Gold Dot Vases

A while ago, I was in the dollar store looking for something cool to make for my sister's birthday. I found all white place settings and I had just bought gold glass paint that I was using for a different project and a light went off in my head. I decided to do gold dots around the rim of the plate so that they would be pretty and decorative. I have found the next piece in her set that I need to make:

These cute Gold Dot Vases would go perfectly with her set that I made last year! Check out the tutorial for these cool vases here!

Paint Dipped Pinecones

It is getting closer to fall! I'm starting to notice that the leaves are turning and the weather is slowly but surely getting a little bit colder each week. I've been on the lookout for some beautiful fall crafts and this one caught my eye!

Can you imagine having those pretty little pinecones all over your mantle or in a glass jar on your table? I love this idea! Check out the full tutorial here!

Can't find the right fabric? No worries, just make your own!

When I was working on my chair project, I had a really hard time finding the right fabric. It took me weeks. I know that sounds a little crazy but I wanted it to be perfect. I ended up finding the right fabric and they turned out great but I was reaching the end of my rope. I wish I had just done what Jen over at TaterTots & Jello did. It would have been much easier!

Gorgeous! Am I right? I love that when she couldn't find the right fabric she just decided to make it herself! It has inspired me! Now I know that I don't have to settle for whatever choices my local fabric store has. All I have to do is buy white fabric and a stencil and I'm set! For her full tutorial, click here!

Be sure to check back often for some more great inspiration! If you would like to have a project or craft featured, please send me an email at thewellcraftedhome{at}yahoo{dot}com!

Made by Me Monday #11: White Vases!

I have been doing some work on the house this week (in the small amount of spare time that I have) and I've been trying to de-clutter. Our living room has dark floors, dark furniture, sort of dark walls, and the only light thing in the room is the rug and only about half of it shows. Needless to say, I need to brighten our space up!!

We have a bookshelf in our living room that was sort of becoming a catch-all for my crafts and Eric's hobbies as well. I decided that the bookshelf would be my first adventure in de-cluttering. Here is how I did it! (Sorry for the bad pictures...I have had to resort to using my cell phone for pics...)

For this project, you will need:

1) As many glass vases as you need or want that are different shapes and sizes (I got mine at Value Village)

2) White Paint

Step 1) Wash your vases and make sure all of the dirt is out of them! You dont want to see any of the dirt after you put the paint in there!

Step 2) After all your vases are washed and dried, put a fairly large amount of white paint inside the one with the smallest opening.

Step 3) Swirl the paint around the inside of the vase until the whole inside of the vase is covered. Make sure you get the paint all the way up to the rim.

Step 4) Since we used the vase with the smallest opening first, we can now pour the leftover paint from that vase into the vase with the next smallest opening. When all the leftover paint has drained out of your first vase, make sure the wipe the edge of the opening clean so that it looks nice!

Step 5) Keep going until you are done with all your vases. Make sure you go in order of smallest to largest opening. This will make your life much easier!*Dont forget to keep wiping the edges of the openings!*

Step 6) Let them dry and arrange them in the way that you love!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I love how much more simple it looks now and it looks less cluttery because all the vases are the same color and thats pretty much the only thing on there.

Here is a close-up of the vases:

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Made By Me Mondays #10: Flower Art!

OK so I got a little impatient this week and I posted a tutorial about my DIY Ombre Spoons on Friday. I couldn't wait! I love them so much :)

I have another project to share with you today that I love just as much though! Check out the new art that I made for my bathroom!

I had made this art and it was taking me a while to get it up on the walls but then I came home and my sweet hubby hung it up for me as a surprise! And in true "Lauren" fashion, it took me FOREVER to notice it! Haha! I never catch on to the important things quickly...

Anyways, on to the tutorial!

Here are the supplies you need for this project:

     1) Hot Glue (This is used for the borders of the petals. I tried to use Elmer's Glue first but there were a few things wrong with it. It kinda expanded into the borders of the other petals around it and made it look like a big blob and it also dried flat. We want the glue to act like a "fence" around the color of your petals so don't use Elmer's glue!!)

     2) 3 canvases (whatever size you want)

     3) White Paint

     4) Colored paint (I chose purple!)

     5) Paint Brush

Step 1)

   

     Plug in your hot glue gun and make the center of your flower on one of the sides of one canvas. Then do all the leaves fanning out from it. Only do a border for your leaves so that you can fill them in with paint later!

Step 2)

     Paint all three canvases a VERY light shade of the color that you chose. This will serve as the background color of your painting and it will also be the color of a few of your petals. Make sure to paint all the way up to the edge of your petals!

Step 3)

     After your background paint dries, start darkening your paint little by little. Every step you take towards a darker color, paint a few random leaves here and there.

Step 4)

     Once all of your petals are filled in and the paint is dry, go over the hot glue parts with white paint to make the petals pop!

There you have it!

Here are some more pictures:

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Made By Me Monday #6: Dining Table Centerpieces

This week I have crossed a small something off my to do list for the dining room! I was so inspired by this post by this post by Kacey at Stay-At-Home Artist that I had to do some crafting of my own! Take a look at what I came up with:

I'm so excited to share this tutorial but of course, I was *way* too into my crafting and it did not occur to me to take any pictures of anything except the final product so I will do my best to explain the steps.

