{Bowdabra Design Team} Fall Harvest Wreath

Happy Friday! I'm on the Bowdabra Blog today for the third Friday in a row showcasing my lovely Fall Harvest Wreath. My mother in-law graciously gave use this wreath a few years ago. She always stored the wreath in a box each year until the Fall months where she hung it on her door. 

We keep the same tradition going, and to be honest it still looks new! 

I've always felt though that it needed a little extra pizzaz. 

After adding the bow I'm in love with my wreath once again!

Honestly, isn't this like the most perfect bow you've ever seen? I must say so myself. That's why I love the Bowdabra. It's super easy to use and anyone can make amazing bows. Trust me I would never be able to make a bow this pretty (or easily) if I didn't own a Bowdabra. 

Has everyone else started decorating or crafting for fall? 

Tutorial: Fabric Bulletin Board {revamp}

A really good friend of mine gave me a beige on beige fabric bulletin board last summer. I knew I wanted it, but I also knew that the beige on beige was going to have to go! For months I looked for fabric, and thus I found this beautiful black and off white print. I scoured the ribbon aisles at Michaels Crafts and fell in love with this turquoise. Thankfully, Mr. Woodsy helped me with this project. I have the begining stages of arthritis in my hands, so gripping a nail gun is out of the question. I even have a difficult time using pliers without my hand cramping/freezing in place. It's sad and it stinks especially since I'm not even 30 yet! But I guess it's the facts of life. Thankfully, I have an amazing assistant to help with projects like these!

*A follower asked the question of how much fabric and ribbon did we use? I know for a fact it was less than a yard of fabric and less than one spool of ribbon. Wish I had the exact measurements, but I don't! 

First you will want to lay your fabric out, pattern side down, and draw a "T" line. 

Line up your old bulletin board with your "T" line. 

Cut around the old bulletin board. 

Tightly, wrap one side and begin stapling. 

Repeat with the stapling--pulling the fabric tightly, so that there are no loose ends. 

For the corners you will want to tightly gather the corners. 

Hold your thumb near the area you want to staple. 

... And staple! 

Then cut off the excess ribbon. (*I have to comment how much I love Mr. Woodsy... not only did he help me re-cover this board he uses pink scissors without any hesitation!) 

Next, you will start with one end of the ribbon and wrap it on the back of the board, followed by one staple! 

Here is another picture of how it looks when you first start your ribbon.  

After you secure one side of the ribbon, wrap it diagonally across the board, and staple it. Cut the ribbon and repeat on the opposite side, so that you'll have an "X".

We drew a diagram prior to unwrapping the ribbon off the old board, so that we could follow it for the new board. 

Now, this is where the challenging part comes in to play... start in the center of the board. Secure the ribbon, bring to the middle of the board (so that a smaller "X" will appear), staple it in place...

... then loop the ribbon around, so that you can bring it down to form another smaller "X". Repeat this until all four corners have been completed. 

Once the ribbon is secured, you will want to place a staple in the center of each of the "X's". 

Make sure that when you staple the ribbon you do this on a surface that can be damaged if necessary. Our staples were a bit long, so they went right through the board. Mr. Woodsy used pliers to fold the staples down. 

Next, you will want to work on the buttons for the board. 

Next, you will want to use pliers to snap the backs off the buttons. 

Backs have been removed from the buttons! 

Heat up your hot glue gun and get ready to start glueing your buttons on to the staples/ribbon. 

Place a small amount of glue on the center of the button. 

Press firmly on the button to secure it. 

Repeat until all button have been secured into place. 

I flipped the board over and applied a little hot glue to the edge of the fabric. In some cases the fabric was a little loose. I tightened it up by placing a thin line of hot glue on the edge. I then used my handy-dandy hot glue gun helper thimble to smooth out the glue. *no hot glue gun burns here*

Lastly, it's time to hang up this amazing little revamp project!

Make sure it's level... 

Voila! 

My laundry room is looking a little more complete... now on to find a new rug! 

Laundry Room Signs {Wash, Dry, Fold}

I started these laundry room signs back in September, and they sat... for months. Until finally, I was tired of looking at them in my guest bedroom. I had finally decided how I would display them and what color scheme I was going for in the laundry room. I originally got the idea from CraftOManiac, and with some pre planing aka browsing the internet, I knew how I wanted to make these signs my own!

I purchased the same plaques from the dollar store, removed the ribbon, and began painting with a "sample" paint I had from painting our house. After I was done painting I was ready to cut out my letters with the cricut and mod podge them on the plaques; however, Mr. Woodsy was not happy with how rough the wood was. So he took them, and sanded them down for me, and then I painted another coat of paint on them. 

While the paint was drying I decided on the font I wanted to use, and began cutting out the letters using the Jasmine cricut cartridge. 

 I then applied a thin layer of Matte Mod Podge to the panted plaque. I carefully placed the letters on the plaque and let it dry for a good 20 minutes.  *Obviously this is the wrong order that the sign should go in.

About 20 minutes later I applied another layer of mod podge. Pictured above is the mod podge dried. I then waited MONTHS until I did anything with these inexpensive signs.

A few week's ago I finally decided what color ribbon I wanted to use and where I wanted to place these signs. I decided I wanted them to read vertical instead of each sign hanging horizontally. I used one consecutive piece of ribbon as pictured above. 

After reconfirming that I liked the spacing I removed the bottom sign and placed hot glue on each of the ribbon pieces. 

I carefully placed the sign on the ribbon (pushing down firmly to make sure that it sticks). Make sure when you are pushing the sign onto the ribbon that it doesn't move and that hot glue doesn't drip over the edge of the ribbon and adhere to your floor (like mine did)! 

Repeat the last two steps (two more times) until all three signs have been glued to the ribbon. 

Here is the finished product... except when we went to pick it up the "wash" sign was leaning over. 

So, I fixed this by adding additional dot of glue towards the top of the ribbon on each side. 

I used my handy dandy Hot Glue Gun Helper to push the ribbon that had the hot glue on it onto the placque. No more hot glue burns here! :) 

I consulted with Mr. Woodsy on where I would like it hung, and he went right to work. 

Here is the final product! Plus, a sneak peak of what's to come (Re-Wrapped Fabric Board)! 

Tissue Paper Tree

We hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday! I wanted to post about this tree prior to Christmas, but we just got too busy! I saw these amazing tissue paper tree's earlier this month on Spunky Junk {go to there tutorial for more details} and I instantly knew I wanted to make at least one tissue paper tree. I actually wanted to make a variety of tree's but like most projects... time got the best of me! Remember, how I hosted my third craft lunch at work the other week? Well this was the project I started working on... little did I realize that I was taking on a gigantic project!

Here was what I started with... a ton of tissue paper squares. At the time I took the picture I wasn't sure which cone I would go with... of course me not realizing how large of an undertaking this was I went with the largest cone I had!

Here is the first row of tissue papers glued!

This was after an hour of folding/hot glueing... 

A close up of my hours worth of work! 

Me concentrating on the hot glueing/placing of the tissue paper. 

After 5 of the longest hours of my life my tree was finally complete! Yes, 5 hours. Most craft blogs won't tell you how tedious the project was! Needless, to say I finished this 2 days before Christmas and did not work on any other cone tree's!