DIY Painted Chevron Picture Frame with Burlap Bow Tutorial!

Hello dolls!

Last week, we were featured on the fabulous A Glimpse Inside Blog with a tutorial on how I made a chevron picture frame with it's own burlap bow for under $5! It was easy, cute and super inexpensive, so check out my tutorial below if you're interested in making your own!

The Supplies: 

A wood frame from Michaels ($1 - 2, depending on size, mine was $1) 

Paint in your choice of color(s) (you'll need 2 if you plan on doing the chevron pattern) 

A piece of paper/card stock and a pencil (if you want to trace the chevron pattern onto the frame) 

A medium sized paint brush Burlap ribbon (less than one yard)(available at Michaels, Walmart and Hobby Lobby) 

A flat Christmas ornament (optional) 

A hot glue gun with glue stick 

The Steps: 

1. Paint the frame the color of your choice. If you want to keep the frame all one color, you can skip step 

2 and go straight to step 3. 

2. Using the paper or card stock, trace the chevron pattern with a pencil. The paper helps to ensure you're using straight lines. After tracing, paint along the lines carefully with your second paint color to complete the chevron pattern. If you're anything like me, you won't be able to trace the lines perfectly, but the pattern will still be discernible! 

3. After letting the paint dry and plugging in your trusty glue gun to let it heat up, make a bow out of the burlap. I also used a small scrap of burlap ribbon to tie around the center of the bow to make it extra secure. 

4. Glue the back, center portion of the bow to the frame in the top center, top left, bottom center, or anywhere else you think looks cute! I chose the top center of the frame because my bow was so big. Press it down firmly for a couple seconds to ensure it stays in place. You might also spot on a little glue within the bow to make sure it doesn't come undone. 

5. If you also have a flat ornament you would like to add (now is a great time to get them for 50-75% off) hot glue that wherever you think is appropriate. I got this one in a two pack from Garden Ridge for $1 (50% off)! I love using the fleur de lis and glitter is always welcome in our house. 

6. Don't forget to insert a special photo to make it your own, and voila! You not now have a chevron and burlap picture frame that you can tell everyone you made yourself - and on the cheap! 

Christmas Tree Reveal #4 + Several Easy Christmas DIY Projects!

Hello Barbies and welcome to the 4th installment of the BDH Blog's Christmas tree reveal mini series! Can you believe we've been doing this for a month of Wednesdays now?! So far we've revealed 11 of the BDH's 26 Christmas trees and today we turn our focus to the dining room, home to two large trees and one small tree. I also have some fun pics from our amazing Hawaii trip last week and a couple super simple DIY projects!

For the dining room, to go with our rustic table that hubby built (which has been receiving a lot of acclaim lately in the blogosphere) and our cream linen chairs, I wanted the room to look a little rustic but also snow covered. I started with a gorgeous 11 ft table runner that a thoughtful friend sewed from scratch for us as a housewarming gift. It's lime and teal on one side - perfect for summer - and solid burlap on the other. Using the burlap side I placed a smaller white shimmery runner on top. I decorated the table with pewter, mercury glass and silver and white glittery accents. Oh, and LOTS of glittery white pine cones. I also incorporated several reindeer to keep with the snowy forest theme.

 

This is one of my favorite holiday décor tricks: I just grab a pretty bowl and fill it with coordinating ornaments and/or pine cones. I probably do this too much, in fact I know I do, but oh well. Here I used a pewter footed bowl from my serveware collection, white glittery ornaments, pewter glittery ornaments and pewter glossy ornaments with white spray painted pine cones. Tip: vary the size of ornaments you use to add dimension.

 

 

I also tied these snowy pine cone picks to the backs of each chair using white and silver damask ribbon.

Part of my tablescape, this is just a glittery feather ornament in a footed glass serving dish I had on hand.

 I got these vintage, glittery pewter reindeer at Michael's on sale.

And of course I had to put pearls in the chandelier to go with the theme (but this took forever because the chandelier was so hard to reach from the chair I was standing on).

Long before we built the BDH, I had this tree, which I've always referred to as the Snow Tree. It's a 7ft white tree with white lights, glittery white deco mesh, white and silver damask ribbon, pearl pick branches, and all white ornaments (some with silver touches). I also have small crystal ornaments scattered throughout that were a gift from my fellow Christmas loving godmother.

