Photo Wall - DIY

How to make a photo wall

I found a similar photo wall on Pinterest and fell in love with this idea and knew I needed one for the wedding!!! I did a little bit of research but couldn’t find very many DIY blogs on how to make these… so I kinda made it up as I went along!!

Here is how Casey and I built our photo wall:

Step 1 – Casey bought a piece of plywood, a chair rail, yellow paint, gray paint and paint brushes (he also bought the stuff to make the base for it to stand up on its on but we haven’t built that part yet so I will blog how to do that later). My mom bought us a frame and I found the other one at Goodwill.

Step 2 – I painted the bottom half yellow. I read online how high to put a chair rail and most people said 1/3 of the height of your wall. My “wall” /board was 8 feet tall so I went ahead and just did 3 feet high (lower than that kind of looked odd).

 Step 3 – I put the chair rail on the board and laid out frames how I wanted them. I traced the 2 bigger frames (from the inside) with a permanent marker.

 

Step 4 – I painted the top part gray… everything except for where I traced because we were just going to cut that out anyways.

 

Step 5 – I looked everywhere for a stencil that I liked and couldn’t find anything… then as I was leaving the last store I was at, I found a chalk board in a fun shape and figured I would just trace that over and over and over again to make my own design. I traced it with a permanent marker and then went over it with white paint to make it pop (had to do 2-3 coats). The reason I left the cutting until later was because I wanted to make sure I could get my design on the “wall” perfectly, with the holes being cut out, that would have been a bit harder.

 

Step 6 – Find a sexy man and have him cut out your squares for you… the sexy man part was easy, finding a jigsaw was a bitter harder. I finally found one from a friends Dad (thanks Dale!) Then you will need to get some glue (we used Nail Glue from Home Depot and a Caulk gun) and glue down the frames and chair rail. We ended up putting a a couple of heavy boxes on top of each of the frames so make sure and have a good bond… then leave it overnight to dry.

 

Step 7 – Set the board up and place a REALLY cute kid behind it and stand back and admire your work!!

 

Step 8 – Make a base… to be continued!!

Dallas Cowboys Birthday Party

This past weekend was my son’s 4^th birthday party and I want to share a few of the decorations I made!

1^st up is the field goal post – I have seen these on pinterest made out of PVC and I really wanted to make them, however I did not want to spend any more money then I already had. I was wrapping his birthday presents and it hit me… use the empty roll from the wrapping paper and paint it yellow!!! I found 4 rolls and cut 3 holes in one of them. The middle hole I used for the stand, the 2 holes on the outside I used for the arms of the post. I hot glued each in place and then painted it yellow. I needed a way for it to stand up and so I looked around my house and then decided to use my paper towel holder!!! It was perfect size and supported the post very nicely.

2^nd is the banner – I had some leftover fabric from making my Dallas Cowboys dress (see my blog for the how to) and so I cut out triangles and then hot glued them on the a laundry rope that just happened to be blue! For the letters I just printed out his name on card stock from my printer and cut each one out and hot glued it.

3^rd is the popcorn bleachers – I have seen bleachers made out of wood for cupcakes to sit on… well we didn’t have cupcakes but I still wanted the bleachers. I decided to have a popcorn bar so I bought those cute football theme popcorn holders and glued a cute little football related Thank You to each one. My fiancé brought up the idea of putting each one of those popcorn holders on the bleachers. I had some foam board leftover so I took the measurements for the wood (from pinterest) and cut out the foam board. I then just hot glued everything together and painted it all blue to match the party (really didn’t matter because you couldn’t really see them anyways). They were kind of flimsy but they worked perfect for the party and I received a lot of compliments on them.

4^th – Football cake – I found this cake on Pinterest and sent my bakery (The Rolling Pin, Fort Worth Texas) the picture and she came up with this! Go check her out on Facebook and Instagram!!!

We had a blast at the party and Caleb kept telling me it was his best birthday every… heck he is only 4!!! Haha!

Burlap Wreath

I have been wanting to add a POP of color to my front door for a while now, so Sunday when I was at Wal-Mart I decided I was going to make a wreath. Here is what I did:

Supplies:
Foam Wreath - less than $5
Roll of burlap - $5-6
1 bunch of yellow flowers - $3
Hot glue gun
*I am sure you could buy any of this at Hobby Lobby with a coupon or on sale but they were closed and I wanted a project that day.

