Decor Archives - Yearning to Create

How to Hide the Laundry Room Uglies

This is my laundry room. Have you noticed that laundry rooms have some necessary things in them that are ugly? Like the tap/drain box and the outlet. You definitely need these at an easily accessible location, but they don’t add much charm to the room!

And since we all love doing laundry so much, we want our laundry rooms to be as cute and inviting as possible to lure us in!

So here’s how I hid my laundry room “uglies”. . .

. . . a cute towel bar and towel to cover the electrical outlet. Found the towel bar on our local “Buy and Sell”. I’ve never actually had a towel hanging in the laundry room before, and I use it all the time – how did I not have one before?

To cover the taps I used a long narrow basket that used to sit on my counter and hold the keys. I spray-painted it oil rubbed bronze to match my knobs and chandelier and stuck a fake plant in it. Fits perfectly and hides the lovely red and blue taps!

So much cuter!!!

I think the vintage washer and dryer add to the charm. We got these babies just before our first daughter was born, so they’re over twenty years old now. We’ve only ever had one minor problem with the washer. Yay Kenmore!!!

I love the wall colour {Grey Evening by Behr}. And I love my light!!! See the lines it casts on the walls – feels like water, which seems appropriate for a laundry room.

This is an interior room so there is no window. When I hung the mirror window on the wall it immediately brightened and enlarged the space. See that little brown bag sitting on the mirror ledge? It’s a bag of wild flower seeds that actually came from Green Gables in PEI. When I have a yard, I’ll plant them.

I really love my little laundry room. This is my view as I walk past it many times a day (it’s right beside my bedroom – very convenient!). See those white shelves in front of the washer? They’ll be going up on the wall over the sink someday. I’ve got more plans for this room – including a quote from President Thomas S. Monson about laundry!

Stay tuned (hopefully within the year!).

Here’s the quote from Thomas S. Monson:

“Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future…If you are still in the process of raising children be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled, will disappear all too soon, and that you will, to your surprise, miss them, profoundly.”

Beaded Curtain Tiebacks

Beads can make beautiful curtain tiebacks. It’s true! Especially if you use beads that have sentimental value to you (like Grandma’s old costume jewelry that you would never wear!)

So I went and chose some very sentimental bracelets from the dollar store. (Actually, I was just looking for colours I liked.)

Now, I thought this was brilliant . . .

. . . I packed up my beading supplies . . .

. . . and divided up the beads, to work on my project in the car! I had two daughters playing in a softball tournament, and I knew there would be some time between games where I could do some crafting (it was either that or Sudoku!).

The center console and my lap made the perfect work station (be sure to sit in the passenger seat so you don’t have a steering wheel to deal with!).

I just tied my string to a starting ring and started beading.

No pattern was the pattern, with a small pearl between each larger bead.

When I was finished with the beads, I simply tied a ring to the other end. I was almost finished the second one, and then the games began again. (This was the tournament where my daughter on the pitchers mound got hit in the eye during the final game – check her out here. And this was six days before her high school graduation!)

I finished the last two at home and aren’t they pretty!

Final step was to attach a little nail or hook to the window casing and tie back the curtains.

So much prettier than just hanging! Now they just hang at night.

This is an alcove off the master bedroom – a little room I really love! Right now it’s purpose is to be my baby’s bedroom – my baby who is two and a half! Someday it will just be my sanctuary!

And there she is – sitting there reading in her lovely little alcove – with the lovely new beaded curtain tiebacks!

Mr. and Mrs. Pillows

I saw some Mr. and Mrs. Pillows on Pinterest (just search for it and a bunch will pop up) and I thought they were pretty cute. We have a king size bed now and needed some new pillows. These are perfect – we never forget which side of the bed is ours!

My first task was to make the stencil. I printed off my Mr. and Mrs. in the font and size I wanted.

(Oh – these instructions are perfect for people without fancy machines that easily make stencils for you! lol)

I used a permanent marker to trace my letters on the shiny side of the con-tact paper. It’s Rubbermaid brand – stuff you’d line your cupboards with.

Use your trusty exacto knife to cut out your letters and voila – you have a stencil!

I made my pillow covers out of drop-cloth fabric (so many uses for that stuff). I just did a simple envelope style – cut a long rectangle and fold the ends in. Pin it and sew up the sides. I didn’t even need to hem the edge you see – I used the finished edge of the drop-cloth!

