Housewarming Gift

My future sister and brother in law just finished building their dream home and I was on the search for the perfect housewarming gift. There are many great ones out there for each type of new home owner.

For the first time home owners:

All the important things you never knew you needed until you own a house. This house-warming bucket idea and photo came from Martha Stewart..and it's a good thing, but being my future sibs have already lived in their first house, they didn't need any of this.










For the cleaning home owners:

From the Coordinately Yours blog, there was an adorable idea for great cleaning gift.














For the good-time loving home owners (aka my future sibs):

"Bar" bouquet 

Ice bucket from Marshalls
Various alcohol minis of your home owners favorites!
Kabob sticks
Hot glue gun
Two round floral foam from Michaels

Glue bottles to the top of the kabob sticks and put them at different levels in the foam. I added white tissue paper to cover the foam.

        

Chalkboard Frame

This project has been floating around Pinterest for the last year and I've always wanted to do it. I've been keeping my eye out for the perfect frame for awhile, but didn't actually start looking for one until last week. My apartment isn't located by very many Goodwills/Thrift Stores, but just south of the city is a Thrift Shop gold mine. I'm not in that area too often, but when I was getting my pink hair extension in for Breast Cancer Awareness month in Overland Park, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to go hunting on my way home. I found my winner at Red Rack Thrift.

I was looking for something tall and skinny with a lot of texture, but most importantly was that the picture inside could be removed and the backing was thick enough to take chalk board paint. 

Surprisingly the original painting isn't awful and could have been used in any home now. But it had to go. When I ripped off the brown paper on the backing I found that there wasn't wood underneath, but thick cardboard. This could be a problem...but I figured I would try to paint on it anyway.

I spray painted the frame with primer and then white spray paint. 

I had read in many posts that actual jar chalkboard paint works better than spray, so I splurged at Lowes and purchased a small can for $13. I hardly even made a dent when painting the inside, but I figured I'll be reapplying as needed and can use it for many projects to come (wedding perhaps?!?). I was happy to see that the cardboard took the chalkboard paint very well.

I love how it turned out and I can't wait to keep writing and drawing on it! This project only took a few hours to do. All the paint dried very quickly!

I used RosaArt chalk from Target.

Pinterest Chevron Pumpkin Fail

This was a first for me. A Pinterst Fail. I saw this adorable DIY to make Chevron Pumpkins HERE and thought easy-peasy! Not so much, here was my first attempt.

 I found the plastic pumpkins and painter's tape from Michaels Craft Store.

I taped them off, using and exacto-knife to trim it as needed to make the Chevron pattern (that too a few hours!) And then I spray painted. This was my downfall. With the pumpkin having grooves, no matter how much I tried to get the tape to stick, paint still found a way under the tape! It also didn't spray on very well.

Bubble Gum machine & Bud Light??

I did attempt this pinterest project again. This time I purchased more foam-like pumpkins hoping the paint would sink into the pumpkin instead of drip. I also decided to paint the little black one with acrylic  paint instead of spray, this worked alright, but I still had some leaking. My second attempt came out better, but still not great. At this point, I'm making due with my finished product and camouflaging them on my mantle so you can't tell they are a failure.