With my days at home numbered, I have felt motivated to get a few crafty projects done.

I started with a cute little candy holder for our front hallway to greet guests for the Christmas season. See the tutorial here.

We recently closed off the opening between our dining room and my study, giving me the opportunity to redesign my favourite room in the house. I’m not quite ready for the full reveal, but I can give you a few sneak peaks.

My pretty home library!

Spray paint mason jars to use around the room. So cute!

And just for fun, here’s an updated pic of my little man, doing his part to support movember

Cole rocking his movember shirt.

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The holiday season is right around the corner. As a busy mom of two now, and my return to work in just a few weeks, I wanted to get a head start on some of my Christmas crafting. We have a very large front entrance at our home. For the past two years we have been here, I have tried to think of more we can do to decorate out there for the holidays. I wanted something that greets the friends and family that visit. I figured a bit of candy could be just the thing.

I give you, the easy DIY Christmas candy holder!

Like every other pinning crafter on the planet, I LOVE mason jars. There is just something sweet and rustic about them and it lent the perfect amount of charm to this project. This Christmas candy holder took me only about an hour total to make and costs under $10 for the materials.

What you need:

• Plaque or large scrap piece of wood – Personally, if I’d had barn board, I think that would take this to a whole new level
• A couple mason jars – I went with two for this plaque size, but you could go larger with more jars
• Twine
• Spray Paint
• Paint Pen – I prefer to use paint pens for better precision when it’s for wording
• Pencil
• Drill
• Stickers or something similar for decoration if desired
• Holiday candy

I started out with painting the plaque. I used spray paint for the sake of time. Busy baby and all. I only did one coat so that some of the wood grain would show through. Once it had dried, I marked out where I wanted to hang the mason jars and drilled two holes. Make sure the holes are large enough to fit two pieces of twine through.

In order to really get the wording to look the way I wanted, I did it out using an app on my iPad first. That way I could use it as a guide on the actual plaque. I started by writing it out with pencil. I highly recommend having a light coloured eraser on hand, since you don’t want eraser marks left on the board.

I then used my paint pen, or in this case, nail art pen…it’s the only red I had on hand. I carefully went over my pencil writing. Depending on how thick you want the wording, you may have to go over it two or three times. I had some very pretty snowflake stickers left over from last year’s Christmas crafting and added a few to give it a little bling.

Next I moved onto the mason jars. I cut long pieces of twine and wrapped it around the top. I tied it on either side. Then added another piece and did the same, finishing the second tie on the opposite side. This gave me two pieces of twine on either side of the jars. I took the pieces of twine on the front of each side and pulled it through the holes. I then knotted those pieces to the remaining pieces of twine on either side at the back of the plaque.

Getting the jars to hang at the same height is the tricky part. Once I had the plaque up on the wall, I had to loosen or tighten the knots accordingly to get the jars hanging evenly on both sides and with each other.

All that’s left to do after that is add candy and enjoy! I added candy canes for now, but will switch it up with other holiday treats over the season.

Ideally speaking, I will be able to keep the four year old away from it before all the candy canes go missing…

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I decided to highlight some of the Christmas crafts I did as a special edition of the Pinterest House Project, since this fits the same theme as the rest of the series; bigger house, lots of space for decor, so many ideas on Pinterest!

I want to start with my favourite project. When I spotted this light-up Christmas canvas on Pinterest, I knew I had to make it. First off, it’s beautiful. Secondly, this is my all time favourite Christmas song. This craft was meant for me

I love the way it looks on my mantel. It’s the star attraction!

Once I realized how easy it is to write on a canvas (I used paint pens, by the way. So easy!) I went hunting for some other canvas ideas. That is when I spotted this very cute and simple Believe DIY canvas.

Next up was some plain old painted foam Christmas trees. I found so many beautiful DIY Christmas trees on Pinterest, but didn’t have time to make them all. This was a super easy craft that Lilly and I were able to do together. She did the first coat of paint on each one. I followed up with second coat and sparkles. That was it! Easiest craft of the season.

The next craft was also fairly easy, if you like to paint. I loved the idea of a mobile of clear, painted Christmas balls, hanging in front of a bright window. It took me a bit to find the clear ornaments, but finally spotted them at Walmart in packs of 4. I loved how this turned out. So pretty!

I had bought packages of styrofoam balls last year, with the intent that we would make some Christmas ornaments with them. Being a sewer who hoards fabric…these easy fabric covered Christmas balls seemed perfect. Lilly helped out again with this one. it was as simple as cut, wrap and tie.

We did a whole garland, highlighting these fabric Christmas ornaments from the main entrance way of the house.

