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Recycled Wreath

June 4, 2013 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

create a new summer wreath

Decorating your home can be expensive. The constant changing of holidays and seasons could make you go broke with all the cute options of stuff to buy. I love to decorate for the holidays and adding slight changes to represent the current season but have come up with some frugal ways to make it possible. I want to show you one of my tricks today with my new summer wreath.

I created a simple rustic wreath for our old front door. My wreath was simple in color and design because the door was a bright cherry red. They looked good together. After moving and trying to put that same wreath on our now dark burgundy door, it just didn’t give the same warm feel. The wreath got lost and looked old and bland.

old front doorI decided to spice it up with some new elements to create a new wreath while recycling parts of the old wreath. By using parts of the old wreath, I kept the cost down for a new wreath. Here you can see my old wreath with the new flowers I bought to help spice it up.

creating a new wreathThe frist thing I did was to strip my old wreath of everything I had added to it. I pulled off all the flowers and kind of created two piles out of the stuff. One pile was elements I thought I was going to throw away and the other was stuff I wanted to try to use again.

taking apart old wreath to make a new wreathNext, I pulled off all my fake flowers off the long stems they came on.

using fake flowers to make a wreathI placed them onto my wreath mixed in with the burlap elements from my old wreath that I wanted to try to use again. I played around with the placement of all the different pieces.

parts of a recycled wreath

Once I had them laid out in a way I liked, I pulled out my hot glue gun and started hot glueing them all into place.

Hot glueing fake flowers

Hot glueing fake flowers to a wreathAfter they were all hot glued, my new wreath was complete! I think the new flowers cost about $8.00 all together, so I got a whole new wreath that matched my flower pots and taste perfectly for $8.00.

summer wreath

new front door

I love the way the front entrance of our house now looks. The new wreath and flower pots really helped spruce up our front porch. What about you? Have you ever destroyed something you created to create something new?

recycle your wreath

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Hello Pot

June 3, 2013 By Erica Deuel 6 Comments

decorate flower pots

What do you think of when you read that title? An earth toned flower pot repainted in a sizzling purple with a greeting for guests as they walk up to my front door? Yes, that’s exactly what I thought too! Glad we are on the same page.

I’ve always thought it was odd that when people come to your front door-they wipe their feet on the normal welcome greeting. I decided to go a different direction. It was really simple and I want to show you how you can make one of your own. But maybe a “Hello” pot isn’t what you are looking for. You could go with a “Love” Pot, “Happy” Pot, “Peace” Pot. Again, we are talking flower pots, stick with me people.

taped off flower potAfter I got my flower pots and taped off the area I didn’t want to paint, I was ready to add some color to these dull pots. I decided to go with purple because it’s my favorite color I thought it would look pretty with the gray/dark tones in the rock on my house. It took a couple of different coats of paint till I found the right shade of purple I wanted. That is the beauty with paint-you can keep covering it up with a new color if you don’t like it at first!

painting flower potsOnce I liked the color of my flower pots, I printed off an oval from google images and cut it out. I taped the edges of the paper to my pot and spray painted the inside a nice creme color. Note: the spray paint will stick to the pot now that it is going on top of the acrylic paint and not just trying to stick to the pot instead.

painting an ovalI then used some black acrylic paint and free-handed “hello” into the center of the oval. I really liked the look, but decided it was too coloring  in the lines for my taste. I wanted to rough it up some, so I used 60 grit sandpaper and sanded over the whole pot (including my hello design).

helloThis might sound crazy, but I used a wood gray stain next on my pots. I painted the whole pot with the stain, and then started rubbing it off right away. I love how it stuck to the unpainted part of the pot. It made it kind of seem iridescent. It added a slight color, but still shows through to the natural finish of the pot.

DIY flower potMy last step was to spray the entire pots with a shiny clear finish. This step made them look more finished. I love how just a little paint and time totally changed the look of these cheap flower pots. They add a sense of warmth, color, and sweet welcoming touch to my front porch that reflects us better than the brown clay pots. Now, if I can only keep these flowers alive, so I don’t have to plant my burlap flowers in these new pots!

painted flower pots

I think the purple looks really good with the rock on our house. It blends in nicely, but adds a fun color pop as well. These pots help accent the purple in our wreath too. I spruced up the wreath I made for our last front door and will be sharing more of those details tomorrow, so I hope you will come back to check it out!

front door appeal1

Note: The winner of the Mohawk Home rug is A. Bearchell!!  Congrats friend! I will be in touch!

