The Sock Bun “Curl”

Last week on Pinterest I saw a picture of a lady with long hair and some gorgeous loose curls, all supposedly from a sock bun.  I had pinned said picture but for some reason a bunch of my pins that day didn’t take – boo!  So, I went to youtube to see if I could find more instruction.

Idea being that you pull your dry hair in a high pony tail.  Take a sock with the toes cut off, that you’ve already rolled into a donut shape.  Spray hair so it is slightly damp and then you roll/wrap your hair around the sock until you get it to the base of your ponytail. 

Here’s the before, my hair all sock bunned, and the after.  And this was really comfy to sleep in, and held in great! 

As you can see it gave me some more wave on the bottom but that was all.  Next time I try it think I’ll split it into two buns because my hair is incredibly thick and will try dampening my hair a little more. 

Have you ever tried any no heat curling methods?  What’s worked for you?  So far everything I’ve tried has been a no go, which = total bummer for me!

DIY - Wreath made out of...

coffee filters.  A couple months ago I came across Lindsay's tutorial on making the bookpage wreath.  It was instant love.  A few weeks ago Lindsay had $5 Challenge up, you had to create a something out of only spending $5 and whatever you had on hand.  When browsing through I came across Lynda's blog post where she made the wreath out of coffee filters.

I knew then that I had to make this, I have tons of extra coffee filters just laying around.  I mixed up a light green paint color and painted the ends of 3 bunches of filters.  Then the Hubs and me separated them.  This was the longest process.

This is the back of the wreath.

Front view - with the back done.

At first I decided to just finish a complete section, which was a good starting point for the rest of the front, but then I preferred doing rows and filling it in that way.

Like this, and for the next row, I'd glue it inbetween the two previous points.

Afterwards, check all around it and fill in if needed anywhere, mine needed it around the outer middle.  Here's the finished product.

And hanging up on our living room door - needless to say, I LOVE IT! The green tips are very subtle, and you can't see them in this photo, but think it looks great in person.  I got nice compliments about it when we had the luncheon after Avalynn's baptism on Sunday.

I'm linking to Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage & Blue Cricket Design & Show and Share Day @ Just a Girl &  &

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DIY - Inexpensive Wall Art

We re-painted our bathroom in February and I needed some new wall decor on the cheap.  My Aunt gave me two nice big black picture frames with nice double matting in them that she didn't want anymore.  And while, I was out at the craft store a couple weeks ago I browsed the aisles looking for something inexpensive to fill in a picture frame with.  I happened across the $1.99 fabric squares and loved this mosaic one I found.  In my excitement to get started I forgot to take a before picture.

Items Needed:
- Paint & foam brush
- Spray adhesive
- Fabric
- Arm muscle

I painted the black frame white, color I had on hand.  Then I separated the matting as I just wanted the top one to show as it's white.  Sprayed the black matting and fabric with the spray adhesive.  Smoothed it on and then folded it tight around the back.  Sprayed white matting to attach to the fabric front and popped it in the frame.

I love the colors and they bring out the green in my new paint color, as depending on the light it sometimes looked green, blue or gray and I wanted it to have that green look all the time.

I'm linking to: 

DIY - Kitchen Remodel

We've lived in our house for 4 years this April.  Since January we've been re-vamping our 1st floor, remember when we tore up the carpets and re-finished the hardwood floors in the living room, here, and then in the past month we decided to repaint the bathroom, dining room, and semi-remodel and paint the kitchen. 

Here's the kitchen in all her glory when we bought the house, I had forgotten about the baby poop color they used for trim in the house.  And those hideous cabinets!!! And you can't forget the mismatched and uneven height counters. 

So, before we moved in we sanded them down, gave them a coat of white and new hardware.  And for some reason I was in this phase of light wall colors and super dark trim.  Yeah - now I'm like what was I thinking?! 

Last Tuesday we headed to Lowe's with some of our return money and were excited to revamp our kitchen.  New counters, beadboard for the backsplash, new sink, faucet, lighting, and I was getting a dishwasher - YAY for no more handwashing!!! 

Here's Hubby lifting out the tiled counter, man was this sucker heavy!  I helped Hubs carry it outside and  the previous owners had 4 layers of countertops and tiles on it.  So glad to see it gone! 

Reconfiguring the sink side took the longest.  For some reason there were two sets of hot and cold water pipes.  So he closed off one set of each and then had to move them over to the right, so the dishwasher could fit.

Finally on Sunday, Hubby finished all of the cosmetic stuff and it took us 3 days to finish painting.  Still need to get some fabric for the windows and some decor, but SO HAPPY with the finished outcome. 

I'm linking to Transformation Thursday @ The Shabby Chic Cottage & Show and Share Day @ Just a Girl &  &

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Easter/Spring Wreath Inspiration

This week I've gotten sucked into all of the great linking parties around and came across many adorable DIY inexpensive wreaths.  I can't wait to try some of them!!! 

Heather & Lianna did two different takes on this one. 

