Decorate a Wall for $1.99

First, I want to apologize for the horrible photos in the post. By the time I got over to Jamie's last night it was dusk so it was nearly impossible to get any good shots. We tried to shine one of the industrial worklamps they have there in the room but it really just ended up casting some weird shadows.  Also, I think this project would be better suited for a nursery but as Jamie is trying to save up her money to finish off accessorizing the main rooms downstairs we thought it would be a nice temporary fix to her guest bedroom. We used paint she already had (Benjamin Moore's Alexadria Beige) to paint the branch and then used one roll of crepe paper (for $1.99) to make the flowers.  You can view our crepe paper flower tutorial here.


I had intended on making this post a tutorial but decided not to because the photos didn't come out as planned.  Basically what I did was draw the branch in pencil on the wall and then outlined it with paint.  Then I filled in the rest of the branch, adding a few nobs and bumps to make it look a bit more natural.  Lastly, we attached the crepe flowers to the ends of most of the branches with puddy.  We are thinking about going back and adding some flowers along a few of the branches and possibly throwing in a couple of smaller blooms.  This would be a quick, easy, and incredibly cheap way to add a whimsical touch to a nursery or little girl's room.

















Hope you all have a great fourth of July weekend!

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Decorate a Wall for $1.99

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Hanging Branch Tutorial

Well, this weekend we finally added the branch to the nursery so it is now completely done. Now we just need our little munchkin to hurry up and get here. Just three and a half more weeks until she's due, but I am certainly hoping she comes a little bit earlier.  When we did the branch in Lillie's room a month or so ago we got a lot of questions about how we did it, so I am going to do my best to show you. This is one of my favorite projects because I love the natural element it provides and it was FREE! Well, the one in the nursery was free, the one in Lillie's room I did have to buy the cardstock for the birds but otherwise it was free. Also, I know you all are probably getting sick of seeing photos of our house as that has been all the last several posts have been about. My next two posts will be some fun project ones -  I promise!




First, here is what it looks like in the nursery now:
   





And here is the original one we did in Lillian Annabel's room:
  



 
So here's how we did it:
1) First we went out in the woods and collected a few different branches to try. Once we held them up in the nursery and found the one we liked best we started spray-painting it.  Lillie seemed to think the more paint she could get on her feet the better!



2) Completely coat your branch to get it how you want. (For the one in Lillie's room I wanted it to look like birch tree branch so I just did a light coating on it and let a lot of the natural branch color show through. For the one in the nursery I wanted it to be completely ivory colored so we thoroughly covered it in paint.)



We got a lot of e-mails wondering what color and brand spray paint we used for our egg topiaries and wreaths so I thought for this project I would make sure to include this information (this is a different color than we used for the topiaries). Anyway, it is from Lowe's and is by Valspar. The color is Churchill Hotel Vanilla and the finish is Satin. I used this spray paint for another project a while back and did NOT like how it looked, however I was really happy with how it looked on the branch.






3) Once the branch was dry it was time to hang it from the ceiling. For Lillie's room I had used two hooks similar to this one but smaller. (I didn't feel like hauling the ladder upstairs and climbing it just to get a good picture so I thought I would take a photo of the closest thing I had to it. Please note, though, the hooks I used in Lillie's room were much smaller!)



I didn't have any of the small hooks left when I hung the one in the nursery so I just used two of these:



 4) Once I had the two hooks/screws safely in the ceiling I tied on some clear plastic wire. For the ones in the nursery I tied it around the base of the screw and then tightened the screw all the way into the ceiling so hold the clear wire tight. For the hooks, I just tied the clear wire in triple knots onto the hook.



5) Next I held the branch to about where I wanted it and tied each of the wires to the branch so that the branch was now hanging suspended from the ceiling.  (In the photo below I heighted the contrast so you could really see the clear wire hanging and where it is tied onto the branch. You an also see the brown string hanging from the branch as well, which I will get to next).
 
6) Once your branch is securely hanging from the ceiling it is time to hang the birds. For Lillie's room I used nine birds cut out from cardstock. For the nursery I used seven  birds cut out in fabric and I used a heat transfer to iron them together so they would be thicker and wouldn't just flop all over seeing how the fabric was so lightweight.  Then I punched a small hole in the top wing and just used regular sewing thread to hang each bird from the branch. For the nursery I used a light brown thread to help blend in with the wall color and in Lillie's room I used a light gray thread. It really helps using a thread color close to your wall color so that when you look at the branch and birds you don't even notice any of the string you just notice the branch and birds.
 




And there you have it! And as you can see in these two photos, which I did not do any photoshopping to,  you can barely see the thread at all (you can see the clear wire a little bit, but that is just because it is pretty thick to make sure it holds the branch up).





 


The weather here has been beautiful the past few days and we have been spending most of our days and evenings down in Colonial Williamsburg.  Here is Lillie getting ready to head out for a picnic on Monday. She informed me she needed her sunglasses and backpack and off she went to find them. She thought she was pretty cool!



