DIY

How to make a wine cork initial

September 17, 2014February 25, 2018 Our Gray House2 Comments

We drink wine and many of the bottles come with corks. Our last name begins with the letter “H”. I had a wooden “H” that I recently purchased from JoAnns. Naturally I thought….what could I make and quickly decided to make a monogram “H” using wine corks. Genius!

I gathered all the corks and we didn’t quite have enough.

…I vowed to drink more wine. 😉

I didn’t want to corks to stick out their entire length so I had my hubby cut them in half. Of course that resulted in twice as many corks but still not quite enough so…

…I will have to keep my vow to drink more wine. 😉

The letter “H” was plain wood so I painted it white and started hot gluing the corks on. I didn’t start with any pattern or anything but by the time I was nearly done I had this….

Ehhhh….not so much. The corks on the right are a little wonky and the corks on the left are lined up a little neater. I also am not happy with the white that shows through. Hmmmm…..

So I decided to paint the “H” brown to see if that helped. I removed all the glued on corks, painted the “H” and then began gluing the corks back on. I also am putting them four across instead of three.

I think it’s looking better….what do you think?

You will have to stay tuned to see the finished project. 🙂

(((hugs))) ~lisa

DIY

How to make a twine covered glass jar

June 19, 2014February 25, 2018 Our Gray House2 Comments

This is a pretty easy project and is a great way to upcycle those glass jars you have been saving!

For this project you will need:

Glass jar(s)
Twine
Craft glue
Hot glue
Embellishments

I chose a glass baby food jar.

If you look closely you will see that I did not get all the label off of the jar. No worries as it is about to be covered by the twine.

I chose a smaller size twine as the glass jar I was working with was smaller in scale than say, compared to a spaghetti jar. It also depends on the “look” you are going for.

I tied the twine around the top and put a few dabs of the craft glue down to help anchor it. I then began wrapping around the jar being careful to keep the twine pulled tight and keep the rows close together. After every three or four rows of twine, I would add a small line of craft glue and wrap over it.

After it was completely wrapped I cut the end off and glued it down with craft glue.

I then used my hot glue gun to add a flower to the front of it.

I think it still needs a little something…what would you add? Maybe some ribbon or lace around the middle?

I am using mine to hold my hot gun glue sticks so they are close by but not falling out of the bag and all over my work table. 🙂

What have you created lately?

(((hugs))) ~lisa

DIY

How to make a button covered initial

June 12, 2014February 25, 2018 Our Gray HouseLeave a comment

Is a tutorial really necessary? Probably not, but I’ll do one anyway. 😉

For this project you need some buttons in the color(s) you would like to use. I also used some seashells and some beads. I would suggest looking in the clearance area as well as the jewelry making aisle. Don’t limit yourself to just buttons! 🙂 One of the next projects on my list is making another letter but using wine corks instead of buttons. The key is to have fun with it!

You also need a wooden letter. Because I was planning on using white/pale buttons, I chose a white letter. You could always paint the letter a different base color as it will show through in spots. The letters go on sale often enough but I usually wait until they are NOT on sale so I can use a coupon and get it for even less than when it is on sale.

A glue gun and possibly some snippers to cut off the back of some of the buttons so they lay flat.

And yeah, that’s pretty much it.

I didn’t want my buttons to have to uniform of a look about them so I started by gluing them in different areas. Because some of the buttons were small, and because I don’t like burning myself with hot glue, I put a dab of glue directly on the letter instead of on the back of the button.

I kept adding buttons and trying to make it look a little random. You can glue them however you would like. Some may want a more uniform look to the way they are glued on.

I really thought I had plenty of buttons but I actually ran out before the project was complete.

After a quick stop at my local craft store, I had enough buttons to finish my project.

See? A pretty easy peasy project! Let me know if you have tried this or a variation of it!

(((hugs))) ~lisa

DIY

How to repurpose old Christmas cards

March 15, 2014February 25, 2018 Our Gray HouseLeave a comment

At Christmastime we get our fair share of Christmas cards and I never really know what to do with them at the end of the season. Many of them are too pretty to just toss and of course we keep the ones that have pics of our friends and their families on them but there are many that I would like to repurpose in another way to enjoy them again.

In my craft closet I have many bins to separate my craft items. Here are some cards that were in my paper craft box.

*If you notice on the right side you’ll see some paint samples. Future project that I can’t wait to try.

I decided to cut the cards down to reuse them for tags for Christmas presents. Some of the cards just didn’t fit the project and others seemed to be made to be turned into something else! I think they turned out pretty cute!

What do you do with your old Christmas cards? Do you have another fun way to repurpose them?

(((hugs))) ~lisa

DIY

Easy drawer knobs makeover

February 27, 2014February 25, 2018 Our Gray HouseLeave a comment

So my hubby, aka Mr Awesome, painted the desk that we purchased off of Craigslist that went into my office. The knobs were plain and I went to the store to purchase some newer ones. Wouldn’t you know it, all the knobs I like were 8 bucks a piece!! No way was I going to pay that. So what did I do? I bought some super cheap ones for about $.70 each and covered them with fabric.

