diy

One Room Challenge™ | Spring 2017 | Week 6 The Reveal

The One Room Challenge Final Reveal

Well the day has finally arrived for the One Room Challenge™ final reveal! It’s been a long, crazy and busy six weeks for so many of us and now for the pay off! I’ve been working on making over an unused and dysfunctional office/workroom space into a Modern Coastal Farmhouse inspired room that’s both functional and pretty. It’s been so much fun following the designers and other participants as they make over rooms in their homes all in six weeks! If you would like to see where we started from and how we got to the final reveal, you can follow along with our previous weeks here:

Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5

And to give you a little reminder of what we started with:

Before:

After:

I love it! This space will function as both an office and a workroom for me. It’s a small 9’x12′ room so I wanted it to be very functional without appearing cluttered. I removed the shelving units because I knew from past history that they can become a “catch all” for me. I replaced it with this gorgeous modern sideboard from Structube that is clean and sleek and contains so much storage space. The sideboard will hold everything to do with the “office” portion of the room. Everything is neatly hidden away and no clutter means no stress for me!

And did you see that awesome light fixture? I fell for this fixture as soon as I saw it in the Westelm showroom this spring. I love the modern look of it mixed in with some of the wooden pieces in the room. It adds the right amount of tension for my modern coastal farmhouse vibe I was going for.

The top of the sideboard allows me a surface to add some pretty accessories that will change with the seasons. All the lovely accessories here and on my desk (except for the wooden tray and anthropologie candles) are from Homesense!

If you follow me on Instagram, you know how much I love decorating with flowers and these faux hydrangeas from Afloral look so real! They’ll definitely see a lot of use.

I already had this brass mirror hanging in my dining room but I knew it had to come into this room to play off the light fixture and other brassy accents. It really goes so well in here!

Every room needs some texture and something to hold extra pillows and throws and these baskets from Canadian Tire’s CANVAS collection do the job wonderfully!

The pillow in the back is a diy pillow I made from a scatter rug, you can find the tutorial for that here.

We added this barn door because previously there was so much “junk” in our little walk-in closet that there was no room to close the door! I’ve always wanted a barn door and this was the perfect place for one. It really does help with allowing more usable floor space in the closet. The closet will hold everything to do with the “workroom” function of the space, such as my sewing machine, fabric, craft supplies etc.

We still hadn’t figured out what to do for wall treatments until the first week of the challenge! We then decided on board and batten and it was the best decision. I knew I wanted something to go above it to add some colour and pattern. For budget’s sake we decided on this gorgeous stencil called the Floral Fireworks Allover Stencil by Royal Design Studio. I stencilled it using “liberty blue” by Fusion Mineral Paint and it turned out beautifully, you can find the stencilling tutorial here.

We had originally picked another chair for this space but it just wasn’t the right colour and not the most comfy for sitting on for any length of time. I had wanted an office chair with wheels, but couldn’t find one that was both pretty and comfortable. We decided on one we already had and it’s suitable for now until I find that elusive “perfect desk chair” someday.

This rug from Rugs USA, is one of my favourite pieces in the room. It is so pretty and soft to walk on and goes so well with my coastal theme too. I think I want one for my bedroom now!

You’ll also notice that I switched out the above dark indigo cushion for a lighter one. The indigo one was made by yours truly!

I’m so happy with my new office/workroom! It ‘s such a bright, airy and functional space now. I know I’ll get so much use out of it, it’s too pretty not to want to sit in there! Stay tuned for a post on what’s in that sideboard and how I organized the closet coming later. Thanks so much for joining me on my first One Room Challenge journey and don’t forget to catch up on all the other reveals!

Thanks to Linda of Calling it home for creating and hosting this biannual design challenge. It was a great first time experience for us and you know I’m already deciding which room to do over in October. 😉

And a huge thank you to all our amazing Sponsors who made this project possible! I felt honoured to partner with each of these great brands and businesses and share their wonderful products.

(This post was sponsored by the following sponsors. All product given, was chosen by me and all photographs, thoughts and opinions are my own.)

