Year of Pinterest #2 - Button Tree

About two years ago I found a pin on Pinterest of a pretty tree with button leaves. 

Unfortunately, there was no website associated with this pin, so it sat on one of my boards, longing to be created. 

Today I grew a pair and made my button tree. 

I'm pretty crafty, I must admit, however, as far as painting and drawing, I skipped out on that gene pool. 

My mom is an amazing artist, but my drawings look like a 1st grader's art piece at best. So, taking a stab at this free-handed was terrifying. (I don't like to fail.)

First, I grabbed a pencil, eraser, sharpie, and a canvass. 

I traced out my tree (very timidly and lightly so I could erase mistakes easily) then I traced the outline with my sharpie. 

Next, I painted the tree black. Pretty simple, right? 

Touch up sloppy outlines with your sharpie. 

Also, neat tip (this one is my own) use a double up cupcake liner to hold your paint. Small, contained, and easy clean up. Just toss it when you're finished. 

After your paint dries, take some buttons (I chose white, but you can use any color, and the more variety of shapes and shades, the neater) and practice your placement. This is a good time to recruit your husband and children. It's a lot neater when you can look at your finished product an know everyone had a hand in it. 

Once you're happy with your button placement, start the tedious gluing process. I just used Elmer's glue. 

Lay on a flat surface to dry for about an hour, then...

TA-DA!

You have your finished product!

I would love to see your end product if you tried this pin out! Hopefully your tree trunk will be less wibbly-wobbly than mine!

The Year of Pinterest #1- Hiding that ugly modem and router

One of my biggest pet peeves in my living room was our ugly router and modem that sat atop our china cabinet. 

Here is this huge, beautiful cabinet filled with carnival glass, yet the only thing I  ever saw was the blinking lights of the router and modem. 

I had come across this tip on Pinterest yesterday and knew I had to give it a whirl. 

I couldn't bring myself to tear up any of the books we have, so I used dust covers instead. 

I have a tendency to trash book covers (I feel they take away from the actual book for some reason and at my house they get ripped quickly anyways) but I still had these two (because they were Josh's).

So on I slapped them...

Quick, painless, and no more blinky lights. In the future, I'll get prettier ones, but these will do for now. 

I placed more books on top of the cabinet so these two wouldn't be so lonely. 

There you have it... Camo success! 

The year of Pinterest

Hi, friends! 

After taking a little over a month off to collect myself after a long holiday season, I'm back!

This year though, I intend to commit my blog to cleaning out my Pinterest list. I feel that this will make me be both accountable to cleaning out my Pinterest boards as well as continuity in my posts here. 

And trust me, when I say I'm going to share my experience in all things DIY, I mean share my experience- both good and bad. 

This should be interesting at worst and hilarious at best. 

Wish me luck!