Newlyweds and Nesting: Elizabeth Anne Designs Living: A Food, Lifestyle, and Craft Blog » crafts

Making Our House Actually Sweet: Dining Chairs

Hasel — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:00:52 +0000

The first to-do on my list is to was to find new chairs for cheap – and I mean cheap. In the heat of the moment at our garage sale, I sold part of our “collection” of hand-me-down dining chairs. After that we were stuck using half folding chairs, half wooden chairs. After the garage sale, we took a trip to IKEA, where I picked up these two white slipcovered chairs. I highly recommend them if you are in the market for a basic Parsons style chair. That solved part of our problem, but I still wanted to replace the mismatched chairs and go back to using the folding chairs for their real purpose – extra seating.

{author’s personal collection}

My dream chairs are the Thonet Bentwood Chairs, featured below in the now-defunct domino. Growing up my grandmother had a version of these chairs with caning seats and I have always wanted a set. I found a source for them at a reasonable price ($99 per chair), but they are not in the decor budget just yet – other pieces of furniture are higher on my want list. (Like a new sofa to replace the plaid one and provide us with an extra bed for guests.)

{left: from domino, photographer unknown; right: from domino May 2007, photographer Dittie Isager}

I set out searching for a cheaper, temporary alternative. I remembered a photograph of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s Hampton house dining room with different chairs all painted black. I loved this look, it seemed eclectic, but still unified!

{Elle Decor, photographer William Waldron}

So I headed to some thrift stores in search of four to six different chairs, possibly using one of the hand-me-down chairs we already had. On our first trip to a nearby Goodwill, Nick and I stumbled upon four matching chairs with good bones and a cloth seat for only $8.99 each. On Tuesdays, they offer a discount if you hold a rewards card from a casino. Jackpot! We did and we were able to score all four chairs for less than $25. That’s exactly the kind of cheap I was looking for.

{author’s personal collection}

N removed the seat cushions and the old fabric. I sanded the chairs to rough them up and painted them using Home Depot’s paint and primer in one in black. After two coats, they were good to go and I used wipe on polyurethane to make them more durable and wipeable.

A note about painting furniture: I painted my desk this summer with no problems. I primed separately using a tacky primer from Home Depot, then painted, and polyed. The desk is fabulous – not perfect, but super shiny and durable just the way I wanted. For the chairs, the poly did not dry as well; after a few days of drying it was still really tacky. I left them in the sun and that helped, but I can still see some streaks from the poly. I would recommend priming and painting separately, not using the all-in-one. That and not giving the chairs as much drying time in between coats of paint might be the reasons I didn’t have the best luck with this project. For more information, on painting furniture see Bryn from Bryn Alexandra Interiors’ guide and Jenny from the Little Green Notebook’s tips.

At a designer’s tag sale last year, I’d picked up a remnant of this caning fabric from Michael Miller for $10. It was perfect for the seats – I’d get my caning after all! After the chairs were painted and the polyurethane dried, Nick stapled the fabric onto the seats and put them back onto the chairs.

{author’s personal collection}

All things considered, I am really pleased with the way the chairs turned out. The full reveal of the dining and living room will be coming soon. Up next on the to-do list: the gallery wall.

Have you finished any home decor projects lately? Had any experiences painting and/or recovering furniture? Do share!

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Posted in: crafts, decor, furniture, home tour

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Sewing Mini-Projects: Coasters

Tara — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:38:45 +0000

Sewing can be such a fun and rewarding hobby. There are so many great projects that allow you to add a handcrafted element to your home. And if you prefer a slightly different type of motivation, there are gorgeous fabrics to chose from allowing those handcrafted touches to be custom to your style.

Yet sewing can be an intimidating and time consuming hobby, can’t it? Between balancing all the aspects of daily life (career, family, etc) I sometimes find myself preferring a nice, simple project that I can finish in a relatively quick amount of time. One that can be finished without utilizing my seam ripper too many times and allows enough time for all the other to do’s on my lists for a weekend. A mini-project if you will, that can be fit in during a couple of hours on a Saturday morning.

Coasters are perfect for these little mini-projects. They are quite simple yet fun to finish. And you can pick out the perfect color and pattern to compliment your home. Oh and you also get to work on keeping your top stitching straight! They can be made with a fabric leftover from an earlier project or you could get a fat quarter, so they are also a very inexpensive project.

