Pillow Painting

Back this week with a quick post on my new pillow that I showed you HERE.  This was one of the easiest projects and may be one of my favorite DIY's ever. I am not joking. I want to make 100's of these pillows and put them in every room of my house. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration,  but I do love it!!!  If you follow me on Pinterest you will see my board Pillow Love that is filled with beautiful designs. It gave me the inspiration to DIY something much less expensive. I started with a Gurli pillow from Ikea, acrylic paint, painters tape and a stencil brush. All in all The project cost me under $10!

First I layed a large X in the middle and started filling v's around it as a place holder. Once the row was on I would pull off my place holder and put it on to the next row.

Then I used my stencil brush to make sure there was nice coverage without it seeping under the tape.

After the X was all completed I taped off the edges around the seam and i painted it a dark gray color.

Pictures tell such a better story.   Here is the beautiful metallic pillow all finished.

What do you think? Did you check out my pillow love Pinterest board? There is a lot of inspiration there and you will see many more techniques to come.  Happy Friday!!!

Living Room Love

Now that the office is almost complete I wanted to change rooms and share something new.  It's Living Room time! When we first bought this house it had a sunken living room.  I don't have a great picture to show it, but when you walked in on the left hand side you had a very odd railing that only went one step up.  It absolutely cut off the space and made it feel small. Below are the always beautiful before pics :)

 We hired a contractor to raise the floor so that it would be seamless with the kitchen and the dining room.  Huge score!! It made everything feel much bigger and now after getting rid of the 80's I absolutely love the space. 

The first real furniture purchase we made in this house was the beautiful houndstooth chairs. We bought one and my parents bought one as a gift. 5 years later and I am still just as smitten.

Now I must tell you a few things. One I change the color scheme in this room often, and two the bench that is serving as"love seat" is temporary, but it was an awesome solution on the cheap!! 

I like the small pop of mint/blue and I think it ties in the entryway console table really well. 

Looking at this picture I can see I am still in need of some art on the walls in the entry :) Are we really ever done decorating?? I added the gold 1.5 years ago and I still love how rich it looks with the black and white. 

Other than the large armoire which is my MIL's, most of the furniture is a TJ or online find.  Do you see this pillow?

That is one of my new DIY's that I will be back to share next week. So you don't have to scroll to the top here are the before and afters!

 So what do you think? Do you like the black white and gold?

Orb Light DIY

So have you ever been in a store and thought hmmm I am pretty sure I can turn that hunk of metal into a really awesome light fixture. No?? Well I recently did and low and behold it actually worked.  I started out with this large metal orb from Home Goods that I believe was meant to be decorative.

 

Anyways, I have seen very similar light fixtures for a heck of a lot more than the $60 they were asking for the decorative metal sculpture. I bought the piece of metal with a gift card I had been hoarding for some time and on the way home I stopped at my local lighting store and picked up a clearance pendant kit. It was just a traditional pendant light and it was on clearance for $10. I apologize for not having a pic, but I do know Ikea sells something similar.  Now, here is where the fun begins.  I went to Home Depot and explained to the man that I needed a drill bit to drill through a few layers of sheet metal.  He looked at me like I was a little crazy, but I assured him I would be just fine drilling through this on my own (the hubby was out of town).  I wedged a piece of wood between the slats and put it between two saw horses and I pushed with all my might.

Guess what?? It actually worked!! Here is where the hubby comes in for some good old fashioned team work.  So, we have never actually hung a light. Let alone one that wasn't really meant for its purpose so we had a little trial and error along the way which is why you will not be getting a tutorial for the hanging process.  Half way through trying to figure it all out the hubby looked at me and said, "Can't we just buy a lamp like everybody else." hahaha!!! We both burst out laughing and continued on our way and after turning the power back on we actually had a working light fixture and I love it so much!!!!

Aren't the reflecting shadows on the ceiling amazing??

Have you ever made your own light fixture??

Instaboard Sign Update

Happy Friday all! Just a quick update on my Instagram art wall.  If you remember here I talked about a quick little piece of Instagram art that I put together and I also mentioned wanting to add a sign.  Well I made a very simple sign for above the pictures and I used my blog signature, Life is Pretty.  I just blew up the signature, printed and used a pen to indent on the wood and painted. Pretty simple sign!!

I think it nicely completes this corner.

Have a great weekend!!

Treasure Hunting

Over the long weekend we went to my husbands cabin and on a cool afternoon my MIL and I went picking to the local Antique barn called Poor Richards.

This barn is so beautiful on the inside! I was in awe and wish all of my pics would have turned out. Sadly I only had my iphone with me, but you get the picture right?

We found a ton of fun stuff and we each ended up with some great finds. This place was so enormous and with a little imagination here is what I found and what it could/will become.

First up, this amazingly tall shutter. I will be using this guy as a Christmas card display. Can't you see it with an adorable It's a wonderful life sign above it??

I absolutely loved this $5 gold and black ice bucket, but decided it wasn't a must due to the fact it was filled with old water, but I did think about it...

Sorry about the fuzzy pic, I'll blame it on the poor lighting!  Okay, they had a ton of mounted racks and I absolutely thought about buying a few and spraying them all white and putting them together on a wall. Maybe someday in a boys room. What do you think??

I was head over heels for this birdcage. The size was huge and if you hung a chandelier inside this would be an amazing statement piece!! Picture Restoration Hardware over sized birdcage chandelier. Sadly the price was a little to much for me to handle.

I bought these two identical lamps for $11 each.  I have a wonderful plan for them that involves large nail heads and burlap. You'll have to wait and see!

These four mint and gold frames were in amazing shape and for $15 for all four I couldn't pass them up. I am thinking about spelling something for the kitchen in the small ones and maybe using the large in my office.

Lastly, I bought these two brass lamps for $10 a piece.

I didn't get a pic of them at the barn, but let me tell you the shades are huge! I am working on some master bedroom renovations and these will make a beautiful addition! As you can see they are all taped and ready to be painted. More on that later. This was such a fun adventure and we left with a completely full car filled with old items we are ready to make our own!!! Has anyone else found any fun treasures lately?

Cork Board DIY

Hi guys! I hope you all had a great long weekend! As promised I am back today with a tutorial on the DIY cork board for my office. After finding my inspiration on Pinterest I decided I could DIY the cork board and headed to Michaels where I picked up my goodies.

With a coupon this project cost me approx. $9.  Okay now that our supplies are all ready I will do my best to explain the process, but I promise you I am no expert on angles and math...... I started by generally laying out the pieces on the cork.

I knew I wanted the ribbon to be two inches apart.  I marked 2 inches from the center on all four pieces and glued away making sure each piece matched up.

Most importantly I wanted the ribbon to connect when I put all the pieces together. So if you need to fudge a little go for it!  I continued to work my way down measuring on the angle, marking gluing and matching up. 

You get the general idea right? After about 45 minutes I had my new cork board all ready to hang with the convenient sticky foam that they provide. I contemplating hanging the cork like this.

 In the end I went with my inspiration image, but it is nice to know I can easily switch up my look. Easy office make over for under $10!!