And here she is with her horse friends:

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Hanging Branch Tutorial

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Finally - The Ruffled Lampshade Tutorial, Some More Pictures of Lillie's Room and a Giveaway at Forty Toes

Whew! My internet is finally working again. It started acting up Monday and would work for a few minutes and then cut off. I was able to get some things done but didn't get to finish this blog post because blogger wasn't loading at all and only got through a few e-mails and convos because it kept cutting out on me. Then when I came downstairs last night after putting Lillie down  I couldn't get online at all - arghhhhh! I had so much to do and wasted over two and a half hours trying to "fix" it but finally just gave up. I found out, though, it wasn't just our internet so at least I feel better knowing I didn't do anything to mess it up. Anyway, it just now finally came back on - yay! I am praying it will stay on long enough for me to quickly get this post up and then focus on printing all of the shipping labels that I would have printed last night and maybe even start in on e-mails before Lillie wakes up. That might be pushing my luck, though! =) As always I was horribly behind on e-mails, convos, etc. and two days with little to no internet access just pushed me back further so please bear with me and I will try to get back to everyone as soon as I can.


Here is the first ruffled lampshade I did for the nursery a couple of weeks ago. I did it spur of the moment without any real plan but liked how it turned out so ended up making a couple more. This one is still my favorite, though! To see more photos of the nursery click here.
 





And here is the one I made for our master bedroom. 
To see more photos of that room click here.






And here is the one I made Sunday evening for Lillie's room. This one is just temporary, though as I really want to make one like this for her room so as soon as I have some time. This one was made ridiculously quick and I made a couple of mistakes on it but, oh well. Here it is:






Here is what you need:


 ruler
scissors
glue gun
sewing machine OR needle and thread
a lampshade (I am a big fan of drum shaped shades)
fabric (for all three of mine I used extra fabric from other projects so it was free!)



1) First measure your shade. Mine was nine inches high.



2). Now divide that by three if you want to do a shade with three ruffles. (If you want to do more just adjust). Once you have divided it by three (which for mine was 3") add 1" to that number for the width of each strip of fabric you will cut. This is where I messed up on making Lillie's. I couldn't remember if I had added 1/2" to each strip or 1" to each when I had made the other two.  That's what happens when you have pregnancy brain. I made both of those other shades just a couple of weeks ago so I should have been able to remember. I decided to go with 1/2" and when the time came to glue it onto the shade was kicking myself because it definitely was 1"! Now start cutting three long strips. Because I was just using fabric that I already had I cut it the longest way I possibly could. I didn't end up having enough to go around though once it was ruffled so I ended up needing another one and a half strips to add to the ruffles. I recommend starting with three but you may need to cut more. Also, I did not hem these but wish I had of. I love the frayed look of the fabric on the one in the nursery because I think it helps dress it down a bit but don't really like the frayed look as much in Lillie's room. If you are going to want to hem each ruffle than make sure to add a little more so you have room to hem them down to 4".
 


3) Next I started sewing. Here are the settings I put my machine at 
so it would "ruffle" the fabric for me. 






4). Then I just started at the top and stitched down the middle of each strip!


***** Note: You do NOT need a sewing machine for this project. You can simply hand stitch a straight line down the middle as well and then pull the thread once you get to the end and "ruffle" the fabric yourself. Or if you do have a sewing machine but can't get this to work you can just set the stitch to the longest possible setting (seven on mine) and when you get to the end just pull the string and ruffle it yourself. It is a bit embarrassing to admit but I owned this sewing machine for FOUR years before I figured out it ruffled on it's own. I used to just sew with it on seven and ruffle it myself.  Also, I have been asked several times if I have a special "foot" or anything else that I add to my machine to make it ruffle. No, I don't. I just put the settings as shown above and sew away.



As with just about all house projects,  my little helper felt the need to be very involved so she got to do her special part of "pushing the pedal" to make the machine go! She's actually getting pretty good at it. When I first started letting her help me back in November when we made those Silent Night pillows it was a VERY bumpy ride =).



5). Now it's time to glue. I didn't use a ton of glue for any of these lampshades because I always love trying new projects and know that in a few months I may want to do something new with them so I used the glue sparingly so I could easily pull the fabric off. 



6) I started with the middle ruffle because then it was easier to make sure it looked uniform on the top and bottom. I think I used about 4 or 5 drops of glue on my way around the shade and then just pressed the fabric down onto it.



7) Now add the top ruffle and bottom ruffle and that's it! You are done! 



We also added the mirror in here a couple of weeks ago when we started switching everything around for the nursery and I stole the frame that was in here (that was way too small!) and put it in the nursery and we moved the mirror in here.

 







I also added the pictures to the empty wall next to the bed Lillie sleeps in so her room is now officially done except for one thing I want to do with the window seat area, but that is below about ten other projects on my list so it may be a while before I get to it.










If you want to see the rest of Lillie's big girl room click here.




On another note, our friend, Jenn is hosting a HUGE giveaway on her blog Forty Toes for over $1000 worth of items, including our Je T'aime Dress! She is one the sweetest people in the world and has four of the most beautiful children I have ever seen. I have written about her here on our blog before as she has become such a sweet friend and is so talented. Here are a few photos by her of her gorgeous little girl, Stella Marie:














Be sure to head on over and check it out
and come back Friday as we will be hosting a 
giveaway for one of our tutus!


Have a fabulous Wednesday!











Linking up to Savvy Southern Style.

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Finally - The Ruffled Lampshade Tutorial, Some More Pictures of Lillie's Room and a Giveaway at Forty Toes

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