Simple Spring Wreath + FREE Printable!

Truth time:  I just took down the Christmas wreath from my front door last weekend. 

In my defense, it was just green and snowy and had pinecones all over it so it wasn’t exactly “Christmas-y.” 

But still.  I started to feel like our mailman was judging my decorating abilities ever since my “Let It Snow” banner stayed up until it was literally falling apart.

Seriously, I found one of the letters in my neighbor’s yard.

Anyways, so I dug through my craft stash closet in out attic looking for something bright and springy and found this.

Source

Ok, not exactly this one but a grape vine wreath I bought I think last spring.  Who knows what project I was planning that never got started...

Anyways, I found the wreath and the wheels started churning.  I was thinking bright colors, maybe some rosettes and definitely the word “SPRING” somewhere. 

So late last week I made this cute little spring banner. 

Then I strung it up on some twine, using the handy-dandy tabs at the top.  I made these tabs primarily because I can’t find my stupid hole punch.  Feel free to cut them off if you prefer to punch holes instead. 

Then I made some rosettes out of scrapbook paper and leftover fabric and hot glued them on.  I won't tell you how I made them because there are better tutorials than I could ever give all over the interwebs.  But if you need some help, check these out:    

Finally, I added a little band along the left-hand side for color.  I liked it when I put it on, but looking at the pictures now, I may take it off.  

And there you have it!  Super simple, quick and easy spring wreath.

If you’d like to make your own, grab a copy of my printable spring banner here.  There is a large version and a small version.  The small is good for a wreath like mine, the large is good for hanging in a small window or at work.

Have fun and happy crafting!

Background music for this project:  Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Season 7, Episode 8: Sleeper 

As usual, linking up to my favorite linky parties!

Spring Cleaning: The Bedrooms - How to Clean & Freshen Your Mattress

Next up in my Spring Cleaning:  The Bedrooms series is how to clean and freshen your mattress.  Unlike the pillows, this tutorial doesn't have an astounding before and after shot.  But what I do have is this.

That, my friends, is what I vacuumed off of our mattress after cleaning it.

Gross motivation.  If this doesn't get you going, I don't know what will.

Spring Cleaning: The Bedrooms - How To Wash Your Pillows

Ok, who else is enjoying some gorgeous springtime weather??  It seems like as soon as I start to see some sunshine, I am reminded of how dirty I’ve let my house get over the winter.  The dust on the windowsills is suddenly more apparent, Pepper and Zeke are shedding fools, which results in tufts of fur rolling across the kitchen floor like tumbleweeds, and the air inside the house seems so stale with the windows closed.

So as soon as Daylight Savings Time hits (Or is it ends?  I can never remember.), I know it’s time to start my spring cleaning.  Now, I know there are bajillions of better bloggers than me out there (here, here, here) detailing their extremely awesome spring cleaning schedules.  That’s not what this post is about. 

This post is about getting your home cleaner.  It’s about cleaning things that are usually overlooked.  It’s about learning some gross facts that will motivate you into cleaning these overlooked things.

This week, I’m focusing on the bedrooms in my house.  I’m talking specifically the beds themselves – the pillows, the duvets and comforters, and the mattresses.

Did you know, over their lifetime, pillows can absorb THREE TIMES their weight in dust, dead skin cells, hair, sweat, bacteria and other yuckies? 

I’m sorry I had to share that with you.

Not really, you needed to know so you’d follow this tutorial and wash your pillows.

FREE Printable Let It Snow Banner!

What bugs me the most about holiday decorating is that January gets kind of jipped.  Sure January gets New Years Day, but that's about it.  Once your holiday decorations come down, it's all about Valentines Day.

So, the other day I was putzing around on Brusheezy, and came across these super cute snowflake brushes and inspiration for this Let It Snow Banner struck.  And I figured while I was making a cute banner for myself, I should get in the Christmas spirit and share it with you guys too!

Free Printable Let It Snow Banner 

I've got a tutorial below on how I put it together; but don't feel pressured to stick with the colors I picked!  This would be super cute with a burlap background or strung on rustic or bakers twine.  Or if you have some glitter laying around, you could glitterize the letters.  Or if you hate blue fuzzy mittens, you could ditch them.  Maybe I should re-make this banner for myself with all my other ideas...

So if you're following along at home, here's what you'll need.

