30 Days of DIY: Day 21 ~ Tropical Shells!

As many of you know, I'm a tropical gal at heart, although I'm stuck in CO.  My living room is filled with jars and vases full of shells.  I spied a bag of these huge shells at the thrift store for $2 and wanted to make some more wall art!

All you need other than the shells at this point is a paintbrush, some newspaper, and acrylic paints.

I chose four colors that reminded me of the tropical oasis that was our beach bungalow in FL.

I applied two thick coats to each shell and let them dry overnight.

Next step is how to hang these suckers up!  If you're a loyal follower, you know I'm always making wall art out of some pretty random stuff and need to improvise on how to hang them up.  So I used my trusty floral wire, wire cutters, and E-6000.  Cut the desired length of wire and glue down the ends generously.  Let the glue dry overnight.

Here's the set of them!

And I hung them up on the little partial top ceiling thingy between the living room and kitchen.  The colors are much more vibrant than pictured here.

Bright!

And there you have it!  A little bit of the tropics here in CO.  I hope you all love this and it inspires you!

xxooxoxo

Lia

30 Days of DIY: Day 20 ~ Whimsical Wire Flowers

 

I spied these multicolored floral wires at the dollar store, and immediately thought of using them to make flowers!

One coil will make one flower's petals...

And another coil will make the center of the flower.  2 coils = 1 flower.  Here's how.

Take a wire and twist it into a figure eight, these are the petals, so make them the desired size.  Mine are about 3 inches apiece.

Keep making more figure eights along side the previous ones.

After 5 figure eights, take the end of the wire and wrap it around the center to hold it in place.

Take the ends of each petal and fold them up a little, to make the flower more 3-D.

Take another color and using pliers, begin to coil it around itself very tightly.  I only used the pliers for the initial coil and used my hands for the rest of it.

Partially done center coil.

Use the end of the coil around the edges and begin threading it through some of the petals.

It will look like this.  Then push that last part of the coil and push it closer to the center portion.  Tuck the end under.

A finished flower!

Repeat for as many flowers as you want to make.  I made a total of five.

I used some clear beading thread to hang these up with clear pushpins.

Now I *finally* have sonmething covering the hideous back of cabinets in my dining room.  I think I need to hang some white fabric there too.  Thoughts? 

xxooxoxo
Lia

30 Days of DIY: Day 19 ~ Frame Your Tiffany's Bag

Woohoooo!!  A new post!  Yes, day 19 should have been three days ago.  However, I have climbed out of my slump and am caught up :)  I give you what to do with those bags that you can't throw away because of the status symbol that they represent.  I need to find a big frame for my Burberry bag next....  But this Tiffany one, I knew would fit in an 8 x 10 inch frame perfectly!

What you'll need:  A bag, a frame.

With the bag open, pull the strings for the handles down so that the handles are not as long.

Fold the bag.  Put it in the frame.

Display it with pride!

How chic is this?  I love it.

Looks even better with the box next to it :)  My gift was the square link bracelet.  My husband bought it for me for my 30th birthday.  It was the sweetest thing he's ever done, because I had begged him for ANYTHING from Tiffany's or anything from a place other than a surf or snowboard shop, for 10 years!!  Do you guys all save things like this?  Or are you reading this thinking I am nutso? 

xxooxoxo

Lia

30 Days of DIY: Day 18 ~ Anthropologie Swathed Hoops Inspired Earrings

Sorry I'm a day off.  I lost my job yesterday and took the entire remainder of the day and just cried and had a pity party.  Well I woke up early this morning with my big girl panties on, and got started.  This has been very humbling and shocking to me, but I must persevere.  I also have big plans to do alot more with my blog than just DIYs so please keep with me and be looking out!  Also, I will post 2 DIYs tomorrow, to catch myself up :)
I digress.  These awesome earrings are inspired by the Anthropologie Swathed Hoops.  I thought to also use embroidery thread, but I did the (what we used to call when I was a kid) "Chinese Staircase" knot.  Did you guys call it the same?  I had these old gold hoops I was about to throw away (eeek!) but thankfully, I did not!

Materials:

• Hoop earrings
• Embroidery thread (about 1 yard per earring)
• Scissors
• Clear nail polish (I used a top coat) 

Knot the thread onto the earring, right behind the post.  Cut the excess thread, and apply clear nail polish so the thread doesn't fray, and also so the thread is kind of adhered to the earring (so apply it liberally!)

Here's a pic of how to tie the knot.

Halfway complete...looking good!

And the first is done!!  When you complete your last stitch, pull it taut and cut the excess.  Again, apply clear nail polish liberally.

A closer view of the end.

Here is the finished earring.  So cute, right?

And the finished set!  I took something I was about to throw away, and since I only used about 1/4 - 1/3 of the skein of thread, spent about a dime on!  You could make it multi-colored by knotting another color in every inch or so.  Just knot it to the thread you're using, pull tight, and cut the excess.  You can also do this if you do not use enough thread.  What do you think?  Are you going to make these? 

xxooxoxo
Lia

30 Days of DIY: Day 17 ~ Springy Punchy Flowery Placemats

My dining room table has seen better days.  There's paint from Bella's paint-your-own-teaset that she had, which unfortunately doesn't come off.  Alas, I've just learned to pretend it's not there.  I suppose that there's a sort of zen-ish look with the bamboo placemats and the organic decorations.  But it's not really fun. 

I found these great woven placemats at Dollar Tree yesterday, and decided to spruce them up too! 
Materials:

• 4 different colored placemats
• 1 bunch of faux daisies
• 1 bunch of faux gerbera daisies
• Scissors or wire cutters
• Glue gun and extra glue sticks

If the stems right under each flower are wired, use the wire cutters.  Else use scissors and snip them off.

Then snip the stem down as far as possible to the flower base.

This was as good as I could get, and it worked perfectly.

After doing the same for the large daisies, here's what I had.

Lay out the flowers on each placemat how you like them.  I decided on this, since there would still be space for the placemat to still be functional.

Apply hot glue to the plastic area of each daisy and press them down in their place.

Remove the plastic from the bottom of the larger daisies, and then snip the excess stem.  Apply glue to the center area, where the plastic that you removed would be, then press the daisy in place.

And here's the final result!  I added a vase of faux brightly colored daisies to the center of the table, and for aesthetics, added these hibiscus flower plates.  I clearly need to get some fun summery place settings now!

What do you think of the easy transformation?  I love it, and think it adds a major impact to my dining room.  (Please ignore the mess that is my kitchen)  It's great how a simple accessory can make an outfit, the same way one can make a room! 

xxooxoxo
Lia