Home Decor - Pocketful of Joules

The DIY Challenge: Big Reveal

The last two weeks have flown by since I announced the DIY Challenge!

For those of you who missed the original DIY Challenge post, I challenged myself and three of my blogger friends to do a DIY project that we’ve wanted to do for a while. It could be inspired by something we saw on Pinterest, someone else’s blog, a HGTV show, a magazine, or wherever else.

Now the two weeks are up and it’s time to see how we all did!

I went into the challenge with the best intentions to complete THREE mini projects in a trifecta of holiday goodness:

Mini project #1: Paint Dipped Pinecones
Mini project #2: Paper Punch Snowflake Garland
Mini project #3: Glittered Candlesticks

Project #2: Fail
I started with searching for the supplies for project number two, the paper punch snowflake garland. I searched high and low through Joann Fabrics and Michaels and could not find a large snowflake punch. The closest thing I found was a star-like thingie, but the hole-punch was over $20 and so small that it wasn’t giving me as much bang as I wanted for my buck. I made the executive decision to pass on this project and focus on the other two.

Project #3: Success
While I was wandering the aisles at Joann’s, I was sucked forward into the Martha Stewart section. I remember in the past that I was entranced by Martha’s glitter because it was brighter and smaller chunks than ‘normal’ glitter – I swear that woman probably has unicorns farting out the magical glitter in her factories – which MIGHT explain why each bottle was $12.99.

You know that I’m not paying $13 for a bottle of glitter, even if it came from a unicorn’s butt… so I quickly googled on my phone and pulled up a 50% off coupon. I also grabbed a jar of Martha’s glitter glue for $4.99 which is basically a thin, super sticky glue with an application brush in the top.

At home, I pulled out two Home Interiors candlesticks that I’ve had for years (they came in the interior consultant beginner kit I purchased when I sold the stuff). After dusting them off on the front of my shirt, I brushed on a layer of glue and then carefully shook the glitter onto the sticky candlestick. For the shorter candlestick I left the very top clear to give me something to hold on to and did the opposite for the taller candlestick. After each candlestick was covered in glitter, I tapped it on the table so that all the excess would fall off onto the plate. I was able to fold the plate in half and dump the glitter back into the container pretty easily.

I let them both dry for a few hours and then painted some more glue on the bare areas and repeated the glitter-shaking process. I’m really glad I went with the expensive glitter, because it definitely makes the project look much more professional and expensive than normal chunks of glitter.

Here it is in pictures:

Project #1: Total Change
This project started out easy-peasy and I finally saw the benefit of having over a dozen pine trees dropping their darn needles all over my land. I gathered a few pretty pinecones just steps from my door and figured that checked off the first step, so YAY for that.

Unfortunately, when I went back in the house and clicked through to the originally pinned project I read the comments and found that most people had issues. Apparently, when you dipped the pinecone in the paint it looked beautiful…until it dried and closed back up. Um… what?! That sounds like a lot of work and mess for something that will look like crap. So then I went to the obvious next step of, “oh, I’ll just spray paint them!” but read further in the comments to see that doesn’t turn out as well. Hmm… well, I have a bunch of glitter sitting around from the candlestick project…

So I decided to change my paint dipped pinecone project into a glitter one instead! I brushed glue on random spots of the piney part of the cone and then shook some glitter on top. I think they look much snazzier than if I had just fully covered them in glitter like a kiddie project.*

I found a pretty brass bowl at the thrift store for $2.90, so I figured I’d put it to use as a kind of holiday display:

Of course, now I’m kind of dying to throw glitter on more stuff…

Hmm…that could POSSIBLY be going a bit too far. He’d look awfully pretty though with a glittery mane…

I LOVED doing the DIY Challenge and especially liked checking out what the rest of my Glue Crew did (named by Katie, of course).

Stop by and check them out:
Words for Worms: Pinterest & Peer Pressure
A Grace Full Life: DIY Challenge for the DIY Challenged: The Aftermath
Quirky Chrissy: What do a Glue Gun, Exacto Knife and Pain Have in Common?

Did you play along at home? If so, email me your pictures by Friday, November 29^th and I’ll dedicate a blog post to showcase your awesome projects!

*Oh my GOSH I cannot WAIT until Jack starts bringing me home art projects from school!

Super Quick Change: Guest Room to Home Office

I found out some AWESOME news on Friday, which pretty much rocked my world. After almost two years of a super crazy commute schedule, I will be able to work from home two days a week.

TWO days a WEEK!