There are essentially three steps:

1. Measure out your squares. I went with 5″x5″ to allow for a 1/2″ seam on each edge. I used a fabric chalk pencil (they are available at your local craft or sewing shop for a couple dollars) to mark my lines prior to cutting.

2. Fold over the edge 1/4″ and press with your iron, making sure it is at a temp that is appropriate for the type of fabric you are using. Fold over another 1/4″ and press. This gives you a nice clean edge. I clipped the corners so that the fabric wouldn’t be too thick to stitch through easily.

3. Top stitch all the way around, doing a back stitch at each corner and when you make it all the way around. You could get creative with your stitching and add fun details.

Voila! In a few moments of time custom coasters can be created; you get a little top stitching practice and add a little handmade touch to your home.

Next on my project list is making a shower curtain, napkins, and maybe a yoga mat bag. Any other short-on-time sewing crafters? I am all ears for suggestions on other mini projects.

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Posted in: crafts, sewing

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Easy DIY Marble Magnets

Maggie — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:00:38 +0000

In addition to our boozy gift baskets, we made cute marble magnets for nearly everyone on our gift list this holiday season. In fact, these were so easy and fun to create, we couldn’t stop making them. We packaged them in little cellophane bags and tied them right into the bows on our packages. Now that we’re past the holidays, these would make great little hostess or birthday gifts… dressed up in an Altoid tin, perhaps? Here’s a pile of our magnets before they went into their gift bags:

Supplies: You can find the supplies to make 50 magnets at your local craft store for less than $10. You’ll need glass floral beads and basic magnets (I chose 3/4 inch for the size of my magnets/beads, but other sizes are available), Glass & Bead glue, and a circle punch (the punch is completely optional – if you’re more precise and less lazy than I am when it comes to cutting out tiny circles, skip it!)

Step 1: Cut out a circle of the image you want in your magnet. We used our wedding logos, initials, designs, photos, you name it. The circle punch makes this step a breeze. I printed my images onto cardstock so they’d be stiffer against the glue, but anything will work – even pages torn out of magazines.

Step 2: Put a small dot of glue onto the magnet and spread with a paper clip or toothpick.

Step 3: Place your paper circle onto the magnet and press. You’ll notice that I sized our logos smaller than the magnet; that’s because I wanted to see all the text even with the marble’s magnification. With more graphic images, I sized them right at 3/4 inch.

Step 4: Apply a second layer of glue to the magnet and spread, just as you did in Step 2.

Step 5: Place the glass bead on top of the glue and move it around until you’re happy with the placement (you’ll have about 30 seconds to do this before the glue starts dying). When you like the way it looks, apply pressure to the entire magnet for a few seconds to help it stick together.

Step 6: Voila! Affix to your fridge and ooh and ahh at its DIY cuteness!

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Posted in: crafts

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Our $10 Christmas… revealed!

Maggie — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:11:09 +0000

Subtitle: When All Else Fails, Get Your Siblings Drunk!

You remember the extreme limitations imposed upon my family gift-giving this year, don’t you? After trying and failing at a few different ideas for my siblings and their SOs, our highly scientific thought process went something like this:

Without further ado, our Crafty Christmas:

To set the theme, I made booklets for each couple that were printed on cardstock, hole-punched, and tied with holiday ribbon. I forgot to take a photo of the finished products, but here are the jpgs. Read them vertically, and click for a larger version.

“Sugar” – Vanilla-infused vodka and homemade vanilla sugar

“Spice” – Jalapeno-infused vodka and a mini Zing Zang bloody mary mix

The spread at my sister’s house the next night, where the goodies were liberally sampled:

Being the Photoshop wannabe that I am, I had a blast making the cute labels (thank you DIY blogs with your endless inspiration and templates!). Admittedly, we went over the $20 limit (even before I shipped everything to NC… trying to get past security with four bottles of homemade booze in my purse wasn’t my idea of a good time on Christmas morning), but I think it’s the effort that counts, don’t you? With more advance planning, I know I could’ve found cheaper vodka bottles and vanilla beans, which were the big expenditures (thanks cheap booze that tastes great when flavored!). Here’s the breakdown:

Sugar and Spice Gift Box
Sugar jar: $1.25
Sugar: free from my pantry
Vanilla bean for sugar: $4.99
Two glass bottles for vodka: $9.00
Vodka for both flavors: $7.50
Vanilla bean for vodka: $4.99
Jalapeno for vodka: $.50
Mini Zing Zangs: free (we had these on hand, but they retail for about $5 each)
Printing/cardstock/labels: free

Final cost: $28.23
Crafty Christmas with boozy sibs: Priceless

PS: My sister promptly entered the One-Upsmanship Hall of Fame by opening up her booze box from us and then gifting a painting of our niece on canvas to my brother. I made labels and added things to stuff. Lisa painted Taylor in a beach scene, walking down to the ocean’s edge. Food for thought.

