The Cotton Cottage by Hilary

I finally ran out of room at my house and decided to open an antique booth!! It's located at Piccolo Antique Mall in Belmont on main street. If you are in town stop by and see the set up and all of the wonderful booths we have to offer! Let me know what you think!

Light Up Your Life Rope Lamp by Hilary

After taking down holiday decorations each year I find myself wanting to de clutter and revamp my current motif. This weekend I came across a great antique store with rustic farm equipment. Needless to say I will have a few blogs coming soon with turning my old farm equipment into new beautiful home decor. For today's post I want to share a simple redesign of an old lamp. I purchased this porcelain lamp donning tacky flowers a few months ago at the GW boutique for a quick fix for a family room lamp. Before Christmas I felt the lamp was too loud and cluttering up my sofa table and decided to take it down and stash it in a closet. This weekend I saw a fab idea on Pinterest for a rope lamp. So off I went to Lowe's home improvement for the materials. For the base of the lamp I started the rope at the bottom with a dot of hot glue and wrapped around tightly. I only hot glued about every two or three circles around the lamp. For the shade I used painters tape and made vertical lines and painted two coats of sea foam blue over the tape. After about an hour in the sun I slowly peeled the tape off and put a line of rope at the top and bottom of the shade. Viola a new and improved lamp for the family room.

"I love you because..... " by Taylor

As we all know, Pinterest is AMAZING for finding great crafting ideas.  I LOVED this idea

http://pinterest.com/pin/42502790203026232/

and decided to recreate it.  After all, Valentines Day is right around the corner and we need to start spreading the love people!!! ;-)   

First, I took some scrapbook paper and cut it to fit an extra frame I had lying around the house.  Then, I stamped the words "I love you because..." onto the paper.  You could print it out as well, but my scrapbook paper didn't fit the printer so I decided to stamp it.  Then, I inserted the scrapbook paper into the frame.  Finally, I made some fabric flowers to decorate the frame (of course!).  We used thin dryerase markers to write notes back and forth.  

It is so fun to wake up and see that my husband left me a sweet note before work in the morning!  I definitely recommend trying this project!

 

<3 Taylor

"DIY Stamp Coasters" by Taylor

I can finally unveil my Christmas DIY project from this year now that everyone has received their gifts!  This year I have been noticing a lot of stamped projects and I decided to use that idea to make coasters for my family and friends.  It was really fun and simple to do.

Materials:

Mod Podge

Backsplash tiles (found at Lowes and Home Depot)

Felt dots

Stamps

Ink pad (I used Staz On because like the name suggests, it stays on most surfaces!)

First, I wiped the tiles clean with a damp paper towel.  Then, after they dried, I stamped the image of my choice onto four tiles.  If your stamp messes up, wipe it off with the damp paper towel immediately and try again.  When the ink dried, I modpodged over the entire surface of each tile.  The final step was to put the felt dots on the back of each tile (in the four corners).  

To give the coasters to family and friends, I wrapped each set with twine for a shabby chic look!  Billy and I kept one set for ourselves- don't you just love the pears? :)

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you had a wonderful Christmas and New Years with your family and friends!  Happy 2012!!!

Craft Night Number 2- Making fabric flower headbands by Taylor

After several requests, we decided to try to make fabric flower headbands for our second craft night.  I have been making fabric flowers for a while now, and I am having a lot of fun coming up with new things to glue them to!  My friends Stephanie, Amanda, and Brooke came over and we turned them into headbands (great last minute Christmas gift!).
First, we used hot glue to twist fabric into flowers.  See a great tutorial here.
Then, we attached them to headbands using felt (for stability and comfort).  

Brooke, how many times do we have to tell you- don't eat the glue! lol

Amanda rolling her flower...

Steph in deep concentration

Trying to model our handiwork!

The headband I made for my friend Aimee!

I think I may keep this one.....;)

Yup, I will!

How to Make a Monogram Wreath by Taylor

Lately, my favorite pastime has been to pin things on Pinterest (thank you Katie for guiding me in becoming a Pinterestaholic!).  It is a great way to get a lot of crafting and style ideas.  While online, I came across an idea for a wreath made out of a twine.  It was in the shape of a letter, and being obsessed with monograms at the current moment,  I decided to try to make my own.  

My supplies

First, I painted my white letter "S" a color similar to that of the twine.  

 

Then, I wrapped several layers of twine around the "S," securing each strand with hot glue on the back of the letter.  

 

I used a fall colored fabric to make fabric flowers and glued them onto the "S."  Then, I hot glued brown satin ribbon to the back so that I could hang it from the wreath hanger on my door.  Doesn't it look precious?!  Now if only my door was painted a brighter color.....

Our First Craft Night by Taylor

Last night, we held our very first craft night!  My original idea was to create polka dotted pumpkins, an idea that I got from my friend Julie.  Unfortunately, a crazed bride in the area had bought every single large white pumpkin available, so I had to come up with an alternative plan!  I decided to take a spin off of Hilary's decoupaging idea and decoupage our pumpkins. 

 

 

Stephanie layering her owl/penguin;)

Laura sketching out her spiders!

Adding some mod podge to my "S"

We sipped wine and munched on hors d'oeuvres while coming up with a design.  I decided to do an "S" and an owl, since I am obsessed with both monograms and owls right now.  Stephanie made an owl/penguin haha;) and Laura did some creepy crawling spiders.  The most amazing part of the evening was getting to hang out with some of my very best friends.  Sometimes we all just need to take time out of our busy weeks and unwind- and it doesn't hurt to exercise your creativity while you're at it!

With our finished products!

Done!

My pumpkins show my obsession with owls and monograms!