Source List

Light Fixture: “Mobile Chandelier” in Antique Brass, West Elm
Rug: “Aerial Decorative Plumes” in blue 5×8 Rugs USA
Desk: Homesense
Sideboard: “Moby” in white, Structube
Mirror: Homesense
All Decorative Accessories on Sideboard and desk: Homesense
Large Baskets: “Nola” Canvas at Canadian Tire
Chair: Henriksdal, Ikea
Hydrangeas: Faux Hydrangea, Afloral.com
Fiddle leaf fig: Faux, Homesense
Turqoise Vase: Homesense
Stencil: “Floral Fireworks Allover Stencil 21″x23” by Royal Design Studios Stencil
Paint for Stencil: Fusion Mineral Paint in “Liberty Blue”
Cushions: The grey neutral one in the basket and the paisley one on chair: Homesense
Cushions: Dark blue indigo and the one in the back of the basket: KimPowerStyle
Gold file holder: Homesense

One Room Challenge™ Spring 2017 | Week 5 | Our Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office

10:53 pm by kim 29 Comments

One Room Challenge | Week 5

Hello again everyone, It’s hard to believe that it’s week 5 already and that next week is the final reveal! I’m not sure where the time has gone but this challenge has been fun, crazy and scary all at the same time. This week we’ve been busy trying to pull everything together for our Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom makeover so that we’ll be able to style and photograph it on the weekend. If you’d like to get caught up from the previous four weeks:

Week 1: The Plan

Week 2: Board and Batten

Week 3: Stencilling Tutorial

Week 4: The Barn Door

This was the mood board I had created and helped to guide me in my plans of the makeover:

This post contain affiliate links, all photography thoughts and opinions are my own.

There have been some additions and changes to our plans since I first created this board so let’s get caught up !When I first created the board I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do with the walls. After some thought I decided to go ahead with board and batten and was so pleased with the results. You may just see a little more of that being put up in another room soon! We also stencilled the upper part of the wall above the board and batten using a gorgeous stencil called the “Floral Fireworks allover stencil” fromRoyal Design Studios. I used my favourite Fusion Mineral Paint in Liberty Blue. The lovely water colour effect adds to the look and feel we were going for.

(Week 2 and 3 saw us adding board and batten along with stencilling)

Another element we added to the room that was not on the mood board was the addition of our barn door. The barn door was added to help with the function of the closet as well as my dream to put one somewhere in my house! I simply love it! I had spray painted some of the hardware along with the handle to mimic the look of brass that would go along with the light fixture we were adding. It wasn’t brassy enough for me so I overlaid it with a couple of coats of Fusion Mineral Paint in Pale gold and it looks so much richer now and matches the brass light fixture perfectly.

(Week 4 had us adding a barn door)

So this is where we are as of today! You’ll notice that we’ve changed the chair from the one in our mood board. I’m still not sure about this one either. I’d love an office chair with wheels on the bottom but have yet to find one that is pretty to look at and comfortable too. Stay tuned to see how that saga plays out!

We have this gorgeous rug from rugsusa, desk, mirror, chair and pretty faux hydrangeas from Afloral in the room right now. My light fixture from Westelm came in on Monday and I am smitten with it! I’ll wait until next week to share that beauty! I’m still waiting for our sideboard storage unit that’s to be picked up from the store tomorrow (fingers crossed it’s arrived from another province, Ack!) I also have two deliveries scheduled for tomorrow which hold all the accessories for the room! Oh yes, I’m also waiting for delivery of a couple of cushions to add to the seating and hoping they’ll be here on time too…Phew!

I’ve learned a lot of what not to do here on my first challenge. The next time (If I survive this one) I’ll have a better idea of how things should work! 🙂

So that’s a rundown of where we started and where we are as of today. There is still so much to do but I’m excited to see all our plans come together and praying for sunny skies to photograph it all! Don’t forget to come back next week to see the final reveal. You may want to subscribe to get my posts sent directly to your inbox. You can also follow along on Instagram for more pictures and progress stories. Have a great week!

For more great design inspiration take a look at the designers and participants link up here.

