New Fan DIY Update

We obviously have BIG plans for our little home. With me doing my student teaching this fall that means that we have a limited budget for projects and home decor since we are paying for childcare and I’m not working. I knew that we would want to replace the fans in the house but I was planning on that being one of the last projects. Well when we moved in we discovered that our living room fan did not work, well it worked but only in reverse which is terrible for Texas summers. We were planning on replacing the fan with something to match our hardwood floors…another project that will be doing sometime in the distant future. Obviously we needed a functional fan so the hunt began for something beautiful, functional and budget friendly, this was obviously an impossible find. So we decided to look for a white fan that we could eventually move into our room or into little man’s room. We were still only finding fans that were decent and included a light kit for $100 or more. I decided to do some more searching and researching reviews and ended up finding a simple white fan with a light kit for $50, I was sold. Joel surprised me with it and I immediately opened up and started trying to think of ways to make it a little more beautiful. While I was brainstorming I saw our tv stand and lighting struck! I knew that a little lacy vinyl would really add a wow factor and tie in the gray tile in our fire place. I was sold!

Materials Needed

·         Vinyl

·         Cricut or Silhouette

·         Fan Blades

·         Squeegee or Credit Card

I started thumbing through my Paper Lace booklet I was not disappointed. I narrowed it down to 3 patterns and Joel and me decided on the same pattern and the crafting began. First, I cut a couple sample pieces on paper to figure out the sizing that I wanted, once I settled on a size I started cutting my vinyl. 

You will want to make sure that your blades are nice and clean :)

After all of the vinyl was cut I placed the vinyl on transfer paper so that it would transfer smoothly. This is extremely important with delicate or intricate vinyl. Then I measured where I would want to center the vinyl and marked where each piece would begin and end. This was to ensure that all of the blades would have the same placement and a very uniform look. Then I stuck the transfer paper to the blade and smoothed it out with a squeegee, if you don’t have one you can use a credit card. After this was done I removed the transfer paper and smoothed the vinyl over one more time with the squeegee. After repeating this process 5 times I was done and Joel assembled the fan! 

Measure and mark so that each blade has the same vinyl placement.

I truly cannot believe how much this simple inexpensive project has made such a beautiful HUGE impact in our living room. For under $5 it has made our fan go from drab to fab! So for $55 we have a functional and beautiful fan that really ties our living room together. 

I'm in LOVE this maybe my favorite project ever!

My Lovely Desk

I am so excited to finally have a craft room and my very own desk! When looking for a desk I knew that I needed something sturdy and big enough to accommodate my needs and my crafting tools.I picked up my desk off of craigslist for $60.00 but knew that it needed a little updating.

So I picked my colors and got to work. I decided to take the desk apart to make sure that I didn't miss anything. Once it was disassembled I went paint crazy!

The bottom of my desk is a light coral color that I fell in love with. For the top of my desk I went with a light bright blue.

I also covered the top of my desk with lace print contact paper. It looks amazing and if I get ink on it from stamping it wipes right up! it's a little hard to get a picture of but it's lovely in real life!

I am so in love with my new desk! I think this transformation is quite possibly my most favorite one yet!

Tea Cup Pincushion

Mother's day is quickly approaching, and there are gifts to be made, flowers to be sent and cards to be crafted in the Carman house. Today I am going to share another handmade gift, perfect for a sewing Momma. This is a super cute gift that is very budget and time friendly, from start to finish it took me a little over five minutes to finish this adorable gift. To make this gift you need a teacup and saucer, I got mine for $1.00 from my local thrift store. You will also need fabric, steel wool, some batting, a rubber band, and a hot glue gun.

I began by cutting my fabric into a decent sized square and hot gluing the steel wool onto the fabric. I used steel wool because it will actually sharpen your pins and needles!

Then I added the batting and hot glued it to my steel wool. I only added it to get it to sit in the teacup the way I wanted.

Next, I gathered the fabric tightly and rubber banded it. It is important to make sure you are satisfied with how the fabric lays, and the way the pincushion fits into the teacup.

Now, all that's left is some simple hot gluing! You want to coat the inside of the teacup with hot glue, and then insert the pincushion. I then hot glued my teacup to the saucer, this can be done or skipped.

There you go! A simple sweet handmade gift that any mother or grandmother would love and cherish!

Note Holder!

I am also a firm believer that God gave us hands for a reason, and I love making things, and giving handmade.

New paint for my new end tables!!