My pillow forms came from a thrift store at less than $2 each. It’s so easy to slide into the fabric envelope.

With my pillows made, it’s time for the letters. I peeled the paper off the back side of the stencil and placed the sticky side down exactly where I wanted it.

And then I painted it – use your stencil brush and use small amounts of paint so it doesn’t seep under the edges of the stencil. I should have put a book under the fabric so I could be painting against a firmer surface – the pillow was too soft!

In order to fancy the pillows up a little, I bought some piping to put along the seems. This was the most expensive part of my project at $0.69/meter – and I needed three whole meters!!!

Don’t you love my method for applying it? I glue gunned it on!!! Actually, this was just my way to hold it exactly in place. I did loosely stitch it on too. Doesn’t it just give the pillows a little boost?

There’s how much of the three meters I had left. First I asked for two meters, and as the salesperson had her scissors open and was ready to cut, I yelled “Wait! You’d better give me three meters.” Great estimate!!!

I’m really loving my new pillows!

Maybe next I’ll need to make an ampersand pillow!

There they are! I wanted my Mr. and Mrs. big enough to easily be seen, but not too overpowering in size.

This is how they usually look – with my bear Mason instead of the ampersand. My two-year old loves to jump and Mason is much softer for when she bonks her head.

Loving my new pillows – and especially loving the fact that both of them together cost me less than ten dollars! And . . . I still have my Mr. and Mrs. stencil!!!

Basketweave Fabric Table Runner

A while ago I pinned a basket weave quilt pattern that I saw here at honeybear lane. I thought she did an awesome job and I wanted to try it. I decided to start small so it would be easier to handle – besides, I needed a little runner for a corner cabinet.

This was fun and so quick and easy! The part that took the longest was choosing the fabric! I cut the fabric into strips – can’t even remember what size I did. I think it was 1 1/2 inch wide strips, and obviously the lengths varied as you can see.

I securely pinned each strip to my batting piece which was actually just a piece of a dropcloth – it was just to add a little weight to the project so it was perfect.

So first I laid down my bottom piece (right side out), my dropcloth piece, and then pinned my strips through it all.

Then I pinned my first piece to be woven and just took it through the strips.

And then I just kept adding more and more strips and wove them though, pinning securely at each end, and sometimes in the center.

I love that you can see how it’s going to look as you do it.

There it is – all woven and pinned.

Next step was to sew up and down every line. Yes, you’re going to get poked a few times – wear gloves if you must!

The sewing lines as seen on the backing.

And there it is, all sewn with the edges trimmed – how easy is that?

I think the frayed edges add to it’s charm!

It needed an edge though so I just cut a thin strip, diagonally sewed pieces together to make it long enough, and then ironed in a fold line.

(The other day my 20 year old daughter approached me looking all thoughtful and asked, “Mom, what’s the opposite of ‘irony’?” I thought she had been studying or something so I started wracking my brain to try to be of some help to her. “Um, let’s see, opposite of ‘irony’ , um . . .” (as I’m trying to recall my grammar lessons from so long ago). And then I admitted defeat. “I’m not sure Elle,” I humbly answered. “Do you know?” Then she got the cutest sheepish little smile and said, “Yes, ‘wrinkley'”. And then she scampered off giggling, leaving me standing there, shaking my head, feeling more than a little bit foolish! And even more so when I tried the same joke on one of my other daughters, and she knew the answer!)

The iron thing made me recall that little incident!

Anyway, I pinned and sewed it on, leaving the raw edges showing again because I like that look.

There is the finished back side . . .

. . . and the finished front side.

I didn’t bother to wash mine. When I do, the edges will fray up a little more.

That added a little more colour to the corner. Kat approves!

Map of Canada Pillow

I home-school my kids from Kindergarten to Grade 3. So, I like to have educational things around, but I don’t want my house to look like a classroom (unless it’s the actual “school room” like we had in one house). But most of our learning seems to happen right on the couch so the old teacher can be comfortable!!! So, a Map of Canada Pillow seems like the perfect addition to our home school – comfort and education in one!!!