To put that into perspective, I will save 6 hours of driving each week… which totals to 13 straight days of driving a year! So yes, this is pretty life changing for me.

One problem though… our designated office is a crap-hole. The room has become a catch-all for pretty much EVERYTHING and right now contains: an old Ikea desk and desktop computer, an elliptical machine, three bins of baby clothes that I’m trying to decide whether to sell or donate, probably a couple dozen random kids toys, empty boxes, my overflowing tool box, and so so so much more. It’s not a very pleasant place to be and I pretty much keep the door closed at all times.

I was thinking about getting rid of our old desktop computer, but my husband likes to have it there for internet searching since his tablet can be challenging sometimes. When working from my laptop at home, I typically just set it up at the kitchen table, but moving my work office to my ‘home office’ means I’ll have stuff that needs to be easily accessible.

Which brings me to this room… our guest room.

It looks kind of okay in pictures, but the bed is actually just a blow up mattress. We hardly ever have guests stay over and we intend to switch our queen mattress to the guest room when we (someday) upgrade to a king-sized bed. Until then, this room is pretty much unused except when I throw old craft stuff on my sewing table… or shove it all aside so I can actually stitch something up.

The room is great though and has some wonderful afternoon sunlight, so I decided to take it over for my brand new home office. Also, since it will be MY home office… I don’t have to worry about any stinky boys invading my space. Or moving my work paperwork around.

My first step was to clean out the sewing table area – I got rid of all the unused crafty stuff (ok, I just threw it in the old office to go through when I’m home on Christmas break…) and stored the bin of random fabrics under the table. Boom. Cleaner already.

Then, I snapped up my old desk and ripped the hutch off the top. It was pretty unnecessary and honestly just attracted crap, so I tore it off (and yes, threw it in the old office. Don’t judge me!). Next, I grabbed a can of leftover paint from our downstairs bathroom and started painting everything except the top of the desk.

I also scrounged around the house for any unused pictures and wall ornament-type stuff that wasn’t being used. I actually pulled the sun mirror, brown framed picture and white sunflower frame out of my Goodwill pile, so that worked out pretty great! I had recently picked up a couple giraffe heads from World Market, so I thought one would be a snazzy addition to my cornucopia of randomness.

I let the desk dry overnight and then put it back together and shoved it up against the wall.

I still need to add my desk file organizer once I pick it up from work, as well as few random things like my wall calendar and a pen jar… but here is what we have so far:

I reused the side-table as a printer stand and also added a dog bed for Ollie since he will probably be spending a lot of time staring at me. The only things that I purchased for the project are the floor lamp (from Target for $60) and the giraffe (from World Market for $10).

What do you think? Check out the before and after!

Have you been doing any room change projects lately? What is your favorite part of my switch up? I’m tied between the two-tone desk and the cheery yellow giraffe head!

The DIY Challenge

Do you all remember when I used to do those fun gift swaps for other bloggers? Like the Fun Fall Swap I did last year. It was lots of fun, but then a couple people pissed me off and I went with a whole scorch-the-earth philosophy and decided that EVERYONE would lose their toys.

Well, I handpicked a few of my very favorite bloggers to do another {harebrained} fun project. I’m basing it on the fabulous Young House Love’s idea of their Pinterest Challenge… but calling it a DIY Challenge because it won’t be just restricted to Pinterest.

The premise is that I challenged myself and three blogger friends to do a DIY project that we’ve wanted to do for a while. It could be inspired by something we saw on Pinterest, someone else’s blog, a HGTV show, a magazine, or wherever else.

We will each post the project that we plan to attack today. Then, we have two weeks to make our DIY dreams a reality (and yes, I know that sounds corny). We will each post again on November 26^th and reveal how the project went and show you our Before/After pictures.

Sounds fun, right?

For my project, I’m picking a trifecta of holiday goodness!

Mini project #1: Paint Dipped Pinecones
Mini project #2: Paper Punch Snowflake Garland
Mini project #3: Glittered Candlesticks

So be sure to check back in two weeks to see if I end up with three adorable holiday crafts… or if I have another melted bowl in the microwave incident…

Want to know who else is playing?

Katie from Words for Worms
Kari from A Grace Full Life
Chrissy from Quirky Chrissy

They’ll each be posting which projects they’re going to attempt sometime today on their blogs, so stop by and say hi!

Do you want to play along at home? If so, do your very own DIY project and email me pictures by Friday November 29^th and I’ll dedicate a blog post to showcase your awesome projects!