How to assembly:
Heat up your glue gun
Wrap the burlap around the foam wreath and glue the burlap in place with every turn
After you are finished wrapping the foam, you will need to add the flowers.
I pull the flowers off the stems and hot glued them down to the burlap in a bunch
Then hang it and admire it

This is a very simple project and a very inexpensive project!

Have fun getting krafty!
Love, Krafty Karen

Time to brag on my lil fireman!

Its time to brag on my lil fireman!

Caleb is a firefighter (or so he thinks he is)... everything in our house is firefighter this and firefighter that! This kid has more trucks then you can ever imagine, a hat in every color, his boots that have holes but he wont let us throw away, he got a Super Fireman Caleb cape from Santa and for his 3 1/2 year old birthday (yes I celebrate everything) he got Fireman undies!!!

I had won a free photo session with B Faith Photography (check her out, www.bfaithphotographydfw.com) and so we decided to go with a firefighter theme!!! Hope you enjoy these adorable photos as much as I do!!!

Princess to Zebra Mirror

My sister has been moving and we all know when you move you end up throwing away a lot of "crap" you really don't need anymore. One of the things she wanted to get rid of was a princess mirror that was in one of my nieces rooms... well instead of throwing it away, she asked me to re-do it! Since it was for one of my nieces I of course said yes!!! I love being their Aunt Jay!

The mirror had a yellow heart sticker on the crown and a big sticker on the mirror... it is something that would have been trash to anyone who didn't have Krafty Karen as their sister. My nieces room is done in hot pink, lime green and zebra so my sister wanted it painted zebra and rhinestones to line the mirror. Please note that the rhinestones will be added later due to my sister having surgery and we have not made it to Hobby Lobby yet. 

How I flipped this piece:

1. I detached the mirror and scrubbed it with a Brillo pad, hot water and soap to take the sticker off

2. I sanded down the frame - the sander had no problem taking the sticker off

3. I painted the frame white - ended up doing 2 coats.

4. I then started painting zebra lines

5. I will go back later and add rhinestones to the frame line the mirror

Here is the before and after!

Tutu Rocking Chair - Kate's 1st Birthday

It has slowly become a tradition that if I am invited to a 1 year old's birthday party, I will make them a chair for their gift. When I received Kate's 1st birthday invite, I knew I needed to start my hunt for a cute chair. I usually find these chairs at Good Will over in the kids section or close to the furniture section. You have to keep an open eye because these chairs go fast! I found this one for $5! It was a perfectly good white rocking chair, needed no repairs just a good colorful paint job and of course a tutu.

Casey sanded down the chair for me and then helped me paint it lime green. Kate's bedroom is purple and pink with a hint of lime green...the reason we decided to do lime green all the way was because we have a can of lime green paint we need to get rid of, haha! While Casey sanded and painted, I created a cute tutu to hot glue around the chair. I made the tutu in 4 pieces and then just hot glued each piece to each side of the chair. After the paint was dried, I added the tutu and we started to antique the chair out.... It needed something, so I added Kate's initials in purple.

I have to say, it turned out to be a really cute chair... and Miss Kate loved it!

Easter Flowers

Last weekend I went to a birthday party and the center pieces of the tables were cute vases filled with colorful candy with flowers popping out... I loved them so much that I decided to make my own!

I did not want to break the bank (and I suck at keeping things alive, heck I am doing good keeping my 3 year old alive I don't need to add anything else to the mix haha jk) so I went to the local Dollar Tree (I love that place) and bought 3 bouquets of colorful flowers. I also bought a glass vase (which I found out later, I had one at home) and then I bought 3 boxes of mini tropical gobstoppers. I was going to buy jelly beans but the gobstoppers had more in a package. I ended up spending $7 on this project and I think it was money well spent.

Directions - pour candy into vase, shove flowers down into candy... you are done!

Tip - if you want to use less candy, you can fill the middle of the vase with another vase, tissue paper, canned foods (if the jar is big enough), or really anything to take up the space.

Here is my creation!!