I gathered my supplies:

Drawer knob, $.70 at my local hardware store
Fabric, $.80 and I clearly bought more than enough
Scissors
Pen
Mod Podge
Applicator

Basically I traced the lid of the Mod Podge onto the back of the fabric to get a circle larger than the face of the knob.

I cut it out and then used the applicator to put some Mod Podge on the face of the drawer knob. I placed the knob on the material and let it set for a few moments and then turned it and set it on the base and let it dry.

Next, I cut notches around the material that had since dried to the top of the knob, so when I glued those down they wouldn’t be too bulky. I applied the Mod Podge and tucked the material around the knobs. I then let those set until dry.

Now to attach them to the desk.

I think they turned out pretty good and I like how it pulls the color of the wall (True Turquoise by Glidden).

When I mentioned above that they didn’t turn out perfectly here’s what I’m talking about. On one of them it’s a little bit uneven on the underside.

On another you can see the gaps in the material.

All in all, for about $3, I’m very pleased with how they turned out.

Have you tried any DIY projects lately?

(((hugs))) ~lisa

DIY

We are bananas for you!!

February 2, 2014February 25, 2018 Our Gray HouseLeave a comment

I made a super cute little craft for my grandkids and nieces and I thought I’d share with y’all because it was so easy!

You will need:

Several boxes of Runts candy – Depending on how many you are making will determine the number of boxes that need to be purchased. I bought 7 and it was enough to harvest enough to do 9 projects with 15 pieces of candy in each. Now if someone tells me there’s a way to just buy the banana part that would be genius.

Monkey stickers – the inspiration for this project came from this “I’m bananas for you” that I have on my Pinterest board – Cute and fun ideas to make. If you take a peek you will see that my version will save you some time and possibly some sanity.

See through pouches or sandwich bags – I opted for the little bags that you can find at most craft stores. If I hadn’t had these on hand then I was going to use a sandwich bag and just tie it up an attach the card to that.

White cardstock – I had these that are a fun shape but square cards would work just as well.

Ribbon – I bought a color that I thought would coordinate with my monkey stickers.

Hole punch – to punch out the holes to put the ribbon through

I laid out how I thought I would place the monkey sticker on the card

I then wrote on the cards and determined where I wanted to place my holes for the ribbon. I punched out the holes and placed it on the banana filled bag and marked where the holes were so I could punch them out.

For some reason when I put on the monkey stickers I placed them all the way in the corner and that resulted in some “empty” space that I’m not totally happy with.

And here’s how it all turned out! I hope the grandkids and nieces like it!

(((hugs))) ~lisa

DIY

Coffee Filter Craft

November 15, 2013February 25, 2018 Our Gray HouseLeave a comment

I came across several packages of unused coffee filters at work. About 6 months prior I had thrown out about 8 packages so I knew that we weren’t going to use these either. I decided to look up on Pinterest things that I could do with coffee filters.

As luck would have it there was a baby shower coming up at work and I stumbled upon a really cute garland made out of coffee filters, so BAM! The decision was made. I was going to try it.

Here’s what you need:

Coffee filters (you can get them super cheap at the dollar store or save them from being tossed at work like I did)

Food coloring

A pot of cold tap water

Glue gun

Here’s what you do:

Now I had read the instructions on several projects but when it came time to do it I decided to just wing it. Well not totally wing it. But I wasn’t following step by step either.

I gathered the coffee filters, some red food coloring (my project was going to be pink for the baby shower), and a pot with cold water.

I put some red food coloring, about 3-5 drops in the pot of cold water. The amount of coloring you are adding depends on the coloring you are going for. I was trying for a pinkish color.

I then added all the coffee filters and let them soak for about 30 seconds. I then wrung them out. You can wring them out pretty good as they are not too flimsy. You will want to get as much water out of them as possible to help with the next step.

I then tried to just air dry them by leaving them spread out on the counter. They were taking ::forever:: so I put them in the dryer. Now I checked on them every 30 seconds or so until they were dry because I didn’t want anything catching on fire or something equally hazardous. They dried really quickly that way.

{I totally need to make sure the lighting is better for my pics!}

Next I took them individually and folded them in half then brought up the other two sides to make the beginning of a flower shape.

After folding I stapled them at the bottom to hold them together.

I then got out my glue gun and started to glue them into a white coffee filter.

The original plan was to make a bunch of little flower balls but things didn’t go quite as planned.

The flower didn’t look full enough to me. Hmmm….not sure really what to do as the original plan also included gluing the two of the above flowers together but like I said, it was not looking as full as I was wanting it to.

They look fine in the pic above (except for the lighting issues) as they look fluffy and like they would hold up But when I tried to attach it to the ribbon I was going to hang it with they just looked kind of floppy. And floppy was not the look I was going for.

After some deliberation and multiple attempts at forcing them to look like some of the pics on the internet, I ended up just making a big flower ball and this is the finished product!

So while in my mind it was going to be several much smaller flower balls I’m still pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here is a pic of how it looked in the break room at work. Notice how we took it old school with the decorations by adding the paper chain!

What cool things have you created lately?
Have you ever taken something and re-used it in a different way?

(((hugs))) ~lisa