Home Improvement

My mint tiles

OK, guys. I have a new obsession and that obsession is Restore. Habitat Restore, to be exact. And it is amazing. AH-MAY-ZING!

My neighbor first introduced me to Restore in Baltimore and then Restore came to Columbia! Are we lucky or what? (Hint: The answer is yes!)

I go there pretty often now and had to share my newest find: Mint Green tiles!

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Dirty Tiles

I scored about 50 of these beautiful tiles for $.25 a square foot. Yes, $.25! I paid $4 total ๐Ÿ™‚ Love it!

As you can see in the photos from the store, the tiles were pretty dirty. I scrubbed the tiles for over an hour and they cleaned up beautifully.

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Clean Tiles

Neither of those photos do the color justice, but this one is a better representation:

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Color Shot**drools**

You might be wondering why I bought tiles? Well, for my birthday gift next month we are going to redo our master bathroom.

Here’s a couple of not-so-hot pictures of our bathroom. It’s teeny, so it’s hard to get the whole thing in one shot.

Out bathroom looks a little different now with a shower curtain and a few pieces of art hung on the walls. But it’s nothing spectacular.

Here’s what I’m thinking….

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Sketch

Yes, it’s a sketch. And yes, this will likely change. But anyway… I am thinking a faux wainscoting treatment to the bottom half in white with a neutral color on top. We’ll replace the vanity to get something a little larger in the space, update the medicine cabinet and the lighting…. and then add the mint tiles as accent tiles. Like I said, the final product probably won’t look a thing like this… but this is my inspiration for now.

{A Smith of All Trades} Tiles_Bucket

And for $4, I was willing to take the risk that these beautiful tiles will fit into my not-so-final master plan.

Happy Tuesday!

Craft Projects

Driftwood and Sea Glass chime

My girlfriends and I got together for craft night last weekend, and, as always, we had a great time. Carrie came up with the idea to make driftwood and sea glass chimes (if you can call them that). ย After a delicious dinner and a bottle of wine, we began to tackle our craft.

We started with individual pieces of driftwood that Carrie collected on a family vacation. Apparently she was teased for collecting the wood — I think it was a fabulous idea, don’t you?

Sea Glass driftwood

Once we picked which piece of wood we wanted, I got started on mine. Originally, I started to make mine with fishing wire. I got really frustrated with that, so I made mine with wire and chain. So to start my chime, I wrapped wire around each end of the driftwood and secured it around itself to create a hook to hang the finished chime from. Carrie and Amy used twine for this, and it worked great. It also looked really nice.

Like I said, I started mine with fishing wire. We watched a tutorial from Martha Stewart, and even she commented that the fishing wire was a pain. Clearly she, Carrie and Amy all have more patience than I do, because they made it work. I think the reason our wire wasn’t super easy to work with was because it was a bit thicker, so if you want to try this project on your own, I definitely recommend using a thin fishing line.

If you want to use fishing line, Carrie and Amy both did theirs differently. Carrie tied knots around each piece of sea glass and sealed the knot with super glue. Amy, on the other hand, avoided the knots and simply glued the wire to the glass with the super glue. She said one piece fell off at home, but it is holding up well.

Sea Glass

Like I said, I got sick of the fishing wire and the knots, so I broke out the jewelry wire and chain. Sometimes working with a familiar material is just better.

After I created a handle to the driftwood, I lined the sea glass up in an ombre pattern. I ended up only using half of these, but you get the idea.

Sea Glass1

Then, I wrapped each piece of sea glass with wire, creating a loop at the top to attach it to the chain.

Sea Glass2

Once all of my glass was wrapped with wire, I attached each piece to one of my three chain strands. Then, to finish the chime, I attached the chain to the piece of driftwood using jewelry wire.

Sorry for the cruddy picture and the not-so-in-depth tutorial. It’s a girls’ night first and foremost, so blogging has to come second!

Anyway, here’s the finished product!

Sea Glass finished

I love the colors of the glass, and now I want to go hunting for drift wood and real sea glass (these were from Michaels).

Sea Glass chime

Have a great day!

Craft Projects, Quick and Easy Crafts, Uncategorized

“Washi Tape” frame mat

So… I really don’t know what washi tape is but it is apparently a huge deal. Apparently. It’s just colorful tape, but I guess that’s cool.

Anyway, I was perusing the aisles ofย le Target last week and I stumbled upon a roll of Scotch tape that was mint colored and patterned! So, it’s not washi tape… but it’s some kind of tape! It was mint, so I needed it. I scooped it into my basket and went home.

It wasn’t until 1 a.m. that I knew what I wanted to do with my tape. I was staring at a our framed family tree, which has been missing something ever since I framed it. I got a document frame from Michaels and printed the family tree on our printer, but our printer couldn’t print full bleed (all the way to the edges) so there’s always been a white border around the image.

So I took the frame off the wall so I could make a faux mat out of my new roll of mint tape.

{A Smith of All Trades} Scotch Tape mint mat

Making this mat was really easy. I meanย realllly easy.

Pop the image out of the frame and start adding the tape around the edges. I taped right onto the family tree and onto the white piece of paper that came with the frame.

{A Smith of All Trades} Scotch Tape mint mat

I did the top and bottom first, then taped along the vertical edges. That way the corners overlap in the same manner.

{A Smith of All Trades} Scotch Tape mint mat

I popped the newly “matted” piece of artwork back into the frame. Unfortunately, I taped it a little off center. Dang! I trimmed the edge of the white paper and popped it back in — done!

(A Smith of All Trades) Mint Mat

It pops out of the frame now and I love it even more!! It also looks lovely next to our new curtains.

(A Smith of All Trades) Mint Mat

So, next time you need one of your piece of art toย pop, just add some funky tape… washi, Scotch… whatever!