Somewhere in blogworld, I’ve seen two maps of the USA. They were both wall hangings – one was fabric and one was paper. (Sorry, this was before Pinterest so they were only “pinned” in my mind and I have no link to send you to!). But they were my inspiration to make a map of Canada. Let me just say that 10 provinces and 3 territories is just a wee bit easier than 50 states!!!

The first step is to find a map you like. I found a ton on Google and any regular person could just print a map out. I’m not a regular person and decided to make this project take a little longer by tracing a map off my daughters school agenda.

(Actually, I don’t have a printer right now!)

Now, listen carefully: I used Heat and Bond (my second favourite thing after Mod Podge!), and the image you trace on the Heat and Bond needs to be backwards. So, I traced my map with a marker that went through the paper, so I had the reverse image on the back of the paper. And then I copied it, but you don’t need to do that.

You trace your reversed image onto the paper side of the Heat and Bond and then roughly cut it out.

I initialed the provinces because when they’re backwards its easy to get mixed up. These are all pressed now onto the wrong side of the fabric (follow the instructions on your Heat and Bond!)

Now you cut them out properly.

Place them in their proper spots. I kept the little Prince Edward Island to the last because I didn’t want to lose it. I’d love to visit PEI someday (yes, I’m a big Anne fan!)

Once everything was placed in its proper spot, I peeled the paper backing off the fabric and put the piece back in its place.

I double checked the exact locations of those east coast provinces with my map. Gotta teach my kids correct geography! When everything was exactly right, I ironed it all on – again, be sure to follow the instructions on your package. It’s probably only for a few seconds and if you over iron, it won’t stick.

My family likes to throw around pillows – crazy I know and they most certainly don’t get that from me! So I knew that I had to do some reinforcements to my pillow before it goes flying around the room.

I slowly stitched around a lot of the edges – not every edge, that would have driven me insane!!!

Each piece has enough stitching on it to securely hold it in place. I even changed to blue thread to stitch around the Great Lakes!

Hey, that could be a new puzzle: where did mom start sewing with the green thread, and how did she do it in one continuous line?

I sewed my blue piece to a green piece and sewed all that onto . . . a drop cloth!!! Drop clothes are pretty amazing and can be used for a ton of things – like curtains and chair covers, or, even to throw on the ground to protect your floor while you paint!!! Sorry, got distracted by drop clothes. Back to the pillow – I clipped the green and blue edges and sprayed them with water to rough them up – a rag look.

Looking good, but still a little wet! The edges did curl up nicely.

Here’s another distraction – a cute distraction, but still a distraction!!!

She has to be right in on all the action . . .

. . . and have the best view of everything!!!

Yeah, nap time is definitely craft time. And now I’m often crafting on my bed because she can’t climb up there yet!

The clipped and frayed edges.

To sew the pillow cover, I just did an envelope style. I even used the finished edges of the drop cloth so I wouldn’t need to finish any edges. So easy!

And there is the finished back view!

And the finished front!!!

And yes, we’ve already had a geography lesson and I sewed everything in the proper place!!!

Flowered Mirror

I love my flowered mirror!!! It was hanging in the entryway of my last house, but in my new home it’s going to be over the sink in the guest bathroom. I’ll pick some of my favourite colours from it for the towels, wash cloths, rug and other accessories. Now watch, I’m gonna have a line up of people wanting to visit my bathroom!!!

It was very easy to make. First I bought a plain unfinished framed mirror. Or you could find an ugly old mirror from anywhere – and it doesn’t really even need a frame, you could just glue onto the edge of the mirror.

Next step was to glue Spanish Moss all over the frame – I just used my glue gun. Sorry, I don’t have step-by-step pictures – I made this a few years ago – but the frame covered in moss even looked good! (Just ignore the spot of wax from the glue gun on my moss. I promise you don’t notice it on the mirror, but of course that would be the spot I took a picture of!)

Then I just started gluing my wild flowers on.

I did larger flower arrangements on the bottom of the frame to anchor the mirror. Then I placed the rest of my larger flowers around the frame and used the smaller ones to fill in the gaps.

Taking pictures of mirrors is not easy, especially with the short person around! After looking at this photo, I realized how dirty the mirror was. So I cleaned it – but didn’t retake my pictures!