Barn Door | Week 4 | One Room Challenge™ Spring 2017

4:28 pm by kim 30 Comments

Modern Barn Door
One Room Challenge™ Week 4

Welcome to week 4 of the One Room Challenge™ hosted by Linda from Calling it Home, where designers and bloggers makeover a room in their home in 6 weeks. For those of you just tuning in, you can go back and follow the progress by reading Week 1, Week 2, and Week 3. This week I’ll be sharing this Modern Barn Door we’ve added to the space. We had planned on building our own door from plywood and molding, but when we factored in the time and cost, we decided that buying this ready-made door made more sense for us.

I had wanted a barn door for a really long time but I have a smaller home and a more open concept main floor. Meaning, there was no room anywhere for a barn door except in this room. When we were deciding on how to make this room more functional, we realized there was so much junk in our tiny walk in closet that we couldn’t even shut the closet door! However, we had to utilize as much floor space as possible in this closet, so a barn door was just what was needed! You can use all the floor space without having to worry about a door being swung open or shut. It was the perfect solution and I got my dream of having a barn door!

If you remember my mood board, I had wanted this room to take on a Modern Coastal Farmhouse vibe:

So that meant along with some cozy pieces and texture, it would also have some clean lines and brass finishes. When we decided on the barn door, I wanted it to have the same aesthetic. Instead of going with the black hardware that I had always thought of having on a barn door, I chose this clean steel hardware. I had wanted hardware that incorporated brass, but that was difficult to find, so I came up with my own solution.

The brass hardware is to tie in with the brass mirror and light fixture that are coming. I spray painted the two pieces that attach the door to the track, a soft gold using Rustoleum Metallic in Pure Gold before we hung the door.

I also found this clean lined and modern door handle from the Home Depot and spray painted it in the same finish. It really tied it all together. The door is painted Benjamin Moore’s “Simply White” along with the walls.

Our old door is still attached in there! Lol. The closet will be cleaned out and the old door removed this week. You may have noticed that I didn’t leave the space by the ceiling empty, but brought the stencil as close to the ceiling as possible. I didn’t mind it in the room at the time, but after seeing it on the blog last week, it looked too unfinished to me so I filled it in this week. I’m still loving that watercolour look!

Thanks for stopping by to check out the progress. It’s hard to make these update posts exciting when you’re only showing little bits at a time, I know. Stay tuned though, only one more progress post and then the final reveal! Don’t forget to follow along with the other participants here!

Blessings,

Kim

Wall Stencilling How-To | Week 3 | One Room Challenge Spring 2017

2:31 pm by kim 58 Comments

Wall Stencilling How-To

Well it’s week 3 of the One Room Challenge and oh how the weeks have flown by! This week I’ve added some colour and pattern above the board and batten by using a stencil. I’ll share a little wall stencilling how-to but first let’s look at where we’re going. If you’re just tuning in now you can follow the progress by reading week 1 and week 2.

Here is the mood/inspiration board for the room:

If you notice, the board and batten as well as my stencil treatment above it aren’t on my mood board. I still hadn’t decided at the time what kind of a treatment to add. I knew that I wanted a modern coastal farmhouse look thats much in keeping with the rest of my home right now. Once I decided on the board and batten I knew I wanted to do something above it. Wallpaper can be pretty pricey even for a relatively small space so I decided on stencilling. There are so many gorgeous patterns out there now and when you add the colour factor, the possibilities are endless! I decided to go with Royal Design Studios Stencils for my stencil and chose the Floral Fireworks allover stencil 21″x 23″. I had the paint colour already and had been waiting for a chance to use it. I used the Fusion Mineral Paint in “Liberty Blue”.

I have to say that I love the way it turned out! I’m still deciding on wether or not to finish the very top as I’m kind of liking the somewhat scalloped looking edge. I guess you’ll find out on the final reveal! 😉

Wall Stencilling How-To

Let’s start with what you’ll need:

You’ll need a stencil of your choice
A small roller and/or a stencilling brush
Good quality painter’s tape
Lot’s of paper towel
A small paint tray or a styrofoam plate will do
A level
Measuring tape
Spray on adhesive for the back of your stencil (optional)

1.Using your measuring tape, find the centre of the wall. Affix your stencil to the top and centre of your wall. Check to make sure that your stencil is level.

