Fall Crafts

I've hit a crafting wall this fall. My house is finally completely decorated. I feel as all of my inspiration has flown out the door with the summer sun. I know this will pass after Thanksgiving when I can start decorating for Christmas. (I'm a firm believer that you cannot put up Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving.)

Until then, in order get get into the fall spirit I revisited a craft I have done before....

It involved cutting lots and lots of circles of fabric

And making pretty ruffles with them...

Then you add a well placed bow....

And you have a fall wreath!

You can find my tutorial for this here.
Oh, and because I said I would tell ya'll how much I spend on my crafts:

hanger: Free (from my closet)
Ribbon: $1 (I had this in my ribbon stash, but I think I got it for $1 at Michael's)
Fabric circles: Free (I used the fabric from a blouse and a dress I didn't want anymore. I'm always trying to re-purpose good fabric)

Search for the Perfect Rug

I have this old rag rug in my kitchen. It completely clashes with every color scheme I have going. I think I've had it since college. It cost me $2.50 at Walmart, 7 years ago.

Instead of tossing it out, I decided to repurpose it. A few weeks ago I saw a rug tutorial on KoJo Designs.
I wanted to try it and this seemed like the perfect opportunity, though I didn't follow all of her instructions.
I had wanted a new rug for in the kitchen for awhile. I knew that I wanted to incorporate the orange I already had going, but I also wanted to bring in more yellows to soften up the orange.
I found the perfect fabric at JoAnn's, and I KNEW I had to use it for this project.

First thing I did was spray adhesive a thick black piece of fabric to the rug. I did this so that the pattern in the rug wouldn't show through my fabric, and also to make it that much sturdier.
After spray adhesiving the black fabric to the rug I spray adhesived my fabric that I wanted to show to the black fabric. It worked fairly well, though if I were doing it again I would try to find a canvas material that I liked. I just fell in love with my lemon design material, and no other would do.

The I sewed around the edges of the rug to make sure everything stayed right in place. After that you want to scotchguard your rug like scotchguarding is going out of style.

Ta-da! Finished rug!

Finished rug in the new kitchen! I think I may try this again with a bigger rug. Maybe something to go in my bedroom. Next time I'll definitely use canvas material or maybe duckcloth instead of plain cotton.

Let me know if any of you try this!

Fun Free Finds (I like alliteration )

The other day I was walking down the street and I noticed that the duplex next to my apartment building was being remodeled. They had tons of stuff outside, including an old wooden ladder. I have been wanting an old ladder for some time now, I quickly rummaged through the debris on the sidewalk and uncovered my new treasure:

I brought it into my apartment and cleaned it off. After cleaning it I took out my saw, which you can see in this picture. I knew the ladder would be too big for my apartment in its current state so I cut it down to three rungs. After cutting it down I painted it an off white color. Originally I wanted it a brilliant white, but off white was all I had sitting around my apartment.

After painting the ladder I hung it on the wall on a couple of nails. I rather enjoy the new decorative shelving!


What do you think? I love it. Originally I was going to full it with books, but it looked too busy. I like this much more. I especially love that the books that did make it to the shelf are all Ayn Rand books! The picture frames are the same ones from this post (from my old blog). Instead of putting pictures in them I put fabric scraps in. I loved framed fabric. It can easily add some color to any room.

Also, on a side note, I have begun my funemployment time. So expect more posts, more crafting and more Tina in general!

Kitchen Remodeling Ideas

I have the tiniest kitchen ever. Seriously, it's small. There is enough room for the stove and the fridge along one wall. The other wall holds the sink and a few cabinets. Definitely leaves me wanting more.

I'm so in love with the rest of my apartment but I wanted something more for the kitchen. So I started googling some ideas for making use of my one empty wall. This is what I came up with:

Julia Child's kitchen. Seriously, who didn't love the movie "Julie and Julia"? I know I adored it. I also adored Julia's kitchen. While she and her husband were living in France her space was limited, so she made use of peg board walls all around her kitchen. It led to opening up a lot of space, and to easy access to all the items that she needed at an arm's length. Genius.

I'm also a huge fan of open air cabinets. I love seeing my dishes on display. I took a lot of time and effort to pick out everything I own, so I don't mind sharing that with the world. I will say you will never see me display food! I like to keep my food hidden away in cupboards.

This is what I started with. I put up 2 shelves the third wall, and hung a hand made painting. I also painted my backsplash orange along the wall with the sink. I haven't been happy with it though. I love the orange, but I wanted to incorporate the color onto the other walls without having to paint an entire wall.

This was "my" solution. I went to Home Depot and bough 2 pieces of pine wood. The pieces 8 feet long and about 2 inches wide. I cut each piece in half. Now I had 4 pieces. I mounted the pieces on the wall to make a frame for my peg boards.

Yep, I then screwed the pegboards to the frames. I made sure to anchor my frames to the wall, cause I knew they would be carrying a lot of weight.

Then I hung my Le Creuset set that my mom gave me. It's high end enamel cast iron cookware, and I LOVE it. If it were possible to marry a kitchen item I would marry this set.

Then I added a few more items...

And I filled the selves with all my glassware...

Now I LOVE my kitchen!

Seriously... LOVE it!