Category: home decor

January 23, 2015

Let’s Get Crafty with DIY Valentine’s Day Centre Pieces! #Ad

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CollectiveBias

Craft time is one of the best ways to fit in quality family time. A time to be silly and to experiment with new ideas and let the kids just be themselves. The holiday’s are a perfect time to get in some extra crafts and Valentine’s Day is no exception in our home. Each year we try to design a new craft – something different and unique for our family.

Since dinner time is important in our family (nothing beats that kind of bonding time!) and we have just recently started eating out in the dining room with our wedding dishes we thought a craft for our table would fit our family the best. Our table, while looking pretty with all the good dishes on it, was just looking plain:

Boring right?

So we thought, what better way to spice up our table than with Valentine’s Day themed centre pieces! We envisioned candles, candy, vases and with this in mind we headed out to Walmart to find some key pieces for our centre piece.

While I was checking out vases and supplies, our youngest son had the time of his life in the children’s crafting aisle – he would have fully stocked our cart if he was allowed to!

For our Valentine’s Day centre piece craft we purchased (and you will need to purchase to replicate!):

two medium-sized candles and one large candle
two small square vases
fabric in a colour of your choosing
cinnamon hearts
glue gun and sticks
white rectangular candle holder (we actually used a white appetizer tray for our craft!)
heart stickers
Valentine’s Day themed ribbon
clear wrapping paper

Start first with the small glass vases (since this was our kid’s favourite part!). Choose which stickers you want to apply on to the glass and apply the stickers directly onto the glass. Fill your glasses with the cinnamon hearts. Wrap them up with the clear wrapping paper and tie off in a bow with the ribbon.

Cut the fabric into rectangular pieces. The length should be enough so that the fabric will stretch around the candle once and just slightly overlap.

Using the glue gun, glue the under side of the left side of the fabric onto the top part of the right side of the fabric. Make sure that you are pulling the fabric tightly to ensure that it does not slip off the candle. Word of advice – don’t apply the glue from the glue gun directly onto the candle (yes, I can admit it – I made this mistake and completely blame the lack of coffee and pure exhaustion). Also be careful with those fingers! I managed to apply the glue directly onto my fingers – ouch!

Now comes the best part – arrangement!

Place the three candles onto the white candle holder (or in our case the app tray). Place hearts around the candles.

Voila! A beautifully Valentine’s Day themed decorated centre piece. The best part is that it can be changed and updated when the season changes.

Because the children in our life play such an important role in our life and it is important to us to let them know we love them, we decided to use the vases as a place setting. We put each vase on the children’s plate and it was a wonderful companion to our centre piece and the kids loved their extra surprise.

How do you update your home decor to celebrate Valentine’s Day? Do you have a special craft that you like to make each year?

October 17, 2014

DIY Hand Print Keepsake

My children are growing so fast – every time I look at them it feels like they have grown another inch! We wanted to capture them in this moment and decided to make hand print keepsakes to display in our home. It was the perfect holiday craft for our family – quick and simple! The boys loved it because they were able to get their hands nice and dirty although trying to get them to not paint each other was fun!

You Will Need:

paint
paintbrush
canvas print (8×10)
8×10 frame

Using the paint colour your child has chosen (our boys wanted blue so blue it was) I painted their right hands applying a good amount of pain so that their hand was quite saturated with the paint.

One at a time, I took their hand and gently placed it on the canvas print. I gently put pressure on their hands to ensure the hand print would take to the canvas. You may have to help your little one to lift their hand back off of the canvas without smudging the print.

Allow the painting to dry, ours took roughly three hours to dry. I then placed it inside the 8×10 frame and hung it by our front door. Visitors love looking at their hands and this would be a fantastic gift for Grandparents!

October 6, 2014

Update Outdoor Decor for Fall

Remember that super easy front decor I posted about a couple of months ago? If not no worries – check it out here. Now that Fall has arrived I had to change it up and wanted to share it with you because I loved how it turned out!

You will need:

fall themed branches, pumpkins on branches (I picked ours up from the dollar store for $1.25/each)
metal bucket
foam that fits the bottom of the bucket
bag of potpourri

Directions

Fill the bottom of the bucket with the foam and cover with the potpourri.

Take each branch and insert directly into the foam. I wanted a shorter arrangement so I bent some of the sticks at the bottom before inserting.

You may have to bend and move around some of the branches to ensure you have the right look you were going for. Keep adjusting until you love the look!

And voila!

We still have the same lantern that we bought previously so it looks great beside the bucket. Now to purchase some pumpkins to complete the look!

How do you update your outdoor decor for the seasons? Do you look for products that are easy to change up when the seasons change?

July 15, 2014

DIY Front Door Decor

I wanted to add some flair to our front porch but didn’t want to spend too much. So after spending hours scanning Pinterest (my poor hubby!) I finally put together several designs and headed out to pick up some supplies for my own DIY front door decor. I am not too big on floral designs so I chose something that included more greenery and a slight pop of colour.

For this project you will need:

metal bucket (I picked ours up at the Dollar Store and I love it!)
bag of potpourri (I also purchased this from the Dollar Store)
stems of greenery, flowers if you would like at least two feet in length (you can trim them down to size)
foam to stick the stems in to (I tried to use Styrofoam balls – it can work but it was difficult!)
lantern in your desired colours (I chose black to match our new rails)
scissors

Directions:

Arrange your floral and greenery as you would like it look while standing. Trim the stems to your desired length (I only took off a couple of inches as I wanted the arrangement to be at least two feet high off the ground). Place the foam in the bottom of the bucket and firmly stick the stems in the foam.

Add the potpourri around the stems.

Remove any labels from your lantern.

Arrange your bucket and lantern by your front door. You can now play with the floral and greenery moving and bending them to fall as you see fit. We also updated our front porch by painting our railings black and it really made the front porch pop (we used to have white railings).

August 19, 2013

Posterjack.ca: For All Your Home and Back to School Dorm Needs!

Back to school time is upon us! Starting school away from home is hard and the easiest way to adjust is to bring little memories of home with you – I still remember crying when my Dad left my first apartment and I realized I was on my own for the first time!

Posterjack.ca has a great line of unique photo products that add that extra personal touch and help ease the changes that come with moving away from home.

Posterjack.ca has five unique and creative ways to help bring that personal touch to any dorm room or first apartment.

My personal favourite is their framed prints and photo boards. They have used these to create art shelves that would be perfect in any setting! Family portraits would be perfect for this set up. I would love this in our living room! The design is elegant and fun at the same time.

Not allowed to hang items up in the wall? Not allowed to paint? No worries – Posterjack.ca has you covered with peel and stick posters! They are safe to use on any surface and can be re-used up to 200 times!

I love creating collages – sometimes it is just way to hard to chose only one photo! Posterjack.ca provides canvas collages in different sizes to suit your needs. With their easy and quick program on their site you will have a lovely collage in no time!

One of the newest trends that I have noticed are the clotheslines photographs. Such a perfect idea for a pre-teen, teenager and dorm room! It is so fun and unique!

I think everyone has had or still has the famous clipboard photo art! I am staring at mine while I type this!! I love to be reminded constantly of my family while I am working or browsing the internet. I also keep my important to-do’s on my clipboard (although they take up far less space than my babies do!).

All of these products are simple and easy to order in three easy steps:

1. Upload your desired photo (or photos!)

2. Select your product and size.

3. Your products are delivered right to your door!

Do you purchase back to school room decor for your children? What is your favourite product?

Disclosure: I did not receive compensation for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Images are from Posterjack.ca