Tag: White

Home Improvement

My mint tiles

Jessica Smith

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 🙂 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!

Christmas, Craft Projects, DIY GIFT GUIDE, Gift Idea, Holiday

DIY GIFT GUIDE: Snowman Ornament

Jessica Smith

DIY GIFT GUIDE Snowman Ornament

Day 4 of the DIY GIFT GUIDE series brings us this adorable snowman ornament. If this guy doesn’t belong on your Christmas tree, I don’t know what does.

Supplies:

Styrofoam Balls

  • Styrofoam balls in three varying sizes
  • Craft Wire
  • 2 black beads
  • Silver tacks
  • Ribbon
  • No-Fray
  • 1 button (white)
  • Hot Glue

Steps:

  1. Cut a long piece of wire and bend it in half. Feed it through two holes of a white button. This will secure the styrofoam balls to the wire.Button through Wire
  2. Feed the wire through the largest of the three foam balls. Try to get the wire to go straight through the middle so the snowman isn’t off kilter.Ball on wire
  3. Stack the remaining two balls on top of the first with the medium ball next and the smallest ball on top. In between each ball, place a small bit of hot glue on the wire to keep the ball secure once it is in place.
  4. When the snowballs are assembled, secure them at the top by making a wire loop, then wrapping the remaining wire around the base of the loop. Add a thin ribbon here to hang the ornament.Snowman assembly
  5. Next, create the snowman’s face by firmly pushing two black beads into the styrofoam for the eyes. I used faceted beads, not round beads, thinking they’d stay in better.
  6. For the mouth, take a small pice of craft wire and bend it into a smile. Then, form 90 degree bends at the end of the smile and push it into the styrofoam.
  7. For the buttons, take silver tacks and stick them into the styrofoam to act as buttons. Place a dab of hot glue under each one so they don’t loosen and fall out over time.
  8. The scarf is next. Find a thick piece of ribbon and tie it around the snowman’s neck. Then, take scissors and “fray” the end of the scarf by cutting small slits. Use no-fray to seal the ends so the ribbon doesn’t unravel.
  9. Take a long piece of wire (12″) and fold the wire in half. Twist the wire until it is 1/3 of the way twisted. Then, take the straight wire and wrap up the twisted portion. When the wire reaches an inch from the top, start twisting again. This will form the two forks in the arm. When both forks are twisted, wrap the remaining wire down the base of the arm, then stick the wire bottom into the styrofoam. Secure with glue and repeat.Wire arm
  10. Hang snowman ornament on tree!

Snowman ornament

Snowman

Check back tomorrow for another DIY GIFT GUIDE post! Hope you are getting some good holiday gift inspiration.

Craft Projects, Furniture, Jewelry

Jewelry Box reveal… finally!

Jessica Smith

How sad is it that I’ve had this project complete for months and still haven’t shared it!? Very sad.

Oh well! The time has come to share my jewelry box project that took me months to do because I couldn’t decide what the heck I wanted.

Jewelry box before

I found this jewelry box in an antique store for 50% off, so I got it for a steal of $20-some bucks. Some of the jewelry boxes I was looking into buying cost more than $100, so that seemed like a great price.

I wanted to get rid of the gold tone to the wood and the stinky smell in the drawers so I decided to paint the whole think and rip out the fabric liner.

Jewelry box drawers

It’s not that the liner wasn’t nice… it just was horrendous haha. And scratchy! The only really nice piece of jewelry I own is a strand of pearls that my hubby gave me at our wedding, and it would be ruined resting on that. So yeah, it had to go.

Jewelry box white

Once the drawers were cleaned out, I started to paint. And paint. And paint. And paint.

Sometimes I forget how many coats white paint takes to cover. Holy cow. When I was pleased with the coverage, I added a stencil.

Turns out, I am god awful at stenciling, so I messed up the paint job pretty badly. Once it dried, I decided to just distress the whole thing. Good choice!

I stained over the paint and gave the whole thing a coat of polyurethane.

For the knobs, I reused the same knobs that came on the jewelry box. They fit perfectly and I thought they looked nice with the distressed vibe. For the drawers, I lined each with jewelry making mat (after I botched lining it with velvet. That was just terrible).

After months of working on it off and on, I finally finished the darn thing.

jewelry box4

I am in love.

Jewelry box

jewelry box2

So it took me forever to show you, but was it worth the wait?!

Jewelry box finished

I hope so 🙂