Diamonds & Burlap: L O V E

If you're like me, you're probably no longer original. Let me back up. Your ideas are no longer original. Pinterest has taken over your life and, well, you're officially a loser because the same genius idea was already thought of and posted with some really cool tutorial by some chick who has more time, more money, and she is probably considering her next genius project this very moment.

I pinned this beautiful pic over a year ago.

Via

I don't know about you, but I basically remember almost every pin I've ever pinned. I'm known as the human map according to my husband, so you can just call me the human pinterest encyclopedia. ;)

I offered to try my hand at this bad boy to use as a decorative piece at a friend's recent nuptials. I made it the same way the linked website says, but I'll still include the gist of it for you.

Get your paper mache' letters from Joann's for 50% off. Unfortunately, they were out of the large "E's" so I had to go with a smaller one. Buuuut, because I got a smaller "E", I had to blend it by getting the smaller "O", too. Lucky for me, the sizing was perfect for the pallet. More on that later. (Don't mind my husband's combat boots.....or my daughter's bubble blower)

Next step: Removing the top layer of the letters. This was actually the easiest part. I planned on working in this part for a while but ended taking me less than two minutes for all the letters. I just stabbed the top of the letters with scissors to make a hole big enough for my fingers to grab through and the rest just pulled right off with clean edges.

Even though it really didn't make a big difference, I still wanted a 'sheen' look to the letters. I spray painted the sides of them with leftover spray paint. FYI, I've always said Rustoleum is the best sprayer. Krylon os good for crafts just cause that's about all they sell at craft stores.

That bent part is courtesy of my dog trampling it thinking it was trying to attack me. HUH?

I got the floral foam stuff. Forgot what it's called, but if you just walk up to a lady at any craft store and say, "I need that floral green stuff.", they'll take ya right to it. It was I think $5.

Then I organized the florals. I won't even mention that it was over a hundered dollars for all these flowers!!!!!!! Buuuut I just did, so there ya go.

Cut the foam to fit anyway you want inside the letters. I did hot glue gun them in the cause they weren't very tightly fit there.

The stems were cut about 1 inch form the bud so it's just long enough to stick tightly into the foam.

And Whallah!!

We glued them onto raised pallets as a backdrop behind the cake table. I thought they added so much girlyness!
I assumed would put them in Aubrey's room when I brought them back home, but I wasn't impressed with the result.

I even took the time to add "...is all you need" to the wall. Oh and the other creative touch would my fushcia lipstick that will not come off. I think it's time to repaint her room, no?

My next stop was the foyer......or as I like to call it: Foyaaayyy!

It looks......normal. It's not terrible, but I've been saying I've been wanting to get brave with decor and trying new things.

So I decided to paint black and white stripes. I've been so inspired lately, albeit Pinterest, so I put on my big girl panties and went to town. Actually, I didn't change, I was still in my PJ's when I did this.....Oh and I didn't go to town. I just stayed home.

BAM, BABY!!! I need to clean my mirror. Each stripe is 9 inches wide and believe it or not, I did not use a level and they look pretty dang straight, if I do say so myself.

This post isn't about the stripes so I'll try to make this quick: I started by measuring the whole wall from top of the baseboard to the ceiling. Then I found the middle measurement of my wall. That middle part is the middle part of my first stripe. Make sense? So if my walls are 100", I would find the 50" mark and count 4.5" since I'm doing 9" wide stripes and go up to 54.5" to mark the top of the stripe line. Totally confusing but I hope you get it.

Most people think to create stipes based on making them even in amount, but you just need to make your first stripe in the very middle of the wall. Just believe me.

If you want to know how I got such dang clean, good, bleed-free stripes, check out this post I found a few years ago. Worked like a charm.

I really like how it turned out. I'm thinking of doing the mirror side of the foyer wall in stripes as well. It's modern, but I think it can be taken in a traditional way, too.