DIY: Pretty painted glass jars

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If you’ve been on pinterest at all in the last few months, then you’ve probably seen all those pretty paint coloured glass bottles. With a rare afternoon off, I decided to give this easy, inexpensive project a try.

What you need:

• clean glass bottles
• some paint
• either a bowl or a ziplock bag to mix the paints

I used some old alcohol bottles but any clear glass bottles or jars will work. I used acrylic paint since it’s easy to find and cheap but if you want to fill the bottles with water, you’ll want to use a waterproof paint.

Used a ziplock bag or a bowl and spoon to mix the colours. Make sure you mix a lot so you don’t run out of paint. Pour it into your bottle and slowly turn the bottle to coat all the surface on the inside with paint.

Hold the bottle upside down once it’s all evenly coated to get rid of any excess paint. You might want to let it stand upside down for 5 minutes and then slowly pick it up and let the paint drip out and then leave it again. I was a bit anxious and ended up spilling paint everywhere so make sure you lay down some paper so you don’t get paint everywhere.

That’s it! Such a simple idea and it’s so easy to match it to your home decor!

DIY framed map hearts

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This week’s DIY project is a great gift idea for a travel loving couple.

One of my closest friends had met her husband, got engaged, and got married all in different countries. The two of them are big travellers so when I saw this picture frame craft on Pinterest that incorporated different maps, I just had to make it for her.

Here are some instructions if want to make your own framed map picture.

1. Find a picture frame that you like. I always gravitate towards black and white frames but I decided to be a little wild and pick up this blue frame that would compliment the colours from the map. Shadow boxes work really well for this project but I could only find them in square shapes which wouldn’t work as nicely with the composition. Decide how many areas you want to incorporate into your frame and do a rough sketch so you have an idea of what frame shape would work best for your project.

2. Find a background. You can use scrap book paper, gift wrap, or anything else you can find. I wanted to personalize it a bit so I designed a background and had it printed. I love how the maps stood out on yellow so I used that for my base. I used one of her favourite travelling quotes and repeated it in the background and added a little quote that I thought represented them well along the bottom. If you want to use this background for your picture, leave me a comment or email me and I will send it to you.

3. Find maps of all the places you want to include. Since this was for a wedding, I decided to include 3 significant places from their love story. Where they met, where they got engaged, and where they got married. If you can’t find maps, you can take usually find different maps of areas online. I decided to cut the maps out in heart shapes. But whatever shape you want is up to you. I’d recommend cutting out the shapes on scrap paper so you can play around with the sizes and placement before cutting into your map.

4. Once you are happy with the placement of your hearts, use glue, or double sided tape to stick them down. I wanted to add a bit of depth to the picture so I used foam double sided tape to raise the maps off the background ever so slightly.

5. TA DA! There you have it, a perfect gift for your travel loving friends!

Let me know if you’ve done a similar project. Or if you’ve made any other travel themed DIY projects!

DIY: How to reupholster a bench

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This week’s post is courtesy of Michelle. After seeing some of her projects on instagram, I was very excited when she agreed to do a tutorial on how to reupholster a bench. I admire her simple, and whimsical style and love her taste in fabrics. Follow along as she shows us how to turn an old foot stool in to an adorable children’s bench.

The project: DIY Old, second-hand footstool converted into a sweet little children’s bench!

Tools:

• Staple Lifter (Lee Valley) 
• Scissors 
• Staple Gun (I use a Paslode Pneumatic staple gun hooked up to a small air compressor, but a simple, manual staple gun will work just as well!) 
• 1.5″ thick foam (available from some fabric/craft/flooring stores)
• Polyester Batting, in sheet form (available at fabric stores)
• Fabric 
• Sand Paper
• Paint (for simple colours I use spray paint, for more variety, simple latex paint in matte finish with a durable, clear top coat) 

How cute is the finished product!? Michelle made it look so simple that I’m now hunting through the classifieds to find an old storage bench to reupholster myself! Good luck with your own projects and let me know how they turn out!

DIY: Turn an old bottle into a pretty gold vase

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After a trip to the market and coming home with more sunflowers than I have vases for, I had to whip up a quick solution. After digging through the recycling bin, I found an empty tequila bottle that would be perfect. Make sure you peel off any labels so that your finished project is nice and smooth. I use hot water and steel wool to get off the stubborn labels.

Gold spray paint has become a staple around the house so I grabbed a can, an old pizza box and some paper and set up shop on the balcony. If it’s a windy day, I’d recommend taping down your cardboard/paper so it doesn’t blow on to your project.

I used Krylon Premium 18k Gold plate spray paint. When spraying layers, multiple thin layers works much better than trying to cover everything in one coat. When you spray on a layer that is too think, the paint doesn’t dry as quick and it will start to drip down the bottle.

The whole project took a little over an hour and I think it’s a nice addition to my desk.