I wanted to do a few crafts that were specifically on the cuter side for Lilly. This adorable DIY snowman scene was actually not an idea from Pinterest. This one came from my own flowing creative juices! You can read the full tutorial here.

I also wanted to make something that Lilly could keep in her room. My mom always had some decorations on hand for us to add a festive touch to our rooms. That is a tradition that I would like to pass on. I saw this DIY ribbon Christmas tree making the rounds on Pinterest last year and LOVED it. So very pretty! Given all of the crafts I have been doing for Lilly’s bedroom, I had a lot of ribbon on hand that would match her decor. Many of the tutorials online call for just pinning the ribbon or paper in place. I decided to use hot glue. It took a little longer, but I also feel it will last.

The last craft we pulled together was a DIY advent calendar. This is the first year we have had an advent calendar for Lilly at all. She is starting to understand time and old enough to really enjoy the countdown. With her Celiacs Disease, I always figured an advent calendar would be one of those things we make. I just never know if the chocolate in the store bought ones is truly gluten free. This is the one craft I made the hubby help out with. We used our existing weekly menu chalk/cork board. Lilly so was excited the first morning she saw it!

The last photo shows another idea I got from Pinterest, but it really wasn’t a craft at all. Like most homes, we have a ton of empty vases kicking around at any given time. I loved the idea of filling them with Christmas ornaments for a very quick and easy piece of festive decor. I’ll be doing a bit more of these for the dining room table before family dinner…since right now it is 95% covered in crafting supplies…

Now, while it looks like I got to a lot of crafts this year, we still didn’t even touch doing anything festive for the basement… I will be on maternity leave through most of the holiday season next year and will ideally get even more accomplished! *Crosses fingers for a good sleeper*

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What you need:

• Styrofoam balls in 3 sizes
• Small, flat dollar store canvas
• Toothpicks
• Glue gun & glue
• Ribbon Scraps
• Sharpies – black & orange
• Paint – cream/white and green
• Sparkles – Silver
• Snowflake stickers (optional)

I started off with the canvas base. I wanted to give our snowmen a nice snowy yard to be hanging out on. I gave the canvas a very light coat of green paint. I then added the white paint, making it look more like snow by blotting it onto the canvas. To give it a nice snowy shimmer, I added some sprinkles. I then set the canvas aside to dry.

Next I moved onto making the snowmen. This was the easy part. I simply stacked the 3 different sized styrofoam balls on top of each other, using toothpicks to attach them. NOTE – I did add a dot of hot glue where each ball connected to the next, in order to make them a bit more stable and durable.

Once they were built, it was just a matter of decorating them. I used the sharpies to draw on faces and buttons. I then used my ribbon scraps to make scarfs. I did also take a bit of scrap material and made a hat that I glued onto one little guy. This is totally up to you. Decorate your snowmen however you feel like.

The last step was to add the snowmen onto the snowy canvas base. I used a fair amount of hot glue onto the bottom of each snowman and pressed them firmly onto the canvas. I had purchased some cute snowflake, 3D stickers that I had done nothing with yet. I decided to add a few of those onto the canvas for a little extra something.

That’s really it! Start to finish in likely about 45 minutes. This is definitely a craft that can be assisted with little helpers and makes a very cute addition to your holiday decor.

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Tis the season! Last year for the holidays, I had a lengthy list of DIY projects…that I never got to. We had just moved into our new home at the beginning of November and I underestimated how much work it is to move and settle a family. This year I have decided to start on my festive projects early. I started with this super easy DIY Christmas card wreath.

I found these large snowflake decorations at Walmart last year for only $3.49 each. Add to that some small clothes pins, glue & paint, and you have yourself a very fast and adorable way to display all the Christmas cards from your friends and family.

What you need:

• Snowflake or circular wall decoration
• 1 package of small clothes pins, found at craft stores
• Hot glue gun
• Paint, anything metallic will look festive
• Small paint brush

Instructions:

1. Glue craft clothes pins onto all sides except the top of your wreath
2. Paint the wood pins a festive colour
3. Let dry
4. That’s it!

The painting of the pins is optional. They can be seen peaking out form behind the wreath when they are not holding a card, so I thought a splash of silver helped blend them into the finished look.

After thought – You could speed this up a bit by pinning the clothes pins onto a piece of cardboard and spray painting them. I did that when I made my DIY Instagram photo frame for my study. Although then you have some wait time, so it boils down to how quickly you want to have this completed.

When all said and done, I was able to create 3 cute and festive looking Christmas card wreaths for under $15. That’s about half of what you would likely pay for one purchased at a home decor store.

