DIY garden trellis

We have been fortunate enough to have a rather large balcony that came with our apartment. Unfortunately, however, it has come accompanied with an in-your-face view of the parking garage. To find a way to make use of the space in a way that invited more green and distracted from the concrete eyesore across a patch of grass, I've placed a variety of plants on the balcony (21 plants to be exact). While I've spent most of the summer learning which plants can stand Dallas summer days with highs of 107 degrees, there is one plant in particular I've found very suitable for a beginning gardener: the tropical Mandevilla. Keep reading to see how I created a very simple DIY trellis to make even more room for this beautiful plant's voracious vining.

DIY garden trellis

Monday, August 27, 2018

DIY flower wall

H refers to this project as the "art installation" in our apartment. While I feel it's a stretch to call it such, it is a bit of something I've never done before. I've seen flower walls on Instagram with what I presume to be real, fresh flowers and dried flowers. While using either of the two for a flower wall makes for beautiful decor, the idea of staining the walls of our rental apartment quickly nipped that idea in the bud (pun intended). Instead, I created this DIY flower wall in our guest/study room using artificial flowers and washi tape. The result was better than I had hoped, and I'm so glad I finally got around to getting rid of atleast some of the negative space in that room.

DIY flower wall

Sunday, September 24, 2017

DIY clay jewelry trays: mother's day edition

Although Mother's Day was a couple weekends ago, this jewelry tray can be gifted for any occasion for a special lady in your life, or even be used for yourself! I didn't start using jewelry trays until recently. Before, I would just keep all of my jewelry in a little box. It wasn't til I bought a tray on a whim that I  realized how much of my jewelry I wasn't wearing because it was tucked away in a box- out of sight, out of mind. Now I like to keep some things I'm wearing for the week on the tray, and rotate pieces out weekly so that I get good wear out of all my jewelry. 

This DIY clay jewelry tray is so easy to make and is so useful. I got the idea from here, and made one big change- I freehanded the shape of my tray (as I think you can embarrassingly tell, it's a little imperfect). I opted for air drying clay because I didn't want to mess around with baking it in an oven, and risking overbaking it. Also, the idea of just leaving it out for 2 days to air dry while I did nothing seemed really appealing.

Here's the materials I used to make 2 trays:
- 2.2 lb white block of DAS air hardening modeling clay
- Small rubber stamps to create a personalized message (optional)
- Acrylic paint + paintbrushes
- Glossy Mod Podge 

I started out by shaping the trays. While most tutorials I saw used cookie cutters (which I highly recommend and wish I had used), I got cocky with my "skills" (or lack thereof) and freehanded a leaf shape. It turns out clay is a way harder medium to use than I was anticipating. I then used tiny rubber stamps to stamp out a message in the trays, and set the trays on my desk to dry for 2 days. After day 1 I flipped the trays over to ensure the backsides dried properly.

After the drying came my favorite part- painting! I used acrylic paints and small paintbrushes to paint a light blue base with one of my all time favorite designs, flowers with leaves. I think they're perfect for Mother's Day! After the acrylic paint dried, I painted on 3 layers of glossy Mod Podge (with letting each layer dry for about 20 minutes before painting on the next layer) to give the trays some shine. And that was it!

I used some of my ink and nibs from the modern calligraphy class I took in December to make a matching Mother's Day card (note the recurring flowers theme). I initially lettered the words in black ink and went back over the right sides of the wording with gold ink for a special effect. I added watercolor flowers using my new Winsor & Newton water colors and outlined them in black ink.

I always think handmade gifts are the most special, especially when I still have the time before residency starts!

DIY clay jewelry trays: mother's day edition

Friday, May 20, 2016

DIY floral letter

I found this beautiful floral letter DIY on none other than Pintrest, of course. I initially bought the cardboard letter "S" when I saw it on sale at the craft store with no project in mind. But after finding the pin and realizing how easy it was, I decided it was the best way to pass time as I spent the week trapped in my house because my car was in the shop. Unfortunately, not having a car meant I wasn't able to buy any flowers at the time I wanted to do the project. So, I may or may not have picked random silk flowers around my parents house.

I initially started out using the Fiskars blade to cut the cardboard out of the front of the letter. This quickly led to using a steak knife since the thick cardboard broke my blade 30 seconds into using it.

After cutting out the front face, I was left with a hollow inside. The cardboard zig-zag inside the letter allowed for the styrofoam placement to be more snug. I used a white styrofoam block cut into pieces that was haphazardly wedged into the letter. After placing the foam in, I wedged flowers into the foam in a random arrangement, and that was it! I was apprehensive about using white foam, but I was able to cover up any areas where the foam was showing with leaves.

I added glittery gold balls to cover up more of the white foam. I also used small pins and hot glue in places where the leaves or flowers were not staying in the foam.

Since the letter was kind of small (about 10" tall), I had to make sure the form of the letter "S" was still visible, or else it would just look like a shapeless floral blob. Using a hot glue gun to glue down some of the leaves or flower petals that stuck out too much helped retain the form of the "S".

DIY floral letter

Sunday, January 3, 2016

other small DIY details

The last of the engagement party DIY details are thrown into this post. These were small things I was able to do pretty quickly. The picture above was a decorative tray of fresh rose petals with tealights- the smell was amazing. I placed the tray on a coffee table in the family room area.

The other place I had fresh flowers was the centerpiece on the mantle above the fireplace. While the arrangement was beautiful, the vase/container it came in was an ugly yellow. Thankfully, I had some metallic gold spray paint that changed things significantly. 

We bought this spool of rhinestone ribbon that we used as a border around a large mirror above my fireplace. The ribbon was on sale at Hobby Lobby ($5 for 15 feet). We used masking tape to hold up the ends.

Lastly, we used the remaining gold tulle to wrap around the banisters. We then used straight pins to secure rose garlands onto the tulle. It added a nice look in the entryway when guests first walked into our home.

other small DIY details

Saturday, November 21, 2015