Family Definition Board

This was a project I did way back when I first started my 

craft blog almost 2 years ago. 

I decided to do another post on it because it is 

one of my favorite little projects I have done and 

since its old and I didn't have many 

followers back then,

 I have decided to bring it from the vault!! 

{A lot of you have probably not seen it yet!}

I wanted something with the definition of family on it. 

I have loved this idea and wanted to do something for my home with it. 

I don't have my own house so I didn't want to put straight vinyl on a wall since I am not living where I am now forever so I put it on a wood board.

Here is what

 The Family Definition Board

looks like:

What I Used:

-9"x11" wood board

-Sand Paper

-Paint of any color (I used Buttermilk Cream)

-Stain (I used Early American)

-Vinyl (I used Brown)

-Mod Podge

-Flet & Burlap for the flowers

-Hot Glue Gun

How I Made It:

First, paint the wood the color you have chosen. I only painted the top of it because I wanted to stain the rest. I did 2 coats on mine. 

Then I sanded the edges a little bit so I could see wood around it on the front side. I like being able to see the stain color around the paint. 

Next, I stained the whole thing. I even put it over the paint on the front. Some spots I did heavier then others because I wanted an old fashioned look to it. 

Next, I put together the definition about family that I wanted. 

I set it up leaving a space in the top corner so I could put some flowers for embellishment.

Then I cut that out in brown vinyl using my cricut and put it on the board. 

Next, I put a coat of mod podge over the vinyl because I didn't want any of the letters or dots to have a chance to fall off!

While that was drying I made some felt flowers to put in the corner of the plaque. 

For the tutorials on how to make the Rosette and the Burlap Fan go here.

Here is the tutorial on how to make the ring flowers:

First, cut a circle out of felt. I used a small cup to trace my circle because I wanted them smaller. 

Then you are going to cut in a spiral motion to the center of the flower. It will look like this:

Next, starting in the center of the flower you will start rolling it. Putting dabs of hot glue every few rolls.

Make sure to put a dab of hot glue on the very end to secure it in place.

When you are all done making the flowers, hot glue them on to the board.

I just love how it turned out! I chose the more neutral colors so that it could go in any room I decided to put it in when I have a home of my own. 

I love reading over this great reminder of what a family is!!

Joining the Following Link Parties HERE

Easy Painted {Patriotic Mason Jars}

These were so easy to make 
and are such a fun decor with 
these mason jars coming into home decor lately!

What You Will Need To Make Them:

-3 Mason Jars {I used 2 different sized. 1 big and 2 little}

-Red, White and Blue Craft Paint

-Cardboard or Tin Foil {not pictured}

How I Made Them:

If you remember the Easy Painted Vases {HERE}
 that I made a couple of months ago, these were done just like those.


All I did was put a bit of paint in the jar, turned it upside down and started turning it so the paint would go all over the jar, like this:

After you get the paint fully covered on the inside you will set them upside down to drip the access paint. This will take a couple of hours. Just keep checking and then moving it to a clean area so you can really monitor it.

Then when all the paint as seemed to drip off you will set them up right to fully dry. I set mine outside because it was a super hot day so I knew they would dry pretty fast.

When you fill they are fully dry, you can put the rings back on them and put a flower in if you would like! 

If you want to leave them without these, you will want to take sand paper to the tops of them to get rid of any paint that needs to be removed on the outside lip. 

That's it!!

So easy and they turn out gorgeous!!

Hope you have an 
AMAZING 4TH OF JULY HOLIDAY
this week!!!

Joining the Following Link Parties HERE

Thrift Chair Upcycle & Reupholster

As I have mentioned before my hubby and I recently opened a business.

{I will do a post on that soon!}

We wanted to have a little waiting area where people could sit while

they are waiting or to look at some of our stuff. 

For this waiting area I upcycled a thirft store end table, 

which you can find HERE, to put there and now 

I needed chairs to put by the table. 

One day we were walking through the surplus store up at the University of Utah 

so we could see what they had...also because I had never been in there before. 

Up on the very 3rd floor of this little building where the PERFECT chairs 

I wanted to use. They had that fancy look to them and I knew I could 

paint them and reupholster them to get the very look I wanted. 

Here is a picture of the chairs:

Aren't they gorgeous?!? Ok, with a little love they will be! 

Overall they weren't too difficult to makeover. 

The hardest part was the upholstering. Really just getting the old stuff off!!