This has to be one of the easiest crafts that I have ever done. Naturally, I did have help. Lilly was responsible for guarding and handing me each pin as I glued them on. She also has requested the job of adding new cards when they come in.

Ideally speaking, all of my Christmas DIY projects will be this easy…but I’m guessing that won’t be the case

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I finished all the decor in my master bedroom ages ago, borrowed a friend’s fancy camera and went to work on the photo tour…but took weeks to actually get the post up. Thus is the life of a busy blogger

I will admit the photos are not as bright and detailed as they were in the tour post for my study. We don’t get the same amount of natural light in this room.

Let me start off by saying, I LOVE my master bedroom. I have always dreamed of having a master with an ensuite, walk-in and big enough for a reading area. I scored all three in this house and I am not ashamed to say it was one of the biggest selling features for me. Fellow parents, you get it. When you have kids, you need your own space. Your retreat.

Welcome to mine.

We lucked out when we bought this house. The wall colour already matched the tan, black and blue pallet I had going in our previous house, so we were able to use much of the same decor pieces. However, as with mu study/home office, I took to Pinterest to search out some truly unique crafts & tips to really personalize this space.

First up is our dresser area. Home to some basic decor elements and all of my jewelry storage.

Having all my bling out in the open, I wanted to make sure it didn’t look too cluttered. I had found a few DIY projects specifically meant for making jewelry on display look adorable.

I fell in love with the idea of door knobs on a plaque as a DIY necklace hanger. I had these cute recycled button drawer pulls that I bought at a boutique years ago, just begging to be used in a project. The wooden plaque came unfinished from the dollar store and I painted it white. It originally had a chain to hang it with, but I wasn’t thrilled with the look of that, so I used some hooks and wire from a photo hanging kit to make my own hanging method.

Next, I wanted to find a cheap and dainty way to organize my bracelets that made them easier to get to. I had seen some pins that showed using a spray painted bottle, and although that looked very cute, it seemed like a lot of work to get to the ones on the bottom.

When I spotted this bracelet holder, made from a dollar store votive and paper towel roll, it seemed perfect! It was super easy to make with some spray paint, ribbon and hot glue.

I will warn you that you have to be cautious of keeping a fairly even balance on each side. Learned this the hard way and had to add more glue…

I keep my rings, broaches, etc, in that little plastic bowl, also a dollar store find. I keep both of these on a dollar store tray that I spray painted black. I had them sitting on the dresser, but when the bracelet holder became unbalanced, it sent my Tiffany’s bracelet to the depths behind my dresser. We got it out and I promptly changed up where my tiny jewelry sits.

My earrings can be seen in the first photo of the whole dresser top. They are kept on a very cool cast iron erring hanger that used to belong to my my old company. One of the benefits of helping to shut down a company was the hand-me-downs.

Lastly, I finished off the dresser top with a few knick knacks and DIY decor pieces. The two glass pieces are a dollar store votive and recycled Perrier bottle, from the Pinterest idea of spray painting glass white.

The artwork is just a small canvas from Walmart. I drew out the same pattern printed on my bed linens and throw pillow and simply painted it the accent colour of the room. It helps that the pattern is very simple leaves…I’m not THAT talented of an artist

Next, we’ll head over to the bed area. We treated ourselves with some fancy new bamboo & organic cotton bedding when we moved in. I love it. So super soft and the print is very soothing and natural.

The gallery wall was incredibly easy to put up. You can read my tutorial for using wax paper to hang a photo gallery wall for more details.

The wall is filled with mostly just photos of my hubby and I. Lilly makes it up there in a couple, but I wanted one photo wall in the house that told the “story of us.” We’ve been together since highschool, so there is a lot of history (and hilariously adorable photos) there.

The words are significant. Adam and I used to sign our high school love letters with “Forever, and some, Adam” and “Yours till a little after forever, Crystal”

I know. Sappy. And very sweet.

I ordered the custom wall decal, “Forever, and some.” from Quote the Walls. I love it.

I also love all my fancy pillows…though I will admit that they don’t make it back onto the bed every day… The tan one is part of the new bedding and was used as the inspiration for the artwork listed above and the DIY pillow shown on my reading chair below. The black suede pillows I made a few years back.

It’s a little tricky to see, but the lines on the smaller black pillow are tan and blue to match the room. I did a simple zig zag stitch across the front of the material to add a bit of detail.

The last area of my room is probably my favourite. My own personal reading nook! Now, as a busy full-time working mom, we’ll see how much I actually get to use it

I used this area to try out some beautiful DIY artwork that I had spotted on Pinterest.

