DIY Archives - Page 25 of 41 - Spoonful of Imagination

A Safe Place

July 25, 2013 By Erica Deuel 10 Comments

One of the things I have been working on around here is getting a bed for our foster care bedroom. If you read my last post about when life happens, I hinted that we have a bed! I am excited to share it with you today.

After scouring Craigslist for weeks, I realized finding a daybed with a pop up trundle and two mattresses was going to be expensive-even if it was used. In a last resort kind of thought, I asked on facebook if anyone had one they would want to sell me. The next thing I know I had several comments and exactly what we needed was provided-for free! We had a beautiful bed given to us. I am still amazed and so thankful God provided through a really generous lady exactly what we needed.

After getting the bed, we decided to give it a quick spray paint job. We want to give the room the most “gender neutral” feel, so we had to paint over the floral decorations.

Side note: do you spray paint in your pajamas barefoot with your six-year-old taking pictures too? 😉

It took four cans of spray paint to cover both sides of the bed thick and evenly. I used my favorite spray paint (Dark Bronze), and I couldn’t be happier with how it came out!

I will show you the bed put together, but first I wanted to also show you an inspirational pillow I made for this bed!

I took a $3.00 Ikea solid white pillow case and used a stencil to write a message I hope my kids (and any foster kids that come into my house) hold in their hearts: Believe in your dreams.

After the stencil was outlined on the pillow case with a pencil, I used a dry brush technique to paint the letters in. I wanted it to look somewhat rustic, so I didn’t paint the letters solid and thick. If you have never done this technique, you can see this quick 60 second clip of me demonstrating how I do it.

I know the kids that stay in this room might not be able to read this pillow, but I will read it to them. No matter where we come from or what has happened to us, we all have dreams. Those dreams give us motivation, joy, hope, and drive.

One tip for painting with this technique is to not dap a freshly filled paint brush all in the same place. It will create more of a “solid line” look rather than a “rustic by accident” look. You can see my mistake below. You can also keep a paper plate or something close by to tap the freshly dipped paint brush a couple of times before applying it to your fabric to get the more faint and dry look.

I love the start of our foster care bedroom. We now have the bed complete! I have big plans for the rest of the room and will keep showing the process as it comes together. The ultimate goal is for the children to feel welcomed, loved, safe, and protected in our home. I hope our house and ultimately this room will give that atmosphere.

Thanks so much for being on this journey with us!

For the Love of Color!

July 12, 2013 By Erica Deuel 3 Comments

Ever since I made our king bed’s rag quilt, I have wanted to sew some pillow shams for it. Finally after sewing my ruffle shower curtain, I had my sewing machine out and decided to just quickly do them! Sometimes pulling the machine and supplies out can be the hardest obstacle in creating a project with three little ones around. Can you relate?

I picked two fabrics that I wanted to use for my shames, and I used a king pillow case as a template for their size.

I cut the front fabric the size of my pillow case and the back fabric a little longer (to allow room to seem one end and tuck the other inside for the envelope opening to have a good overlap).

I laid the two fabrics on top of one another and sewed the ends together. I then cut the back fabric to allow the ability to seem the one side.

I rotated my fabrics inside out and folded it all in a way to where my seemed side would be seen and the overlap fabric would eventually be tucked in my case.

I pinned the fabric and sewed down both sides of the pillow case to close it off. Through the envelope opening, I turned it right side out. It literally took just sewing five lines to complete one sham, yet it took me a year to do this project. Oh life! 🙂

This might all sound a bit confusing, but I broke it down with more pictures on my yo-yo pillow, if you want to view that. Once the pillow sham was right side out, I simply stuffed it with a pillow and added it to my bed. I love how it turned out!

My house is really full of color, and I love it. This past weekend we hung our headboard up and the curtains in our room, and it is one more room that is slowly coming together around here. We’ve been moved for just over two months now, and the house is starting to feel more like us.

When you add the color from my set of drawers and my craft desk in with the mix of color in this room, I know it’s a lot of color. Somehow it all works though, and it feels like home and is a warm welcome whenever I walk into the room.

What about you!? Do you love color as much as I do, or do you struggle to try to incorporate it and stretch yourself from your usual pallet? If you ever have a question, shoot me a message and I would love to help you brainstorm on your project!

Happy Friday! I hope you have a great weekend! My BFF is in town, and I can’t wait to HANG!

p.s. Congratulations to Meredith H. for winning my embroidered hoops!

DIY Ruffled Shower Curtain

July 6, 2013 By Erica Deuel 9 Comments

It’s been a while since I took on a good sewing project and the kids’ bathroom was calling to me. I did away with the old rubber ducky shower curtain they have had for years and created this DIY Ruffled Shower Curtain to take its place. It was relatively easy to sew. It just requires doing the same few steps over and over (for as many ruffled rows you want to create).

Here is how I made mine in case you want to make it as well! I started with gathering some fabrics together that I loved. I had some on hand, but I also went out and bought a few more to have enough fabric. I used a painter’s drop cloth as the foundation that I sewed my fabrics onto. I love the way the drop cloth added a heaviness to this project as well as a plastic lining that I think will help it to hold up well.

