Turning Roses into Peonies...I'm magic

Hi friends!

Here's a tutorial on how to turn silk roses into peonies, that you can do on any surface...I chose to do one on one of my old blue throw pillows. Peonies have got to be my most favorite flower in the world. They are so beautiful and delicate. There's something frilly and uber girly about them, which is probably why I love them!

What I used:

• Blue throw pillow
• 4 White fake roses
• Scissors
• Glue gun

Take your flowers

And pull off the backing and each layer...

Discard any plastic pieces and arrange petals in piles by size...

Starting with your smallest size , pinch together the tops of the petals, and the center will make a point

Put some hot glue on the tip of that pont, and place on the surface you are gluing your peony...for me, it's the center of my pillow. This petal will be the center of your flower.

Do the same for the rest of your smallest sized petals and cluster them around the center petals.

Once you have used all of the smallest sized, move on to the next size up and continue to cluster outside the smaller petals

Do the same for all the sizes, except for your largest peatals

Now for your largest petals, cut them into individual petals

Glue the tip, or the point of the petal, and glue them all around the outside of your cluster , but lay these flat.

Ta-da! A peony from roses!

Pillow Revamp & Fabric Rosette Tutorial

Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi!!



Sorry I have been absent for so long!



I plan on being back in action with alot of new projects for Spring!



Since spring is right around the corner, I've been wanting to bring a little bit of it inside our apartment and cheer the place up!



I've had these old throw pillows on our couches for sometime now and I've been pretty bored of them lately, so I decided to jazz them up a bit!



Here's what I used:

• my old throw pillow


• scissors


• hot glue gun


• fabric


• and a puppy potty pad (which I use as a padded work space to protect my table).........don't judge.

Now, on to making the rosettes...

Lay your fabric out flat

About 2 inces from the edge of your fabric cut a little slit

Now grab hold of both sides of your cut

And rip it!!

Don't worry about trying to keep things straight, just pull equally hard on both sides and it will always rip in a straight line! (This also feels really good to do if you're P-Oed about something!)

Here's what you end up with

Now the lenth of your fabric strip will determine how big around your rosette ends up...the length of mine wasn't long enough for me so I just hot glued 2 strips together.

Once that cooled and dried I tied a knot where the 2 strips were glued, and that acts as the center of your rosette. (If you don't need to glue 2 strips together, then knot your fabric in the dead center of your strip)

Pinch the 2 sides of the knot together and glue them together so you end up with the knot on top and the 2 fabric "tails" side by side.

Start twisting your tails together and wrap them around the knot, gluing to secure as you go

Keep winding and gluing until all of your tail is secured to the rosette.

Here is what you end up with

Soooo cuuuuute!!

About this time in the project feel your pant leg being pulled from below the table and.......err......wait a minute! This isn't part of my tutorial....oh Harley!

And take your dog out to use the bathroom...this step is of course optional.

GETTING BACK TO IT!

I ended up making the bigger one with 2 strips glued together, and I made 2 smaller rosettes with only one strip of fabric.

Then I just glued them where I wanted them on my throw pillow and voila!

Beautiful! I loved it so much, I made one for my barstool!

LUUUUURVE

End Table Redo

I'm linking this to Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday!
I found this little guy at my new favorite thrift store...




I'm not liking the color, but I'm loooooving the lines

So I sanded him down



Sprayed him with a coat of white spraypaint, just for a base



And then painted him with interior paint in white. (Not pictured)

Then I took these stencils and using a silver/grey (grey,gray?) paint, I made him pretty




I bought a new bauble knob from Lowes and stuck that on there.



And now I cannot get enough of my table!!! I love love love it!! SQUEEE!

Fabric on Canvas

Just a quick and easy idea for old scraps laying around... I took an old canvas I had painted on back in college, some fabric I wasn't going to use for anything and my staple gun and just "reapholstered" if you will, the canvas.





Easy! Make sure you pull and staple really tight so you don't have any wrinkles in the fabric. How cute would these look in some sort of toile print!?!?

Turn an Old Book Into Something Pretty!

Okay really, I think this has been the easiest thing I've ever done, and I feel like I have a fuzzy memory of making these when I was a little girl.

I bought this book at the Goodwill for $1 specifically for this project. I have never read Anne Rice, so I don't know if this book is any good, but if anyone out there is reading my blog, and this is your favorite book ever...look away, it's gonna be a bloodbath..... Okay not really, but I will be destroying this book.




I bought this book because:

A) it wasn't hardcover

B) the pages were huge

C) It had alot of pages, I think it was over 550 pages.

All I did was I started with the first page, and folded it in half.



and then turned the page



Keep going



Keep going



Until all of your pages are folded




Now open up the book in random spots to kind of loosen the spine from the cover



Carefully remove the cover of the book without ripping the spine (you'll know if you ripped the spine if the pages all fall out one by one.) Use scissors if you need help.




Once the cover is off, the folded pages should push against eachother to spin out like this



If it doesn't, you may need to re open more pages to kind of loosen the spine a little bit more, and if that still doesn't work, use some craft glue to hold the spine together.

I stuck it on a pedestal (that I may or may not be painting a different color) that I bought from Goodwill for $3. It really serves no purpose. I just thought it looked cool on my bookshelf.