DIY Typography Decanter

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Nordstrom is one of our favorite places to shop. The shoes, the fashion, the return policy, the cafe – we love all of it! We noticed a fun Booze Decanter and Stopper throughout the holidays, and we never quite stopped thinking about it. Thankfully, we were able to re-create a DIY Booze decanter with our Silhouette cutting machine, and our minds {and bar} are at peace…at least for now.

Materials:

Instructions:

Assemble empty glass bottles you can transform into DIY typography bottles.

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Design your labels with the Silhouette software. Print according to package instructions.

Once the vinyl is cut, remove the excess vinyl around the words, and place Frog’s Tape over the words.

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Pull the tape up, and the words should be attached to the tape.

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Press the tape and words onto the bottle, and get all the bubbles out with a straight edge {we used a credit card}.

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Pull the tape up from the bottle, and the vinyl should stay in place on the bottle. You may have to use one finger to press down on the vinyl if the font is thin and it comes up with the tape, but we didn’t have to on this project.

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Once all the tape is removed, you should have a new DIY typography decanter. Fill with alcohol and say cheers!

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For this project, we took it one step further and got a little Typography happy! We couldn’t do just one bottle! This DIY project makes for a really fun addition to any bar, and a great hostess gift.

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Not only did we create several bottles, but we couldn’t have a bottle that holds alcohol without actual alcohol in it. With St. Patrick’s Day several days away, we ventured into making our own Bailey’s Irish Cream. My girlfriend, Kacey, made a delicious batch of our favorite Irish cocktail for a birthday brunch recently, and we couldn’t believe homemade Bailey’s could be so good. We’ve revamped a couple of recipes to make our homemade version, but most are similar.

Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream
adapted from several recipes

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup + 1 tablespoon Jameson Whiskey
  • 1 pint half and half
  • 1 can Eagle’s Condensed Milk
  • 2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla
  • 1 tsp. instant espresso mixed with 1 tsp. boiling water

Instructions:

Place all ingredients in a blender, and blend. If you don’t blend for 30 seconds or more, we found that our Bailey’s had some chunks from the cream, so continue to blend until smooth.

Keep in a sealed glass jar in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Give it to a friend as a gift this St. Patrick’s Day, too!

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Faux Moss Spring Cork Board and DIY Flower Pushpins

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It’s almost spring time, so naturally we’re upgrading our cork boards. If you have to be stuck inside at work on a beautiful spring day with dingy, fluorescent lighting, why not add a little greenery and blooms to the walls for color and sunshine?!

Here’s how we made our DIY faux moss cork board and flower push pins.

Materials:

  • Faux moss, in this case a table runner from Pier 1 {you could also use turf}
  • Flowers
  • Hot glue gun and glue
  • Cork board squares, Michaels
  • Pencil
  • X-acto knife
  • Pushpins

Directions:

Lay out the faux moss runner. Measure the cork board squares on the moss, and pencil an outline of the cork board on the back of the moss. Cut the faux moss with the X-acto knife. We had enough moss to fully cover two squares, and decorate the third square with the word BLOOM, and grass/stems. If you want to trim all the cork boards into slightly smaller squares, there will be enough faux moss to cover all three.

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Glue the moss onto the cork board. We lined the edges of the moss with hot glue, and pressed down.

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cork-board-square

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Pull the flower blooms from the stems, and glue onto the pushpins. We kept the middle plastic part of the flower to retain its shape, so we just cut the long part of the plastic stem from under the flower.

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Glue twine onto the back of the cork squares {in the center} to hang the board.

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Hang photos, notes and art prints.

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DIY Scrabble Tile Planter

One of our favorite DIY home sites is Curbly. With an abundance of great ideas and projects, they inspire us to love where we live, and update our homes with DIY details.

So, it is an honor to have a guest post on their site. We shared a DIY Scrabble Tile Planter. Good news, the plant is still alive, so it’s worth the small pile of sawdust to create.

Visit Curbly for the full tutorial.