The first was a very simple print out framed. I saw some very sweet pins of wedding song lyrics used as personalized artwork. Our song was I’ll Always Be Right There, by Bryan Adams.

Next is my DIY leather wrapped painted canvas. I have seen this Happiness=Books quote online a few times and fell in love with it. You can read the full painted canvas tutorial here.

The little white canvas piece was probably one of the easiest to do and is definitely my favourite part of this gallery. This super simple tutorial for a DIY letter canvas involves gluing foam or wood letters onto a canvas and spray painting it white. That’s it! The message I choose reads, “Yous till a little after forever.” Which if you read above, makes perfect sappy sense I then added our wedding date below it.

Lastly, there was my cord art. Or cable drawing, as they call it on Pinterest. Using tiny clips to create a graphic with your visible hanging cords. What a fantastic idea! I knew this light would just be hanging here and really loved that I could turn it into a piece of art that fits this reading nook perfectly!

I also did this little pillow myself. I had left over leather from the turquoise canvas above and had seen some pins for leather appliques on decorative pillows. I drew out the same pattern that is on my bedding and on the painted canvas on top of my dresser to really pull in the whole room.

There you have it folks. The grand tour of my mater bedroom. I will be doing follow ups to this post to showcase our master ensuite and walk-in closet once they are both completed.

Any questions on any of the crafts or decorating tips above, please feel free to ask!

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You know what this means? Well, it means I need to get working on my follow up piece to things you learned in the first year of motherhood and things you learned in the second year of motherhood. But besides that.

It means I threw one kick ass party for my little monkey. True to form of my slightly tomboyish little girl, she requested a dinosaur party. A pink dinosaur party, but dinos none the less.

I delivered.

Here are just a couple photos to celebrate her birthday. Pink dino party supplies are not readily available…well anywhere. So this was very much a heavy DIY party. Thank god for Pinterest. I will be putting together a full post on her party, the games we had, decor I designed, etc.

Birthday Girl! Her shirt says “RAWR means I love you in dinosaur!” Too cute for words.

Make a wish!

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Naturally, whenever I plant myself at the table for crafty type projects, Lilly wants to join in. So I put her to work.

Turning an old cardboard ribbon bolt into a jewelry holder for her vanity.

While I worked on a new piece of DIY canvas art for her bedroom.

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I recently spent a few hours putting together a wedding song poster for our master bedroom. I had modge podged word printouts of our wedding lyrics onto a fabric canvas and decorated it with the matching ribbon border. It was pretty.

It was going to be one of the crafts featured as part of The Pinterest House Project, master bedroom edition…which I promise is slowly, but surely coming along and will be posted soon.

I had stepped away from my craft table for a few minutes to help Lilly go to the potty. In the two minutes while I was washing my hands afterwards, my two-year-old managed to completely destroy that poster with half a bottle of modge podge. It was completely my fault. When you leave out craft supplies in the area that a toddler can access, you’re just asking for it.

There was no salvaging. I tried. Instead of throwing it out the canvas completely, I decided to refinish it and reuse it.

I had bought some beautiful turquoise leather fabric on sale at the fabric store recently and thought it might be cool to wrap the entire canvas in leather. I had pinned a couple of book quotes that I was going to use as printouts for my master bedroom reading nook and decided it would be great paint one of them directly onto the leather.

Things you need:

• Canvas – mine was just a cheap one from the dollar store & still worked just fine.
• Fabric you can write/paint on – leather, vinyl, canvas (maybe a different colour), etc.
• Print out of your design or wording
• Ruler
• Paper cutter – you can use scissors, but you want to make sure you have very straight cuts
• Fabric marker – Honestly, I didn’t have one….I used a silver nail polish pen
• Paint & fine tip paint brushes
• Paint pen – I just discovered these! I used one for the black and it was so much faster

I laid the leather fabric face down on the floor and place the canvas face down on top of it. I took the edge of the leather fabric and folded up to make sure that it met the edge of where the canvas was stapled to the wood frame. I stapled the bottom to hold it is place and then cut equal amounts of leather border around the two inside edges of the canvas.

Starting in one corner I lined up the edge of the leather to the edge of the canvas and stapled it down. I then moved on to the opposite corner and follow the same steps, ensuring that I pulled the leather very tightly across the front facing side of the canvas. Take extra care when folding the corners up to make sure they sit neatly. Think about hospital or hotel corners when making a bed. Use extra staples around the corners to hold them tightly in place.

