heart ruffle wreath {tutorial}

I used this tutorial to make the ruffle wreath seen below.  Nice and simple, made from white sheets I bought at a thrift store.

Then a year later I repurposed the wreath for Christmas with a little upcyled ribbon. But I noticed a lot of the pins were coming out and causing the wreath to "thin".

When I sought out to make the heart ruffle wreath I vowed to skip the tedious pins and go straight to the hot glue gun... genius!  

I started out with a straw heart wreath frame because I found it at a thrift store, but I am sure you could use a styrofoam one as well.  Next step, cut out about a bazillion circles in the fabric of your choice.  I used old t-shirts, and as you can see they weren't all the same shade of red.  That doesn't matter as long as you mix the shades up so they aren't concentrated in one area of the wreath. 

Fold your circle in half as seen here.

And in half again.

Take your 1/4 folded circle and hot glue it to the wreath.  Continue this step until your wreath has reached your desired thickness.

Because the circle cutting is time consuming, I opted not to continue the ruffles around the back side of the wreath.  I instead covered the back with a strip of fabric in the same t-shirt material.

holiday porch

Its continuing to be a busy month for us!  The porch is a little light on creativeness but 1. its decorated and 2. for cheap!  The only item I purchase was the poinsettia, everything else was owned or upcycled.

And yes, that is the same wreath I made for our wedding.  I just removed the burlap bow and added a holiday themed one.

And the best part of this post today is my craft FAIL!  I thought I could pull off a hybrid of these two pins.  

be different act normal

&

lucys designs

You see those trees in the post above?  Those are garland wrapped tomato cages!  Yup this smart cookie thought why not just wrap tomato cages with lights, it should look like the wreath above right?  Um no...

Ha!  The mr. and I were cracking up at how ugly it was.  Oh well, at least it didn't cost me a thing! merry Christmas everyone, the roundys

fall photo recap

I have about 5 uncompleted projects in the craft room and just as many back logged posts for this blog.  I'm about to take the easy way out and up date you all at once...here's what the mr. and I have been up to this fall.

I accepted a promotion, which meant leaving views like this...

and sweet dance sessions like these...

the mr. and I traveled to Vegas for some adult time...

then headed off to Yosemite for our anniversary get away...

as well as enjoyed a slice of our wedding cake, 1 year later.  Nice wrap job mom, it tasted great!

I enjoyed watching the mr. learn how to rock climb!

we hosted a backyard movie night that included a s'more bar...

and we fully embraced Halloween...

used a power tool to carve a pumpkin...

I hosted my first event at the new job and the mr. took amazing photos of it...

filmed my nephews first steps!

crafted and decorated our porch for fall and completely forgot to post about it...

enjoyed a short stay in San Francisco for a conference...

and caught mr. and mrs. claus having a moment (another work event)

halloween porch

I have another decorated front porch for ya'all.  If fact this has become my recent obsession and I already have the "fall" porch supplies ready to go when halloween is over.  In true diy fashion there were a few other crafts I wanted to add to this themed porch, but no time to do them!

Here we have the upcycled rag wreath.  I really enjoy making these as you can see this in my second one; my first was the valentines version.

This time I used my husbands old black jersey t-shirts and black cotton pants, cut into strips.  Score! No trip to the fabric store; only to Michaels for the box wire wreath frame.

The craft pumpkins were also upcyled.  I rescued them from a thrift store pile, sprayed them, and then used acrylic paint to decorate.

This lantern and the chandelier you see in the other photo were decorations from our wedding.  Love that I get to reuse them all year long! {Steamer trunk was free in the alley, see this post}

And my favorite craft for this themed porch... the upcylced pennant flag banner! Again I used old clothing, hemp twine and the zig zag setting on my sewing to create this customizable banner.  

Oh and all this inspiration found on Pinterest of course!

pink sugar

front porch

This is a lesson on what you can do with free crap!

{round 1} the alley chair.  My mom and I were on a week long thrift store, swap meet shopping spree.  We stopped by a local reclaimed furniture shop only to be disappointed with their lack of stock in the storefront.  On our exit down the nearby alley, I made an abrupt stop.  My mom, very confused, asked what I was doing.  I ignored her inquiry, proceeded to open the trunk and threw in this awesome, FREE chair.  It's exactly what I wanted for the porch!

{round 2} the alley suitcase.  Down the alley I went one morning on my way to work when I found myself in a familiar situation opening the trunk of my car.  You see it's a love-hate relationship with the alley behind our home.  I love that I found this awesome suitcase otherwise destined for the landfill.  But I hate when people dump couches, mattresses, la-z-boys, etc. expecting others to take care of their waste. Well anyway, there are so many things I can do with this suitcase.  And it was FREE so who cares if it gets a little weather worn!  

{round 3} the diy yarn wreath.  Pretty much the easiest fool-proof craft out there.  Took me longer to decide how to do the ruffle adornment than it did to wrap the yarn around the straw form. Inspiration found here. Tutorial here. The yarn is from Michaels and the gray felt for the ruffle is from a thrift store SCORE!

{round 4} the flower clothespin.  Left over from my nephews baby shower, I use this clothespin to attach out going mail to the mailbox.  Funny thing (or not) this is the second one I've put out...someone stole the first one (mail person?).