I think it’s so pretty! I just love all the colours of the flowers together. It would also look great done in a single colour, or a single type of flower in various colours – oh the possibilities!!!

Bedroom Caddies – A Recycle Project

I love making something cute and useful from garbage!!! I got these from the Primary cupboard at church. I had to empty out the cupboard a little to make some more space and so I lugged these to the garbage can that I had just watched the Young Men empty a few hours before. So rather than fill up the garbage can, I decided to carry them home and put them with my recycling.

So on my trek all the way across the parking lot to my house, I realized that they were pretty sturdy little boxes that could be turned into something very useful for some of my girlies.

The first and only task for my girls was to choose the paper they liked best – this was probably the most time consuming part of the whole process!!!

Eventually they chose these – two for each. And they also chose what pieces they wanted on the front and edges – again, very time consuming!!!

Then it was my turn to get to work – me and the mod podge. Have I mentioned before how much I love mod podge?

Anyway, I had no real plan, I just started. It seemed like the sensible thing to start with the edges, and it was.

I just applied the mod podge with a small foam brush and put the paper on, smoothing it down and around the edges.

I didn’t bother to cover the back any more than this.

After I had all the paper in place, I let it dry overnight and mod podged over the whole thing the next day. I didn’t need to wait overnight, but I had to clear off the table and get supper ready (can’t wait for a craft room in my new house!!!)

How cute is that? My practice one is covered, so I tackled the other two together.

I just laid the box on my paper to figure out the approximate size of the angled pieces, then trimmed to fit.

Cute paper eh? I’m really loving shades of teal these days.

This project used exactly two 12 x 12 pieces of paper. I used contrasting papers, but you don’t need to.

Love lime too!

Boxes are all covered – time to get on with other things and let everything dry.

The next day I attached some names and mod podged over everything.

Now for the decorating . . .

Lee’s name was attached with pop dots to make it, well, pop!

Jen’s was antiqued with ribbon and flowers added.

And Kat’s is more cutesy – she was thrilled with the bow and flowers!

Aren’t they adorable???

The light through the blinds makes them look wrinkly, but I promise you they dried beautiful and smooth!

Still can’t decide which one I like best.

Lee loves hers and . . .

Jen loves hers and . . .

Kat loves hers!!!

Want to see what they’ve done with them?

Lee filled hers with this sort of girly stuff.

For now Jen has animals living in her caddy.

And Kat’s holds her library books!

My Jo wistfully said to me “Mom, you know there’s another one of those in the Primary cupboard and you could make me one.” I replied, “I know, but it’s holding Primary things.” What she doesn’t know is that I’ve been thinking that I could easily find another container for the Primary things, and use it to make one for ME!!!

Magnetic Family Picture Frame

I love this family magnetic frame, but it needed an update.

For one thing, see the part of the star that’s bent and lost its paint?(Thanks to our dog who got under the bed to eat all the chocolate that was all ready to go in everyone’s Christmas stockings. In her chocolate frenzy she broke the star that Santa was so thoughtfully planning for my stocking. And yes, the dog lived.)

So first I spray painted the star and sanded the edges so some of the beige could show through.

Then I glued some black buttons onto my plain magnets.

Better, but still needing something.

(Isn’t that a great picture? It’s in our new back yard, just days before we broke ground to build our house.)

That’s what it needed – scrapbook paper for the background!

Mac came by and we had to go through the lineup of who everyone was.

Much better! Family loves you for who you are.

Twig Vase

Daisies are the best!!! I’ve always loved them, so when I saw these cute daisies at Walmart, they literally jumped into my shopping cart! I bought 3 of them at $1 each, but I think I want to go and get a few more, because they’re nice – they look real! I want a bigger cluster in my vase.

Now the job was to find the perfect thing to put them in.

I wanted a natural looking vase to house my daisies. So my mind started wandering to what I’ve seen around lately. Since the snow melted, the backyard has been loaded with little twigs from the winds of autumn, winter and spring.

I’ve had my girls gather them into piles, and they play “camping” in the yard with their “campfire”.

Anyway, I have a birthday coming up and I told Kat that I had got her a present that she could give me for my birthday, but first she had to help me make it. She was all excited about this, and so was I, because it meant I could stay inside while she went out and brought me in some twigs!!!

Perfect! Thanks Kat, now go and play while I play with the sticks!!!