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Personalized Book Giveaway and DIY Kite Easter Eggs

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We are flying high with today’s post. Literally, we are as high as a kite in the sky! We love our newest DIY Kite Easter Eggs, and they were inspired by an I See Me! book, My Little Book of Blessings. We have always loved I See Me! products, and they remain one of our favorite newborn gifts. Recently we opened up the blessings book and found the graphics to be magical, and the words to be meaningful. A book that teaches children the golden rule, the importance of friendship and how to lend a helping hand is a book we want on our bookshelves. Plus, every page is customized with a child’s name, and a special note and photo on the front and back pages.

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The page about friendship has kite illustrations, and thus our DIY easter eggs were born. Please keep reading for a tutorial on the eggs, as well as a giveaway for a I See Me! book of your choice, just in time for Easter. The books are amazing, and the gift of reading is priceless.

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Materials:

Directions:

Draw the kite designs with a pencil. If you mess up, you can erase it. We used free-hand to draw our designs.

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Outline the egg with a thin black Sharpie marker. Once the design is outlined, erase any pencil marks that remain on the egg.

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Begin to color inside the lines with Sharpie colorful markers. Continue until all kites are brightly colored.

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To begin to make the kite tails, cut strands of embroidery string and cut mini bows from the card stock. You can find a template for mini bows online.

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Add glue to one side of the bow, and quickly place the string in the middle, and then cover with another bow.

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Once all the bows are in place, dab a tiny amount of glue to the bottom of the kite, and press the end of the string down on the glue.

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You’re done!

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Now, it’s giveaway time. Entry info below. Please make sure to leave your Instagram account name, because we will check the winner’s account. Good luck! The giveaway ends March 10, 2016.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We received a product from I See Me! in conjunction with this post, but we would love I See Me! even if we didn’t. Thanks for supporting the companies that support our blog.

DIY Photo Easter Eggs with Flower Crown

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We have some egg-tastic Easter eggs coming your way. First up, photo eggs with flower crowns.

If we could wake up every day and wear a flower crown, we would. Ok, Jenna probably wouldn’t unless it was made of black and white anemone’s. But, seriously, how pretty would we feel if we were crowned with such beauty on a daily basis? We would feel like a beautiful princess.

One day, just to be spontaneous and special, we are going to go through our daily, wonderful mom routine {cooking, cleaning, tantrums, laundry, poopy diapers and playdates} with a DIY flower crown on our heads. Who says we can’t walk around in our yoga clothes and feel like a princess for the day?

Since wearing a floral crown everyday is not always feasible, we found an adorable plan b – DIY photo easter eggs with flower crowns. Now we can crown our heads with pretty flowers, and put it on display. This egg project is an easy and fun project to do with kids {or friends}, and it’s a lovely easter egg display. Plus it also makes for beautiful place cards on easter. Everyone just needs to look for their beautiful face at the brunch table. For the men, add a bow tie or newsboy hat!

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Materials:

  • wood or paper mache eggs
  • Mod Podge
  • card stock
  • White tissue paper
  • Frog tape
  • Paintbrush
  • Photos
  • Scissors
  • Fake flowers
  • Floral wire
  • Hot glue gun and hot glue

Directions:

Find photos of your family and friends. Crop and edit them in Microsoft Word. No Photoshop necessary for this. Just crop them into an oval shape, and make sure they fit the size of your eggs.

Tape a piece of tissue paper onto the card stock and print. Then, cut out the photos.

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Paint a small amount of Mod Podge {about the size of the photo} onto the egg. Gently press the photo down on the egg and smooth out as many wrinkles as you can. We don’t need more wrinkles than we already have, right?

After about 5 minutes, paint a small amount of Mod Podge over the photo and surrounding area. Do not swipe the paint brush too many times over the photo, or the ink will smear. Let the egg dry.

To craft the DIY floral crown, cut the small stems from your branch and put together with floral wire wrapped around each stem, and shape into a circle. Make sure the size/shape fits over the top of your egg.

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Dab a tiny dot of glue to the back of the egg, and press the back of the crown down on the glue{so the flowers are in front}. This will keep the crown in place.

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Display on egg holders, plates or in baskets. FYI – this is the only time you will see a pink flower crown on Jenna, so let’s take it all in.

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