DIY Earring Holder

I will not pay a lot of money for things that I can make, and make cuter and more to my taste.  

I decided to make an earring holder so I stopped losing earrings.

Go to D.I.  Buy a window screen.  Buy a frame.  Paint frame using craft paint.  Cut screen to size of frame.  Hot glue screen to frame on back.  VOILA!  Cheap and easy earring holder.  All for about 5 bucks!

Can you tell I like studs?  Haha I do!  Now if I could just find all my earrings, things would work out great!  ;)

My very favorite home-cooked meal: Corn Flake Rolls

Let me preface this post by saying that you are going to kiss the ground I walk on once you try these bad boys.  They are delish!!!  I always BEGGED my mom to make them.  She would usually only do it about once-ish a year, if that, because they take a bit of time and they aren't the healthiest; but when she would make them, my heart would sing!  I am talking, people, about Corn Flake Rolls.  I believe there are quite a few similar recipes out there like these, but I have never had ones that are quite as good as these.

Ingredients:

4-5 chicken breasts
1 8oz package cream cheese, softened
2 cubes butter (EEK! So worth it)
4-5 cups-ish corn flakes
2 crescent roll packages (with 8 in each)
2-3 cans chicken gravy

Directions:

Boil the chicken.  Shred 

Taking the cream cheese and 1 cube of butter, and mix them.  It works best when they are both room temperature.  If they aren't, just put them in the microwave for under a minute-ish.  

Add the chicken to this mixture.  Mix well.

Get a large plate, place the corn flakes on it, and crush them.

Taking the second cube of butter, place in small bowl and completely melt it in the microwave.  

Open crescent rolls and separate them.  Fill each one up with chicken mixture.  Don't overfill.  Fold them up and make a ball.  I find that if you completely seal the inside, it doesn't cook as well.  Dip the ball in the melted butter, then roll in the corn flakes and completely cover.  Do this 15 more times ;)

Place on an ungreased cookie sheet (you will probably need 2) 
Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

Ladle gravy on top.

Serve with corn and shallots!

DIY Nail Detail!

I have always loved painting my nails, especially creating designs.  I remember, during my birthday parties in elementary school, having my mom paint our nails with toothpicks and craft paint.  She would paint watermelons on our toes and sunflowers on our fingers.  

Since then, I have spent hours and hours with toothpicks and those dinky, fine-tipped nail polishes trying to make a cute design.  They took forever and they still looked like crap.

Well, one day, I was looking at craft paint at Walmart and I came across these paint markers.  A light bulb went on in my head and I bought a bunch.  They have small-tipped ones, medium, etc., and they rock!  Since then, I have painted my nails many times, creating designs with these things.  They dry really fast, you put a clear coat on top, and you are done.  My left hand is always a little worse than my right (I'm a lefty) but it is a million times better!

Go buy them! They are like a buck!

My guilty pleasure: Savory Chex Mix

Growing up, my favorite thing my mom would make around the holidays was Chex mix.  My mom, however, didn't make the typical, gooey kind.  She made the immaculate, savory kind.  Still to this day, it is one of my very favorite things to make when I need a treat.

What you will need:

1 1/2 c butter
2 T Worcestershire sauce
2 t onion salt
1 T celery salt

13 cups cereal (you choose)
4 cups pretzels

Melt the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan.  Once boiling, pour over cereal/pretzel mixture.  Stir.

 Bake at 200 degrees for 1.5 hours, stirring every 15 minutes.

*I like 5 cups Rice Chex, 5 cups Corn Chex, and 3 cups Cheerios

*I like to buy those big, disposable turkey pans from the store.  You can cook it all in one pan and it is the easiest cleanup!

So easy, so good, especially if you have a salty tooth like me!

Revamp your dressers with cute new knobs!

Bryce and I bought a generic white dresser from Walmart when we got married with some gift cards.  It's not bad, but it isn't my total style.  So, while at Hobby Lobby, my favorite store, I happened to walk down a massive "knob and handle" aisle.  People, they have so many knobs, you wouldn't believe it!  Here is a small glimpse of the aisle.

  

So...I bought some brassy knobs from this beloved aisle.  The dresser went from this:

to this:

 I wanted to buy a few different ones, for a fun look. 

