mariejanelle

I love succulents.  One of the main reasons is that they are the only plant I can keep alive in my house.  They are low maintenance, as you only need to water them twice a month.  So, every payday, water your succulents.  I was in a good rhythm of this when I had a job, but when I became a full-time student this year, it was a bit more of a challenge to remember…but I am happy to say my succulent is still going strong.  I came across a picture of these adorable miniature succulent cork magnets awhile back and have been wanting to try it out.  After becoming pregnant, corks are also less frequent in the house, so I wasn’t sure how I would collect enough to make this possible.  Thanks to an Antique Mall in Bellingham my mom and I found a bag of corks for $4.00.  This DIY had to be done.

First, you will need to dig out a hole in the middle of your cork.  This is harder than it looks!  My mom and I were both digging and cutting for quite awhile to get the hole deep enough for us to put the succulent dirt and stem in.

Next, we hot glued magnets on the back of the corks.  We used long strips of magnets, but it might be cuter and better to buy single round magnets, that are really strong.

We were in line at RONA, about to buy a succulent and some succulent soil, and it dawned on me that succulent soil comes with the succulent – duh!   And you need so little, that the bag of succulent soil would actually be a joke.  So we just dug soil out from old succulents around the house and with a baby spoon, spooned in the soil, with a drip or two of water.   We took parts of succulents, making sure to leave on enough stem that it would dig down into our scooped out holes.

And voila – there you have it…the cutest LIVE magnets that I have ever seen!

This DIY was so easy and the results put a smile on my face…I hope you’ll try!

xo

Jillian Marie

I love so many styles.  When it comes to clothing, decorating, really anything, I feel drawn to so many different looks that it is hard for me to nail down what my style really is.  My whole house is in the middle of a baby make-over, and I am excited to change the living room to a more shabby chic look, with an eclectic flare.  This wall has been evolving and changing over the last year, and the final piece to hang was the picture frame with our little boy’s ultrasound pic (thats right…it’s a BOY!!!).  I feel like it was the perfect final touch to my eclectic wall…and here are the details of how it has come to be.

Of course you could go out and buy random things to put on your wall, but being the crafter that I am I was inspired to make my own artwork for the wall, and mix it up with some great deals from the local Salvation Army.  (Disclaimer: it really is our baby, we did not pick him out at the thrift store)  The green frame was $1.50 (I love when thrift stores have 50% off days, makes this DIY’er giddy all over) and the silver platter is just that, I believe it was around $3.00.

I love all the different textures, soft colours, and how this simple wall sums up our little family.  Here are some of the DIY’s…

I bought these canvas’ at Michaels (but have also seen them at the dollar store – score!!)  I simply stamped my quote on the canvas, and the great thing is, if I didn’t like the placement of a letter, I was able to wipe off the ink with a wet paper towel and re-stamp over top.  I hot glue gunned the string to the back of the canvas’ to attach them together.  Canvas.Stamp.Art. Simple and easy.

I used the same size canvas and with a little tape, ruler, paint and paintbrush made my own chevron print.  I fell in love with Chevron about a year ago, and so far this is the only thing that has made its way into our house.  Some really cute baby bedding has caught my eye though, so I am hoping it pops up more here and there.  You can see that the paint bled, which I don’t mind the softer lines, and my measurement wasn’t perfect – but hey that is ok.  It’s uhh, how I wanted it…ahem…yeah.

The white frame with the lace is simply just that.  A white frame with a piece of lace hot glued to the back.  My walls are slightly off white so the white of the lace stands out just the right amount.

And finally, you can find my full tutorial of the picture transferred onto wood here in an old post called ‘I Wood’.