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Posted in: christmas, crafts, drink, frugal, paper

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Easy Peasy No Sew Curtain

Rebekah — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:13 +0000

I needed a somewhat fashionable curtain for our bedroom, and wasn’t having an easy time of explaining what I wanted to a seamstress. After trying a few times to find an affordable option in the stores, I gave up and created my own bohemian version (i.e. I didn’t pull out the machine and sew the seams).

Here’s the finished version:

Take your fabric and cut into strips that are about a foot longer in length than they need to be, and in whatever width you desire. I chose varying widths. Thicker widths create more coverage and larger knots, thinner widths create the opposite.

Gather each strip and create a loop at the top with the extra 12 inches of fabric.

Put the loop underneath your curtain rod with the fabric facing the opposite direction it will eventually fall. Pull the fabric over the top of the curtain rod and through the loop. If you have fabric that is patterned on one side, make sure the pattern shows up correctly.

What the knots look like finished:

Voila! A new curtain for minimal cost and time.

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Posted in: crafts, decor, fabric

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DIY Christmas part 2

Julia — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:00:03 +0000

I love getting Christmas cards in the mail. Photo Christmas cards are my ultimate faves and of course, anything handmade makes me squeal in excitement. So I decided that as long as I can muster up the energy, I will be hand making our cards each year. So far so good. Next year, with a 9 month old? Not so sure it will happen. But for now it’s one of my favorite projects each year.

In 2007, the year of our wedding, I had to use a wedding picture. What newlywed couple wouldn’t love to showcase a photo to family and friends once more? If you are a newlywed I say go for it….even if you think everyone is sick of seeing your wedding pictures, they probably aren’t:)

So I picked one black and white picture, then chose a bunch of fun Christmas printed paper and went to town:

The whole process goes something like this: get neutral colored paper for the background, cut a ton of basic cards from this paper, then cut even more printed paper to fit on top. Then you’ll need to print off your text onto regular paper, print your photos, and glue it all together. Yes, it does take time but it’s so worth it! I always use at least one Christmas stamp somewhere on my designs, usually on a bright red envelope, because I adore rubber stamps:) This was my pick for 2007:

When 2008 rolled around, I knew I liked my general process of printed papers on top of neutral ones, combined with a photo. Here are all of my papers pre-cutting:

And here is the final 2008 project: this year I used a little more digital scrapbooking supplies with my frame around our picture. I also used two different papers for the front of the card. Oh, and for both 2007 and 2008 I hand wrote little messages inside the cards to each family. THAT didn’t take long at all for our 75 addresses….yeah right!

For this year, I decided to use multiple pictures and forgo the handwritten note inside the card. Here are the pictures I chose and again, I used more digital scrapping supplies for my frames and typed up the text directly onto the image this year:

I stuck with one print on the outside of the card, then when you open it up you see the larger two-in-one picture on the inside. All I have to do now is stuff the cards in envelopes and address/stamp them all. I need to get on it!

My best piece of advice if you are going to DIY for Christmas Cards? Keep it fun. I could not handle staring at the same print over and over 75 times while I fold, cut, paste, etc. So I always use a variety of printed papers to keep things entertaining for me. I also roped Nate into the fun this year and had him help me cut the papers and even glue a few pictures down! Team work is totally awesome, btw.

Does anyone else love making Christmas cards as much as me? Any tips I’m missing?

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Posted in: christmas, crafts, paper

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On the third week of craftmas…

Briana — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:41:04 +0000

Not going to lie, this next craft is a labor of love. It’s a bit time consuming, but it’s a great thing to keep your hands busy on a cold night in front of the fireplace! These hand-embroidered cards make a great gift for friends (I made them for our holiday swap…hope you enjoy them, Cyd!) , not to mention that they are far cheaper than purchasing them in the store…

Materials needed:
-Kraft paper cards and envelopes (Michaels or other craft store), about $8 total for 20
-Embroidery thread (about $0.49 per color, which will be more than enough to make 10-20 cards)
-Crafting needles (found in sewing aisle)–try to find one that is long-ish and thin, with a big enough head to thread embroidery through
-Whatever you’d like to stamp the envelopes with. I used clear embossing powder to emboss them with a subtle evergreen stamp.

