so classy and gorgeous. And although this picture doesn’t look too bad, mine was (and still is) a train wreck. Just wait ’till you see it on the tree. Timothy and I just look at it and laugh so hard that I’m afraid I’m never going to replace it. And this year it looks even worse. Like two dying star fish, clinging to each other before they melt into our tree. Fa la la la la.
Oh, I also crocheted a garland. I wanted it to be 5x longer, but I ran out of time. It’s probably my favorite.
All together, it came out looking pretty festive. The colors and materials flowed with our normal decor, and I really liked the effect. I liked it enough that I kept everything up until the last few days of January. Timothy just loved that. Ha!
My plan was to add a few more decorations each year, but that plan got put on hold this year when we bought a house and decided to do some renovations whilst simultaneously moving in three weeks before Christmas. Best idea ever.
So what about you all? Do you do “themes” in your decorations? Do you get new ornaments each year? Do you go all traditional red, green, and white? Or are you one of those hot pink and silver people? I’d love to hear.
~Whitney
Fatty to skinny tie that is.
My husband is a tie connoisseur. He likes to remind me of this fact. Often. He’s pretty picky about his ties, and I still haven’t grasped what constitutes a good tie and what is a bad tie. Except diagonal stripes. He pretty much always likes those. But his favorite ties? They’re all skinny.
And boy oh boy, does he look handsome in a skinny tie. The only problem is that they are sometimes hard to find. Want to learn how I made this skinny tie from an old, fat one? Well, read on!
I found the tutorial on Pinterest, of all places. As soon as I saw the pin, I clicked through to check it out and then heard angels sing. Go on over to Design Mom for her tutorial – she’s amazing.
I basically did Timothy’s tie the same way, just tweaked a few of the steps. If you’d like to convert some fatty ties, here’s what you need:
A skinny tie to use as the template, a needle and thread, pins, scissors, and a seam ripper. The rotary cutter is optional but really speeds things up.
First, take the tag and the little tie flap catcher off the back of the tie. (Yes, tie flap catcher is the technical name. Ha!) Then start seam ripping away. I was amazed by how fast this went. These ties are barely tacked together! Rip the seam until you get to the skinniest part of the tie.
Oh, and see how the material on the right side of the tie is being overlapped by the material on the left? If your tie is the opposite, just take note of that.
Pull the tie form out.
Then, using the skinny tie as your template, cut the tie form on both sides. If your man likes the ties to be super skinny, be sure and trim the form a little bit slimmer than your template.
Now you can trim the material on the right side of the tie (or whichever side was being overlapped when you ripped the seam). I trimmed mine about an inch and a half from the form and then tapered it to about an inch and a quarter as I got to the skinny part.
That was the easy part. Ha!
The next few steps are all about ironing and folding. Take your time on these steps, because they make or break the tie!
On the side that you trimmed, iron out the crease that was made from the old tie form.
Then fold and iron the material over the form. It’s crucial to make sure the form is centered at the point, or else the point of your tie will be crooked. No one likes a crooked tie point.
Now fold the other side of the material over the tie form. And take a moment to be super jealous of our lovely ironing board cover. It’s just a mauve ruffle short of early 90s status.
Unfold the side you just ironed and fold the material in on itself like so. And? Yup, iron some more.
It should look something like this when you’re done! In the original tutorial, Design Mom talks about getting that seam line centered. But I’m all about the off-centered look. Ha!
Next, line up your new skinny tie with your template tie to get the proper placement of the tie flap catcher. I threw away the tag, but next time I’m going to have to sew it on, too. My dear husband told me he needed that tag for extra tie flap catching. Or something like that.
Then slip stitch the mess out of your new skinny tie. I’m not sure if this is the correct way to slip stitch, but it worked for me. If your husband is anything like mine, he won’t notice your neat stitches. So this is a no pressure stitching situation.
And voila! You’re done. Give the tie to your handsome husband, and then ask him if you can spend the money you saved by refashioning his old tie on some new shoes. And chocolate.
And like I said, be sure to check out Design Mom’s original post. All kudos to this awesome idea go to her! I was inspired to do this project by the Pinterest Challenge. It was time to stop pinning and start doing!
