Bow Organizer {Take Two}

I am FINALLY happy with the bow organizer for my sweet girls. I blogged about the first one I made last fall. It served it's purpose, but wasn't ever what I had intended it to look like.

I took the old one apart and was left with the original frame.

I spray painted it using my handy adapter so my pointer finger doesn't revolt on me. You can get these for a couple bucks at Walmart or other hardware stores. I don't spray paint without one of these anymore!

I bought this chicken wire from Home Depot. It was under $7 for a 10' long roll. I stretched the wire across the backside of my frame and cut it to size using my floral wire cutters. Using a staple gun I then attached it to the backside of the frame.


Then it was off to pick the spot.



And gather the bows!

The "roughing" up was unintentional, but the frame was in pretty bad shape and the spray paint was the cheapo kind we already had on hand. Once I sanded down the edges it made the other imperfections look intentional... just the way I like it. Like Peewee Herman said "I meant to do that"!

No, if only ALL the bows for the girls actually fit on here. I guess I'll need another one. How do you organize and store your bows? I'd love to know!! Please, share with us in the comments section.

Baseball Scoreboard {Wall Art}

When I saw this scoreboard in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog a few months back I tore it out (this was before I discovered Pinterest!) and knew I would do it "someday".

Well, that "someday" has come!




Last weekend while my husband was out of town, I got to work on this little project.
First things first... Wood!
I used some scrap plywood we'd been saving in the garage.
I measured the area the sign would hang and cut the plywood to size (4' x 3') using my jigsaw.

I chose to use the knotty side of the plywood to give it a little more character & spray painted it green.
When working with spray paint your colors are pretty limited so if I were doing it again I would have hand painted with a color closer to the PBK inspiration photo. I just like it better.

Once it was dry I used painters tape to mark my lines for the scoreboard. This is where the measure twice, tape once rule would have come in handy! After painting the middle line & ripping the tape off I realized that the two 'boxes' weren't the same size. My mom had come into town and we tried it again, this time successfully!

I created stencils for all the letters and numbers using my Silhouette machine. That little machine was AMAZING for this project.

Using a sponge brush I got to work. Tip: Use a rounded sponge brush for this. I just didn't have one on hand.

For the changeable score plaques I used paper templates to figure out how big they needed to be.

Then I used those templates to cut out the rectangles with my jigsaw & mitre saw. We then gave them a quick coat of spray paint.

Once they dried, I used my silhouette again to create the score stencils and painted them on. We drilled a small hole in the top of each piece of wood for the jute rope to slip through. Mom made a knot at one end with a loop to hang on the nail.

Last thing was to tape off the edge and paint a white border all around the scoreboard.

I nailed small nails in each of the Visitor/Home sections so that I could hang the score for each inning. Once I had them where I wanted them I tied a knot on the front of the plaque and trimmed the excess jute rope. I'm wondering how long it will take my 3 year old to figure out that these things can move (and be lost!). :)

He's pretty proud of the thing and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There are a few imperfections that bother me when I look at it, but overall the end result was exactly what I was going for. So, don't wait... Take those inspiration photos you've been Pinterest-ing and go for it!

UPDATED:I've had several questions about this project in the comments so I wanted to try and answer as best I could.

1. Do you take orders?
Yes! I would love to create a custom scoreboard.  The charge is $325. Remember it's a large piece... So the bulk of this is for shipping. (Shipping costs over $175 will be added on to the total).

 I will also sell the stencils if you want to create your own. The charge for that is $35 (includes postage).

2. What font did you use?
It's called Copperplate Gothic

3. What's the wall color?
It's Sherwin Williams Whole Wheat

4. What are your margins/letter sizes, etc?
See the photo below... :)

Let me know if I missed any of your questions...




Linked here:

Chic on a Shoestring Decorating
Fingerprints on the Fridge
The Shabby Nest

My {Everchanging} Mantle

Well, we've been in our house for about 6 weeks now.
In that time my mantle has looked several different ways.
Is it just me or are mantles stinking hard to decorate!??
I've been Pinteresting (yes, that's a word in my vocabulary) to come up with ideas.
Here's my evolving mantle.
Option 1...

Option 2... I changed out the mirror and used a plate rack to add height on the right side.
I like it okay but I'm trying to fade out the red/gold/green color scheme.
Plus... entirely too many circles going on here.

And here's how it looks today.

I picked up the urn and floral stems from Hobby Lobby using a coupon and the 1/2 off sales.

I plan to hang the mirror to add height.

Here's my question: do I create two of the same urn or keep it different and asymmetrical?

I know as soon as I get the mantle "just right" it will be time for fall.

