"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!!

Book Page Wreath

YAY!! I completed the "book-page wreath" that I was suppose to make before Valentines Day!!! I started my arrangement but never finished the "complete look".

I use a Tupperware bin to store my craft stuff and dedicate a couple bins to store my unfinished projects.  Well I pulled the bin out and got to work (right before going to my "real" work.....AKA "the job that pays me"! HA!)!!

The "BIN" with unfinished project:

And this is what happened after a couple of hours sitting on the floor gluing pages to a wreath form:

I found a GREAT blog tutorial that helped me get started.  She did an awesome job showing all the steps to make this book page wreath.  You can visit her blog HERE if you want to make one for yourself!!  I followed her lead and gathered all of my materials. 

You'll need:

• A Styrofoam wreath form ( I got mine at Joann's for about $2 with a 40% off coupon):

• An old used worn-out CHEAP book (OK what better book to use for the month of LOVE than a book about a love triangle between two boys fighting (literally) to win the love of one girl, Bella?!?!?!) I know what you are thinking......"How DARE she rip up a perfectly good book written by an awesome author to use for a stinkin wreath"?!?!  Well I didn't use my personal copy, I got this one at the thrift store for about $1.  Actually I will come clean and tell you I haven't even read this series YET.  GASP!!! I know I probably lost all of my readers this very second.  But its true.....I don't know what I'm waiting for to tell you the truth.  I love all of the movies and even just watched Breaking Dawn last weekend. Goodness are they getting good.  I have promised myself to read them before the last movie comes out!  2hotty has even read all of the books. (sorry hunny I just cant help but to embarrass you at least one time in each post. hehe!)  When the last book came out......he was probably the only thirty year old male, amongst all of the thirteen year old Justin Bieber lovers and Edward Cullen cult members buying his copy of the book!  HA!  How cute right?!?!  Very manly indeed!  Ok ANYWAY (was that really necessary?!?!) HA!:

•  A hot glue gun (mine's pink.....I love it):
  

•  Some brown/grey paint OR metallic spray paint (you'll see why in a bit):

-OR-

• Some ribbon or yarn (to hang the wreath to the wall)!

Once you gather your materials, just plop (is that a word?!?!) yourself on the floor and "get-to-gettin".  Oh and don't forget your cup of "JO" to get you to "GO" :-) because you'll be down there for awhile (a couple hours at least)!!

This Jo needs her "jo":



If you watched/read "Lindsay's" tutorial you would have noticed she even has a video tutorial.  She shows a few ways to fold the paper (I used all of the methods to give me that "not trying to hard" look) to make it look rustic and not perfect.

Starting my first layer:

First layer complete:

Flip over and press down:

Second layer:

Third layer:

Fourth layer:

YUP it gets a bit redundant but look at this "prettyness":

Where was I?

Fifth layer:

Then I flipped it over:

And finished it with the sixth (and final) layer:

"Tah-Dah":

OH and I also glued a piece of yarn to the back (the wreath isn't very heavy so surprisingly this is all you need):

Since my book wasn't very old and worn and was looking a bit stark white to me so I sprayed it lightly with some left over sparkly metallic spray paint to give it that vintage look. 

 I have a huge crush on this wreath:

This my friends is what I call a "complete look" (even if it took this long to complete it. HA!):

What do you think?!?!  I think it was worth the time to fill up that "Tyra forehead" of a space.  Now I cant wait to find a mirror to hang behind the wreath and a new wooden table to replace the wine table.  Just not loving it here!!  Off to scour Craigslist.............

xoxo JoAnna