Valentine's Series #2 DIY Beaded Bracelets

I wanted to make something for all the women I work with for Valentine's Day and I saw these cute bracelets on Food Coma (I love the Red Velvet Girls!)

You'll Need:

-waxed cotton/linen cord

- seed beads

-scissors 

-2 holed buttons

Here are the instructions from the original website. Check it out! There are other DIY bracelets that I can't wait to try too.

http://honestlywtf.com/diy/diy-beaded-bracelet/

If you want to make them into Valentine's Favors like I did the extras I used were:

-red yarn

-a hole puncher

-heart shaped doilies 

I has a bit of a hard time at first but after you do one bracelet you get the hang of it. I didn't take pictures of the process. (My hands were too busy! Hehe...)

 Here's the finished product...

I love how they turned out. Very cheap to make a lot of these too!

To make them into Valentine's "cards" or "favors" I took heart shaped doilies and made two hole punches at the top and tied yarn through the holes to make a bow. Then I attached the bracelet to the loop the yarn made in the back. 

I hope the girls at work like them! 

Valentine's Day Series #1 - DIY Scatchers

My husband and I are kind of obsessed with scratchers and I just won $50 on a $2 ticket! I find them pretty exciting! So I looked googled "how to make homemade scratchers" and I found a lot of how to make cat scratcher tutorials. After a little more searching I found a Martha Stewart Save the Date Scratch Offs How To. Martha's idea was very cute and came out way cuter than mine! But I like that mine have a really homemade feel. They are just going to my hubby not sent out for anyone else to see.

Here's what you'll need:

-dish soap

-acrylic paint

-card stock or thick paper

-a little paint brush (the smaller the better)

-scissors 

-packing tape

Cut your card stock into "scratcher sized" squares. Decorate the card how you'd like. Then make a grid with random numbers and below those numbers put what prize you'd like the person to win. At the top of your grid you can make a place for "winning numbers" (be creative with this part. If you've ever scratched a scatcher you'll have an idea, if not, go out and buy a $1 one!)

After you decorate it and make your grid, lamminate your card. I used packing tape. If you want to buy laminate I'm sure it would look a lot better and professional. (I wasn't going for professional, hehe.)

Mix about one part soap two parts paint on a paper plate for your "scratcher mixture"

After you laminate paint over what you want to be scratched off. I didn't have a small brush. Mine was way too bulky but if you have a small brush it'd be easier to make heart shapes over the numbers rather than the blob circles I made. If you want to you can wait for the paint to dry over night and scrap the paint to a more desirable shape.

I did mine in a hurry because I didn't have much time. I hope you try it out! It's pretty fun!

Circus Bear Vintage

Look what I received in the mail! Just some more to add to my owl collection!

I got them from Kayla at  The Dainty Squid. She has a somewhat new shop called Circus Bear Vintage!

This is by far my favorite owl figurine I owl so far!

I suggest you head over to the shop. So many cute vintage items and very fast shipping!

New Shelves & DIY Bookends

My very kind and generous husband had a great idea of putting up new shelves in our apartment. We had an old wood book shelf that we were using for DVDs and Blu-Rays but it was getting full and getting full fast. We had a great empty wall for this idea. When we put up the shelves and started putting up all of the DVDs and Blu-Rays we knew right away we needed bookends...

We started shopping for bookends and found the cute 'a to z' ones at Barnes and Noble (see second to last shelf). They were around $50.00! Kind of pricey to me for bookends! 

So I'm kind of addicted to Instagram (follow me! @jessicaneedham) and I follow Elsie from A Beautiful Mess and this weekend she put up a picture of a spray painted brick for a bookend. That got me thinking...I could use vintage looking wrapping paper instead of spray paint! Then my husband said, "why don't you use the vintage fabric you have just laying around?" ...So that's just what I did...

Brick bookends wrapped in vintage fabric... (see 3rd shelf in above photo)

You'll Need:

- 2 bricks (43 cents a piece at Lowe's!)

-vintage fabric (check the thrift stores, so cheap)

- Scissors

- Glue gun

Cut your fabric just big enough to wrap you brick, you don't want too much extra fabric

Wrap it just like you would wrap a gift and everywhere you'd put tape use the glue gun instead

Simple as that!

(see 2nd shelf)

Aren't they pretty! Super easy too!

Flowers Everywhere in Your Home

One of my new goals for 2012 is to be happy hanging out at home. We live in a tiny apartment and we love the location and the place it self but it's kind of an old place. Little by little we decided we'll do little projects here and there to spruce up the place. It makes us proud and happy to be in our apartment. 

So far we: 

- put up shelves in our dining area for my Pyrex

- we made a pretty faux flower lamp

- made a wall in our dining area chalkboard

Another little thing I have been doing about every 2 to 3 weeks is buying a cheap bouquet of flowers from the grocery store. All you need is 1 bunch that usually costs $7 to $10. I never spend more than that.

This bunch I paid $7.99 for.

You'll need little jars or bottles. ( I used recycled jam jars, Martinelli's apple juice bottles, and old mini glass vases I found)

When you get your flowers at the store make sure you grab a few of those flower food packets. I use a good amount in each little vase and my flowers sometimes last up to 3 weeks!

Trim your flowers and seperate them in different arrangements. Have fun with this! 

I even use yarn for decoration around the jars...

Then stick them all over the house!

It brightens up areas.

It's funny how something so small, makes me so happy. It really makes a room cute!

Do it! I bet you'll get addicted to having flowers always around, like me!

Thrifty 4- Pyrex Heaven

Last weekend my husband and I went to Santa Barbara just to spend the day there. The weather was perfect so we had lunch and before we went home we decided to stop by a thrift store to look for some Pyrex.

My husband is getting pretty good at spotting them. He usually finds them all first, then I give them a once over and usually buy them.

This one (I looked up online) is a promotional Pyrex Cinderella bowl

The outside is frosty white with gold leaves and baby blue on the inside

These casserole dishes we also found there! The bottom one (the black on white) had its original holder with it. I've never seen the holders before!

Once we get in a Pyrex hunting mode we can't stop! So we went to Ojai before coming home.

Here's what we found!

This at the first store...

This one at the second...

and oh my! Yes we found another full set! 

Aren't these pretty!? Not a scratch on them.

My shelves are getting pretty full! But I won't stop hunting. This just means I'll have to look for a pretty hutch for them all eventually.

I also found these Fire King mugs by Anchor. They were only 50 cents each! I see more succulents being planted here in the near future...

Happy Friday!

DIY Chalkboard Wall

This is a fun idea to spruce up a wall in your kitchen or dining room! It's so much fun!

You'll Need:

- Chalkboard Paint (around $13.00 at Lowe's)

- Paint brushes

- Painter's Tape

- Chalk

- Patience (you'll want to start writing on it right away!)

I was so excited I forgot to get a full before picture!

(thanks babe, for getting the top of the wall!)

Let the paint dry for 24 hours...

it's hard to wait, but it's worth it.

Peel off the tape...

I was trying it out...

It worked! When you're painting you don't think it will come out like a chalkboard, but it does.

LOVE my new wall...