DIY Topiary

Firs blog post of 2018! With Christmas over and Spring on its way I'm bringing more greenery into our home. These faux topiaries are great to use year round though! I can't take credit for this amazing idea, Natalie at The Vintage Porch made these faux topiaries with Christmas evergreens and when the stems went on sale at Hobby Lobby I purchased all that they had left for a $1 each!

It took about 2 1/2-3 stems to make the top part of the topiary. I just cut a branch off of our hedge in the backyard for the stem and I had white foam balls from the Dollar Tree, they sell 2 in a package for a $1!  

You can buy green foam balls but since I already had white I just painted it green with some chalk paint. I pocked a chopstick into the ball to hold it and paint. Let it dry and pull the chopstick out.

You will pull all of the little leaf branches off of the whole stem. 

Some are shorter than the others and I used the shorter ones for the under/bottom side of the ball. You can see in the picture below how the leaves are shorter around the bottom.

Once I had most of the stems pushed into the foam ball, I pushed the branch into the ball and finished filling the spaces in with the evergreen leaves. 

I shoved the base of the branch into foam bricks that I had from one of those Edible Arrangement fruit baskets! Free! I covered the bright green up with some scrap pieces of burlap and tied jute twine around the base of the branch to gather all of the burlap to the branch and placed into an olive bucket from Hobby Lobby. 

This project was so easy and cost maybe $8-$10!! If you have ever been topiary shopping they are WAY more than $10! 

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DIY Topiary

DIY Farmhouse Bakery Sign

Farmhouse style signs are the "in thing" right now, and I love them just as much as everyone else! The price on some of the larger signs are out of my budget, and I have a pile of scrap wood sitting to be used on projects! One of those pieces of scrap wood was stained in Ebony, it was a shelf at one point.

It was the perfect size for this small ,vertical, empty wall space that needed something on it.

This was my inspiration sign! I love the simplicity of it and the size.

First, I painted over the dark stained board with white chalk paint. I printed out a basic, bold font from our zerox machine, I believe size 300 for each letter. I just eyeballed the size and it fit. I placed the letters on the board and made sure they all fit properly.  

I've made several signs and I do them all the same way, by transferring the image with pencil drawn on the back. I just use a pencil on the backside of the paper, lay the paper onto my wood and trace over the image with a pen, pushing down some to get the lines to show up on the piece you're painting.

You can see all the letters are now on my board and I painted them in with black chalk paint.

Once everything was try, I sanded it all down with 80 grit sand paper in the areas I wanted distressing.

I liked it at this point but decided to add a wood trim around the edge. It just didn't feel compete and it needed something else.

I had a long piece of pallet wood and had my husband cut it in half, long wise. Sanded it & stained it. I used Early American by Minwax.

You can just buy a 1"x2" from your local hardware store too, I wanted to use what I already had.

I didn't take pictures of adding the trim but I laid the sign down on our large patio table and used plastic soda tops under it to elevate it up off the table, since the side pieces are to large with the plank of wood just laying flat to the surface. The soda bottle tops raised it to the perfect height, so that the wood sign lined right up in the center of the 1"x2"

I used a clamp to hold the two long sides onto the wood sign and nailed them on with finishing nails. The top and bottom were small enough to just hold in place. The inside wood part is 47 3/4" x 7" & the sign as a whole is 49"x8 1/4".

It wasn't really a difficult DIY and it's just what this kitchenette area needed!

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DIY Farmhouse Bakery Sign

DIY Farmhouse Wall Decor

I'm in the process of giving our half bath a mini makeover. It's going to have a farmhouse feel to it since it's in the hallway where I did the faux shiplap. Hobby Lobby has 50% off home décor right now and these wire baskets are only $2.50! I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but, I needed them!

The bathroom needs something small and simple to hang on the wall & these are perfect as well décor. 

I added a glass jar with some jute twin. Target one spot has a 5 pack of spice jars for $3. I had several on hand.

Add some flowers to the jars and your done.

I'll share a little secret how I hang light items on the wall. Thumbtacks!! I hang just about EVERYTHING with them!

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DIY Farmhouse Wall Decor

DIY Faux Cotton Boll Ball

Who doesn't love natural cotton right now? The price for anything cotton is a bit pricey though. When I got to looking for more natural cotton items online I decided to make my own. I've seen others make their own cotton stems but, I wanted a sphere/ball. The Dollar Tree sells a bag of 3 for a $1 and a bag of cotton balls is cheap! This cost about $1 or less to make!

You will need a Styrofoam ball, hot glue gun, cotton balls and pine cones.

 

Take 3-4 pine cone petals and hot glue them to a cotton ball.

You will then put some hot glue on the Styrofoam ball and hot glue the cotton ball with the pine cone petals to the Styrofoam ball. I poke the pine cone petals into the Styrofoam ball for extra support.

This is a picture so that you can see the pine cone petals poked into the Styrofoam ball.

Push them into the Styrofoam ball.

 Just keep doing this until you have  filled the whole ball! Doesn't it look realistic?

 You could add a hook or ribbon to these and hang them....so many possibilities!

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DIY Faux Cotton Boll Ball