Quick DIY: Pine-ing for a New Wreath

My name is Brittany and I have a slight wreath addiction.

I have a Pinterest board dedicated to the ones I've drooled over and dreamed of making.

So far I've shared a springy paper pinwheel wreath:

A coffee filter wreath, which I hung in our dining room:

And a Thanksgiving yarn wreath:

Now I'm back with another fall-inspired wreath. The supplies were simple: some pinecones (scooped up from around our apartment and left to dry in the sun to prevent any molding issues), a grapevine wreath, and some hot glue (not pictured, but I assume you know what a hot glue gun is...)

This wreath was so stinkin' easy to make that it really doesn't require a step-by-step. Just start gluing on pinecones at one point. Move from the middle of the wreath to the inner and outer edges, fitting the cones together as you see fit. Since my wreath was grapevine, I didn't bother to spray paint it, because any bits that show through are brown like the cones. I did try to alternate the directions I pointed my pinecones, so that you could see more of the dark insides of the cones and the lighter grayish-brown of the outside. I mostly used 3 pinecones for each "row," but sometimes used 4 to fill things in (especially if they were smaller cones).

And here she is hanging up on our door:

I like that this wreath is fall-ish without screaming THANKSGIVING! I think it's versatile enough to go on mid-September, hang out part of October (to be replaced by a more Halloween-y wreath--this one or this one, perhaps?), and then return again November 1st.

And I'm already thinking of making another pinecone wreath--this time one with a bit of spray paint to make faux-snow-covered cones, like so:

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I also love these other nature-inspired wreaths, featuring corn husks:

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Wheat stalks and leaves:

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Sweet gum balls:

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And wood coins:

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Has anything else made a fall wreath lately?

A Global Sensation

Well, it's official. I'm hopping on the globe-loving blog bandwagon.

I've already shown my love for maps (both large and small) and state-related art, but until now I haven't had a globe, though I've been searching for an affordable one for the past few months. After all, they're all around  the blog world, looking fun-yet-classic in decor.

Katie from Bower Power had a cluster in her son's nursery, and eventually hung them from his ceiling (and PS, how cool is that teepee she made him?!):

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Young House Love have a few around their home, including an adorable white one with a wooden whale base:

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And one of my favorite thrift and vintage blogs, A Living Space, has a lovely grouping in their living room:

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So I knew that I wanted to make a globe a member of our decor family. Little did I know that I would find two for what I consider steals--$14 apiece (compared to the $25+ I'd seen all summer as I thrifted).

One has a lovely wooden leg and the USSR marked on it, with continents in shades of brown, green, and yellow:

Here's a close up of that leg. I love the tone of the wood.

I put her next to our green chair and rustic-y console table in the living room. 

My other globe find was more modern (no USSR or Berlin wall) and has an off-white/pastel color scheme and a really cool bronze spine and foot!

This guy sits on our side table in the living room.

Someday I'd like to create a cluster of globes like the ones I linked to above, but for now these spots work!

What about you? Any map-related purchases of late?

I've Been Framed So I'm a Basket Case

Yeah...I had to get all punny up in here to introduce two of my latest Goodwill finds. I know that most of the time my thrift store scores are vintage, but I'm sharing more contemporary decor that I scooped up this month.

The first? A giant (we're talking 36" by 24") real wood picture frame for $5.99. When I saw this beauty tucked behind a dresser, I hurriedly put it in my basket. I thought that it would fit a large poster that had stayed unframed in our bedroom for the past 2 years, but since I was only eyeballing it and estimating, I couldn't be quite sure that it would work. However, I decided to snatch it up and return it if it didn't work. That turned out to be a great decision, since it fit my poster like a glove!

The funny part was that I told my husband how good of a deal $6 was, since getting that large of a frame at Michael's could cost up to 10 times as much. Then when I was removing the backing of the frame to put in my print, I found a "Custom Framing by Michael's" sticker on the inside! Ha!

The frame looks great above our bedroom chair and end table, and really ties in nicely with the reddish tones of our dresser.

For another small sum ($3.99) I found a lovely woven ottoman to house our extra blankets.

Ryan loves to keep the windows open during winter (or, as he says, to "let the joy in!") so I like to have more covers on hand for the colder nights. I'd previously been piling them on our chair, but they look much better tucked in the ottoman.

So that's the tale of two of my decor-related Goodwill finds. Have you picked up any good home items lately?

Pinspired: State String Art

Like many people, I've salivated over the state string art projects floating around the blogosphere, Etsy, and Pinterest. I almost convinced myself to purchase one, but my husband said "No way! You can totally make one yourself!" That boosted my DIY confidence. Sure, I've made state-related art before, and I do my fair share of paper crafts, but this nail and string project did seem more challenging than my usual DIY fare. 

Still, I decided just to bite the bullet and give the project a shot. So I set off to Michael's to buy a plack. I ended up with a "wooden canvas," which was perfect for the project, and I used a 50% coupon found by googling on my phone, which put the canvas at $7.50. While there I also picked up some black thread for $0.99. Then I snagged some painter's tape and nails from Walmart.

After gathering supplies, I taped off the edge of my canvas to ensure that no paint would spill over its front face. Then I mixed some orange and yellow craft paint I had on hand to create the perfect shade of Mizzou gold that my husband and I had agreed upon.

I let the paint dry for a night before moving on to the next step. I just googled for Missouri State Outline, picked one, sized and printed it, and then cut out my state shape. Then I used a map to locate Columbia, MO on the state, and I freehanded a heart there. Columbia is, of course, the base of our beloved Missouri Tigers! The hubs and I decided to make our art Mizzou-centered since we both attended MU and root on the Tigers in all of their sports. Plus, we figured that using a more central location (rather than the far-left location of our hometown, Lee's Summit) would make the art look best.

Then I taped the state outline on the canvas and used a ruler to mark dots around the perimeter ever 0.5 centimeters. 

The next step was to hammer nails onto the dots, including the heart outline. This step took around 30 minutes, since I positioned the nails and hammered them in carefully, using needlenose pliers to straighten out the nails whenever needed.

Once the nails were in, I tied the black thread to my starting point in the upper right corner. Then, using one continuous string from my spool, I just looped the thread around the nails in the heart. I will admit that this part was super tedious and I restarted 3 times because sometimes the string got a little clumpy. Eventually I decided to add more nails to the heart so that I had more spots to wrap my string around. This definitely helped with the clumpiness!

And here is my finished product!

I hung it up next to our window in the office.