Day 15: Pretty-Ugly Sweater DIY

Julia has a great DIY project for today, create this ugly sweater for your next holiday party. You'll be sure to win the ugly sweater contest.

More DIY?

Yes it is! While I've actually been designing a lot and taking a lot of family photos (everyone wants pics before the weather gets bad!), the designs I can't post since they are for a client, and the photography I haven't spent the time to go though...

So, here you get some more DIY projects from around my house, since we're always working on something. I love DIY projects!

This first one is outward facing bookshelves using Bekvam spice racks from IKEA. I saw this somewhere online (long before pinterest) and saved the image to a folder on my desktop. I love that the shelves essentially present the books as art, and I think Liam is more likely to pick up a book and look at it if he can see the cover.

My sister-in-law made this mobile (and about 10 others) for my baby shower last year. I kept one and it hangs above my baby's changing table. She got the idea from this Martha Stewart page. I love it so much, and it was a cinch to make.

This DIY project is not quite as exciting, but very useful if you need it. This is a solution I came up with when I realized we couldn't put up a baby gate on our curved banister. I bought a piece of wood as high as the banister (my husband painted it white which makes it blend in nicely). Then used long zip ties to hold it to the banister. I even put craft foam under the zip ties and in between the wood and the banister to help it from ruining the paint on the banister.

Without the wood addition we wouldn't be able to have a baby gate. And without a baby gate, Liam would have fallen down the stairs several times, I'm sure. The best part is, when we're done with the gate, the banister should look as good as new!

Lastly, my friend made this jewelry holder for me. Much better place for my necklaces than the zip lock bag they were in. It would work great for earrings too.

A painted frame with heavy-duty staples in the back with wire twisted through. I love it!

DIY projects

We've been working on a lot of things around the house, here are some of my favorite things we've completed that are so easy to do.

Project 1: We made our headboard out of a 5 panel door purchased at Home Depot (for just $36! Online they were more but when I called and made the order they said it was only $36. Just be sure to request no door hole and no mounting holes when placing your order), put molding around the top and painted it all white. I got the idea HERE on Martha Stewart's website. Martha Stewart's headboard mounting instructions were for a solid wood door which was not in our budget, so we found a solution by using French Cleat Picture Hangers, also found at Home Depot. It worked out great and I love how it looks. So much so that we've decided to replace all our 1969 paper thin doors in our house with 5 panel doors, it will look great. We just have to save up a bit first.

Project 2: Painting the legs of our furniture. While I really wanted to buy some new tapered legs from Uncle Bob's Workshop, I didn't want to fork out $60 + shipping for the 8 legs that needed replacing. I've been wanting to do this for a year, and when I saw this tutorial on Young House Love (my new obsession lately) I became motivated to finally get it done. I'd post the steps here but they have it very thoroughly covered on their site, I even bought the exact same paint and it looks amazing. Much better than the birch they were before, they drew too much attention to themselves. Now these sit quietly and look a lot nicer, too.

And here is the whole chaise

One last quick and easy project: curtains made from tablecloths. I needed curtains for our really wide sliding doors and fabric isn't wide enough (I didn't want a seam running down the middle of each curtain panel) nor are regular curtains. After searching on and off for months, I started looking at things like sheets and . . . tablecloths. I bought these from Target, folded the top edge down a couple inches and clipped on some curtain clips I had already from Ikea and done! It was a cinch.