• Cute Junk I've Made Let It Snow Banner, printed
• Hole punch
• Rounded corner punch (best $5 I've EVER spent!)
• Any version of your favorite paper adhesive - I used a glue stick
• 1 sheet of fancy scrapbook paper for the mittens
• 3 sheets of color-coordinated plain scrapbook paper
• Coordinating ribbon
• I don't even know what to call this - white fur-looking ribbon stuff.  I got 12" from the ribbon section of JoAnn's but you could probably get away with 6"

First, cut the Let It Snow letters apart.

Then, grab your plain scrapbook paper and cut out twelve 4 1/8" x 5 1/2" rectangles.  You'll be pasting your letters (and snowmen) onto these rectangles to give your banner a little weight and make it a bit more durable.

Paste your letters onto the plain scrapbook paper rectangles.

If you have a rounded corner punch, get crazy and punch those pointy corners off your letters.  If you don't have one, don't sweat it.

Now it's time to make some mittens for the beginning and end of the banner.

I free-handed the mitten drawing on my fancy scrapbook paper, but there are eleventy-billion coloring pages and templates online if you're particular.

The mittens look kind of naked, don't they??  Cut your crazy fur-ribbon to fit and glue a piece to the top of each mitten.  

Next, grab your hole punch (lots of punching here) and punch two holes at the top of each letter.  Try to center them as much as you can, but no need to get out your protractor.

When you've got all your holes punched, string your coordinating ribbon through them.

Now hang that baby up!!  Since the banner is kind of long, it's helpful to have an extra set of arms to help you hang it up.  Attached to you or someone else, doesn't matter.

First I put it up on my mantle.

But I had to take down our stockings to hang it up and the mittens ended up pretty much inside the dragon tanks on both sides.  Then I thought how flipping cute would it be hanging up on top of my snowflake curtain?!

 

And there it stayed.  Until I decided to move it out onto our covered front porch so our mailman Dominic could admire it.

No pictures, sorry, it was late!!

Linking up here:

Background Noise for This Project:  Duck Dynasty, Season 1 - Episode 10:  Plain Bee

How to Paint Laminate Cabinets - Part Three: Finishing Touches + Before & Afters!

You guys!! You made it!  You followed Part One, Part Two, and now we're on to the finishing touches and the fun part - the Before & Afters!

Ok, all that being said, these "easy finishing touches" were a complete bear for me.

I bought new gorgeous handles for all the doors and the screws that came with them were just a hair too long, so the handles rattled around.  So after three (yes, I'm totally serious) trips to the hardware store, I ended up just buying some washers to put under the screws.  It doesn't look perfect, but other than cutting down each screw (24 in all) individually, that was our only option.

Then, it turns out the old hinges we had on the doors were about 1/8th of an inch smaller than standard cabinet door hinges sold in home improvement stores.  So I had to go back, fill in all the hinge holes, sand, prime and paint them and then we had to drill new holes!

Did you know you can't drill cabinet door hinge holes with a regular drill bit?  Oh no, you need a special fancy-shmancy self-centering drill bit.  Did you know these fancy-shmancy drill bits are not sold in regular home improvement stores?  No, you have to go to a fancy-shmancy wood working store or order them online!  *headdesk*

Needless to say, this easy part, that pretty much every single tutorial I read breezed right over, was a giant pain in the ass!  Like I said in the beginning of this tutorial, I thought this would be a two-weekend - MAX - project.  It turned into a month-long disaster!

Alright so, back to the tutorial.  You've primed, you've painted, you've sanded, you've done all of this until you feel like maybe buying all new cabinets wouldn't be that bad...  But you did it, your kitchen looks awesome, you just need to put everything back together!

Hopefully, if your kitchen was built in the last 10 years, you will not have the problems I did.  Your hardware will be normal and not just a tiny bit bigger or smaller than you need and you will be able to do all this in an hour.

Alright, so, hardware time.  Grab your new handles, pulls, knobs, whatever you decided on.  If you're using your old hardware - great job and good thinking!!

      
 If you are like me and the screws are an inch long and you really need them to be 0.9 inches long, buy some locking washers and put those right underneath the screw head and screw on your handles.
Do not drive to the hardware store, buy 3/4" screws, go home, test them out, realize they are too short, drive back to the hardware store, spend 30 minutes trying to find someone to help you out (seriously, why is no one ever around when you need them!?), then decide on the locking washers, drive home, realize they are too darn small, then drive back, buy the 3/8" washers and tell your new cashier friend that you swear this is the last time you'll see him today.