 Here are the knobs up closer:

The best part was that each knob was only 2 dollars!!!  WAY cheaper than RodWorks or Anthropology, where I usually see knobs.  Fun and easy transformation for our bedroom :)

DIY Winter Painting: Deer

I love the D.I.  So many great finds for recreation!  They have so many massive frames that are so cheap!  I bought this one for 12 bucks.  It had an ugly painting in it.  I flipped the painting over to find a blank canvas on the back.  So, I painted it white.  Then, using dark brown craft paint, I painted a deer.  Like I said with the tree drawing, deer don't have to have perfection.  I prefer it to be imperfect.

First, stencil it out.  Use a picture reference from online.  There are a million pics.  Then paint!  After it was done, I wanted the antlers to look different than the body.  So, using my dollar paint markers that I use for my nails (Walmart, baby), I drew some lines throughout it, smeared them here and there, and made them look like "wood."

Super easy!  It is probably 3 feet by 4 feet, so it is really big, which I like.

EASY EASY EASY Cauliflower soup!

My mom always made this growing up.  It was one of my faves.  It is so good!

Ingredients:

5 cups water
7 tsp chicken bouillon
2 medium cauliflower heads
1 large, yellow onion
1 package sliced mushrooms

1 pint 1/2 and 1/2
1/2 cube butter
1/2 a large Velveeta package
2 t Worcestershire sauce
2 t liquid smoke
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t white pepper.  

Directions:

Cut up cauliflower and onions.  Boil the first five ingredients until soft.  Add remaining ingredients.  Cook together until Velveeta and butter are melted.  

That's it!  So easy and so good!  Serve with a fun kind of bread or biscuit!

DIY Wooden Tree Painting

I love white in houses.  I am always drawn to the white, country decor in magazines.  When a Country Living magazine comes in the mail that is an "all white" issue, I get giddy.  

Well, I have wanted to find something white and unique that I could put in my kitchen.  For years, I have searched for things.  What I found was either extremely overpriced or just not my style.  I am a unique, frugal girl.  I will NEVER pay full price for things.  I also rarely like things that can be found in stores for wall decor.  That's when I decided to try to make something on my own that was what I wanted, exactly.  This is what I ended up making:

We had a bunch of leftover boards in our garage from building our fence.  They were very rough, which I like, and seemed perfect.  So, I asked my awesome husband to cut these boards and screw them together to make a canvas for me.  

This is the back of it:

We also strung some wire on the back.

Next, I went and bought some generic white interior paint from Walmart.  I think I paid like 15 bucks for an entire gallon (and I still have over half left for future projects).  I also bought some basic paint brushes (some extremely small), and some black craft paint, yes, CRAFT PAINT.  Note: be sure not to get foam brushes if you are using rough wood.  They don't work, they snag, and suck.  

Then, I went to work.  I painted the front with about 5 coats of the white paint.  If you get a softer, smoother wood, you would have less coats to do, but, again, I like the rougher, rustic look.  

After it was completely covered with a good coat of white paint, I stenciled out my tree.  I chose to draw a tree because they are imperfect.  I hate giving myself restrictions with drawing.  Straight lines suck, so I like to choose things that can be imperfect, just like my drawing.  Be sure to stencil with pencil and to measure where the middle is so it is centered.  

Once stenciled, start painting!  I used black craft paint and, first, outlined the trunk, leaves, etc.  Then I filled it in.  Once the tree was completely painted, I went back with the white paint and painted over any leftover pencil marks, which there were, because I changed my mind over and over.  

My finished product turned out perfect!  It is exactly what I wanted.  I spent under 20 dollars for all the supplies and it is cuter than anything I could find in stores.  

You could choose whatever to paint.  I almost did a silhouette of an animal, but decided that is too hard.  Choose what matches your house.  I love trees.  To me, they represent life, family, and love.  Great choice for our house.

DIY Mantle Shelf

So...I have wanted a mantle for a long time.  Who doesn't want one?  Well, we didn't want to put a fireplace in our house (lots of work!) so I decided to make one myself.  I looked online and found an awesome blog called "Today's Fabulous Finds."  It was super easy and I love the look.  Here is my makeshift "mantle" below: 

I didn't make mine as "rustic" as hers.  I already have a lot of distressed stuff in my house, and wanted it a little more simple.  It still has some distressed parts, from stain and me beating it up, but it doesn't show that well from this pic.  I also made mine a lot longer than hers so it was the same length as my tv stand.

Here is the link to her DIY mantle:

http://todaysfabulousfinds.blogspot.com/2011/11/diy-mantel-shelf-and-how-to-hang-it.html

Basic info from her blog:

Don't worry too much about unsightly gaps (the consequence of using an old miter box), some caulk will take care of it.