There’s my $2 dollar store vase that will soon be covered in twigs. I just broke the twigs to approximately the right height. If they were thick twigs, I scored them with scissors first where I wanted the break to be, and then snapped them easily.

I used my hot glue gun to glue the thicker twigs on first – and I only burned my thumb twice (both times in the same spot of course!).

Then I filled in the gaps with the smaller twigs. I kept going around the vase until all the glass was covered.

I saved a few skinny forked twigs to put between my daisy stems. Then in went the daisies! Now it just needed a ribbon tied around the twigs to finish it off – and help hold any loose twigs in place! Went to my ribbon stash and decided on this sagey green coloured one.

And there we have it – didn’t Kat do a fabulous job on my birthday gift!!!

Ahh, beautiful daisies – they always make me smile!!! As Meg Ryan said in “You’ve Got Mail”, “Daisies are the friendliest flower. Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?”

(And my family knows that when I pass away, I want a casket spray full of daisies – with eight red roses among them to represent my guy and my seven daughters!!! lol)

Patchwork Table Runner

I’ve always loved quilted things – and someday I hope to be somewhat good at quilting!!!

Let me tell you how this project came to be. The new home we’re building has an open kitchen, dining area and great room – which is exactly what I wanted! We can add the extra leaf to the table (we already have one leaf in all the time) and seat about twelve people, and the table will just sneak on over towards the great room and borrow a little space temporarily. Anyway, I wanted to use blues, greens and browns for the decorating. Our leather couches are blue, furniture is brown and I just like green along with them, and my plants are green (unless they’re brown because I forgot to water them!). So I wanted something that would tie all these colours in together, and I just wasn’t finding that special pillow, or area rug, etc. So I decided to make something that would tie my colours together.

Here’s Mac deciding to help me. It is so much easier to create while she’s sleeping!!!

The first step was to cut out all the little squares and then line them up the way I wanted them so the colours were mixed up pretty good. Taking a picture of this and printing it was a very smart thing to do, especially if you have little ones around who like to mess things up!!! (see above photo!)

Actually, the real first step was to collect fabric. I’ve been doing this for years – remnant bins, leftovers from other projects, a fat quarter here and a fat quarter there.

After lining everything up, I stacked them into piles for easy keeping. They sat like that for months until I finally got to them.

I found that the easiest way to sew them together was to make a little banner like this. I know it only looks like the wrong side of one square, but there are two squares sewn together (right sides together). Then I cut them apart, every two squares, and that gave me the four squares together to make a bigger square. I know that’s all clear as mud, right?

To recap, I made strips of two squares, then sewed them together to make bigger squares made up of four small squares.

Then I sewed my bigger squares together to make a strip.

The backside. I pressed all my seams to the darker fabric side.

I found that my first two strips of squares were shorter than the rest of my strips. I must have been using a larger seam allowance when I started, and because I did all this in spurts of time when I had it, I’d forget what I did. I ended up removing the first four rows of squares because they just didn’t match up very well. I have something else in mind to use those strips for!

Love the colours!!! I find that I look at the colours and not at the corners that don’t line up perfectly.

And now for the transformation into a table runner . . .

The hardest part was choosing the fabric I wanted to be the edging!!! Obviously, I finally made a decision and cut the strips and sewed them on.

I didn’t have any batting laying around, but I needed to add some weight and stability to my runner. So I decided to use something that everyone has on hand . . .

. . . a raggedy old towel!!! So I lined it up on the table – towel on the bottom, then my backing fabric and then my creation of squares (these two fabrics were right sides together). Then I sewed around the whole thing and cut off all the excess fabric.

Now I’m sure I’m doing lots of things wrong, but I seem to learn best by trial and error. And not knowing how to do something doesn’t stop me (at least not in crafting – haha!!!).

Turning this baby inside out and hoping that I lined things up right!!!

Phew, it worked! That blue towel is my ironing board on the kitchen counters! I do have an ironing board, but I think it’s in the camper (remember, living in transition here and making do with what’s on hand!).

That open part is where I turned it. To close it I just ironed the fabric under and then top stitched over it.

Here I demonstrate my version of quilting – stitching in the ditch. Works for me and holds everything nicely in place. Top stitching around the edge finished it all off nicely.