As most of you know we were supposed to make a cross country move to Houston this May. I say supposed to because our plans have changed and Joel's conflicting school schedule is keeping us here until December. Awhile ago we had picked out colors for what will be our new bedroom. I had begun putting together this room in my mind with colors and furniture, and since we recently found some of the key pieces to what I have in mind I decided to keep putting the room together like we were moving. The main colors that we have picked out for our new room are gray with a white accent, we also picked teal and purple as our pop colors. Our new found end tables are going to be our nightstands in our new bedroom. I really love the shape of them, and they have so much room for storage that it's ridiculous! So last night after Joel got out of class at 10 we made a walmart run for spray paint. We wound up getting some Kylan duel spraypaint, it has primer and paint, we went with white, boring I know but I love how it turned out. We knew that the end tables needed a little bit of sanding,so that the paint would stick, but that they wouldn't need to be completely sanded. Since we had some sanding blocks at home we didn't buy any. I started this project by taking the hardware off of the tables, and removing the door from the tables, when I say I did this I actually mean that Matt did this :] I started by lightly sanding the doors, then I gave them a gentle coat of Krylon Dual spraypaint. I also lightly sanded the tables and gave them a few gentle coats as well. Amidst my coating I ran out of spraypaint so I ventured to the store to get some more, and I might have gotten a Diet Cherry Coke from Sonic during Happy Hour. When I got back I finished spraying and went to a meeting. After my meeting I painted the pops of color on the tables. This took forever to dry and I feel like was the most time consuming process in the entire project. Once the pops of color finally dried, it was time to glaze. I was most excited to glaze and to finally have my side tables done! Below are pictures of each step! Now to figure out what to do with the hardware. My tables, prior to transformation.

Prepping to paint.

Paint!!!

Pop goes the color!

Glaze and Amaze!

I think it's fair to say that I'm just a tad excited to finally have them, and for them to be painted. I had the best time painting my day away!The darker color is purple in real life, the same color as our cross candle holders, I'm not sure why it's turning out so dark in the pictures. I really love how they turned out! I feel like our new room is starting to fall into place, now if I can only find gray paisley Hillcrest king sized bedding my life will be complete! Ok...maybe not my life, maybe just my dreams... I think for now I'll stick to trying to figure out what I want to do as far as hardware goes.

State Art

  My amazing husband and me have been together since we were 17 years young. We met in St.Louis while attending a worldwide youth conference for our denomination. He was from Houston, Texas, and I was from Virginia Beach, Virginia, out of the thousands of teens there we met. Looking back I can't help but laugh, I didn't even want to go, but my Mom jokingly told me that I should go because I could meet my future husband. God really does have a sense of humor, my mother is careful with her jokes now :]
  Anyways I said all of that to get to state art. State art is popping up EVERYWHERE you look in blogland and on pintrest. I have this photo collage in our bedroom, and have been having a difficult time picking the pictures to fill them, I always have the hardest time picking pictures...I just have so many good ones!

I know this is a bad picture, but it's the only one of the college that I have.

  Now at the very top of the collage, is a frame with 3 pictures, two horizontal spots and a vertical one in the middle. I decided that frame was perfect for my state art. For this project I used scrapbook paper, cardstock, a picture {for the middle}, a glue stick, glitter, my cricut and the cartridge 50 states.  The hardest part of this project was finding the right scrapbook paper print, luckily my awesome Mom had just got some paper that matched my bedding for my home scrapbook, I love you Mom! I began by cutting my scrapbook paper into two 4x6 pieces, I cut them that size because that was the size my frame called for, you can cut to your desired size. Next, I took my cardstock and placed it on my mat.If you don't have a cricut, you can print out a map of your desired state, cut it and trace it onto your cardstock. I needed the states to fit on the 4x6 piece of paper so I began cutting at 3 3/4, which was perfect for Texas.  I had to enlarge Virginia to make it look decently proportional, I think it was 7 3/4 inches, and it's still vastly smaller than Texas! Then I took my glue and centered my state on my scrapbook paper. I let it dry for a few minutes and then got ready to use my glitter. I drew a small heart with my glue pen where Houston, and Virginia Beach were. Then I added some of my awesome glitter.

My state art.

I still need to add some pictures, but here's a full shot.

   I LOVE how it turned out, it looks so wonderful in our room. I'm thinking about changing the picture out for a B&W one, but I'm not sure. Let me know what you think! I love helpful opinions!

Making your money work for you and your decor :)

I love to add things to our apartment. Not a month passes when something doesn't change at our apartment. Updating decor and adding small touches are something that I do constantly, but without breaking the bank. Some of my favorite things in our apartment cost less than $10.00 to do.

I picked up all of these vases at various local thrift stores for around .20-.50 cents a piece. When I got them they were all different colors, some where white, green and some where clear. I picked up some navy spray paint and went to town on my vases. They all vary in size but my favorite thing is the different textures that they have.  They sit on top of our bookshelf and not only add interest but pick up the navy tones in our rug.

 Halfway

Finished Product :)
I deiced that I wanted to add something to our room, I was thinking about doing something to our lampshades but couldn't decide what to do, so I decided to change up our headboard. This project was so simple and took about 30 minutes from start to finish, and cost me less than a dollar to do. Being a crafter I have some major crafter tools :) Joel just got me a new cricut expression for Christmas! But I used the silhouette for this (I don't have one but my mother does :)) I found a damask print that resembled our bedding, sized it appropriately, and cut the vinyl. The hardest part about this project was the application. Since it was an intricate design i used transfer paper, measured and centered it on my headboard and applied it. I was very pleased with how it turned out!

I also like to make things for other people. I made these for my sister, one of her best friends is getting married next weekend and she wanted something sentimental to include with their gift. I hope that they like it.  There's nothing that I love more than handmade gifts, it's so special to get something that someone created for you.

I'm currently planning a few projects, and really trying to think of a way to add some more sparkle and charm to our apartment. Any suggestions would be welcomed :) I'm also working on mastering the art of couponing ( I've already mastered it for home, now for food and household items)!