Category: Home Decor

Those of you who follow me on Facebook already got a little preview of this project. Well, not so much the actual project – more like what happened to my finger while doing this project.

I’ve been working on my master bedroom update for awhile and have been collecting new stuff for the room over the past few months – new duvet cover, a pretty quilt, curtains, a new trunk for the end of the bed, blah blah blah. Well, all these thing cost money and I was starting to feel like this project was adding up to WAY more than I wanted (I haven’t actually totaled everything yet, I was just getting that feeling).

So, when I started shopping around for new sheets and realized that I couldn’t find exactly the color I imagined in my head AND they were all super expensive, I decided to get a little crafty.

I already had a pair of flannel sheets that were super worn and comfy, but they were kind of an ugly light green color. I’ve never actually dyed anything before (besides my hair and tye-dying stuff at Girl Scout camp), so I was a bit apprehensive about dying my sheets. It just seemed like a great big pain in the keister while also being quite messy.

I put on my big girl pants and decided to do it and I’m kind of mixed on the results.

First, here’s my step-by-step of what I did:

So, yay — I saved money and dyed my own sheets. I kind of half-way followed the directions on the Rit bottle, but looking back I probably should have bought a couple more bottles of dye to throw in there. I really wanted a more vibrant blue color… kind of like the shade of blue they were before I washed all the dye out. Of course, who knows if the sheets would have even sucked in more dye if it had been added.

All in all, I’m not really going to call this little project a “win”, more like a “eh..better than they were before”. In person, they do look like a pretty faded blue, rather than a dumpy pissy green. So, I can’t really complain too much — I spent around $8 and it took less than 30 minutes of my time.

How about you, have you dyed anything instead of buying new?

PS. If you haven’t completed my quick one question survey (and entered to win something AWESOME), please take a minute to click here.

For my second little project that went down when I was home on Hurricane Sandy arrest, it literally took me about 10 minutes and made me super happy.

My Nana passed away in March and after her passing my grandfather allowed me to choose some of her jewelry for my own. Well, I’m kind of a picky jewelry person but I did find a few pieces that really reminded me of her so I added them to my collection.

Some of the things that were so very Nana were a few of her brooches. She wore them all the time to dress up a nice jacket or sweater and liked them so much that my mom started giving her one each year at Christmas.

She had one pin in particular that was very special to me, a small circle that was engraved with her name, Claire. She had lent me that pin on my wedding day as my “something borrowed” and I had it attached to my bouquet that I carried down the aisle. At the reception, instead of throwing my bouquet, I presented it to my grandmother because she and my grandfather were celebrating 60 years of marriage that same year that my husband and I got married.

When going through her jewelry, I chose that pin as well as four other brooches that she liked. Since I don’t really wear pins myself, I decided to use them for a fun project while still keeping them untouched so I could wear them in the future.

I had a couple canvas frames left over from when I ripped the monkey and lion pictures off them for Jack’s room and also had a scrap of neutral fabric left over from my kitchen curtains. So I gathered my materials:

I stapled the fabric on to the frame with a staple gun, keeping it pulled tight all the way around.

 

Then, I just stuck the pins through the fabric in a way that I thought was pretty. That was it. Super simple and a snazzy way to display my Nana’s brooches when I’m not wearing them.

I’m not exactly sure where I’ll put the brooch canvas yet. I’m thinking that after I finish my master bedroom update I might hang it or lean it against the wall. I just think it’s a cute way to display my grandmother’s jewelry and makes me smile whenever I see it.