2. Load up your roller/brush with paint , enough to cover the entire thing evenly.

3. Remove most of the paint by off loading it onto some paper towel. This is important as you don’t want excess paint to bleed underneath the stencil. Less is better when it comes to stencilling!

4. Begin to roll out over your stencil. You can lift up the corner of the stencil to make sure you’re not applying too much paint and bleeding through.

5. Move your stencil over to the the next position. Your stencil will have registration marks that will guide you to the correct placement. I found that the paint was dry enough to move onto the next placement without disturbing the previous paint.

6. Once you come to a corner or edge. Apply your painters tape to protect the edge and the adjacent corner.

7. Place the tape on the side of your stencil that you will be stencilling. In this case the left of the corner. Don’t tape the right side down as this will need to be flexible. (In the above pic. The right side is taped just to hold the stencil up while I photographed the pic, otherwise that side should not be taped) Using your roller to paint into the corner by pressing into it.

8. When doing edges and corners, you can use your roller to press into the corner/edge and then use your fingers to press your stencil down into the corner/edge. You can continue to roll at this point or use a little stencil brush to get right into the edge. I just continued on with my roller.

9. Continue to go around the room until you have finished. You may have to stop and clean the excess paint buildup from your stencil. I did this once and placed it in my bathtub to clean.

Royal Designs Studio has some great how-to videos and instructions on their site that I would encourage you to watch if you’re thinking of trying this out.

If you look at my walls there are lighter and darker areas. I actually love this as it gives the appearance of water colour. I also found that in places near the corners and edges where It seemed that I made some major “out of the lines” mistakes, the pattern was very forgiving. If there are areas that you feel you need to address, you can simply get a little brush and use the base colour to help clean up the lines. I thought I was going to have to do a lot of cleaning up of the lines but it seems to blend in and has just become part of the pattern.

So here is a little peek into my Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom. If you look to the right of the photo, you’ll see a peek of something else we’ve been working on! 🙂 Thanks so much for joining me on my first journey with the One Room Challenge and stay tuned for more projects on the way! You can follow along with others on their journey as well right here!

(This post was done in collaboration with Royal Design Studio Stencils, all photography, thoughts and opinions are my own.)

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 2 | Board and Batten

8:54 pm by kim 46 Comments

One Room Challenge | Week 2 | Board and Batten

Welcome to week 2 of the 6 week One Room Challenge hosted by Linda of Calling it Home! Well, the madness has begun and I’ve dragged the hubby into it as well and we tackled the walls in our little…wait for it, it’s a mouthful…Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom. Lol. This is the mood board I created to steer me in the direction I want to go with in this room:

If you remember in Week 1, I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of treatment I was going to apply to the walls. I knew I wanted it to have a coastal farmhouse vibe but done in a modern way. I love shiplap and have used it in a few rooms on the main floor, but I wanted to try something different this time. After searching through my Pinterest pins and other sites, I finally decided on board and batten. I thought it would add character and charm to my little room and to be honest, it looked like it required less work than I was used to with shiplap!

I think it turned out great! It seems to fit this room perfectly and I’m wondering why I didn’t do it before. It brings such character to this little 9×12 space. I think that Jack approves too! I’ve added a bit of greenery to break up the white a bit so you have a better idea of how the space looks.

Below are the tools hubby and I used to complete the project:

(This post contains affiliate links, I only share products I know and love)

We used:

Pre-primed already cut MDF boards that were 3.5″ wide. We removed the old baseboards and used these as not only the boards but for baseboards too. We wanted a totally even and cohesive look with all the seams matching.
Nail gun with 2″ nails. we didn’t use PL glue on the boards, although you can if you’d like. We just nailed every couple of feet and didn’t even worry about hitting studs as each piece is fairly lightweight on it’s own.
We used a level to make sure each board was straight, so important as your own eye can fool you! You can also use a laser level to level your top boards. We have one, but it was lost in the abyss that is our garage so we did without it.
Caulking, to caulk all the seams, I even do the bottom where the baseboards meet the floor. I think the attention to finishing details can make the difference between a “diy” and a “professional” look.
We used wood filler to fill in all the nail holes and the seams.
A sander to sand all the wood filler off. I love my B & D mouse sander. This fella has seen a lot of action!
Painter’s tape. I use this when I am painting the baseboards to avoid getting any paint on the floor.
Lastly, you’ll need the paint of your choice.