Edited to add:  Sarah's tutorial is no longer available, so I'm adding some steps to the post.  

After I stained it, I used a foam brush and primed it first. I usually don't prime first when I'm distressing, but the color was so dark that I was worried it would take too many coats of paint to cover it up. I've done it with and without primer, so really either way will work. Just keep adding coats of paint until the brown isn't showing through. I sanded the shelf with sandpaper to distress it when the paint was dry to the touch, but wasn't completely hardened yet. It seems to 'peel' off better and leave more of the stain underneath, when you distress it, if the paint still has a bit of a rubbery feel to it. You can fold your sandpaper in half and use the straight edge to get the straighter distressed lines. Next comes the glaze (optional). I put some dark glaze on a rag and wiped it over the corners and edges and into the inside corners to make them darker. You can also wipe on a light coat of glaze over the rest of the shelf. The last thing I did was to spray it with a clear acrylic spray in the matte finish. I think that it richens the colors and makes the shelf look finished.

Edited to add:  I received an e-mail with questions on the construction and supplies, this is my reply.  I apologize that this post is so disorganized!  At this point I might need to rewrite it. :)

I used wood glue and screws to put the shelf together.  It's been awhile since I made my mantel shelf, but I'm pretty sure that I pre-drilled the holes before I screwed the wood together.  If you use a drill bit smaller than the size of the screw to drill a pilot hole first it prevents the wood from splitting.  

The top and bottom of the shelf are cut from a 1x8x8 and are each 4' long. The front of the shelf is a 1x6x6 board and was cut down to 4' long. The rest of the 1x6x6 was used for the sides of the shelf. When I had the boards cut at Lowe's, I had them cut the 6" wide board down to 4' long for the front, then set the top of the shelf on it (lining up the corners) and then set the remainder of the board in place on the side to measure and mark it for the cut. (The shelf looks taller because the trim hangs down longer than the bottom of the shelf.)  
Supplies you will need:

wood (1x8x8 and 1x6x6) I hope I'm remembering this right!
wood glue
screws (I just used some that I had on hand, if you ask at the home improvement store, they can direct you to some that will work.)
sandpaper (medium and heavy grit)
electric sander to sand the rough edges of the boards before and after you put it together (could sand by hand)
paint brush
stain
finish nails (to nail on the trim molding)
wood filler (to fill the holes from the nails and screws)
caulk (make sure it is paintable) and caulk gun (to fill in any cracks in the corners of the trim)
2"x2"x4' long board for hanging the shelf and extra long screws (this part is in the tutorial)
decorative trim molding (12' long or two 8' lengths)
saw (I used a hand saw and miter box to cut the trim.  It was a bit tricky to cut the angles and I messed up, but was able to fill the holes with caulk and they look great now.)

If you enlarge the pictures in the post I think they will help a lot on seeing exactly how it all fits together.

I hope I didn't leave anything out, if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them. This way isn't the only way to get the look, but it's what worked for me.

One thing that I do want to share though is how I hung it, this thing is heavy!  I got the idea from  someone who posted about hanging a headboard this way, but unfortunately can't remember where I saw it.

How to hang a box mantel shelf:

1.  Cut a board just smaller than the opening of the back of the box mantel shelf. Mine was a 2 x 2 1/2, I think (almost square).  It was a leftover from a past project and turned out to be the perfect size.

2.  Use a stud finder to locate the studs in the wall and mark them, then mark the placement on the mounting board.

3.  Pre-drill the holes in the studs just smaller than the screws and in the mounting board as well.

4.  Next you will pre-drill holes in the mounting board to attach the shelf to the top of it.  Stagger them between the holes you've already drilled.

5.  Use a level to make sure the board is level and then screw it into the wall.

6.  Put the shelf next to the board, mark the placement of the drill holes, and pre-drill holes in the top back of your shelf.

7.  Place the shelf over the board, lining up the holes, and screw it to the mounting board.   I put in three screws.  You'll need someone to hold it for you, trust me. :)

That's it, admire you're new 'mantel'!  

So just for fun, here's a look at my unfinished Fall Mantel with the black shelf.  So, so wimpy.

And how it looks now with my new mantel shelf.  Now that's a shelf!

Click here for tutorials on all of the items pictured above.

I've never had an actual real mantel shelf to decorate, so this was an especially fabulous find for me!  My total cost was $10.40, which is simply amazing for such a big shelf!