I cut all my fabrics into 12″ wide strips. I didn’t measure the actual length in inches but just sewed enough 12″ strips together to make a long strand that I could then use to ruffle up to cover the length of the drop cloth (which just so happened to measure the width of our shower stall). After all my fabric strips were cut, I ironed the edge of one side of each strip about 1/4″ up and sewed down that fold to create a nice finished edge for my strips to become ruffles.

I then folded and pinned my fabric in a way much like I did on my ruffled fabric bag to create ruffles. I simply sewed down the line of pins to attache the ruffles to my drop cloth. Make sure you are not sewing along the edge of your strip you just hemmed. You want that neat, pretty side to stick out and show. This was the start of my shower curtain coming together. Note: if you have any seems you want to try to hide, space your ruffles so they get hidden in the center.

After I had the first ruffled row sewn on, I drew small little lines where the edge of the ruffle laid on my drop cloth. I then pinned a row of pins two inches above those penned line marks. I wanted my ruffles to overlap a good bit, and this two-inch space created that. I then simply picked up each pin and pinned it right back down to hold the next ruffle in place. After that whole ruffled row was pinned, I sewed it. I then started this process back over until all my fabric rows were complete.

At the end of my fabric ruffles, I saw I had a small margin of drop cloth to still cover and my new shower curtain was way shorter than my old shower curtain (when laid on top).

I decided to line burlap and create a ruffle using that for the bottom of my shower curtain. I decided that the contrast in fabrics would look good, especially since this last ruffled row measures more like 17″ than my 12″ fabric ruffled rows. Once the burlap ruffle was attached, I folded all my fabrics over the edge to wrap around the drop cloth, and I sewed down the side. This step created a finished side and now prevents any of the ruffles from completely flying up.

I then turned the shower curtain over and trimmed all the back pieces off to make the inside look clean and finished; although, I will still use a cheap plastic shower curtain to hang with this decorative shower curtain.

I couldn’t decide if I wanted to create loops, make eye holes, or sew my new shower curtain onto an old one to create the eyelet holes at the top in order to be able to hang it. I think I will go back and create the eyelet holes, but for now I was afraid I would ruin it, if I was to try that. I am a lazy sewer and don’t like changing the foot on my machine. 🙂 I simply folded some ribbon over to create a double thick loop that I sewed onto the top of my shower curtain. These could be easily removed later down the road, if I get brave enough to try the eyelet holes, but they work for now.

I love the way it came out! I have some fun art and other accessories that I am working on using in this bathroom, but the space already feels so much different with the new shower curtain.

It turned out a bit more girlish than I was intending, and as my six-year-old son pointed out, there are two boys using this bathroom. I promised him green towels and a boy-ish picture on the wall to help compensate…more to come on this I am sure 🙂

I love the way these fabrics look together. I used some of my scraps to sew two embroidered hoops. I would like to give them away to one of you! Simply, let the rafflecopter widget load below the picture, and enter as many ways as you want! I will announce the winner right here on Friday, July 12, 2013.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
I hope you had a great Independence Day and are enjoying this weekend!

Building a Fire Pit

July 1, 2013 By Erica Deuel 1 Comment

Would you believe me when I say that this fire pit was free? It didn’t cost a dollar. The sweat and time were the only price for this huge, beautiful fire pit.

When we were visiting my sister the other week in Arkansas, we wanted to help her with some projects while we were there. She had on her to do list to build a fire pit. We literally found all these big rocks on her property and carried and carted them over to where she wanted her fire pit built. I wish I had huge gorgeous rocks like this lying around on my property too, don’t you!?

Of course, we had some really excited helpers that wanted to be apart of this project. Lucky for us, we did need some smaller rocks so they were quite helpful and of course good company.

The first step was to create the base size/structure of the fire pit by laying down the first round of rocks. My sister, Olivia, made it bigger than I was expecting, but I love it! I wouldn’t have thought to make such a huge fire pit, but it fits her property and land perfectly. This fire pit is easily four sizes larger than those metal circle pits they sell at hardware stores that I am use to seeing as fire pits around these parts.

We decided we thought about three rows of the big rocks would look the best. It then became a puzzle of aligning the rocks and placing them in the best way to create a circle rock wall with as level/sturdy foundation as possible.

After we got the rock wall in the shape and height we wanted, we inserted some of the smaller rocks into niches to create the most sturdy base as possible. What we wanted to prevent was any one siting or standing on the fire pit (when it’s not in use) and it tumbling over.

The last step was to test it out! I loved building the fire and watching the grass inside the pit immediately spread and burn away. The rocks kept the fire in though, so it worked. We had dinner grilling hot dogs and smores over the new fire pit to enjoy our hard work.

You might not have free gorgeous rocks on your property either, but would you build a fire pit out of rocks instead of buying a premade one? I know this project is now on my to do list for my home! To see more pictures of this fire pit in use and of our trip to Arkansas you can go read about the beauty of country living. Thanks so much for stopping by!

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