These also make beautiful Christmas gifts as a stationary set for your paper-loving friends! Just tie them with some raffia and place in a box to keep them from getting bent.

Directions:

-Use a cookie cutter or hand-draw a pattern onto the cards, lightly, with a pencil

-Thread embroidery thread onto craft needle

-Embroider over pattern with a simple whip stitch (simply going in and out with the needle!)

That’s it! It’s so super easy, and makes a thoughtful card that is GUARANTEED to be unlike any other your friends will get this holiday!

Evergreen stamps decorate the front of the kraft envelopes…

The back of the envelopes are embossed with a Noel stamp to continue the festive feel throughout!

Here’s a closeup of some of the patterns I used. The snowflake was freehanded and took more time than, say, the candycane or Christmas tree.

I hope you enjoy these cards! They can be personalized with any pattern: snowman, a monogram, or anything you can come up with!

Happy crafting!

Much love,

-B

{all photos by me. Please link to EAD if posting!}

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Posted in: christmas, crafts, holidays, paper

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Christmas Crafting: Glitter Houses

Feisty Tourist — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:00:32 +0000

I might be a little behind in getting on board the glitter house boat (I believe they became re-popularized in 2006 by Martha), but some people still haven’t heard of them so… Here are two little houses I made.

“These quaint little decorations, known as ‘putz houses’ or ‘putzes’, were found on tables, mantles and under Christmas trees in homes across America for many decades starting around the early 1900’s.” (-LittleGlitterHouses.com). The blue one above as an attempt at a model of my own home.

I think glitter houses are adorable for Christmas and a fun craft project. You can check out Martha’s instructions and templates here. The pink, yellow, and green house I made is from LittleGlitterHouses.com. It’s simpler than Martha’s, so it’s a good one to start with if you want to give this craft project a try.

A few things the tutorials didn’t mention: For the windows, I use red clear cellophane that’s like the stuff you wrap Easter baskets up in. For the light inside, LED tea lights work perfectly. If it won’t fit in the house, stick it in the base and make a hole for the flame part to come through. You could also run a string of twinkle lights across your mantle or wherever you have your houses set up, but I couldn’t bear to see the cord. I’m trying again on my house soon – with lollipop sticks for the porch railing. Wish me luck!

If you like these but don’t want to get quite as involved, check out Martha’s Train Station kit, available in lots of craft stores (I’ve seen it in Michael’s and AC Moore).

Have you tried these before? Any tips?

P.S. Bonus – I’ve started blogging about the Baltic cruise Ami and I went on with our husbands over on my travel blog. Come visit!

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Posted in: christmas, crafts, decor, holidays

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Our $10 Christmas

Maggie — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:45:42 +0000

My family is a crew of perennial over-gifters. We love giving gifts; in fact, we can’t quite control ourselves. Our Christmas Eve extravaganzas are infamous. Presents begin in neat piles under the tree, but not two feet later are stacked to dizzying heights, toppling over one another, and spreading out half-way across the living room floor. We have a ritual for opening the gifts, too: one at a time, oldest to youngest. It takes hours. There is applause and fanfare after each gift is opened. As I said, it’s a ritual.

source

But 2009 has presented itself as that fateful Christmas that would belie tradition, for reasons of scheduling and economy. First, we’ve moved our usual Christmas Eve extravaganza to Christmas Night so that my niece’s maternal grandparents finally get a chance to host Santa (they’re three hours away). With that being the case, Trevor and I realized how much money we could save by traveling on Christmas morning instead of Christmas Eve, so we jumped on discount airfare. (Christmas Eve all alone with a boy? What ever’ll I do?!) Oh, and did I mention that half of us are looking for jobs or desperately hanging onto the jobs we have? Yep.

So with everything so in flux this year – and our family focus becoming increasingly grandchild-centric anyway – the family matriarch put her holiday-socked foot down and issued a proclamation*. In the spirit of simplifying and treading lightly while Ye Olde Economy is still kicking our butts, no gift can cost more than $10 per person.

What the…?!