Here is a look of the transformation:

How I Upcycled Them:

I wasn't sure at first what color I wanted them to be. I kind of wanted them blue and yellow, but I wasn't sure if I could find fabric that I liked. My hubby and I went to Joann's and look through the upholstery section. I found lots that I liked, but just couldn't seem to fall in love. After forever looking we walked away to look at the regular fabrics. We decided to go back one more time to look at the upholstery fabrics. I went back to one that I was really liking and then turned around only to find a yellow piece of fabric sitting on the clearance table. I had to look at it. It turned out to be upholstery fabric and I fell in LOVE with it. After all I LOVE me some yellow! It was just the size we needed to cover the chairs.
Here is the fabric:

After we bought the fabric and blue spray paint, I got to work.

First, we unscrewed the seat from the chair.

I then dusted them off....they must have been sitting up there forever at the store! Then I set up a little paint station in my front yard on some work horses.

Next, I got to work with the spray paint. I put on 4 coats of paint. It took most of a day to get that done. I used Krylon's Blue Ocean Breeze spray paint, bought at Walmart. I love this color right now! 

I let the chairs dry for the rest of the day.

The next morning I pulled the chairs back out and applied a Polycrylic Clear Coat onto the chairs so they would be protected. I put 3 coats of that on.

While those were drying, my hubby and I got to work on the fun part....REUPHOLSTERING!!! I have to be honest I was totally scared to reupholster anything. I have never done it before and it seemed like it would be hard. After doing these chairs, I am ready to reupholster some more! It truly wasn't that hard, just a little time consuming. The hardest part like I said before was getting all the staples out from the old upholstery. 

Here is what you will need to reupholster:

-New Fabric
-Scissors
-Staple Gun
-Staples
-You will also need these {or something similar} to remove the old staples

My hubby and I tired many ways to remove the staples, but we found these tools to work the best - a staple remover and pliers. We did find that you should use the pliers to hold the staple remover to give it stronger hold while using it on the staples. If you remove it just a little bit with that then you could just use the pliers to remove the staple the rest of the way. 

After my amazing hubby got the staples out for me, I took the old piece and used it as a pattern to cut out the new fabric.

Then we were able to put on the new fabric. A couple of tips: 

1.When putting on the new fabric you will want to stretch it enough so its smooth, but not too much or it could tear when someone sits on it.

2. You will use lots of staples!

3. None of your corners will probably look the same...THAT'S OK!!!

What you will want to do first is staple two opposite sides and then do the next two sides, leaving some room by the corners. You will do those last.

After you get all the sides done you will do the corners. The corners are definitely the hardest part of this. Your corners probably won't look the same and that ok! Unless you are pro at this they are tricky!!

We just folded them in different ways...trying to get them to look similar...until it looked good!

And last but not least....we screwed the seat back onto the chair!

I don't think they turned out took bad for our first time ever 

making over and reupholstering chairs!

I totally love how they turned out and I love the contrast from the yellow and blue! 

Joining the Following Link Parties HERE

Thrifted Table Makeover

As I told you in my End Table Makeover Post HERE,

my hubby and I are getting ready to open a store. We needed a big table to do our 

work at. 

My hubby heard about a surplus store that they have at the University of Utah. 

We went to check it out one day. I can't believe all they had there for 

super cheap. We bought this table there for $30.00. It is a solid wood table, so 

really good quality.

I didn't really care for the color of it so I talked my hubby into letting me 

refinish it to something to match our store. 

I knew it would be so pretty to do the two toned table with the dark stain on top and white on the bottom. 

Here is a Tutorial on 

how we gave this table a makeover:

First, we had to sand and strip the finish that was on top of the table. We didn't worry about the legs or underneath boards because I am going to spray paint them.

I tried sanding the table, but it was taking forever so my hubby got out his paint stripper cream and we did it that way. We rubbed it on and used a big scrapper to get it off. We did a little sanding after we stripped it.

After a few hours of trying to get that off we were finally done. 

Next, we put it on top of work horses upside down. Then I spray painted the legs and lower boards of the table. I used the Rustoleum white spray paint. I put about 5 coats on it so it was bright white. 

After that dried a little we flipped the table over, still leaving it on the work horses, so we could stain the top of it. We used the stain color Jacobean. We put 2 coats of that on. 

We let that dry over night and the next morning we put our company logo on it. 

{If you are doing a dinning room table you can totally skip this step :)}

I forgot to get a picture of this last step. Sorry!

Lastly we put 3 coats of the Polycrylic Semi-Glossy Clear Coat on top of that. It was with the quart can and we just used a paint brush to put it on with. You could probably get away with 2 coats but we needed 3 to help smooth where the vinyl lettering is so you couldn't really feel it in the table. 

It was a lot of hard work getting this one done, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way it turned out!

I will be doing this on my future kitchen table...when I have one in my own place!

Joining the Following Link Parties HERE