I’m linking up with the sponsors of this challenge, Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl, and Ten June. I can’t wait to see how everyone else completes the challenge!
And if any of you have any experience with converting fat ties to skinny ties, I’d love to hear about it! My mom actually told me that she did that for my dad when they were dating. It’s crazy how trends come and go!
~Whitney
Have you guys heard about the Pinterest challenge? I’m oh so excited! It’s a challenge to actually make something inspired by our pins on Pinterest, issued by my favorite bloggers Young House Love. You can check out their post here for more information.
I’ve participated in the challenge twice before. The first time I made a bow dress.
And for the fall Pinterest challenge, I made a lace cowl from an old curtain.
So as soon as I saw that it was challenge time again, my mind starting spinning. And, sadly, I threw myself a pity party. This summer has been kind of crazy for our finances, so we’re currently spending as little as we can. That means no extra money for supplies for a super awesome Pinterest diy.
I was being all grouchy, mourning the fact that I couldn’t go out and buy some zip ties and a lamp shade frame, when Timothy came in.
His first response was, “Don’t we have something around here that you can just take apart and make something out of it?” Ha! I love his definition of diy.
But that did knock a little bit more sense into me. Pretty much all of the diys I’ve di – done have been motivated by a lack of money and a surplus of inspiration. While I started thinking of things around the house I could tweak, Timothy’s brain was churning.
“Babe, could I find something I wanted and then pin it and then you pin it from me and then make it? Because that would be awesome.”
And then he proceeded to spit out a whole bunch of things he wanted me to make for him. Umm, where were all these ideas at Christmas time?
But little did he know, I’ve already pinned something along the lines of what he’s wanting. Muahahaha. So we’ll see how it goes. The challenge is over on Tuesday, so you can check back then to see the outcome.
Are any of you participating in this challenge? What are some pins that have been inspiring you lately?
~Whitney
Saving money by making stuff yourself is really trendy right now. And I don’t hate it. A lot of my life I have taken pride in myself when I didn’t do something just because it was trendy. (Rainbow flip flops anyone? Or leggings. Yikes.) But now that DIY is trendy, I’m making myself right at home in the bandwagon. I’ll just surround myself with cupcakes, bunting, yarn wreaths, and mason jars and call it a day.
I’ve been wanting to try out handmade laundry detergent for awhile. (Handmade sounds so much better than homemade, right?) But I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of recipes floating around Pinterest. Then a lovely lady from my church who owns a shop in our town gave me some to try. It smelled like heaven and worked great, so I resolved to finally make some myself.
After much searching, I settled on this recipe from How Does She. It is good for regular machines and HE machines. It includes Borax, baking soda, washing soda, Zote/Fels Naptha, and Oxiclean. It also explains how to add those fabric softener crystals, but we chose not to do that. And by we, I mean my mom and I. It was a family effort.
My dad kind of got pulled into helping because he was just so talented at grating all that soap. Seriously. He could do two bars in the time I could do half of one. It must be all the sanding he’s done over the years. Ha! So my mom just reminded him of how much she would be saving and that she would be washing his clothes, and he grated away. Timothy took this nice iPhone pic of us and then resumed telling us about some new surgery he saw on YouTube. Sadly, a true story.
The whole process was really easy. We used that big tub to mix it all in and it worked like a charm. My mom had a ton of jars from canning, and we just divided the mixture into those. This particular recipe filled nine and a half of those giant mason jars.
I’ve already started using the detergent and I’m loving it. It smells great, our clothes feel clean, and it looks so cute! I’m loving how much money we’ll save also. Since marrying a smelly man, I’ve had a LOT more laundry than I thought. I mean seriously. I’m kind of afraid of the amount of laundry I’ll have when we have children.
So this is one DIY that I’m so glad we did. Have any of you made your own detergent? Any different recipes that you use? I’d love to hear!
~Whitney
Welcome
I'm honored that you took time to stop by my blog! My name is Whitney, and I'm a diy loving, piano playing, sewing obsessed, thrifty, non-house cleaning, crafty newlywed. I love God, my husband, and life as a wife. If you'd like to know more, just check out my About Me page. Much love!
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