"make your own" calendar

Adam and I bought each other a new Nikon camera for Christmas, so we didn’t spend a whole lot of additional money on each other for gifts. I knew I wanted to make him something unique that would fit into my small Christmas budget.

I’m an avid YoungHouseLove reader and I think the calendars they make each year are adorable. Looking through their past calendars I saw one that I thought would be perfect for us. They even put a file on their blog that you can download into Photoshop to make your own calendar. I decided on their calendar from 2011 so instead of downloading their files (knowing I’d have to change the pictures, dates, etc.) I just used their idea and made my own template. Plus, I’m OK at Photoshop, but I prefer to use InDesign.

Here is how my calendar pages turned out!

It’s the perfect size for the side of our refrigerator (7 x 11) and it was really fun to make and inexpensive to get printed. If you have your own printer at home this project could be practically free! I went to Staples and ended up spending $12 (which is pretty cheap for a custom calendar).

Adam liked his gift – but I think I probably like it more than he does.

Did anyone else make a fun personalized calendar this year? 

If so, I’d love to hear from you.

diy magnets

After Adam and I got engaged in October 2010, wedding plans began immediately! I knew we had to find a venue ASAP (because a couple places I casually looked at were booked up for a year and half – I couldn’t believe it!). Once we decided on a venue and a date I knew I wanted to make my own Save The Dates. It gave me the freedom to do exactly what I wanted and they were very “budget friendly”

 We loved how they turned out. After finishing our picture wall I had a few left over pictures that didn’t find a spot in frames. Since I had some materials left over from my Save The Dates I decided to make a few more magnets for our refrigerator and chalk board.

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Here’s what you’ll need:

1.     pictures (or other things you want to make into a magnet)

2.     magnets (bought by the sheet)

3.     a straight edge and exacto knife

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easy peasy hair clip

Like I’ve mentioned before, curly hair can be hard to handle. 

That’s why I’m always looking for a new clip or headband to tame the “sometimes frizzy, always doing whatever IT wants to do” hair of mine. The other day I was board with some of my other hair accessory options and decided to whip up a cute fabric barrette to add to my collection.

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Here is what you’ll need to make your own:

small scrap of pretty fabric

small scrap of felt

needle and thread

button

some sort of barrette

fabric glue

something round to use as a template

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burp cloth

I've been thinking a lot about how burp cloths have to be super easy to make...so I decided to take a stab at it myself. What really prompted me to do so was the fact that I was at a baby shower last weekend and my sister in law received a few cute ones as gifts - one of which was homemade by my husband's aunt (really adorable). Here is my take on the "much needed if you have a baby" burp cloth...

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Here is what you'll need:

2 different pre-washed fabrics (one of mine was a soft terry cloth)

a CD (or something else round)

Fusible web (optional - can't decide if it made my burp cloth too stiff...)

Usual sewing stuff

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air plant "art"

We've been slowing decorating the 1950's home we purchased last May and our fireplace might be my favorite thing in the whole house. We loved that the fireplace remained untouched by the previous owner, so we have be trying to find a non-obtrusive option for over the mantel. That is what led us to this plan...

My husband got me 5 of these glass globes for Christmas and has been bugging me ever since about what I wanted to do with them. I absolutely LOVE them, but they've been sitting in our office for a month in a box waiting for me to do something with them...

I got the hint when a "surprise" package showed up in the mail the other day containing air plants. They were the perfect thing to put into the glass globes (I've seen this done before and actually recently pinned this on pinterest as a potential idea). I knew it was time to do something with them...

Now I will say, this was not 100% my idea... Adam had just as much of a part in this idea as I did (I thought I'd mention this so his feelings weren't hurt ;)....) Ok...enough chatting...here is what we did:

We took a trip to Home Depot to pick up a few items we knew we would need to construct the frame:

6 feet of 3/32" galvanized wire rope (which was WAY more than we ended up needing)

2 Ferrule & Stop Sets (one set for each side of the frame)

3' steel flat plate (don't know the technical term for it so I took a picture)

click on picture to enlarge

 A 2-pack of screw in hooks (for the ceiling)

Some hemp twine (we actually ended up using a thicker twine we already had on hand)

We already had the tools we needed and the globes/air plants so we were set!

We started by figuring our which holes we wanted to hang out plants from.

We wanted them evenly spaced, so we measured and counted holes. 

We marked them with pieces of a sticky note.

glass etching

As a follow up to this post, I thought I would do a small tutorial on glass etching. I did a little bit of glass etching for our wedding...and since I had a big tub of Armour Etch sitting around, I figured it was time to etch a few more things.

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Here is what you'll need:

1. anything glass

2. Armour Etch (I got mine at Micheal's with a 50% off coupon)

3. Stickers

4. blue painters tape

5. scissors

6. rubber gloves

7. foam brush

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diy chalkboard

I've been dying to make my own chalkboard for a while and since we purchased our house I had the perfect spot in mind - the side of our "pantry" in our kitchen (this area used to be where the wall hung oven lived pre-renovation. I'll be sure to post before and after pictures here when we're completely finished). As you can see, it was looking a little rough with that split down the middle where two pieces of wood came together:

   

don't mind the door-less cabinets (in process)

We thought a large chalkboard on the side of this cabinet would be perfect for a number of reasons:

1] it would cover the ugly crack 

2] it would make a bold statement on the side of the cabinet 

3] and it would give us something fun to write on - we like doodling, who doesn't?

So we did a little research. I found recipes for DIY chalkboard paint, which was right up my alley. Since I work for a tile distributor, I purchased a small bag of unsanded grout and started making big plans. Adam was skeptical of the homemade chalkboard paint and suggested that black would be a nice contract with everything else in the kitchen anyway (it really does look good with our stainless appliances since they have black accents). Because of this, I scrapped the DIY chalkboard paint idea and opted for getting store bought black chalkboard paint. I do plan to use my own chalkboard paint on future projects...so stayed tuned.

Not only did I buy chalkboard paint...I picked up a can of magnetic primer to go with it: