"It's Pinterest Challenge time"-Winter Edition

I'm singing.......
"It's Pinterest Challenge time"
"It's Pinterest Challenge time"
......to the tune of "It's peanut butter jelly time" over here! HA! Any of you ever get that song stuck in your head?!?!  I blame my hubby, 2hotty (AKA my hubster, Scotty)!  He use to annoy me with it all the time and before I realized it I was singing annoying everyone I knew......even while at work.  Quite embarrasing if you ask me!

 If you're brave enough you can watch the YouTube video below:

Hello!! Your Welcome! HA! That just woke me up.  Do I enough need my coffee now?!?!

So now that you have peanut butter & jelly on your mind, go ahead and fix yourself one (I'll wait) and come on back so that you can read all about the item I challenged myself to tackle from my PINTEREST account. 

Most of you are probably here visiting from Katie and Sherry's blog (HI FRIENDS!).  Those two stunning ladies came up with such a great idea didn't they?!?!






It was perfect timing if you ask me.  You see, 2hotty and I moved into our new (FIRST) abode just five months ago and we've been SO busy cleaning, painting, DIY'ing, and most importantly still UNPACKING!! Yes it is a never ending job.......even five months later.  Recently I had discovered some of our wedding "stuff" in a box that I unpacked last week.  Our wedding was almost five years ago!!  WOW....time sure does fly!  Some things such as our wedding candles, guest book, and wedding cards gifted to us by loved ones were discovered in this box.  I had absolutely no idea what to do with them besides shoving them all back into the box and moving right along.  The cards especially.  They were all over the place.  Do I keep them?!?!  Do I look at them, give them a big squeeze, and then toss them in the trash along with the moldy leftovers from last week?!  I had no idea.  I then remembered something!  I remember I had pinned this a long time ago:



IT'S BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's a book of her wedding cards all in ONE place!! Don't you just love Pinterest!
Before I show you how I made mine I want to say one thing.  Well a few things.  Before attempting this I did not have a tutorial of how to do make this.  The pin only linked to the website and not the actual tutorial.  So I kinda went out on a limb and guided my own path.  Which is kinda the point right?!?!  Put your own spin on it!  I later did discover the actual tutorial by searching on the website just in case there was one.  And I found it. Womp Womp! Oh well. Here is the LINK if you are interested!!  It is very detailed and GREAT!  I will use her version to make a Christmas card photo book (you know picture cards you get from family and friends that you don't have the heart to throw away!) to put out every Christmas.  My version has some pros and cons and I will point them out as I show you.

Here is what my finished project looks like:

I used two wooden frames instead of cardboard as the front ande back cover.  Which is good and bad.  The good: It's a bit sturdier and won't get bent out of place, therefore protecting the cards a bit more.  I also like that it is a frame as you can add a picture of the occasion that you are making the book for (such as baby shower, birthdays or even Christmas photo cards that you want to save each year!) or even a beautiful poem, etc!  The bad:  The largest binder ring that I purchased did not fit when everything was in place, therefore I had to substitute in a piece of ribbon to keep the cards together which I don't really care for but it is what it is (Now I will be on the look out for a bigger and badder binder ring.....that is if they even sell them. Anyone know?!?!)! AND a drill is needed to put a hole through the wood frames so that may be a problem if you don't own one. Other than that I love the way it came out.  I think it works perfectly for my wedding cards and now I can showcase them on a book shelf or what have you! If you are interested in my version then keep reading!

So first thing is first.  Gather all of your materials:

* 2 wooden frames (found at Walmart in the craft section): $0.97 each

* Wooden letters: (Walmart craft section) $3

* Binder rings (If you can find some LARGE enough otherwise skip!) $2 (for a pack)

* Glitter (Real pretty colors at Joanne's or Michaels)

* Ribbon

* Thumbtacks

* Glue

* Acrylic paint

* Drill

First you'll want to put holes through the frames using a drill.  I enlisted in 2hotty to help me with this step while I held the frames in place:

***You want the bottom frame to be smooth side out so its like a book!

Yes 2hotty is wearing a Dunder Mifflin shirt!! (shout out to all The Office lovers!)  and yes it took him four beers to drill two stinkin holes into a frame.......

.........as he walked around grunting like Tim the "Toolman" Taylor! Boys and their toys I guess!

Next you'll want to paint your wooden frames in the color of your choice.  My wedding color scheme was tiffany blue and chocolate brown. I had a metallicy blue on hand so that is what I chose for the frames:

I glittered up my wooden letters:

Let everything dry for a bit before messing with it.  Or you'll have glitter and glue everywhere!!! I may or may not be speaking from experience. Impatient this one I swear! 

When dry, glue the letters onto your frame.  Now wait AGAIN!! I know....I know...patience will be your friend at the end......I promise!

I gathered all of my cards and picked out one that I liked and popped it into the front frame:

and used a piece of leftover burlap to the bottom frame!  Use a hole puncher to punch out holes to the top left corner of your cards and attach everything together with your binder ring or a piece of string/yarn/ribbon (whatever you have on hand really!) in place. 