Love this paper wreath from Shannon.

Julie made this lovely ribbon wreath. 

Loved Jess's two different flowered wreaths. 

Thank you ladies for the great ideas, now to go get some supplies and try some of these out.

Nursery Art on the CHEAP

In baby girls room there is a wide horizontal stripe, I knew that I wanted to fill it with some art.  Michael's was having BOGO canvas, 2 came in a pack.  So, I got 4 canvases for $5.99, spool of ribbon $1.99, 4 sheets of scrapbooking paper $4.  Already had on hand foam brushes and mod podge.  Unfortunately - I forgot to take pics but it's super simple!  Total Cost = $12!

Directions:

• Cut scrapbook paper to size of canvas.  
• Coat the canvas and back of paper with mod podge, smooth it onto the canvas. 
• Measure ribbon to length to wrap around the edge with a little excess. 
• Hot glue the ribbon around the edge, overlapping at the end. 
• Hang & Enjoy! 

Here's the space I wanted the canvas to go. 

Here's close-ups before they were hung. 

Hung up on the wall. 

DIY - Refinishing Hardwood Floors

a house full of some chaos.  Saturday - Hubs and I headed out on a mission.  We were going to find that puuuuuurfect sectional.  Can't be too big, as this is an old house and we just don't have that kind of room.  After lots of sitting, scooting out of some super soft couches and zapping one another mulitple times from all of the static of our escapades we narrowed it down to 2 choices.

Choice 1: I'm a BIG fan of chocolate brown, it's getting a little obnoxious actually.  This was super comfy but not so sure about the fabric.

Choice 2: Ahh - now this one, love that it's simple, the fabric is super soft, I get to pick my own color & it has the chaise that I really wanted.  Hubs sure thinks it's a winner, he's already napping. 

#2 is winning for me so far, but I'm just not 110% sure yet, and hey! - when you are spending this kind of money you have to be 110% sure!  This might also have something to do that this our first real piece of furniture we are purchasing, minus our mattress.

So, couch browsing led to a discussion of what we were going to do with the floors in the living room.  It was a mauve'y weird color, has some stains from little one and orig. was either going to get all new carpeting down the road or perhaps putting in a floating floor.  BUT the Hubs, knew there were wood floors under the carpetng and suggested we see what kind of condition they were in and perhaps re-do them.  At this stage in pregnancy I'm all for whatever, I just want it to not take forever and be done before baby's arrival.

To our delight (sort-of) we found that the wood was in good condition but there was paint splatters everywhere, which of course meant they'd have to be sanded down. So the hubs hand sanded the edges and then rented one of those big ones. Two days of having floor dust going everywhere. Even with places taped off, closed doors, this dust has managed to creep into every place on every floor I swear.  So - here are the before, in progress, and an after picture of the floors having their coats of finish on them. 

We had to pick up some shoe molding today to finish the baseboards now that the carpet is gone. While there we decided to check and see what rugs they had in store. I've been drooling over the keyboard checking out rugs on Lowe's website all week. And to my delight they had one of the two kinds I had it narrowed down to. Hubs looked it over and happily agreed that he liked them also.  Woo-hoo!!!

Here's the rugs after we unrolled them. Completely in love with them - honestly, never thought I'd get so excited over area rugs!

I'm so ready to order our couch next week and get some finishing touches in here to show you the finished product.  Fingers crossed all before Baby Avalynn's arrival!

DIY - Christmas Gifts

In our families we always make a homemade gift.  Typically, I've done ornaments in the past and occasionally the Hubs will do something with his woodworking.  But this year with the Hubs working his crazy schedule I remembered two DIY gift ideas I'd seen around the Blog-land.

First, I saw earlier this year when Chris @ Just a Girl posted a tutorial - the ever so popular Tile Coasters.  Total cost per gift was $3-4.  You really can't beat that and they are super simple and go quickly!

Here's the materials we got: tiles from our local hardware store, a pack of the 12x12 cork tiles (4 in a package), staz-on ink in brown, package of clear stamps, and the spray sealant.

 Here's the hubs measuring out the size we needed for the bottom of each tile.

Bottom of the tile after the cork was glued on.

The finished product after stamping and the spray sealant.  We decided to have two of each design in each set.  We made 8 sets total.

The second gift I stumbled across were these amazing JOY plaques that I fell in love with instantly.  The tutorial is posted over @ Shanty2Chic. Total cost of this project for me was about $15 per set, I ended up having to order the candlesticks and finials online as my craft stores selection was pretty null.  I didn't take step by step pictures of this project, Hubs and me worked on them a little bit each day and are so pleased with how they turned out.  We made 7 sets of these.  Here's our finished project.

There's still time if you need a simple inexpensive christmas gift for someone.  Go out and get your supplies, they will love recieving something handmade.



And - when you happened onto my page did you notice that little one is entered in a contest?  If you have a moment please go take a gander over @ parenting by dummies and vote.  Little one's #28 in case you won't be able to tell, as her bum is the only thing you see and not her face.