Silver for the Season

Remember when I posted about the Crate and Barrel holiday event? Well it made me realize that this holiday season is all about metallic. I happen to love metallic silver, so I decided that would be the theme of my holiday decorating this year! I got out my silver spray paint and looked for things I could cover in it.

I had been seeing things on Pinterest where you spray paint pinecones. I went outside to our pine tree and picked mini pinecones and a bag full of pine branches. Then, I spray painted the pinecones and some of the pine branches silver. The rest of the branches I left green and used those as decoration too.

The next metallic project was silver glitter pears. I bought the pears at the dollar store for a dollar each. I also bought some spray adhesive for about two dollars and I had some silver glitter. Here are the pears before:

 
First, I spray painted the pears so that if they weren't completely covered in glitter, the yellow wouldn't show through. I used the silver for this. Here are them painted:

Then, I sprayed each one with spray adhesive and rubbed on the glitter. This was a messy project so I suggest doing it in the garage.

And here are the after pictures with all of the decorations put together!

I hope you all have a splendid silver season! Check back in later for more Christmas decorations and a booth update.

Wine & Dine

As the holiday season is upon us, I thought I would share an easy, DIY hostess gift. After we had our housewarming party, I realized how much work it is to throw a party. So I decided to make a hostess gift for my aunt since she was hosting Thanksgiving.

At our Thanksgiving there is usually some wine to enjoy and that's why I decided to make wine tags! I have some wine corks as decoration at home and I used those to make the wine tags.

Here's the DIY:

What you need:
1. Wine corks (8)
2. A needle
3. Pliers
4. Wire cutters (or plant clippers)
5. Straight pins for jewelry (they have an eye)
6. Earring hooks

Directions:
1. Put the needle in the cork to make a starter hole through it. You will need the pliers to pull it out.

2. Put the straight pin through the cork and cut off the excess at the end. Push the extra back in the cork.

 
3. Put the earring holder through the eye.

It's so easy and pretty cheap! You can get most of it in the jewelry section at any big box store. I am looking forward to using some I made for our house at our wine and cheese party! Here's the after pic:

Little red dresser

We found a mid-century modern dresser that we just had to buy for the booth. We didn't want to paint it, but the top was really scratched up and there were some spots on the sides. So we decided to paint it red.

Here is what it looked before:

Like I said, we didn't want to paint it, but you can't really see the wear in this picture.


We loved the hardware, so we kept that the same. We finished painting it this week and put it in the booth. Here is the after picture:

Even though we didn't initially want to paint it, we love the way this piece turned out! And we love giving the booth some pops of color.


And here is what the booth likes now:

Check back in later this week for a post about a holiday event I went to at Crate and Barrel over the weekend!

Turkey time

This past weekend my mom and I went to an event at Crate and Barrel. It was all about prepping for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. As a 20 something I have never hosted a Thanksgiving. So I thought this would be a fun way to start learning. Especially since I could shop afterwards!

We learned about carving a turkey. She used a chicken, but they are both birds, so it was very similar. One great tip I learned was to find the breast bone and gently cut on each side of it to efficiently cut the breast meat. Also, the skin is one of the best parts (it has so much flavor). She said you have to cut gently enough to keep the skin on. Here is a picture of her carving the breast bone.

The other tips she gave us were about serving the turkey. I never would have thought about this. One great tip she gave us was to put the different parts of the turkey together. That way, people can easily pick out the pieces of meat they like. So many people only like one type of meat.  Setting up the tray this way makes for a speedy turkey line! She set up her tray with some green and some lemon. The colors looked so pretty and I wanted to use the lemon so bad! Here's a picture of her tray:

I also saw some place settings that I really loved! I think it's a great idea to put an ornament on everyone's plate. Not only does it make the plate look beautiful, but it's a great gift for them to take home. It really starts of the holiday season! You could pick pinecones and spray paint them metallic and use some fishing line to make an ornament. That would be a DIY way to make the following ornament:

Lastly, I have decided that metallic is the trend this year. And I love metallic, so it's awesome to me! Here is a picture of their display. Metallic city.

Yay for the holidays, especially metallic ones! I hope you have a fabulous Thanks day celebrating with your family!

Here's the Mail

Here's the mail it never fails. Have you ever had a large amount of mail or bill records that you don't know what to do with? Well we have a stack or records in our junk drawer in the kitchen and I was tired of it. So I found this vintage box at Midland, one of my favorite places obviously, that I thought would be perfect.

However, I thought it needed just a little something more to make it pop. I decided to paint it all teal besides the door, especially since it had some rough patches.

It definitely need two coats (which is why I put the paintbrush in the fridge).

Here is what it ended up looking like. I am very pleased with the results!

Random tip

So as I was working on a project today I thought of a random tip I thought I would share with you. This is a tip I learned from my wonderful fiance, whose dad is a contractor. These things are like second nature to him, but I thought it was a clever tip I should share.

Many times when I am painting something, one coat just won't do. Often times I need to put a second, or even third coat on it. As a someone who wants to conserve paintbrushes (especially when I use oil-based paint that doesn't come out easily) I thought this was a great tip. So here it is. Between coats, you can put the paintbrush in saran wrap or a plastic bag and put it in the fridge. This will doubly keep it from drying out. Then you can use it for a second coat!

Stay tuned for the project I am working on that sparked this post!

Weekend update

Yesterday, Kyle and I put some new pieces in the booth and rearranged a little bit. We wanted it to be ready for the busiest time of the week at Midland: the weekend.

The first piece is a floor lamp that we decided to paint white. This is what it looked like before:

We had it in the booth like this, but we decided it looked a little too old fashioned. So we decided to pain it white. Here is what it looks like in the booth:

I think it looks a lot fresher and old fashioned in a good way now.


The next item we put in the booth is a mid-century modern buffet or dresser. I really like how geometric it is and the way the handles come together in a pattern.

And lastly, we added a headboard and footboard. We thought about painting this, but we really liked the gold accents.

Here is an overall picture of the booth:

Happy weekend shopping!