DIY Accent Trays

This Saturday was a great day! My good friend, El, and her ADORABLE baby girl, Harper, came over to visit. Since becoming a mommy, El said she was really itching to do a DIY project and I was equally itching to find something to put on our bedroom dresser since recently adding the gold IKEA hardware.  We decided to go with making accent trays while baby Harper took her nap.

Well, not all goes as planned - the little cutie patootie wanted to join in on the fun instead, so "Auntie" K took charge and hooked mommy up! 

El picked up the "trays" from Michael's the day before.  She saw on a blog that one girl used clear box frames and lined them with paper to create a tray.  The frames were $8 each for the 11x14 size.  

However, rather than lining the "tray" with paper, I thought it might be cool to take it a step further and spray paint a geometric pattern on the back side of the tray (so the inside could be wiped down easily) instead.  It ended up being the easiest thing ever and would probably take a half hour.  Or in our case, a few hours, since girlfriends need to chit chat!

Here's what you'll need:

- spray paint color of your choice (I picked us up gold metallic by Valspar) Cost: about $5 at Lowes

- 11x14 (or size of your choice) clear box frames (El found these at Michaels)  Cost: $8 at Michaels

- 1" painters tape

- template of your choice printed out to fit inside of tray (geometric works best for taping)

Our wedding design was inspired by this tray from Up in the Air Somewhere.  My friend, Sarah, gave us the actual tray as wedding gift, but I keep it protected from little hands in one of our glass display cabinets. I just love the pattern and thought it would be a perfect, subtle way to pull in a design from our wedding in our bedroom rather than a shrine of pictures (that's in the living room ; ) )! 

Up in the Air Somewhere

To make life easier, I printed out the pattern on 11x17 and trimmed it down to 11x14 so I could "trace" over it with painter's tape. 

(note: plastic primer wasn't needed, I just grabbed it incase)

Next, take the template and flip it upside down in the frame. You'll need to tape it to the bottom so it doesn't fall down when it's flipped over.

I taped off where the 'negative space' was.  Don't worry about being super accurate, they still come out great if it's not "perfect".  Also, remember to tape the edges of the 'tray' so you don't get spray paint on them!

Next, spray away!

Once dry, begin to peel off the painter's tape.

...and Voila! Your pattern is complete! (of course, now I can't decide where I'd like to use them!) 

To really protect the paint on the bottom, consider buying those small, clear pads for the base of the tray.

Bedroom Update

Our bedroom was one of the last rooms to be updated and, although it still has a little way to go,  I figured I'd post the progress! Here's some of the original photos of the room:

View 1

View 1 with Brown Teepee Paint

View 2

View 2 with Brown Teepee Paint

View 3 Head Wall with Brown Teepee Paint

 For the longest time, the room just screamed "bachelor pad". Here's a real old pic, before I made a new headboard to replace this lacquer bad boy!

 Clearly, a new bed was needed and the nail head headboard I made to replace the old lacquer one (picture not shown) just wasn't cutting it anymore. So after a long, patient wait, I decided to order this one from Amazon back in the fall.  I was lucky enough to get a bunch of Amazon gift cards for my birthday, so I was able to use those towards the "grown up" bed!  We are HUGE Amazon Prime addicts, so this bed shipped to us for FREE! Gotta love it!

The Faux sheepskin rug is a recent purchase thanks to a Home Goods gift card I got from my in-laws.  Although my original plan was to get a larger area rug that would go under the bed, I ended up grabbing this smaller one to avoid the frustration of trying to get a big one under the bed! Not sure if I love it here though, I think a larger, cut pile one would look better. Thoughts??

We painted Rick's black nightstand white, added a door, and hardware to it.  I found my nightstand at Home Goods.  I saw this "snake skin" look online a long time ago and loved it, so I was thrilled when I stumbled across this at Home Goods on my way home from work.  I also found a smaller version at Target, but this was the perfect height and had more storage. The lamp is an oldie; from Christmas Tree Shop a while back, and I'm looking to replace it with this one from Ikea so I can use the other one in the Guest Room.

The Starburst Mirror above the bed was hand made by yours truly.  It's showing a little yellow in the photos, but is not that yellow in person.

When I repainted the Guest Room, I also painted our hallway BM Revere Pewter. Since I had a gallon or so left of that from the hallway, I decided to just paint our bedroom the same color since I was looking for a soft neutral anyway.  (One recommendation: when painting, especially a bedroom, be sure to use a No or Low-VOC paint.)  I made this mistake because I ended up having Lowes match the color to their Paint/Primer in One.  However, the smell was so strong, we had headaches from it! So always, always go with a NO-VOC paint!)