I bought this 6 or 7ft (unsure) silver skinny tree from Hobby Lobby after Christmas at 66% off a few years ago (after drooling over Hobby Lobby's pricey but beautiful skinny tree line for months). Through the move and the construction, it never made it up though, so this is it's inaugural Christmas. I decided to keep it in line with the snowy forest theme, covering it with white glittery snowflakes, snow flowers and snowy looking birds. I also wrapped it with a pearl garland that my sweet mama brought back from Australia for me last year. As a lifetime lover of pearls, I'm a huge fan of this fancy and foreign pearl garland. Come to think of it, two of my snowy birds were also gifts from mom from her trip to Australia, making the tree extra special because it has things from mom that come from the country where my sister lives. Very neat.

 

Lastly, I have this mini tree, which I call the Spode Tree, in a Spode planter in the dining room. During the rest of the year, the dining room theme is this blue and white toile pattern called Spode. Our china is Spode Blue Italian and I have lots of collectible and not-so-collectible blue and white serving pieces on display in the dining room in my Grandma Delta's old china cabinet (the only piece of furniture my parents kept from her estate, which makes it incredibly special). This tree has mostly blue mini ornaments but also 3 Spode ornaments (which I only have a few of because they're so hard to track down).

 I also have my little blue and white snowman collection on my Grandma's china cabinet.

 

 

The room is rounded out with these last two DIY'd items: a burlap basket that my mom spotted/I bought at Michael's for $2, which of course I quickly filled with ornaments and pine cones ( I have issues), and an illuminated gift block, which is just a $4 glass block from Home Depot that hubby drilled a hole into, I stuffed with lights and tied a pretty silver bow around. We have probably 20 of these in our house, usually to match various trees.

I also DIY'd these grapevine and burlap wreaths to go over our three mirrors, a vision I'd had for months. I bought three grapevine wreaths, lightly spray painted theme white to give them the snowed on look I was going for, threw on some silver glitter, painted the 3 letters J, O and Y I bought at Michaels, put glitter on them too, hot glued them to the wreaths to spell Joy, then tied on burlap bows using wide wired burlap ribbon. After I had the burlap bows in place I thought it was a little too rustic, so I added the same white and silver damask ribbon that I had been using throughout the room, which was just enough pizazz to make me feel better.

 

Last but not least, here are some photos from our amazing trip to Hawaii last week with hubby's family. We had a wonderful time - Hawaii is such a beautiful place with a really unique culture. We stayed at the Hyatt on the West side of Maui, which was amazing. We went whale watching and snorkeling on the Trilogy - which I can't recommend highly enough, if you're ever on Maui you have to go on one of their tours - and also went to an authentic Hawaiian Luau feast. Thank you to Ross's mom and step-dad for an absolutely wonderful experience!

 

 

Thanks for reading barbies! Check back in next Wednesday for several more Christmas tree reveals and have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving! xox!

DIY Chalkboard Tutorial!

Hello barbies! I hope you're all having fabulous weekends soaking up this gorgeous fall weather. Aside from a trip to the mall, visiting my parents at their lake house, doing the 2013 Wake County Parade of Homes (look for a post on the fabulous mansions we toured later this week!), a dinner date and watching The Heat with Sandra Bullock (which was hilarious!), we tackled a couple house projects, including this DIY chalkboard project. We already have a chalkboard in our kitchen, but I really wanted a big one for by our front door to do seasonal stuff with. I shopped around, but none were quite big enough for what I had in mind, plus even at the discount stores the larger chalkboards can be pretty pricey. So we did what we always do in these situations - we DIY'd one on the cheap (under $10 total)!

Here's how we did it:
We bought this painting from Goodwill for $6. I picked it because of its size and because I liked the frame. I had my hesitations with the mat (it seemed to complicate the project), but hubby convinced me it was a good feature - and I'm glad he did.

We removed the original hanging wire, cut the back open and removed the painting and the mat, which luckily were attached to each other. We took the glass out and decided to hold on to it for future projects. We used the brown paper from the back and painters tape to cover the white matting while spray painting.

Then we used Rust-oleum Chalk Board spray paint to cover the painting. We bought it at Home Depot for $3.76. The woman at the store advised us to do about 10 separate coats because chalkboard paint needs to be on really thick to work.

We did 4 coats (which used about half the bottle), letting it completely dry between coats, before we did a chalk test. The chalk went on well and wiped off better than it does on my store bought chalkboard, so I declared victory. Hubby put the painting back in the frame using a staple gun, put the original hanging wire back on the back and voila! We had a DIY chalkboard for under $10 - and as always, the coolest part is that we made it ourselves!

  

Before and after:

 

Thanks for reading barbies! If you try it, comment on this post and let us know how it goes! I'd also love to post your before and after pics!

xox