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The Break Down of Curb Appeal

February 26, 2013 By Erica Deuel 5 Comments

Benefit of Curb Appeal

We have always been one of those families that would rather spend money and time working on the inside of our house…

or eating out…

or shopping…

or craft supplies (me)

or camera equipment (Matt)

or new clothes

or new home decor

or thrifting treasures

Really, we have always been that family that would rather spend time and money on ANYTHING but the landscape of our house. Our poor neighbors and tenants!  Although we love to play outside, none of us have much of a green thumb. We also exclusively use our backdoor since it’s connected to our carport, so we’ve kinda taken the front entrance for granted over the years.

When we went to put our house up for sale, we took a good look at our front yard with new eyes. It didn’t look good, and we knew we had to get rid of some of the major eye sores so we could get people in our house. This is where the term of curb appeal became a new word to my vocabulary. We needed curb appeal.

I want to share a few easy and less costly ways you can create curb appeal than having to hire someone or a bulldozer to completely redo your appeal to buyers.

Curb Appeal eye sores

The biggest change we did outside was spruce up our front entrance. Having potential buyers be greeted with an appealing warm entrance sets a good tone for opening the door and going in. I got two cans of black spraypaint and sprayed about everything outside my house. I started with the mailbox and lamp post we have beside it, and I worked up to all the railings that led to our front door. In the above picture, you can see the rust that was showing. I simply gave the railings a light sanding and spray painted them. If you are to do this too, be careful to block the spray from getting on the concrete or house siding!

Curb Appeal eye sore

A few more obvious things that needed to change are pictured above. Play “what’s wrong with this picture” with me and see if you can spot the eye sores. After you make your guesses, keep reading.

I’ll now break down what was wrong in each picture, and what we did to fix it.

1.  Problem: There were obvious spider webs and dirt on and around the door, doorway and entry.  Solution: I got a bucket of warm, soapy water and washed the door, door frame, and ceiling down. I then painted the trim and foot board with a new coat of white paint. It looks so much more fresh and clean.

2.  Problem: As fun and wintery as my wreath might look with the sparkly white ribbons, it blended into the door and looked more cheap than intentional. It might have come down, but I did save it. Solution: We painted the door a deep red. It took four coats, but I think the result is worth it. All of the sudden my door pops and looks intentional and loved. After painting the door, I made a new wreath. I wanted it to have a taste of red to blend with the door and create a warm feeling, but I also wanted an artistic and creative wreath to go with the rest of our decor inside.

3.  Our welcome mat was wet and old. It was not a clean welcoming feel. It felt dismal and forgotten. I scrubbed it clean, dried it out, and brushed all the leaves off the steps. We could have easily bought a new mat as well, but I didn’t want to spend the money on it.

4.  Our planters had dead flowers from last fall still in them. They looked abandoned, forgotten, and could give off bad feelings that the inside might look worn too. We cleared out the planters and put some fresh, bright colored plants in that created a new alive vibe. I also added a third pot because I like the look of three better than two pots.

red front door

I think the difference in the old entrance and new entrance is so cool. I am amazed that it wasn’t that much work and it didn’t cost a lot.

Here is the break down of costs for this cheap upgrade:

  • Paint:  $17.00 (we bought a quart of red paint/already had the white paint)
  • Spray paint:  $7.00 for two cans of flat black spray paint
  • Flowers:  $9.50 (we bought three purple cabbage plants at $2.50 each and two flower plants at $.99 each)
  • Wreath:  $2.50 for stick wreath (with coupon from Hobby Lobby/already had all the burlap, feathers, stones, hot glue)  Note:  I dried out the rose type flowers (they were real) and hot glued them into my wreath rather than buying fake flowers.  I think they look so much better and create a warmer more romantic feel than cheap fake flowers.

All in all this new front entrance cost about $36.00. It was not an expensive project, yet I think it changed the front of our house.

front door with appeal

romantic wreath

My five year old told me he didn’t like the new red door because it didn’t match the outside of the house anymore. I thought this was success. I had to explain that is a good thing that it no longer blends in with the trim or shutters, but it is a “pop” of color that draws your eyes. We have now been spotting front doors when we are out and about and it is remarkable at the ones that stand out to you and the ones that don’t.

house with curb appeal

Other than the front stoop, we added 30 bails of pine straw. I know, we could have taken our curb appeal even a step further by replacing those front dead hedge bushes, but come on!? We couldn’t stretch ourselves that much with outside projects.  🙂

So, what about you? Do you like working out in the yard/outside of the house or are you more like us and would rather do anything else??

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