Now, when it comes to drawers, remember how I said at the beginning that it was important to note which end of the doors were up?  Now is when that will come in to play.  My drawers were set up so that you could take the screws out and face came off.  Easy to paint, but if you put it on upside down, this is what your drawer ends up looking like.

A little wonky...

Alright, so your drawers are in; and now you're ready to start on the doors.  As soon as you finish putting the new handle on one door, grab your new hinge and test it out.  Please, please please do this.  Or, better yet, do a trial run with all your new hardware the moment you buy it, don't wait until the end.  Or else your kitchen will look like this for two weeks -

I'll admit, this does make putting dishes away much easier!

If your kitchen looks like this for two weeks, you may Google "How to buy dynamite" and contemplate blowing your kitchen to smithereens.  And I'm pretty sure Googling anything with the word dynamite in it puts you on some CIA watch list.

Ok, we're going to skip the parts where I had to fill the hinge holes, sand, prime and paint them.  And skip the part where Dude realizes we need a special drill bit to drill new holes for hinges.  And let's also skip the part where when we were finally ready to put the hinges on, I realize I only bought 12 hinges and I need 24!!  Needless to say, I'm on a first-name basis with all the cashiers at Lowes now.  Two of the hardware guys are also very familiar with my kitchen and my painting project.
 
Aaaand we're back.  Put your dang hinges on and hang your doors and step back to admire your handywork.  You are AWESOME!  You did it!  Look at how much brighter and open your kitchen looks!!

One last thing - those little felt pads that came with the hinges?  Put them on the corners of your doors and your drawers.  This will keep everything from sticking to the frame and possibly scratching the paint.

 
You won't have enough to do all your doors and drawers, but it's not a huge deal, you can find these pads pretty much everywhere.  I know I've seen them at Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

And once you've done that, unless you're me and decided at the last minute to put a sponge drawer underneath your sink, you're done! Enjoy the praise and compliments your significant other will most likely heap on you.  Or that might have been in my head.  Dude may have really said something to the effect of "Well, I don't hate it as much as I thought I would."

Now get ready for some pretty amazing Before & Afters!  (Please ignore the giant gaping hole underneath the sink.  Remember what I said before about the sponge drawer thing?)

 

And lest you think that I am immaculate and perfect in every way and my counters are always clean and clear like that, here's a picture of the other side of my kitchen.

Bonus points for spotting the level in this picture

Here's a rundown of all the hardware and accessories you see in the After pictures:

Hinges:  Lowes
Door handles:  Lowes
Drawer pulls:  Amazon
Rug:  Urban Outfitters  (cut down, the other half is in front of our side door)
Paint:  Olympic Premium in their basic white
Primer:  Valspar Bonding Primer in their basic white

If you decide to attempt this, let me know how it goes!  I'd love to see your before and afters! 

And in case you missed it, here's the whole series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Linking Up Here:

How To Paint Laminate Cabinets - Part Two: Sanding, Priming and Painting

Thanks for coming back to check out Part Two of this tutorial!  If you're just tuning in, go back and check out Part One to get up to speed!  Today, I'll take you through the steps of prepping your laminate cabinets for primer and then actually priming them.

Just a quick reminder of why you started this whole project in the first place.  Look at the huge difference it'll make!  You can do this!

For the sanding, you will need:

• Sand paper or an orbital sander (HIGHLY recommend an orbital if your doors are completely flat like mine)
• Sanding discs for your sander (80, 100, and 120 grit)
• A shop vac to collect the dust from your sanding or some kind of mask
• Tack cloth
• Lacquer thinner (optional)

All of the tutorials I read on painting laminate suggested using a fine grain sandpaper.  I did; and to be honest, it sucked.  It felt like the sand paper was doing nothing!  About halfway through the doors, we switched to an 80 grit paper I happened to have on hand and that did the trick.  It felt like we were really digging into the laminate and cutting it up enough that the primer would actually stick.

Looking back, the fine grain sandpaper was fine because we used a bonding primer; but the 80 grit didn't hinder us in any way.  I couldn't tell the difference either way once the primer was on.

 
Anyhow, all you have to do here is sand like crazy.  Get every surface you are going to paint and make sure not to sand over your door labeling!  Don't forget to sand the cabinet frames and the undersides of the frames if you're painting them.   

