DIY

September 21, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

How To Remove Pilling From Upholstery

You can use a sweater shaver to remove pilling from upholstery to make your couches look new again!

We had the hardest time furniture buying. We bought our couch when we still lived in an apartment, not knowing what our future living room would look like. I’d always wanted a sectional and we looked high and low for the perfect one. It was a 3 little bears scenario: one was too big, one was too small, one didn’t come in the right color, etc. We finally settled on an symmetrical corner couch that had cream colored fabric. The size has worked perfectly since the living room in our house is a bit small, but it hasn’t held up well in the 4 years we’ve had it. We aren’t ready to buy a new one, so I had to see what I could do to make this one look nicer!…

September 19, 2017 By Amber Oliver 2 Comments

Paint Scraped Wall Art- DIY Wall Art

Decorating doesn’t have to be expensive. I’ve never been a fan of “big box store” home decor and prefer to DIY or make my own. This not only saves money, but it makes it very easy to customize! You can build furniture that fits your space perfectly, or make DIY wall art that matches your home’s color scheme. A few examples are the DIY entertainment center we custom built for our living room, the nightstand for our bedroom that was both simple and cheap, as well as the wall art for our dining room I made using wood shims! My newest cheap art technique is paint scraped wall art. You can make DIY wall art quickly and easily for your home.

Canvas

Acrylic Paint

Plastic Ruler

Paint Brush

Use either a blank canvas or a painted one. You may have some of the canvas showing through, so it’s best to paint first if you don’t want to see the canvas. You can even re-purpose an existing canvas by painting over the design.

Start by making small pools of paint along one side of the canvas. You want to get a good amount of paint poured out and you can leave a bit of space between each color if you want. Only go down a few inches so you can work in sections on the canvas.

Next, take your ruler and and push it flush to the canvas and start dragging it through the paint.

Move the ruler straight across, or move it up and down across the canvas, just keep it moving from one side to the other.

Gently pull the ruler up (you’ll have a lot of paint on the ruler) and carefully set it in a different section of the canvas. Drag in another direction to cover the canvas.

Wipe the excess paint off the ruler and add in more color pools as needed.

I found it best to use a cleaning wipe between each pass so the colors don’t blend together too much. A little blending is ok, but too much and it’ll turn everything brown! Use a paint brush to fill it if needed.

You can create completely custom DIY wall art in a variety of shapes and sizes with this paint scraped wall art. Using canvas is the easiest, but you could also do this on a big piece of plywood if you’re looking for some large scale art work! Trim out your canvas or wood for a more completed/polished look.

September 15, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

DIY Monogrammed Tea Towel

Getting married is a stressful time. After the initial excitement of the engagement wears off, the never ending to do list begins! Planning a wedding can be so much fun, but because there is so much work that goes into the planning process it can a bit overwhelming. A good friend of mine recently got engaged and due to both her and her fiance’s hectic schedules, they’ve barely gotten the chance to see each other let alone enjoy their engagement. I remember one of the things I was most excited about with getting married was getting a new last name. Some women are against the idea, but I was so excited for a last name that was easier to spell! Getting new monogrammed items brought me a lot of joy, so I made a DIY monogrammed tea towel for my newly engaged friend to serve as a little reminder to enjoy this time and to get her excited about the upcoming nuptials!

DIY Monogrammed Tea Towel

You can get inexpensive, white tea towels from Amazon and customize them any way you like! For this project, I used my Cricut to cut out a cute design and applied it to the tea towel with heat transfer vinyl. I used the “M Floral Monogram – #M53AF7B” which is free in Cricut Design Space with Cricut Access. Simply select your initial, don’t forget to mirror the design for heat transfer vinyl, then cut with your Cricut. Apply the design to your tea towel and adhere with an iron.

If you need a quick and easy gift idea, you’ll want to pin this post for later! You can give a DIY monogrammed tea towel as an engagement or wedding shower gift or whip one up if you need a hostess present or custom birthday gift for someone.