Now you'll want to wrap your ribbon around the entire thing.  Cut out a piece long enough to make a bow in the front. To the back, I just pushed down thumbtacks (you can use a hammer and lightly tap them in!) to keep the ribbon in place:

Flip over and you have yourself a pretty sparkly wedding card book:

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you have any questions leave it in the comments below.  I'm off to scour all the links to see what everyone else has challenged themselves to make!!  I may be sitting in one place "oohing and aahing" for a very LONG time!! I love pretty little DIY/crafty/yummy things!!  Tootles my poodles!

Have a great hump day everyone! 

xoxo

Joanna D!!

Ace is the Place!

So..........
We meet here again.
Did you score a free quart of paint from Ace Hardware over the weekend?!?!?
This lucky lady did.  Woot! 
Actually I scored two.  The gentleman behind the counter also gave my husband one (regardless of the "one per household" rule!!
Double "Woot Woot"!!!

If you did make it to Ace, you would've found out that its flat enamel only!!  Not so ideal for a front door makeover like I was hopein. Shucks!! BUT.........

I'm excited to make something over anyway!  This something happens to be my new desk I picked up at St. Vincent De Paul (for 25 bucks!!!) right before we made it to Ace actually. Well the desk isn't "new new" per say but it is new to me and will fit in perfectly in my office that I like to call my "diva headquarters".  I can finally blog like a real blogger........you know in an actual office and from an actual desk, and not from my couch while watchin episodes of The River or Alcatraz!!  Oh heck who am I kiddin I'll probably only use the desk to pay our bills.

It really needs a bit of TLC first........like some wood filler and a new coat of PAINT!!  You know kinda like them Desperate Housewives do it. A little bit of botox to fill in the cracks or in this case a bit of wood filler.......and a spray tan to make em look orange bronzy or in this case a new (FREE) coat of paint to make the desk look pretty again!!



We have three bedrooms on the first floor, one being our master bedroom, one being the guest bedroom, and the last one being my office/dressing room/makeup room.  One of the first things we did the very first week we moved into our house is paint all of the bedrooms.  Great right?!?!  No not so great!  That meant I had to pick out all of the paint colors in one weekend.  I'm indecisive and also want perfection.  Do you know how hard it is to narrow down a paint color when you don't even have a color scheme in mind?!?!  Ya I was in panic mode but eventually decided we would paint one room a "boy" color and the other room a "girl" color that way we wouldn't have to paint the rooms again!  The room I took over as the "diva headquarters" will ultimately be a baby girls nursery (that is we ever have a little girl).  I wanted it to be frilly and girly without actually painting everything in the room PINK if you know what I mean!  So I went with a light aqua color. 

The swatch on the right is the wall color, matched to Benjamin Moores Innocence. What a perfect name for a future nursery, no?!?!  The color I chose for the desk is color matched to Benjamin Moores, Silver Streak. 

I know what you are thinking........."but Jo the two colors next to each other aren't very girly".  You just have to trust me on this one......I think it will scream "GIRL" (or for now "DIVA") when I'm done with the entire room. Well I sure hope so.  Otherwise I will be doing the screamin!!  You see I have a vision.......but sometimes my "vision" back fires and instead of looking hot -  it looks like a hot mess.  HA! Lets just hope I know what I'm doing and it works out for me. Crossing my fingers (and toesies!)! 

What color did you choose?!?!  What item will you be covering with free paint?!?!  Anyone have to choose paint colors in a hot minute?!?  Ya not so much fun.  You should have seen me at Ace.......I think we were there for a half hour.  2hotty kept tellin me, "hey if you don't pick a color, they'll run out of cans and if that happens don't cry to me"!! Isn't he so sweet!  Bless his little heart. Ha!

xoxo JoAnna D.

Ace Hardware Paint Freebie

Have you heard about the free quarter gallon can of paint (from the new Clark + Kensington line) that Ace Hardware is giving away?!?!?  I haven't until about five minutes ago and I am tickled pink (or whatever color it is that I chose. HA!).  I came upon this BLOG (so the cook said) where she spilled the paint news with all of her readers about the freebie. I thought I would "color the world" with this tidbit of info too (well color the blog world!). It is this Saturday, March 3 at your local Ace Hardware store. Apparently each store gets about 40 cans to give away. CLICK HERE TO PRINT YOUR COUPON.



I may not have allot of fancy stores in my town..........but we do have an Ace!!  Yippee! That doesn't always mean that I'll actually be able to snag this freebie.  I'm sure they wont have a flippin clue what I'm talking about when I show em my coupon!  That's small town for ya! I can just picture it now:  Me: (giddy and big smile handing the coupon to the cashier) "I'm here to get my free paint".  Cashier: "Say what there pretty lady!"  Me: (opposite of a smile) "Oh never mind.".  It's happened before at our local KFC.  I use coupons.......get over it! Let's just hope that's not the case.  I have faith......cause mamma needs a fresh coat of paint slapped on the front door (and maybe even the garage door.).  Something fun and inviting!  Something antiboring (you know....opposite of me!) and I'm sure a quart of paint will do the trick! (Check out the blog mentioned above and her fabulous door!!  That's what I'm shootin for.)  Oh and after you high five the cashier and walk away with your freebie.....come on back cause I wanna know what color you chose and what project you'll use it for!

xo JoAnna D.