Under our TV, we have these dressers from Ikea. 

 I want to 'hack it' a little by adding some hardware to it and was going to buy these pulls from Ikea during my next trip down there. I think the gold would be nice to play off of the subtle gold accents in the room. After all, who says you can't mix gold and silver?!

Well, my friends, that's where we are for now.  I'll be sure to keep you updated as to whether or not the dresser hack was a success or fail!  Happy New Year!

K

Restoration Hardware Goodies

Even though tomorrow is Halloween, I'm already starting to think about Christmas shopping!  Anyone else?   Now that our families are growing, I want to get a headstart so my January credit card bill doesn't put me over the edge! 

 

I was listening to the radio today and heard that Restoration Hardware has a ton of great (and surprisingly budget friendly) gifts.   I had no idea they were selling smaller items, so I took a quick peek at their website and came across some fun finds.  They have vintage toys, tools for the chef, tech-y gadgets, and even gifts for baby. 

 

 

Check it out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look I'm Lovin': Layering Rugs

With Fall comes the layering of clothes, but have you ever thought to do the same with your area rugs? I'm really loving this look and wanted to share some pics I found along the way. 

Image from HGTV

Elle Decor

Something2writeabout

Carolina George

What do you think?

Front Door Refresh - Part Two

A while back I posted about our Front Door Refresh, when I painted our front door Benjamin Moore's Westcott Navy. That was back in January and although I loved the results, I wanted to try something different. In our home, you can see the top of the door when it's open, and I didn't really like how you could see where the navy stopped and the white started.  So I decided to wrap the paint around the whole door a few weeks ago.  

What do you think?  

 

Before

Before

After - Sorry for the terrible photo quality!

I have to admit, I wasn't completely in love right after I did it, but I think it's growing on me now!  Either that or I'm just learning to love it because I reallllllly don't want to (a.) admit defeat to my husband or (b.) paint over that navy! ;)

Check out the pics below to see other examples of painting your front door's interior side:

Bright and Bold!

Katie Ridder

Design OCD

Abode Love

This only took a weeknight to do after dinner, so go for it! 

Weekend Project: Reverse Ombre Sunburst Mirror

As promised, here's my tutorial on the DIY Sunburst Mirror I made last weekend. If you're interested, try it out this weekend, it doesn't take very long and will save you at least $50 compared to the store bought ones!!  

This project cost me only $5.81 (not to be exact or anything...), but I also did use most of what I already had. 

What you'll need:

• Circular Mirror (I got this one at Joann's, it was 7")
• Skewers or Dowels (we had BBQ Skewers, but I forgot and grabbed some dowels at Joann's when I got the mirror)
• Hot Glue Gun
• Sharpie
• Spray Paint of your choice (I used left over spray paint from my DIY mercury glass project for our wedding, and had a silver metallic one that I also ended up using)

Supplies

Step 1: Start marking off your circle by creating an "x" from the center...although mine is looking a bit off! ha!

Keep dividing 'the pie' until you think you have an idea of how wide you want your 'pattern repeat' to be...aka, eyeball it.

Nope, still too wide

Step 2:  To get the starburst effect, stagger your skewers, dowels, etc. I layed mine out before I started gluing to see how dense it should be.  I ended up using the 16 orange lines as a guide for where the pattern started and stopped.

Step 3: Glue the first round of sticks on the lines and place them closest to the center of the mirror.

 

Step 4: Repeat by staggering each "round" of sticks gradually until the increments are filled with the "down-up-down" pattern.

 

 

 

Step 5: Cover the mirror with newspaper (actually, I wish I did this before so I could have traced the newspaper with the circle before I placed it on!!)

 Step 6: Time to spray paint!  Now I wish I could say the ombre look was pre-meditated, but that would be a huge lie.  I used the left over mercury glass spray paint because I wanted to have a bit of sparkle...but then, I started to run low.  So I grabbed the gray metallic (close enough, right?) and sprayed around at the ends.  Well, it was definitely darker but I liked the subtle look. So just like that, BAM! instant "reverse ombre" look!

Subtle Ombre - What do you think?

 Step 7: Hang and Enjoy! We ended up using a mirror mastic to hang it...because I didn't feel like going back to Walmart to get picture frame hangers!  I'd recommend getting those though instead of having to skim coat your walls later on!

 

 

Here's some other looks!  DIYs for these are everywhere, so pick one you think works best in your home!



 

Setting for Four +lizmarieblog

 

 

HAPPY FRIDAY!!

 

K