Glitter Candle Holders

My best friend is also engaged (yay!), and is in the process of planning her wedding for next summer. She has some fantastic DIY decor ideas and right now she’s assigning projects to her freinds and family so we can help her figure out how to practically make things. My assignment… Glitter candle holders. To tackle this, I basically went to the craft store and bought a sample of anything glittery that could be used to glitter-fy glass candle holders. And there were a LOT of options! Good news is that there was definitely a clear winner in looks, and the bonus was it was one of the easiest to make! Results 2
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Calendar Wall Art DIY

Galley Wall 4 I really enjoy making my own wall art. Not only is it typically cheaper than buying art, but it’s also cheaper and more unique. With our big remodel complete I’ve been on the hunt for cool things for our walls. Hopefully this project is just the beginning! Recently, I was at Barnes & Nobel and found a really cool calendar featuring WPA Poster Art of the National Parks. Standing in the store I instantly knew I wanted to put these beautiful posters on my wall. Combine those posters with some framed paper maps and I’ve got a perfect gallery wall in our family room!

May Calendar

Isn’t the art beautiful?

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Map Coasters

I love gift giving, and I especially like making gifts for people. Last year I decided to make personalized map coasters for my uncles and grandpa. Adding maps personalized to important places to the reciever is easy and fun. Plus they all had a challange figuring out the pattern! For my grandpa, I covered coasters with maps of the places where his grandkids live. There are tons of options, plus maps can be easily printed from the internet, or free from AAA if you are a member. I originally found this idea on Martha Stewart’s craft site.
Coaster 1

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Easy Wall Art – Framing Paper

IMG_2895 copy I’ve always loved to make my own wall art. The easiest, least skill-necessary, wall art project I’ve done is framing paper. Pretty paper, some scissors.. and BAM instant wall art (I usually hear a BAM because at some point I drop either the frame or the scissors on my foot!). But injuries aside, it is crazy easy. My most recent project stemmed from a visit to The Paper Source, the most wonderful and evil store. Wonderful because it has tons of really fabulous paper and other crafting supplies, plus the employees are super crafty and always have great ideas. Evil because I want to buy ALL THE PAPER! Luckily this time I escaped with only a few sheets.

One sheet of paper, frames & mats from Ikea and instant wall art! Total project cost = $25. Continue reading

Household Records Retention Guidelines

Files

My office had a company-wide clean up event last week. This is important because I love to sort stuff, so it’s like Disneyland in the office for me! But I’ve also discovered, while I am very organized I don’t really like getting rid of things (see last week’s post). As part of this work exercise, I’ve realized that I really need to sort through my papers at home too.
So, I’ve tried to gather some information to create household records retention guidelines for personal and household papers to help with sorting and purging files. Continue reading

Recipe Binder

Whew! It’s been a busy couple of weeks! In fact, so busy that I didn’t have time for blog posts, the gym, or dusting. And I ALWAYS make time for dusting! One thing that saved me over the past couple of weeks was my recipe binder. My recipes, which are a variety of computer printouts, magazine pages, and 3×5 cards, are all organized and easily found. No more overstuffed little recipe box for me! Here’s how to make one for yourself…
Recipe Binders Continue reading