The Bedroom: My Favorite Things

I still have one major project to complete with the bedroom and then it will be all done and amazing! I have a vision of a giant collage type thing...it's complicated but fantastic. Till then, I am excited about everything else that has gotten done in there! So here are my favorite little nooks and whatzits of our new bedroom (**note** a lot of this decor was left over decor from the wedding. When I designed stuff for the wedding, I tried to make sure it was usable after so it wasn't wasted money and it has worked out wonderfully!) Enjoy!

Found this $50 shelf for $17 and then used dollar store bins

Gave our laundry sorter a little more character with a shower curtain from the thrift store

Repainted thrift store items=awesome decor

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The teeny closet we successfully organized!

Fabric Wedding Flowers

This was another wedding craft that came about with the wedding. I actually got a LOT of great reviews on them, I cannot tell you how many guests told me that they couldn't even tell they were fabric! That was so cool :) So if you are looking to save some money on flowers or just love that vintage handmade look, I recommend it. 

Now, surprisingly, though I found pictures of the roses the way I wanted them I could not for the life of me find a tutorial for them. SO me and Ma improvised. Are you seeing a trend here? Yeah, she's pretty awesome for just giving things a go, we can make a good team most of the time. 

These are the pictures we started out with. I thought I got these off etsy but I gave it another look and I can't find them for sale on there anywhere. So I completely apologize in advance for not being able to give the original creators their proper attribution. I am going to keep looking though, hopefully I can find them again. They are just amazing though, right? And mine didn't quite come out as good but they still looked awesome. *UPDATE! I found them! see it might take a few months but I am as good as my word: http://www.etsy.com/shop/allencompanyinc. Looks like they don't care them any longer though. Sad :(

Fabric Shopping  was probably my favorite part, I spent HOURS looking at all the yellow fabric. I actually did a good amount of shopping on Etsy. I went all out with mixing up the shades of yellow and the textures of the fabric. 

For the stems I used the bamboo sticks they sell at craft stores as fillers for vases. We wanted something wide enough to attach the base of the flower head to it. Plus it has a nice light green tint to it, which went well with the blue and yellow shades of the wedding.

When the fabric came in, mom went to work making it into strips. She then folded the strips in half , did a sort of triangle fold and started winding from the middle. She then hand stitched the base to keep it all in place. She used screws to help keep the flower heads attached to the stems and quite a bit of glue. She is all about the hot glue but I am not a fan. I found this fabric glue that was just as amazing yet didn't give me six thumb blisters in one day and I was hooked. (Still trying to convert Ma though...)

Here is the end result: 

All the roses bunched together

The Bridesmaid Bouquets

Bridal Bouquet

Tiered Cake Stand

So here is my first post about a craft, oh so awesome, but not exactly an original idea. My wedding was almost entirely DIY (it was a little hectic) but I had a lot of fun with it and those who do DIY projects themselves were the most appreciative of the more awesome results. One that got the most attention was the multi-tiered cake stand, which is actually a twist on this sweet idea from Design*Sponge. The basic summary is this: take a vase, take a plate, take some proper glue and put them together! Design*Sponge explains more so check that out for more.

So Step One: Check out instructions at Design*Sponge

Step Two: Go Higher
 I decided to get adventurous and make more than one tier because I had limited table space and lots of food to put out. The tricky part that i didn't really want to deal with was making the colors match. SO instead of looking for pieces that match in color, i just looked for unique shapes that fit the need. When I got home, I played around with them like puzzle pieces till they went together in a way that functioned and looked good.

Step Three: Painting
Before gluing anything, I painted all the pieces and let them dry for a few days. (Nice view, yeah? Its not mine, it's my friends)

Nice view, yeah? Its not mine, it's my friends

Step Four: Glue
I used Epoxy glue and took my time, gluing plate to vase as instructed. Once those pieces were dry i glued them to another set to make the multiple tier. I did not think ahead and take a picture. It was helpful to have a second person to stabilize as the glue dried but not necessary.  The trickiest part is making sure they lined up properly. I was going to just eye ball it but that is tricky so we measured and drew intersecting lines with a pencil on the lower part of the plate to determine the middle.

Step Five: Countertop Paint
Now if you were wondering about food safety back in Step Two here is were I address your fears. There are couple of different options. First, you can use doilies or only put lined food, like cupcakes, on the stand.  Second, you could coat the paint with a food safe sealer like these guys would do for painting a countertop. Third, you could buy countertop paint from the hardware store, like I did. It was fate that brought us together since i just kind of found it one day while hopping at Home Depot. Yay! It would serve my purpose (you can't use doilies under wet fruit, you just can't). I left it white, which wasn't ideal but i was doing so many colors it would have been more expensive to buy and color multiple cans of the stuff. And white was one of my colors so it worked out :) Here is the end result:

TA DA!!

Since the white really stood out, i tried to incorporate some design to blend it a little, like the stripes, dots etc.

 I did do one other that I got away with not painting because it was all from milk glass items:

So there you have it, those five tiers probably cost me....$30? They were a blast to make too! I got all kind of messy :) go try it out!

Oh! and i came across this awesome stand too whilst browsing and while I wasn't going rustic, I thought this was just beautiful