The only difficult part of this application was figuring out the math! Our walls were all different widths so the width between boards on one wall may be different than the widths between boards on another. We did the math calculations and stood the boards against the walls to test out what would look best. Once you’ve figured out the spacing and marked where your boards will go, the project moves on fairly quickly. We placed and nailed the baseboards down first then we put up our vertical boards and left the top horizontal ones till the last. While my husband was nailing in the boards, I was right behind him applying the caulking and wood filler, so we were a quick efficient team. As with every project, always measure twice and cut once!

Once again, I’m so happy with how this project turned out. If this is something you’ve been thinking about doing, I would say do it! It’s a small amount of work for a huge impact and would make a great weekend project. Thanks for joining me for week two, stay tuned for week 3 as it only gets better from here. We’ve got some great projects planned. You can follow along on Instagram too as I tend to share there first. To receive our blog posts as soon as they’re posted hit the subscribe button and they will be sent straight to your inbox! And don’t forget to go visit all the other participants too, you can find them here.

Blessings,

Kim

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 1 | Our Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workspace

11:26 pm by kim 17 Comments

One Room Challenge Spring 2017 | Week 1

It’s time for another project! This is my first time to join in with Linda of Calling it home who hosts this biannual room makeover series called the One Room Challenge (ORC). Twenty featured design bloggers are chosen to participate as well as 200 plus guest Participants to make over a room in six weeks! So much decor inspiration to check out on the ORC site….And so the madness begins…

For this challenge, I’ve chosen my office/workroom to makeover. Some of you may remember a pic I posted on Instagram last spring of my office, it was light bright and pretty. (Although the pic is a little yellow, I took it with my iPhone!) But it has slowly turned into a place where my extra bits of everything go to die.

It was pretty and comfortable but lacked the proper design to make it a real workhorse of a workspace. I need this room to be both functional as an office, where all the home administration happens and also as a workroom, where I can sew, store fabrics, keep photography equipment and also use for blog product photos etc.

Now don’t judge… but this is what my darling little office has turned into!

BEFORE:

Where did my pretty little office go? A combination of too much stuff and lack of proper functional storage. I know that most of us have that one room that holds the overflow of our decor but I want that room to be back in my basement, underneath the stairs where it belongs! To be honest we had a magazine come in a and do a video interview and tour of our home, so this room became the “catch all” of all the extra bits we weren’t using. But it’s time to get this room ship shape! So lets go with the plan.

Mood Board

So here is my Mood Board for my Modern Coastal Farmhouse Office/Workroom.. I know , it’s a mouthful!

If you’ve been around my blog and Instagram for very long, you know this mood board is very much in keeping with my decor style. I’m loving the white and wood with shots of blue and brass.

Plan of Action

Declutter everything that’s in the room, including the closet. Empty the room of everything.
Add some cosmetic changes to the walls that will be a surprise (because I still haven’t decided yet! lol)
Add a rug that will anchor the room and add some colour and texture.
Find a good desk chair that is not only pretty but enable me to work in comfort.
Change out the lighting. Although I love the little chandelier that’s there now, It’s too small. A hit of brass will add a more modern feel to the room.
Change out the large mirror for a round one with an antique brass finish.
Find proper storage. I would like to add these sideboards so that the clutter will be behind the doors, making the room more streamlined.
Add some wicker baskets to help with storage and to add texture.

I’ve got so much to do, so lets get this party started! I hope you’ll drop by the blog next week to see the progress. You can also find me on Instagram and Pinterest. I’ll need the encouragement by then!

Blessings,

Kim

DIY Throw Rug Pillow Tutorial

6:00 am by kim 11 Comments

DIY Throw Rug Pillow Tutorial

I’m loving my DIY throw rug pillows so much that I thought I’d share with you all exactly how I did it. I found the rug at Homesense and it was love at first sight! I was thinking about using it as my kitchen rug but it was too darn pretty to be hidden away on the floor. I knew I wanted to see this pattern often. It was a 2.5’x3.5′ rug which would easily give me three different pillows of varying sizes if I added a complimentary fabric to the back. I’ll share with you how easy it was to put together in case you’d like to try it yourself! I used a simple envelope style, no zippers! I did a post years ago on how to make an envelope styled pillow called the “the 5 minute pillow” you can find that here.