For this project you will need:

2 small jars from the dollar store with a fairly skinny neck but that bow out like the top of the white middle jar.
1 bigger jar from the dollar store with the same shape.
2 4 inch Styrofoam balls
1 5 inch Styrofoam ball
Fake flowers of your choice (I needed 4 bundles and I barely had enough to make it look full so you might need 5 bundles)
White paint of your choice
Tacky Glue

Step 1:

     Wash all the vases that you get from the dollar store

Step 2:

     Clip all the flowers off of there stems but leave about 1.5 inches attached to the flower so you can poke it into the Styrofoam ball.

Step 3:

      Pre-poke the holes into the Styrofoam ball before you put each flower in. Once you have pre-poked the hole for one flower, put a little bit of tacky glue in there. Then insert the flower into the hole. This will help to hold the flower in place long term.

Step 4:

     Keep inserting the flowers into the Styrofoam ball but make sure to leave an empty space on the bottom of the ball so you can glue it to the glass vase.

Step 5:

     Once you have covered all the space except for the little bit on the bottom, you can glue it to the glass vase with the tacky glue and your done with the flowery vases!

Step 6:

     For the white vase, just put a GIANT glob of white paint into the bottom of the vase and swirl it around until the whole inside of the vase is covered. Put the extra white paint back into the paint bottle and let it dry!

I know I didn't have any pictures of the process so if any step is unclear or you have questions, please send me an email!

Here is another picture of the finished project:

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Today's Creative Blog

Made By Me Mondays #5: Popsicle Stick Art

Yay!! Its Monday! That means that I get to share my project from this week! :)

I have been on a mission to make the walls in my home full instead of bare and I think my mission is coming to an end! We don't really have a big home, its a two bed, one bath condo so I don't have a ton of wall space. I put my Peacock Mirrors from last week over our bed finally! (Click here to see how I made these!) Take a look:

Ok! Now on to this weeks project! I created some other art for our bedroom :) I made this art out of popsicle sticks which was super awesome and super easy!!

By the way, I went to Michaels to buy some popsicle sticks and they had a package of 50 for $3.99 and they had a package of 1000 (yes..one thousand!) for $4.99. This seemed like a no-brainer decision for me!

I'm not sure what I'm going to use 1000 popsicle sticks for but I'm sure I'll find something!

So the supplies you will need for this project are:

Frame of your choice (Michaels) - I took the glass and stock photo out of the frame and just glued the sticks to the backing
3 different paint colors (Michaels) - I used the Americana Acrylic Paint in Deep Midnight Blue, Neutral Grey, and Snow (Titanium) White (I combined the white with some of the grey to make a lighter grey for my third color)
Popsicle Sticks
Paint Brushes
Mod Podge (or some other adhesive)

Step 1: 

Paint the backing of the frame black. This is the front part of the board that has the hanging hardware on it.

Step 2: 
Paint 15 popsicle sticks for each color so 15 blue, 15 dark grey, 15 light grey

Sorry I was not a very good picture taker!!

Step 3: 
Cut up the popsicle sticks into different lengths for a dynamic, puzzle-type look

Step 4:
Use the Mod Podge to glue your puzzle art down to the black background

Step 5: 
Once you have all the pieces to your puzzle glued down, you can put it back in the frame! I chose to leave the glass our of the frame. It looked good both ways though :) Here is the finished product:

This project was a little time consuming but I really love it! I want to do it on a larger scale and make it more of a centerpiece but we will see if I ever have the time to do something like that! :)

Made By Me Mondays #4: Monogram Peacock Mirrors

I'm SO happy to be finished with these mirrors!! I've been working on them for two weeks now and I've only been able to do a little bit at a time but they are finally done!

I found these red IKEA mirrors at a garage sale for $1 a piece

I got three of them and I was thinking they would be beautiful above our bed! They have so much potential!!

While I loved these mirrors, red does NOT go with our bedroom so I decided to paint them white and put a cute little design on them! I had a hard time picking out which design to do. I tried bamboo, a cute little boxy pattern, and a few other ones but nothing looked good...finally I decided on peacocks!! Here is how I made them (this is a pretty easy little project):

Materials needed:

     1: Three square mirrors from IKEA ($1.00 per piece from garage sale)

     2: Painters tape (Michaels)

     3: White paint (Michaels)

     4: Gold paint sharpie (Michaels)

Step 1: Tape off the mirror so you dont get paint on it. After you do that, paint your mirrors white (dont forget the edges!!). This might take a few coats :)

Step 2: Find cute pictures of you and your husbands initials and put them on one of the mirrors using the gold paint sharpie.

Step 3: Find a drawing of a girly looking peacock and put it on the second mirror.

Step 4: Find a drawing of a manly looking peacock and put it on the last mirror.

Step 5: Put them all together and hang them on the wall!

I would love to see what you guys come up with if you take on a project like this (or any other project for that matter)!!

UPDATE: Click here to see these hanging on my wall!