All my family gift ideas went out the window. No Flip videos, no yummy bedding, no DVD box sets. I started dreaming up themed gag gifts, but even those I couldn’t find for $10. Every item that followed the rules seemed so random and insignificant (I mean sure, I can buy my brother a $9.99 CD, but do I really want to?). I wracked my brain for a group activity that we could do together instead of giving material gifts (and still love that idea!), but living 1,000 miles away and only being there a weekend at a time doesn’t really allow for that.

You can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? That’s right, folks, it’s Crafty Christmas!

Who am I kidding? There’s no way I could ever sew these gender-specific awkward Christmas sweaters for everyone!

Since I can’t sew to save my life, my mom and sister are better bakers than me (hot savory meal in a box, anyone?), and no one except my parents is really interested in wedding photo gifts, Crafty Christmas has been a bit of a challenge for me. I do have some DIY chops (remember our day-of wedding paper?), but I’m pretty sure my siblings don’t want random signage for Christmas. Hmmmm. So after much whining about my lack of good ideas – and much hysterical laughing over “homemade gift” google search results (tissue box holders! CD suncatchers! Handprint wall-hangings!), I finally have a plan. Actually, I have more than a plan – I have gifts underway as I type. They are thematic, homemade yet still very much me, personal, and promise lots of fun.

No more hints! I’ll reveal and do a DIY post after the holidays.

Until then…

I’m pretty sure I could make us these awkward antler headbands by next year

*That same holiday-socked matriarch is not complying with the $10 rule herself, by the way. Why not? “Because I’m the mom and can do whatever I want.” Okay then! As the obnoxious eldest child, I decided that in that case, it’s my prerogative to gift my parents outside of the $10 limit, too. Whatever, it’s a wedding-related gift! Once-in-a-lifetime chance and all!

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Posted in: christmas, crafts, holidays

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DIY Christmas part 1

Julia — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:04:10 +0000

I’ve always been a fan of crafty projects and what better time of year to bust out your inner Martha than with the holiday season? There’s nothing like personalized touches in your home and a lot of times I choose to make our decorations instead of buying them because I love having full control over what we display. Saving money doesn’t hurt, either:)

For instance, both my husband and I grew up in homes that celebrated Christmas with yearly ornaments. That means that every year of our lives, from birth until we were ‘on our own’, is well-represented via ornaments. My mom and mother-in-law gave us all of the yearly ornaments last year and it is SO much fun to go through year by year and relive the memories. This is something I want to do for our family, too, and so beginning with the year of our wedding I’ve made a family ornament to hang on the tree. I just used a picture, some cardboard, glittery glue, some string, and any other little details I can find and voila….a yearly ornament!

2007:

2008:

And I have yet to make 2009 but I have my ideas:)

Then I got the idea of making a letter banner for Christmas, and what better word to use in the Great Artic of Wisconsin than ‘SNOW’? I used some ribbon, buttons, hot glue, snowflake ornaments, cardboard, and paper to make this baby:

I always have a hurricane vase out on display and usually it houses our vast collection of wine corks. This time of year, however, I put away the booze theme and pull out my ‘girlie’ ornaments that I used to hang on my ‘feminine’ tree before we were married. Now my pink, aqua, and purple theme is not overly welcome on our family tree but I just had to save the fun ornaments somehow:)

For our stockings, I looked everywhere for cheap ones and finally found very basic styles at Michaels. For Nate’s stocking I added ribbon, ‘masculine’ buttons, and a monogrammed pin for his initial. For mine I used left over lace from my wedding veil (which was also DIY), ribbon, sparkle glue, and another monogram:

And for my favorite stocking, little Henry got an adorable bone charm from the local pet store, ribbon, a plastic candy cane, and sparkle glue. Ta Da!

Last year I made this wreath after deciding the store-bought ones were just way too expensive. I found a plain greenery wreath on sale for 50% off, found the ‘berry wreath’ for another 50% off and combined the two with a few pine cones and ribbon to make it pop. Separately the two wreaths were puny and ugly but together I quite like!

And finally, for my last DIY project, if you squint really hard past this adorable pissed off Santa, you will see my tree skirt. I found a plain red felt skirt for about $5 and then added buttons, those same snowflake ornaments from my ‘SNOW’ banner, and glitter glue. Once we get all of our presents under the tree you can’t see it anyway, but I love when the little details show through:

And just because I can’t stop with one Henry picture, here you go: This could very well be our Christmas Card photo, don’t you think?

More on card ideas later….now I’m off to whip up some more DIY projects:)

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Posted in: christmas, crafts, decor

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