With the current situation, I’m staying at home and that means I needed to keep myself busy so I’ve been working on my crafting. That means I had to quickly learn tips to better sanding so I could re-do some pieces.

Honestly, I never knew that there was a right way to sand. Just smooth it out right?  Well Rachel showed me just how wrong I was!

I thought I would share some of the sanding tips I’ve learned from Rachel at Renewed by Rachel!  If you are local to me in the Raleigh area…Check out Rachel’s amazing transformations. I am only a tiny bit biased because she is one of my three sisters but her work is so amazing I have something of hers in nearly every room of my house.

Here are 8 tips to better sanding.

 

• Move the sander slowly in the direction of the grain.

If you sand across the grain you are tearing up the wood fibers so scratches will show up more.  Sanding WITH the grain will hide those scratches and make your result much better.

 

[Read more…]

 

Rachel from Renewed by Rachel put her twin girls (my nieces) to work to turn an old headboard into a fun outdoor chalkboard!

 

 

What you need:

• An old wooden twin size headboard
• Jig Saw
• Cleaner
• Outdoor Spray paint
• Painters Tape
• Chalkboard Paint
• Paint Brush

How to:

1. Cut the Legs off the headboard using a jig saw
2. Clean the headboard
3. Spray Paint with Outdoor spray paint (be sure to do the back too!
4. Tape up the areas where you do not want the chalkboard paint
5. Paint the chalkboard paint
6. Allow to Dry
7. Hang and Color!

y’all these turned out BEYOND cute. I love it & it was so easy.

I bought all these items at the Dollar Tree store but I’m linking to online alternatives.

What you need:

• Small Terracotta pots
• White Paint
• Small Twine wrapped carrots
• Moss
• Raffeta

 

Using a dry paintbrush- I dry brushed the paint on the terracotta pot. I chose not to completely cover it because I wanted a little distressed look- but you could and I bet it would be just as cute!

I used a piece of newspaper crumbled up in the bottom of the pot so I didn’t have to use as much moss.

It took forever of rearranging it but I finally got an arrangement I liked.

 

Then I wrapped the raffeta around the pot twice and tied a bow.

 

 

BOOM- that’s literally it and the best part? They are not glued at all so if next spring I decide to change them up it’s so easy to do. I’m thinking about grabbing a few more and letting the kids make them and give as Easter gifts to the neighbors.

[Read more…]

I am FINALLY getting around to decorating my bedroom….after having lived here for four years!

I have been eyeing different art pieces and haven’t found exactly what I am looking for. This one was close but not exactly it.

 

I needed something a little bigger for the space over my bed so I decided to make it myself! I knew I could make it exactly what I was looking for.

I started off with a 2 foot by 4 foot piece of plywood (about $6 at my local Lowes)  Pick one that is really smooth and is for interior.

 

I used paint I already had and just a good paint brush, I used flat white latex paint and AppleBarrel Black paint to create the back drop.

I wanted the edges to be darker than the middle since I was going to be placing text there. I layered the paint. First a base coat of flat white, then I dry brushed black acrylic and then dry brushed white back over that.

 

Then I didn’t like it…so I added some more black…and then I added some more white- and finally I loved it.

I used my Cricut to cut matte black vinyl.   Since this was nearly 4 feet long in text I had to the letters individually  on the Cricut and then place them together…I am still learning how to get the vinyl to lay perfectly…and this was for sure NOT perfect!

(Don’t have a Cricut?  There are a lot of stencil options).

You could use the vinyl to make a stencil and paint the text but since this was going over my bed- I chose to just use the vinyl.

The fonts I used were PT Serif Caption and Shorelines Script.

You could use wall brackets but with the wood being super thin and light- we used a nail gun to attach it directly to the wall in several places.

 

I LOVE it so much.  This is so my style and I love the sentiment. The colors blend well with the rest of my decor