DIY Fabric Covered Mouse Pad

1. Trace the mousepad shape to the fabric. 
2. Cut the shape. 
3. Put Fray Check glue on edges of fabric. 
4. Spray adhesive on the mousepad. 
5. Put fabric on and smooth out.

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DIY Entry Way Mantel

Finally got a chance to upload our mantel pictures to this blog. I went back to my old emails but couldn't find the source I used to build the mantel. The one closes I found was this one: http://www.leeswoodprojects.com/mantel_shelf.html. However the notes says 45 degrees... which is incorrect. It should be about 33/33.6 degrees...because you want the bottom of the mantel to taper in.

Primer and 3 coats of Ultra White by Behr.

Hung it up.

Creating the coat racks to go on the bottom of the mantel. Simply a piece of plywood we had left over from building a desk top, 1 piece of trim cut to 45 degrees, wood glue and nail in. The cost of the coat rack completely depend on the cost of the hooks. Home Depot and Lowes sells each hook rack for $5-6 piece.. for the nice ones. Super expensive if you need quite a few. I found these on Amazon for $1 a piece!!! And I love the way it looks. Unfortunately they don't have it on Amazon anymore.

Finally, a white bench from Ikea. We got a steal on this one! Originally the price is about $299ish. But we found this guy in the "As Is" area for $89 bucks!! The edge of two sides of the bench was a tiny bit messed up but white paint fixed the problem. We spray paint the knobs to black to match the coat rack.

The entire project (excluding the bench) was roughly about $30-$35. Usually a mantel like this...for this length (pretty long) can cost up to $800!! And that's the mantel itself, not even including the coat rack. I feel pretty good about the amount of savings, but the awesome part was of doing it ourselves!!

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DIY Fabric Ornaments

 Over the weekend my sisters and I, along with my niece, made some fabric ornaments. I love the way fabric ornaments look. So vintage...with the right fabric that is!

This have been done before and I'm sure you'll be able to find a lot of different ways to do it on the internet. Here are my steps:

What you will need:

• Scissor 
• Fabric 
• Ribbon or twine 
• Pins 
• Glue gun 
• Styrofoam balls 

Cut your fabric into strips about .5 inch thick. The length should be about a yard long (buy a yard of fabric and cut along the longest side). Put a tiny dab of glue using your glue gun onto the styrofoam ball and put the fabric on.

Roll your fabric onto the ball. You will notice that by criss crossing the fabric, it is much easier to keep the fabric in place. Cover the entire ball with fabric...make sure the foam isn't showing. Glue the end of the fabric to the ball.

Using ribbon or twine, make a loop and knot the ends. Stick a pin threw the knot and push down. And there you have it! It's super easy and will look great on your tree. You can use any fabric you like. I love the look of canvas, linen, and burlap (going for a vintage theme this holiday season!). My sisters used different color ribbons and added rhinestones to the ornaments. The possibilities are endless!

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