Notice how the orbital sander is hooked up to a shop vac.  I cannot recommend this enough.  I don't know a lot about toxic chemicals, but I can only imagine inhaling little bits of plastic and grease and other garbage is not good for you.  Hooking the sander up to the vacuum eliminated that issue completely.  If you are sanding by hand or don't have a shop vac, please use a mask or make one out of an old t-shirt like this guy.

Here is where having helpers comes in handy.  While my Dad was sanding, my Mom and I started wiping down the already sanded doors.

We used a combination of a tack cloth and lacquer thinner.  I bought brand new tack cloths for this project and they left a weird kind of waxy film on the cabinets (Can you see it in the picture above?).  I didn't think it would be an issue, but to be safe we used the lacquer thinner as well.

If you use the thinner, do it outside, in a well-ventilated area.  This stuff STINKS!  Not safe for kids or pets, for sure.

Alright, so cabinets are sanded and wiped down, that means it's time to prime and then paint!

For the priming and painting, you will need:

• Painting tape, I used frog tape, but any kind will do
• Bonding primer (this is essential for laminate cabinets)
• Foam paint rollers in 6", 4" and 2" sizes
• Paint brushes
• Paint pain
• Aluminum foil
• Sandpaper (optional)
• Painters pyramids/thumbtacks/etc (optional)

First things first, tape off your cabinet frame - next to the walls, around appliances and around your hood vent if you have one like mine.  I made the mistake of not doing this when I first started and I spent some time scraping paint off my stove and dishwasher.


Now, to save yourself the hassle later, cover your entire paint tray with aluminum foil.  This way, when you're done, you won't have to clean out the stinking thing.  I'm all about cleaning short cuts here, people.

Mix up your primer, pour it into the pan and get painting!  This stuff dries to the touch really quickly, so make sure to cover the paint can when you're done pouring it out.

I went through and primed one side of each door first; and my Mom stood by with a paint brush to clean up any dips along the sides of each door.  Make sure you don't paint over your door labels!  Once I finished one side, I (carefully!) picked up the door like a serving tray and painted each side, watching the top for drips or globby bits.  Take it from me, the last thing you want on your fresh new cabinet doors is globby bits.

I doubt this is kosher and the primer people would probably cry if they read this, but once I did a single coat on one side of each door, I went back and did another coat.  The primer was dry to the touch, but easily scratch-able, so instead of taking the chance and flipping them, I decided to go back and do another coat, in the hopes of saving a little time down the road.

This ended up working out perfectly, but if you're using painters pyramids or thumbtacks to paint both sides at once you may want to just flip them and paint the other side.

Here's my kitchen at the end of day one, with one coat of primer.

Up close view of the cabinet frame with one coat of primer

Helpful hint - instead of rinsing out your paint tray, brushes, and rollers, cover everything with plastic wrap or a plastic grocery bag.  Everything will stay fresh for a couple of days and you won't wash everything out 100 times before the project is over!

Per the instructions on the primer can, let the first coat of primer dry for 4 hours before flipping your doors over to paint the other side or to paint your next coat.  This will vary depending on the heat and humidity while you're painting.

When you're ready, unwrap all your painting stuff and put a second coat on everything you can.  I kept the same side of the doors facing up at this point and put a second coat on just one side.  After I was done with the doors, I went inside and primed the frame and undersides of the cabinets.

 Wait 4 hours, flip your doors and do it all again, twice. 

Alright, at this point, you should have two coats of primer on everything - doors, frame, your clothes, your dog...  And you know what that means, time to PAINT!  FINALLY!

Rinse everything out, put new foil in your paint tray and new rollers on your brushes and get painting!  Put one solid coat on everything you can.  Let it dry for 4 hours before moving on to your second coat.  If you get any globby bits, sand them off before repainting.  If you have dogs, keep them away from where you're painting or you will be sanding dog hairs out of your cabinets as well.  Not that I would know! :)

Like I said before, I did 3 coats of paint, but that will vary depending on how dark your original cabinets are.  And to be fair, my third coat was really just touch ups.

Once you're done painting, all that's left is to reattach the doors and put your hardware back on or put on your new hardware!  Check out Part Three for the final steps in this tutorial. 

Or if you'd rather, here's the whole series:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three