diy - glitter state art

Have you ever walked into a craft store and saw something that you knew you had to buy but had no idea what you'd use it for?
If you answered no, you need to live a little! If you said yes, you're my soul sister/brother.
Before the holidays, I walked into Michaels to pick up about 40 pinecones and 10 packages of pom-pom's for the Christmas craft that I was in charge of leading for all the little cousins. FYI, this is what we made - pinecone trees:

Well when I walked into Michael's that day, there was a piece of shiny, lovely, glittery paper staring me in the face begging me to pick it up and look at it in all of it's glory. So I did. Geesh, I'm such a pushover. Once I held it, I knew there was no putting it back.
In the cart she went.
So what do you do with one single sheet of glitter paper? Ya get creative, folks!
When I bought this, I was in the middle of doing the picture mural wall behind the TV in the living room, so I decided to use it in one of the photos that would be part of the mural/collage. To make a long story short in the way Jason and I met... we met in Cincinnati, OH. It's a city that we both love. So why not celebrate that?!
With that said, I now present to you..... the Glitter State Art DIY!

Because the top drawer of my dresser is full of craft supplies, I had everything on hand to get started. I just needed to print a map of Ohio. Easy peasy! So you'll need the LOVELY glitter paper, a state map of any state you want to do, a ruler, scissors, tape and a piece of paper to put the glitter state on. It'd be really cute on a big black/white stripe piece of paper. But because of the living room colors, I went with turquoise.

Step 1: Cut out your state. This would be ideal if you're doing Colorado, Wyoming, Utah or New Mexico. :)

Step 2: Place the state cut-out on your glitter paper just to make sure it's the size that you want. Don't tape it down or anything, this is just for a visual!

Step 3: Turn the piece of glitter paper over. Sad day, glitter has to look at the carpet.... but once you flip the glitter paper over, tape the map to the back. IMPORTANT: When you tape the map, tape it so that the front side (where there may still be outline showing) is facing the back of the glitter paper. Like so. Then cut away! The piece you cut out makes a great stencil!

Step 4: Once you've cut it, turn it over and let the glittery shine, shine, SHINE! Love it. At this point, I just wanted to put this on the wall. But I knew I should finish.

Step 5: Place the glitter paper on your colored background sheet to make sure you still love it. You will. The next part is completely optional. I wanted to highlight the city of Cincinnati as the rest of Ohio doesn't really hold any significance to us (except the fact that I lived in Cincinnati for a few months and we loved visiting the Columbus Zoo and Cedar Point in Sandusky...). But you get the point. Cincinnati is a significant city to us because that's where Jason was lucky enough to meet me! ...And I was lucky enough to meet him. Blah blah blah. So I decided to cut out a little heart in a darker turquoise color so that it'd pop a little on the map. Check it out below.

Step 6: The next step is preparing to tape the bad boy onto your background! The ruler is necessary if you want to make sure that your map is actually in the center of your page. If you're not anal about that stuff like me, you can just slap it on there. 

Step 7: Tape, tape, tape! I would suggest using double sided scrapbooking squares instead of tape, just a personal preference!

Step 8: Put it in your frame and Ooh and Aah for hours. And hours. And hours. And then send a picture to your significant other and frown at the fact that they're not as excited as you. 

I personally loved how it turned it and I love that it adds a pop of turquoise to the new wall collage that is filled with black and white pictures, a modern clock, and a pop of red. It's just so nice.
Here it is on the wall.

I'd like to send a special shoutout to that shiny piece of paper that begged for my attention that morning at Michael's. She's now one of my best friends.

diy: yellow dresser

So I mentioned that I did quite a few DIY projects when I found out I'd be moving to a new apartment that I needed to make look like my "home" - well here is one!
I took a dresser that used to be my dad's when he was a little boy and made it my very own,bright, functional, and cheery TV stand/dresser. I love it!

Why yellow, you ask? Because I got this duvet cover a few years ago and I still love it just as much today as I did the day I begged mom to get it for me. Thanks, mom (and Pottery Barn)! So I chose yellow because I love that I can put a lot of fun colors with this. :)

So I got the dresser out of our basement and consulted with a few paint strips on which color I was going to do. I decided to choose the color Decisive Yellow. It just spoke to me (probably because it had the word decisive in it). 