Throw Rug Pillow Tutorial

Materials Needed:

Throw rug of your choice.
A complimentary fabric for the back of your pillow.
Sewing Machine.
Measuring Tape.
A good pair of sharp scissors.
Pins.
Thread.

Tutorial:

Start by figuring out how you’d like to cut up your rug. My rug had lines and patterns that made it easy for me to divide it up. I ended up with three rectangles. The middle one being the larger. This tutorial will reference to the middle piece.
Finish off your raw cut side. The rug will have two finished sides (meaning they’re already bound with a hem so no fraying) and 2 unfinished sides. If you have a serger, go ahead and serge the unfinished sides. If you have a regular sewing machine like me that’s ok, you can do a zig zag stitch on your unfinished sides, this is going to keep the ends from fraying which they will! I actually did a very wide and tight zig zag and went over it twice! The edge started to fray right away and I was able to salvage it.
Now you’re going to measure and cut your coordinating fabric. (This will be the back of your pillow and will have two overlapping pieces which work as the “envelope” to get your pillow insert in and out from) For your first piece, measure the length of your rug minus two inches (because that piece will be sewn 2″ inches down from the opening end of your pillow) and add 1″ inch for a hem. Eg. if your rug piece is 10″x30″ than your first piece of fabric will be 10″x29″The width will be the same width as the rug. For the second, smaller piece of fabric, I usually will do an 9 inch flap plus allow for a 1″ hem, making it 9″ of fabric. I use this same measurement every time I make an envelope pillow, only the width will change according to how wide your pillow is). The width for both pieces of fabric will be the same.
Next, sew a 1″ hem on one end of each of the two fabric pieces.
Now you will take your shorter fabric piece first and lay it over your rug piece, right sides together with your hemmed edge facing towards the middle.
Take the longer fabric piece and lay it over your rug piece, right sides together with the hemmed edge about 2″ down from the opening side edge (L side here). Your long piece should be laying over the rug and also most of the shorter piece. So in some places you will have three layers.
Pin around the perimeter paying close attention to pin down where the hems are. Now sew along the perimeter of the pillow about 1/2″ in.
Remove your pins and turn your pillow rightside out. You’ll notice you have a good size pocket to place your insert into. Now take the small flap and turn it rightside out and fold it over the other end of your insert. Go inside and stretch out the corners. You’re done!

I hope this was easy to understand and that your were able to make your own! Don’t hesitate to leave a comment and ask a question if your need to. I’m happy to help! Please subscribe if you’d like to receive these posts straight into your inbox.

DIY Throw Rug Pillow

4:41 pm by kim 3 Comments

DIY Throw Rug Pillow

Have you seen those gorgeous pillows around? the ones that look like they’re made from an old vintage rug? Well I have and I love them, the price…not so much. When I saw this gorgeous throw rug at Homesense, I knew I wanted it for throw pillows! I loved the vintagey denim vibe it had going on and thought it would be great to add to the rest of the blue and white I use to decorate with in the spring.

The rug was roughly 2.5’x3.5′ So I was able to get three pillows from one rug using a coordinating fabric for the back. I kept the lovely fringe from both ends to give the pillows some character. I paid $24.99 for the rug. I had the coordinating fabric and pillow inserts already so I was able to get three of these beauties for the price of the rug!

I had some leftover fabric from another project, a cotton/linen blend, and it works perfectly with the colours in the rug. I used a simple envelope style enclosure so there were no zippers to work with.

I’m pretty excited about my new pillows! Thanks for dropping by today and sharing in my pillow joy! I’ll be sharing the tutorial for how to make these shortly. Also, stay tuned for a couple of spring tours coming up this month.

