DIY: Summer Wreath

With all the 85 degree weather that we have been having lately here in Atlanta, I figured that it was finally time to retire my winter wreath and put up a spring/summer one.

Check this baby out...

Things I love about it.... 1) Pink everywhere. 2) Butterflies everywhere. 3) My husband thinks its silly.

I thought I would share how I went about making my wreath, in case you wanted to make one of your own!

-Supplies-

Felt sheets. I used 1 in each of the following colors (red, purple, light pink, fuchsia, yellow)

Glue Glue & Sticks. I went through about six sticks.

Scissors.

Wood Wreath (Joanns. $2.50)

Alright, so first cut your felt into strips. Remember in elementary school when you they told you to cut 'hamburger or hotdog' style? Well, cut the strips hamburger style (i.e. across the 8.5 inch length of the felt sheet). I did my strips about .5 inches wide. No ruler or guideline, just eyeballed it. Cut up all of the sheets of fabric this way. 

(The thicker or smaller you cut your strips, changes the height of your flowers. Want shorter flowers? Cut smaller strips. Taller flowers? Cut wider strips.)

 

 Now that we have all of our felt strips, we are going to make a felt flower rosette. 

1) Start with one strip and place a thin line of glue at the top. 

2) Fold the fabric over on itself, so the glue is covered. 

3) Start rolling the fabric between your fingers, making it bigger.

4) Once you reach the end of the fabric strip, place a small line of glue at the end of the fabric.

5) Press down to close off the flower. 

6) If you want to make it bigger, put a small strip of glue of glue on the flower where the last strip ended.

7) Add another felt strip to the flower, as close as possible to the previous strips end.

8) Keep rolling and gluing until you get the size of rosette you want.

 

 I made my flowers with either 1,2 or 3 strips of felt. I tried to create a hodge podge of colors and sizes.

  Once you have all your flowers made, comes the fun part. 

Massive glue-gunning. 

Coat the entire back of the fabric flowers in glue and just start sticking. 

Go glue-gun wild! 

I tried to not have any of the same color flower touching and tried to vary the sizes that were next to each other, but go crazy and do your own thing!

Lastly, add some more flair if you want to. I had some feather butterflies left over from a project a few years ago, so I just applied some glue on the back and stuck them onto the wreath wherever it pleased my heart. 

If you want your own feather butterflies, you can find them here.

Once you are done gluing, hang up your wreath and marvel at the color explosion that now covers your front door (despite your husband's dismay). 

Spring Cleaning!

God. Doesn't the term spring cleaning just make you ill??

Me neither!!!

I love it and all the fun reorganizing, dusting and cleaning your walls that comes with it. I get a thrill when I bust out my Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and start scrubbing coffee stains off my cabinets (that is all my husband's fault fyi).

So to celebrate the spring cleaning season, I have two things to share with you. 

1) I have a lot of jewelry supplies. Like .. a lot, a lot. Every January when it is time for me to do my inventory, I curse at myself for two weeks straight as I meticulously count the tens of thousands of beads I have (no joke. Tens of thousands!!) So, I am trying to make a lot of jewelry right now to condense my stash. 

What does this mean for you?? 

Massive sale. MASSIVE. 

I am having a 15% off EVERYTHING sale right now if both of my etsy stores. It is lasting until Midnight on 3/28/12 and a lot of jewelry in my store is the last of that design. 

Click on the photos below and if you see something you like, grab it now because once it's gone, it's gone!

2) I am trying my darnedest to get reorganized and focused. I feel like lately I have had a lack of focus when it comes to my business (and life. Who am I kidding). So what helps one get focused?? 

That's right, a ginormous bulletin board!

Huzzah! Floral fabric, a flag bunting and pink everywhere! It's perfect.

So I thought that I would share how I made this guy and write out a little tutorial for you if you find that you need a little organization in your life as well. 

First, start off with a large size bulletin board and enough fabric to cover it all the way around each side with a few inches to spare. You also need some fabric pins.

Lay your bulletin board in the middle of your fabric with the back of the bulletin board and the back of the fabric facing you. Start folding and pinning your fabric to the back of the bulletin board. Go in with your pin with at least a 45 degree angle, and slide the pin in parallel to the bulletin board. You don't want the pin sticking through to the other side at all.  Go around all the edges and make sure the fabric is being pulled taut on all the way around.

 Easy peasy right? Now onto the fabric flag bunting. I made mine out of felt and yarn. I made a triangle shape out of cardboard and just started cutting bunches of triangles out of various colors of felt. Once I had enough triangles I laid them all out to decide on my color pattern.

Once the pattern was decided on, I laid my triangles out in a row, and applied a small strip of fabric glue onto the back, just near the top. I then pressed my yarn into the glue. I just keep doing these two steps until my bunting was enough to wrap around the sides and the top of the bulletin board.

Once it was the right length, I just stick it in place with a few pins. 

After I finished with the main construction of the bulletin board, the rest was easy!

 I divided my board into three sections with little bits of yarn pinned to the board. I also made headers for the different sections with various pieces of felt and paper. Lastly, I cut up strips of cardstock to use as the notes for my board. I can just write down what I have to do, pin it to the appropriate section and viola! 

Well....I still have to actually do the things I wrote down, but at least the tasks look beautiful in their new home. 

Living Room Inspiration

 

1. Hairbrainedschemes on etsy / 2. ellemoss on etsy / 3. floresdelsol on etsy

4. SweetlyYours on etsy / 5. BobbieLouFabric on etsy / 6. MaryMarieKnits on etsy

7. Seaandasters on etsy / 8. AllThatGlittersWraps on etsy

9.SassAndPeril on etsy / 10. Decorate23 on etsy

Our apartment is pretty unfurnished decorations wise. For as much as I like creating things and doing things around the home, I just can never get myself to commit to any interior design items. I would rather go two years without curtains, than have curtains I am not absolutely in LOVE with (silly, I know). Also, if I could just coat everything I own in lace and floral print, my apartment would have been decorated months ago. My husband has this thing though about pink flowers being on everything.

After over a year of searching, I have finally decided on the perfect color scheme for our living room. Gray and mustard yellow. We have a dark bluish/gray couch and all our furniture is black (holla Ikea!) so finding something bright and cheery, but not feminine, that would go well with our furniture was a process.

 I have been scouring etsy and pinterest trying to find the right fabric for curtains (I am going to sew my own) and other decorating knick knacks. Above, I put together a collection of some of my favorites that I am hoping to add to my little apartment over the next few months. The bottom right photo (#10) is the top contender for my curtain fabric. 

What do you think?