Once my canvas was wrapped, I had to decided how I wanted the wording to lay out. I typed it out on a regular 8.5×11 piece of cardstock in landscape layout to get large lettering. I formatted it to be the fonts and styles that I wanted. I then used my cutter to neatly cut each line of text and placed them evenly onto the canvas to get a better visual.

I worked with each line of text individually. I taped the line of text onto the canvas and used it as both a visual guide for how to draw and space the letters, but also as a ruler to ensure it was straight. I also used a ruler to measure out the spacing between each line of text, allowing more spacing for the two accent lines that were done in a larger font.

For the books at the bottom, I looked up a few clip art style graphics to get an idea of how to draw them. I had to keep in mind that they would be done in one colour, so dimension was going to be harder to show.

Once the outline for the entire piece was completed, I used the paint pen to fill in the black text and the books and used a fine paint brush to fill in the cream lettering. It took a couple coats of each to really ensure the leather was covered.

I am very happy with how this turned out. I’m sure I would have loved any of the beautifully designed printables from Pinterest as well, but this is so much more personal.

Here is a sneak peek at my master bedroom reading nook. It’s not complete – I’m working on a pillow for the chair and I’m not sure I am in love with the ribbon instagram photo thing that I threw together, but it’s getting there! I am definitely in love with my cord art

Ideally speaking, I will make some valuable use of my time this weekend and get my little master bedroom sanctuary finally finished!

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I am starting with my favourite room in the house – The Study. That’s saying a lot considering my master ensuite and walk-in-closet…

My study is a home office and library, all rolled into one beautiful room. A room that I always dreamed of having in my home.

First up, my crate bookshelf. I’m in love with my crates. The one on the bottom was actually a Christmas gift from my mom when I was just 16.

I have to admit, I didn’t actually get this idea from Pinterest. I had crates to use as shelves over 4 years ago, long before Pinterest even existed. However, I loved when I spotted pictures of the same idea popping up on home decor and DIY boards. It reaffirmed my awesome design style. Here is a great pin of a crate bookshelf that caught my eye.

My working area is made up of an antique desk and exposed shelves. With the shelves visible from the front door, I wanted to ensure that I organized them to look clean & colourful.

I purchased a number of Martha Stewart Home Office accessories, including the brown magazine holder on the top shelf, and nearly bought more. I also found a great tutorial on making my own magazine holder from a cereal box.

But I was both cheap and lazy. So I bought a 2 pack of the double sized magazine holders from Staples for under $10 and spray painted them aqua. Done and done.

Likewise, I was also cheap when it came to other accessories for my desk. I jumped all over this tutorial for turning recycled cans into a DIY desk organizer.

And the gorgeous desk in the center of all this organized beauty? This gem was a find when walking through an old empty century home 4 years ago. I spotted this genuine typerwriter desk (complete with cast iron typerwriter inside) and asked the owner if it was for sale.

I took it apart and refinished it piece by piece. Once again, Pinterest wasn’t around at the time, but I do recommend this very detailed tutorial for restoring old furniture.

Moving clockwise around the room, we come to my home library. I have just a small collection of books.

It’s not an addiction. Not at all.

There are two other bookshelves elsewhere in the house, plus a full nightstand in the bedroom. I may have a problem…

When a bookshelf is this full, it really is just about making it all fit. But I did get some good inspiration on how to make a full bookshelf look organized.

My Mama was also sitting in the room while I worked on the bookshelf and gave me pointers about turning some books on their side. This helps to break up some of the blocking that can happen in a full library.

Many of the decorations – old antique books, trinket boxes, candles, etc, – I have had for ages. But I knew I wanted a few vases that blended perfectly with the room.

Now, I had intended these vases to look like these beautiful dipped votives, but this was a #PinterestFail. They looked terrible. I am sure it is because I choose glasses that were far too large.

Instead, I simply used brushes meant for glass and gently applied multiple layers of acrylic paint to give them a smoother texture.

The other half of this very spacious room is used up with a lovely quiet seating area.

I wanted something unique and personal above the one loveseat. When I spotted this amazing DIY Instagram photo frame, I knew I had found the perfect project.

With a huge bay window – one of my favourite features of the whole house – there is a lot of natural light to take advantage of.

When looking at the overall colour theme in this room, I noticed a growing trend of brown, aqua and red used together.

When we bought our leather sofa set, we scored a deal by accepting the chair in a contrasting colour. I love it that way. From there, it was just a matter of accessorizing around it & pulling it into the room.

In the end, I gained a creative, warm and inviting space. I think we found a great way to utilize a very spacious and bright room to its full potential.

Ideally speaking, every room in my house will be this easy to design and fall in love with.

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