And time to change it up again!

Chalkboard Craze

I did it... I made my own chalkboard.

I turned a piece of artwork destined for the garage sale pile and created a new piece that will float around my house until it finds it's resting place.

I've had this artwork for 8 years... I still remember buying it with a crazy coupon the day after Thanksgiving our first year of marriage -- at the crack of dawn. It matched perfectly with our then master bedroom decor and in our many moves I've found a place for it to land each time. But, like my last post told you... I'm ready to weed out what I don't LOVE and take the time to slowly gather what I do.

The detail on the frame is awesome! I had a feeling it would look great in a different color.

Here she is all finished up. Fresh coat of red spray paint and a chalkboard center.

See the detail... I love it!

I'm not sure if it will end up staying here in our entry but I love the thought of being able to have verses, quotes and announcements to greet our guests. It's also visible from the stairs and living room so it will get quite a bit of notice. All I have to do now is work on my handwriting!!

I used chalkboard spray paint and the jury is still out on whether I love it or not. It's a bit rough and erasing seems to be a bit of an issue. Towels leave their residue (due to the roughness) and I'm afraid to use water. Any of you out there have spray paint chalkboards? How do you erase and clean the thing?


Linked Here:
Someday Crafts

Alright Alright... I Caved!!

After seeing all these cute coffee filter wreaths on all sorts of blogs I decided to try it out for myself. It didn't take too long and I'm pretty happy to have it finished.

I had the perfect night to work on this project. My husband was out for a few hours and I had some Dancing with the Stars to catch up on.

I gathered my supplies... a straw wreath (with the plastic still on), natural colored coffee filters & my trusty glue gun.

At about this point I had throbbing fingers from the hot glue mishaps and was really regretting my decision to begin this project. I even thought of stopping and finishing it later. But since I know myself so well I realized that I may have a 1/2 finished wreath NEXT season so I pressed on through the pain!

I'm not sure where its final home will be. For now it is hanging on our back door to the garage. All in all I am pretty satisfied with it!

By the way... this project cost me $3.48!!! Wreath was $3.47 and on sale for 40% off. The coffee filters were $1.40. Not bad!

Linking Here:

Between U & Me

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Photo Wall

Have you noticed that most of the pictures that I share of my house are zoomed in really close?? That's because I have a TON of blank wall space still left to decorate! It's a problem that keeps me up at night. Seriously!!

Blank spot #1 is in my front living room.

Notice, no walls shown?

But what was once blank & boring now has 4 8x10s of my family. Fitting for a family room, don't you think?! Should I add more?? I probably should have zoomed out further so that you could see my entire wall, but I guess I'm still fearful of showing too much "blankness".

I ordered the pictures in sepia, which I LOVE. It gives them a classic look & hides the pop of pink that my daughters have on, which would more than likely have clashed with the red accents that I have in the room.

But the best part of all...I get to see their sweet faces every time I walk through the living room to... answer the door, answer the phone, track down the laundry basket, find a lost toy.. You get the point. :)

All decorating should make me this happy.

Painting on walls

I love finding inspirations in catalogs of things I'll never be able to do or afford. I've torn things out of catalogs a hundred times to put in my "eventually I'll do this" file. I've been unhappy with how my four-year old daughter's room has looked since we got her a new bed and rearranged her room. She had this long wall with nothing on it that couldn't be filled with any more furniture. When I saw this picture in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog I was inspired!!

I love the entire room. Ideally I'd buy the whole set...but of course I live in a world with a budget! I showed the picture to friends and my husband to get their feed back and a vote of confidence that I could actually do something like this. Well deperate times (aka: sick kid, unable to get out of the house) call for extreme measures.

I took this blank wall (excuse the window reflection) and hand drew a tree form using the picture above as a rough guide.

I used brown acrylic paints from a craft store to paint the tree form on the wall. This was the point where I knew... NO TURNING BACK.... like it or hate it it was staying! :) I am no artist... so this was a huge risk for me.

Of course no craft project in my house of three kids under 4 turns out just as I plan.... while out prepping a template for leaves my 2 1/2 year old twins decided to help me out with the paint job. Imagine my horror (and delight) to find they had painted the wall ... but DIDN'T come close to the tree!

I used a template to start painting leaves on the branches.

Then I added flowers in varying shades of pink and red and added lighter colors to accent and add dimension.

In the end it doesn't look much like the PBK version and it's by no means perfect... but I think it fills the space nicely. Eventually I may hang a bird cage on the right branch that looks a little funny... but we'll see if that ever happens.

Eventually I'll finish the REST of the room...

linked here:

Making the World Cuter

Keeping it Simple

The Girl Creative