Big Girl Mobile

I love to make crafts for my adorable niece. When my sister started talking about her plans for a big girl room for my niece my mind started working. I thought of the perfect big girl mobile to hang in her room.

My inspiration come from two place. First, when Courtney and I were shopping at Pottery Barn Kids we saw this beautiful mobile.

Pottery Barn Kids

And second, I found this beautiful picture on Pinterest.

Style Me Pretty

These mobiles were both perfect because they are feminine and bright with natural elements. It was also important that the mobile wasn't babyish and could be with my niece as she grew up.

I started my going for a trip to a local thrift store. I found the perfect lamp shade. I was worried that it might be too tiny, but I think that it ended up working for my project.

After I removed the fabric from the lamp shade I saw that it had lovely fabric wrapped around the top and bottom circles. I decided to keep this on my mobile.

I found a perfect flower punch for the mobile and punched out yellow and cream flowers to hang from the lamp shade.

Mr. Firefly had the great idea to hang the mobile from the tripod. This helped me as I put the flowers on the mobile. I used a needle and thread to attach the flowers to the lamp shade. I also got some glue and glued on some fake flowers to the lamp shade.

This was so easy and looks very cute. The lampshade cost $2.99, the flowers were $5.99 and I only used half of them. I was lucky to find some scrap paper for the flowers. This project couldn't have turned out better. 

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Photo Canvas

A couple of weeks ago I participated in Trading Blogs at Serendipity and Spice. I was paired up with Steph from Pumpkin Loves. In case you missed it, here's my photo canvas.

I love to make art work that looks hard, but is actually really easy. My mom gave me the idea of transferring a picture on to a canvas and then adding some paint. The end product is a beautiful piece of original art. It may look like I painted the whole thing, but I really just added a bit of paint here and there.

Step 1
Find a canvas that is smaller than an 8.5 x 11 (mine is 8 x 8). Completely wet down the canvas. Print your picture on glossy photo paper. Immediately, while the ink is still wet, place the canvas on top of the paper. Press hard on the canvas evenly. I used a spoon, but you can use anything that is hard and flat.

Step 2
Remove the paper from the canvas. Look how beautiful this faint picture is! You could just leave it as is. But I wanted to highlight some parts and make other parts a little darker.

I got out my collection of paints and got down to work. I loved this project because I didn't have to draw anything from scratch. You just add some paint to a picture that is already there. It makes it look professional.

Step 3
Cut strips of paper to fit the sides of your canvas. I found scrap booking paper in my drawer that matched the colours in the painting. Use Mod Podge to glue the paper on.

It was easy as that. I gave it to my husband for his office.  

Stay tuned for more this week. I took a trip to a thrift store on Saturday and I'm excited to show you some finds. Now, if I could only find some sandpaper to finish up some of my projects.....

Happy Crafting,

A little rec-room TLC

While I don't have my own house to renovate just yet, I do like to dream up projects for my parent's house. Lately my mom and I have been talking about what could be done for their rec-room in the basement. They've already done some work to it, mainly taking out the wet bar that the old owners had there and putting the washer and dryer in its place. But it has been sitting untouched for a while now, so I thought I'd come up with some ideas.

Here is what the room looks like now:

And here is a little handmade room layout so you can see how the room is really set up.

Two big projects my mom has in mind are first enclosing off the laundry area with a wall and a pocket door, and second to get a new ceiling installed. I also want to hopefully soon paint the brick on the fireplace white.

I also came up with this little inspiration board on Polyvore. I'm thinking a light grey colour on the wall would be nice, as well as a big dark sectional couch where the whole family can pile on to watch movies. Across the back wall where the desk is I can see a lot of white/cream bookcases where my parents can store all of their books and accessories. I also included a large piece of colourful art to make a punch as well as a statement chair (not necessarily that fabric or colour). And finally I thought I nice cream carpet with a little bit of a pattern would be nice as well as a metal and wood coffee table to go in the centre of the room.

I know my parents, besides closing off the laundry area and working on the ceiling, want to fix up above the fireplace so that they can hang a TV above it which would be a nice focal spot in the room.

What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for my mom on how to bring some more light and colour to this room, without totally breaking the bank?

Happy Decorating,

Courtney

I linked this post up here: