Unique Border Solution

I knew I wanted to have 2 paint colors in Bear's Big Boy Room... what I couldn't figure out was how I was going to set off those two paint colors.

I didn't want to do chair rail. Not in the budget, not the look I wanted.

Didn't want a wall paper boarder.

Just having the 2 colors meet wasn't going to work either.

So after trying, and hating several different options - what I feel in love with was metallic tape.

Note: this is NOT duct tape, though with all the decorator duct tapes out there you likely could use it. But I wanted something VERY shiny, with almost no texture of it's own.

While exploring Lowes, I discovered this metallic tape in the HVAC section - It's day job is holding duct work together throughout a house. But it was exactly the look I wanted for a boarder.

Putting it up was a challenge. Definitely a 2 person job - thankfully, my mom and stepdad had come up for the day. I had to go to Ikea for a smaller train table and if I had gone without inviting my parents, I just might have been disowned.

A few tips if you decide this solution is something that you might want to try:

• 2 people is key, you need one person to remove the backing of the tape and press the adhesive to the wall while the other person holds the roll in front of you moving as you go along.
• Keep the roll at the level that you are applying the tape, if you go even a bit above or a bit below where you want the tape to be, you'll get kinks and creases in it.
• Have the wall below as perfect as you can get it - if you've got a tape line under the tape, it is going to show. I wish I'd sanded more before I applied the tape.
• You will have imperfect spots, but once you load in the room with furniture and accessories, no one is going to inspect your board for flaws and if they do - then there are more issues than the imperfections in your boarder. 
• And last, like with any project, the only person who knew what it was supposed to look like is you, so if it come out different than you expected, you'll be the only one to know.

Got an interesting boarder solution? I'd love to hear about it - I'm looking for something else to do in our kids bathroom. 

Paper Pennant Garland

One of the things I love most about my son's new room are the paper banners I created.

Here is how I made them...

Cut the the layers out on my cricut, red background layer (which if you look closely you'll see also has an oval cut out to help me thread them evenly), the white layer and then the blue letters.

Then I assembled the individual banners:

Then I flipped them over to reveal the guide on the red layer that was cut by the Cricut so that each pennant would have their slits cut in exactly the same spot - what I tried and discovered didn't work was to precut the slit in both layers.

Why didn't that work? First, lining the two slits up perfect was a challenge, and second, the cricut couldn't get the slit as narrow as I wanted it - too wide of a slit and the pennants slide around on the ribbon and gravity is not the friend of the garland. 

So I cut them by hand. 

And then I threaded them onto the ribbon, first trying and not liking them on white, then loving them on red. 

And that was it - 3 fabulous custom paper pennant garlands for his room.

Big Boy Room - The Before and After

Well I did it - I transitioned my son's nursery to a big boy room. There are still a few loose ends to tie up but in the span of the long weekend, while the husband and kids were visiting family in NY, I got the room cleaned out, walls washed, repaired, taped and painted. Created the artwork for the walls, sewed the window treatments, made what felt like 47 trips out to get things I didn't realize I needed until I needed them and got everything put back together before they got home.

I'll post some other details and how-to's later in the week, for now, here is the straight up before and after. Please, please, please don't judge too much by the before's. His room was a mess... embarrassing.

Before:

And after:

The best part of his new room - he loves it. Absolutely loves it.

After almost a year of not linking to any parties I think I'll link this up over at Be Different... Act Normal's Show and Tell Saturday. 

New Orleans Inspired Vase

One of the things I loved in New Orleans was the iron works. I decided to bring a little of that to our house with the help of my cricut, some vinyl and a vase.

I started with this image from our trip:

Then I created a version of the pattern on my computer:

And sent it over to the cricut:

After the cutting completed I weeded out the negative spaces:

Then I removed the backing from contact paper:

And then burnished it down on top of the remaining vinyl.

After the contact paper was secured to the vinyl I pulled up both layers releasing the vinyl from it's backing.

The two layers were applied to the vase and then burnished so that the vinyl transferred to the vase.

And finally pulled off the contact paper and secured any lose edges of the vinyl to the vase.

So now I've got a fabulous little vase that reminds me of our trip.

Crystal Garland

I bought this chandelier for $10 at the ReStore a few months ago, hoping to do something for my daughters room with it.

My plan for using it in my daughter's room didn't work out - but I held onto it knowing some use for it would come up. As the holidays are approaching it came to me - a crystal garland.

The crystals were very easy to remove from the fixture.

But they were filthy.

So they got a bath.

And then I simply attached them end to end, alternating so that the big crystals joined to the bigs and the little to the little.

And while I liked them draped on the light fixture in my dining room, I knew it was meant to be on our mantle. (Forgive my fall decorations, I haven't turned everything over yet - i just couldn't resist taking and sharing these pictures.)

I'll be sure to post an update when I get the holiday stuff up.

Simple Tassel Tutorial

I had a couple of projects in mind that would require simple tassels - and after looking into buying them, I realized it was time to find a way to make my own.

After trying a few different methods I thought I'd share what worked best for me.

Here is what the finished tassel looks like:

Contrasting yarn helps show the different parts of the tassel. 

Materials:

• Yarn
• Cardboard to make a template 
• Scissors

Step 1 - Make a template like you see below. Not 100% sure how to describe this little sucker. I started with a 2" x 2" square of card board. I cut 2 slits about a 1/4" from the top on the right and left side. Then I cut a slit in the center of the bottom. Last - a large notch was cut out of the right side about half an inch from the top that extends just past the middle.

Step 2 - cut 2 4" lengths of yarn, set 1 aside and then wrap the other around the top notches of your template.

This black strand of yarn is going to be loop you use to hang your tassel. 

Step 3: Start wrapping your yarn around the template going perpendicular to your loop yarn. The slit at the bottom is used to secure the yarn.

Keep wrapping and wrapping.

Once you like the amount of strings you've got, stop wrapping.

Step 4 - Secure the top portion of the tassel with the string that was formerly secured between the top 2 slits.

Step 5 - Using the strand that you formerly set aside, wrap around the tassel at the notch and lightly secure it.

Step 6 - slide the tassel off of the cardboard.

Step 7 - Cut the loop at the end of the tassel.

Step 8 - Move the string up the tassel just a bit towards the loop knot to help beef up top portion a bit - trust me, it helps. Then REALLY firmly tie the bottom string.

Begin wrapping the tails around and around the tassel.

And then secure the ends of the string.

Last - knot the end of the top string to create a loop.

You've got a simple tassel...