DIY Tea Cup Candle Tutorial

12:07 am by kim 3 Comments

Hi everyone! Just sitting here wondering where the heck January went! I have to admit that the first few weeks of the year I had little energy and it was difficult to get back into the swing of things. However, February always energizes and reminds me that spring is indeed coming. It’s also my wedding anniversary month and the hubby and I will be celebrating our 30th this year! Not sure where those thirty years went either! Our anniversary is actually on Valentine’s Day, (makes it easy for the hubby to remember!) I thought that these little vintage tea cup candles would make a lovely little addition to a little Valentine’s Day desert table I made up for the occasion. I hope you’ll try them, they are super easy to do!

DIY Tea Cup Candle Tutorial

Materials:

Tea cups, you can use what you have at home or you can easily find them at a thrift store for a couple of dollars.
Wax, you can buy your own from a craft store, or do what I did and use melt down candles. I used an old candle from IKEA and it was super cheap.
Wax adhesive, you can find this at a craft store like Michael’s or you can find it here.
Candle wicks with metal bottom. Also can be found at your local craft store or here.
An empty can large enough to hold your candle and contain the wax.
A pot to place the can inside.
Wooden Skewers, I found mine at the dollar store.

Optional Materials:

Essential oils or wax candle scents. I don’t like to use scented candles for the kitchen or around food. I do love using them for other living spaces though.
Crayons or wax colour melts. Yes! you can use wax crayons if you’re looking to tint your candles.

(Material list contains affiliate links for your convenience!)

I start off by putting a little bit of wax adhesive on the bottom of the metal end of the wick. These wicks come with the little metal plate and have a thin wax covering that makes them a little stiff so they’ll stay in place easier.

The metal end is then attached to the bottom of the inside of the tea cup. This helps it to stay in place when you pour in the wax. I then wrap the wick around my skewer to help hold it straight and in place.

In the meantime, I have my candle sitting inside the tin can. I have the tin can placed in a pot filled half way up with water and the temp set to medium. Once the candle is melted you can use the skewer to remove the old wick. If you wanted to tint your wax you can add a crayon or wax tint melts now. Stir with the skewer. This is also when you can add your scent if you’d like one.

With a bit of aluminum foil under the cup and saucer, pour the melted wax into the cup until it’s as high as you’d like.

Once the wax is dry, you may notice that it has shrunk a bit. You can pour more melted wax to level it out again.

How cute are these? They can be used anywhere! I would use the scented ones on the bedside table or by the tub when you’re bathing. They’d make a great little gift as well.

Thanks for dropping by! I’d love to know if you tried these and how they turned out.

-Kim

DIY Wood Bead Garland

2:40 pm by kim 6 Comments

DIY Wood Bead Garland

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my latest thrift find with you and how I made my own wood bead garland. At least once a week I’ll frequent a few of my favourite spots for thrifting and every now and then I’ll find something that catches my eye. I’m pretty choosy about what I bring into the house so it has to be something worth putting up with the extra clutter for! When I saw a bag of these beads and realized they were wood, I was giving myself a high five. That is until I found more bags just like them, and then I was running through the store with all I could carry cradled in my arms to find a cart! Yep, I was in the “found junk I like” zone!

I’ve seen these wood bead garlands all around my favourite blogs and IG accounts and always wanted one but here in the north, they can be pretty pricy. So when I found these wood beads at such a reasonable price I knew just what to do with them.

These beads are about 1.5 inches wide and I used a little over one bag to make a garland approximately five feet long. I simply strung them together using some jute twine and tied knots on either end to keep them in place. They can be made to any length depending upon the size, amount of balls, where you’d like to display them and the type of impact you want to make. I’ve also seen them with tassels on the end, painted as well as mixed with other materials like felt balls. The sky’s the limit! I made mine pretty simply so that they could be displayed across a table as well as fill bowls and baskets.

I’m so thrilled with my wooden bead garland. It makes such a great coffee table accent and would add amazing texture anywhere. Needless to say I’ve got a few orders to make some more!

I’m all for doing a great DIY…if it’s cheaper to do so! With some of the prices I’ve seen to buy these already made, I think this would be a great project to DIY. If you’d like to try and make your own wood bead garland you could check out your local craft stores for the beads, I’ve also provided a link for something similar here.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you’ll share if your try this!

-Kim

diy

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