First step, gathering supplies. Rollers, brushes, tape, primer, paint, and BAM- ready to go!

So here's the dresser in it's original state. It's a brown, beautiful laminate dresser. It really was in GREAT shape so I got lucky there!

Please disregard my obnoxious pink and yellow sock. Oops.

The first step was priming. This was just to help the yellow paint stick to the dresser and to make everything smooth. The dresser was laminate, not wood, which meant no sanding for me. Thank the heavens! By the way, you can't sand laminate furniture or it will completely damage and ruin the piece. Fun fact. I highly recommend oil-based primer. Laminate is such a shiny finish that if you don't prime the furniture that paint will not stick at all and it will just peel off in one big chunk once you think it's dry. So use that oil-based primer and prime away. Just be sure you have some Turpentine to get it off your hands when you're done. I thank my dad for that tip! :)

After doing priming with the large roller, I went in with the little tiny brush (this brush was actually made for people who make/paint model cars) and it worked perfect. I went in all the cracks, and made the part where the you pull out the drawers look better and smoother. I let this dry for a few hours before cracking open and stirring my DECISIVE YELLOW!

Time to paint! I did three coats with the acrylic paint pictured below and used a foam brush. This made the paint look much smoother, and not chunky and textured. If you want the textured look, I'd recommend just using a regular roller. I could have stuck with two but I just wanted to top it off one more time and make sure it was as smooth as possible. The paint dries rather quickly but I recommend letting it sit for a week or so before using and putting in the drawers. This helped the dresser get over the sticky-factor. You can seal it with polyurethane if you feel necessary. I didn't.

So, there you have it. Honestly, SO easy. I could have kept it brown, but that would've really been boring. And I'm far from boring, did you see my comforter! 

 I have a lot more projects to share in the future, so stay tuned!

what's your elf name?

HOLY MACARONI. The second week of work is so much busier than the first. Wheeeeee!
I've also spent the last three nights finishing up an exciting DIY project that I can't wait to share. Let's just say my inspiration was over $200 and I made something like it for $11. And mine is almost twice the size. Stay tuned!
In the mean time, this is HILARIOUS. Just call me Squeezy Peppermint! If your name comes out to be hilarious, I'd love to hear it. I'm really hoping for a Pudding McJingles or a Perky Pickle-Pants.

DIY anthropologie letters

It's time for a little DIY.

If you're a first time apartment decorator, I'm sure you understand the need for cheap decor. That's where this idea came into play. I am OBSESSED with Anthropologie's zinc letters. I'm not sure why, but I just am.

Seriously. They're adorable. But the pricetag, not so much. Unless you're down to pay $18 per letter. If so, this link is for you! They even have oversized letters that I love even MORE. But they're $98. HAHAH, that's a good laugh. Anyway, they're here if you want to take a peak.

So I thought, hmm.... how can I do this for cheap. Like real cheap.

SOLUTION.

Hobby Lobby, you are my best friend.

I bought letters that are the exact same size as the Anthropologie letters (8") for $1.24 each. That's when they were 50% off, but still, the original price of $2.47 is not too shabby. Not shabby at all! So go buy them here, or go into the store to make sure you get letters that look decent!

What else did I buy? Spray paint. I am sure any metallic paint would work great, but I chose this one. It was $5 for the can and it didn't take much to cover the letters. So you could do multiple projects with one $5 can. Score!

So I started with this..... the letters to spell EAT. For those of you who don't quite get it, this project is in my kitchen.

And added some paint to get this.

You can do this a couple of different ways. Technically you don't have to spray paint both sides of the letter since one side will be up against the wall, but I figured they'd look more "official" if I did both sides so you couldn't see any of the paper mache. So I painted one side, let it dry, flipped and painted the other side. In some spots, it took 2 coats. This is especially true if you want the blotchy look that the real Anthropologie letters have.

I will warn you, the inside of the "A" is tricky.

So in the end, it came out like this. SIDE NOTE: My dad was a huge help. 

Shiny letters! And here you have it. Just ignore the abundance of Girl Scout cookies on the counter.

Hope you enjoyed! Also, this picture looks like my walls are white and gross. They're actually tan and look pretty. The joys of the cell phone camera....

Have a great day!