As an engagement gift, I paired with a handmade card and bridal magazine! A simple way to show someone you care and are just as excited about their engagement as they are! (Well maybe not quite as excited, haha!)

September 5, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

Flowers That Thrive In Summer Heat

We are lucky to have an average annual temperature around 78 degrees here in south Texas, though Houston does get some pretty darn HOT summers! There are some pretty miserable months we have to deal with, but then the majority of the year we can enjoy a glorious sub-tropical climate. Some may loath the humidity, but after growing up in DRY Oklahoma, I’ve come to love it. We get lots of sunshine here in Growing Zone 9, so I wanted to plant some flowers in my backyard that would thrive in the summer heat. I’m writing this at the end of the summer so I can report back how everything held up in the intense summer heat!

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August 16, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

DIY Rustic Candle Holders

I’m not sure there’s a name for my home decorating style. If you look at my Pinterest account, you’ll see that I love all kinds of different styles. I love the homey feel of the “farmhouse” style, the colors and eclectic styles of “boho”, and the warm of “rustic” styles. We are totally a form AND function home – you’ll find we don’t live in an uber chic modern home of sleek appliances and moody hues. My decorating philosophy is “if I like it, I use it”!

I’ve tried to incorporate more light outside on our porches and in our landscaping. We installed low voltage landscape lighting and added string lights around our patio. When the heat and humidity let up here in Houston and we are able to dine on our patio we also put out lanterns and candles to make a relaxing space to spend time in the evenings. I wanted to add some wall scones with DIY rustic candle holders that make our space feel even more inviting.

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August 9, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

Vertical Garden – DIY Succulent Wall Planter

Are you a sucker for succulents? They are definitely some of my all time favorites! Back around St. Patrick’s Day, I built a custom shamrock succulent planter. This was a fun woodworking project, but I decided to do a similar project that is quite a bit easier. This project uses an upcycled shadow box for the succulent wall planter, so no woodworking required!

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August 3, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

Quick and Easy Pillowcases: How To Sew An Envelope Pillow Cover

As part of our backyard makeover on a budget, I decided to sew a few pillow covers instead of buying new outdoor pillows. You may recall, from this post, that we built a DIY outdoor sectional using FREE wooden pallets. I searched and searched for cushions that didn’t cost a lot and ended up trying CRIB MATTRESSES and guess what? They work perfectly! They’re the prefect size and they’re waterproof! The finishing touches for this project were each of the pillows I made an envelope pillow cover for!

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August 1, 2017 By Amber Oliver Leave a Comment

Custom Oven Mitts – How To Apply Heat Transfer Vinyl (Video!)

There are few things in this world I love more than chocolate chip cookies. When they are warm, fresh out of the oven, and served with a big glass of milk – I am one happy girl! I usually make a batch of these at least once a month. (You can probably guess which week, haha.) I always use the Toll House Cookie recipe, and my secret is to chill the dough before baking! It makes all the difference.

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July 12, 2017 By Amber Oliver 2 Comments

DIY Backsplash: How to Install Peel and Stick Backsplash

Whether you’re an experienced DIYer or a first time homeowner just dipping your toe into the wonderful world of DIY, you’ll love this project! It doesn’t get much simpler than PEEL and STICK! If grouting tile seems way too messy or overwhelming for you, I totally recommend this DIY backsplash project. Plus you can do it yourself for less than you’d pay for someone to come in and tile for you in the traditional method. You can install a brand new DIY backsplash in under an hour!
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July 10, 2017 By Amber Oliver 1 Comment

How To Update Old Kitchen Cabinets – Kitchen remodel on a budget!

Last week I revealed the kitchen makeover we’d been working on. One of the most drastic changes we made was to update old kitchen cabinets for our kitchen remodel on a budget. We would have loved to gut the entire kitchen and start from scratch with brand new kitchen cabinets, but like a lot of people out there, a project on that scale just isn’t in the budget. Instead, we used wood filler and less than $100 on wood trim to completely transform these dated kitchen cabinets.

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DIY Monogrammed Tea Towel