TBT Restoration Hardware Chandelier DIY

July 14, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

I wanted to take a few minutes today to do a TBT. I made this chandelier about 4 years ago and I still love it! Here is the original blog post: Restoration Hardware Chandelier

The DIY took me a while to complete, but it still is one of my favorite projects! I hope you all enjoy the walk down memory lane.

I have a lot of new readers so I wanted to share this DIY with everyone.

When I saw this RH chandelier I fell in love! I mean it is a perfect blend of sparkle and fancy with rustic, industrial elements. But I did not fall in love with the cost.

The Full instructions are in the original post, but here are the abbreviated instructions

I found this old light fixture and added some hoops that I found at the craft store.

After adding the hoops I spray painted everything with Rusteloem Oil Rubbed Bronze (my favorite spray paint)

Then I added all the crystals and light bulbs

Then we hung it up and it looks awesome! People are always surprised when I say that I made it!

What DIY projects have you done that were inspired by Restoration Hardware?

DIY Duct Tape Covered Plastic Basket

July 12, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

The old adage “Necessity is the mother of invention” is usually true. And the case of today’s DIY it was especially true

I have this plastic basket that I use to store my paint brushes in. But the holes in the basket make it very easy for the brushes to fall out. So I needed a way to plug the holes.

Yikes! Look at that mess!

Duct Tape to the rescue!

All I did was wrap the basket with this fantastic duct tape that I found at the dollar store. The basket is tapered so the wrapping was not perfect, but it works great for my brushes.

Don’t forget to wrap the inside, because the sticky side of the duct tape peeks through.

Once I was done with the duct tape I added some sparkle tape to the top and bottom for a little fun.

And that is it. The basket is finished and now my brushes are contained!

Recycled Glass Vase DIY

July 7, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / 1 Comment

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all having a great week. Last weekend we had a wonderful relaxing weekend, with not much on the schedule! In fact, over the weekend is when I finished this recycled glass vase project.

I have had these little champagne bottles for ever. They were just too cute to throw in the recycling bin and I knew that I would eventually find the perfect project for them. And I did, I made these cute vases!

Materials:

~ Glass bottle. (I used the champagne bottle, but you can use almost anything else. For instance a used olive oil bottle. )

~ raffia, jute, cord, burlap, ribbon, flowers

~ washi tape and anything else you want to glue on your new vase!

~ Hot glue

Instructions:

#1. The Shabby Chic Vase

~For this vase I used this Natural Polished Hemp and wrapped it around the entire bottle. I did not take of the labels for this vase and the cord did a good job of covering the labels. But if I were to do it again I would take them off. Just keep gluing and wrapping until you cover the bottle. This will take awhile so put a tv show on and go to town.

~ One I was done wrapping I added some burlap ribbon to the base area and then a layer of pretty ribbon.

~On the neck I added some brown ribbon and a flower. And there you have it, a cute shabby chic vase.

#2 The Diamond Wrap Vase

~ For this vase I wanted a really fancy, blinged out vase and I think I achieved that look, haha. To start take the labels off and then take the bottle to a well ventilated area to spray paint it. (Confession time: I am not very good at spray painting, I am too impatient to wait between layers and I always make a mess. So usually my hubby takes care of my spray painting, but I really wanted to get this project done so I didn’t wait for him to get home from work. I thought my cardboard box was good enough to keep the spray paint contained, buuuuuut I may or may not have painted the glass my outside table… Oh well, I guess refinishing the table will be a new project for me to work on this summer. lol)

~Anyway when you are done painting and it is dry start wrapping the bottle with Diamond Wrap (I found this at the dollar store) Add a flower to the top and you are done. This is perfect for the dinner table or for holidays. Imagine how cool this vase would look in candle light?

#3 The Washi Tape Vase

~ I have this wonderful washi tape that I found on Amazon and I thought would look great on the bottle. I just started wrapping the bottle using a different tape for each layer.

~ Just keep going until you are done. Since the bottle is curved the tape didn’t lay flat in all areas, but that is ok, I think it look like it has been aged in a attic for a long time.

~ Add a ribbon to the top and a flower and you are done!

There you have it, some great vases made from a glass bottles that were headed to the recycling bin!

What have you used to make a vase out of?

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DIY Sparkle Watches

June 30, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

it has been a while since I did a sparkle project. But when I found these watches in my costume jewelry stash I just knew they needed some sparkle to make them so much better Smile

I love projects like this, so easy to do, but when they are done they look like a million bucks. They are fun and you can be as creative as you want.

Materials

All you need is a watch (or any piece of jewelry)

glue and Rhinestones.

Instructions

~ Find the rhinestones you want to use and glue them on using metal glue. That is it. I know, not too hard but really fun!

The first watch I wanted to do a red one. I wear a lot of red and I thought I needed a watch to go with my outfits.

So I took this great bangle watch and added red rhinestones around the edge of the watch face. Be careful not to get glue on the watch face (like me, lol) but some acetone took care of the mess

Then I added some circle and flower rhinestones around the band. I love how this turned out!

The other watch is more of a minimal look (for me at least, lol) It still does have a lot of bling going on.

I just glued clear rhinestones on the band since the face had some sparkle going on anyway.

I just glued the rhinestone in between the joint on the band, just be careful not to glue the joints together.

So much fun! What do you have that you are going to bling?

TBT Handmade dollhouse from my childhood

June 23, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / 3 Comments

Hello everyone!

Come with me as I take a small walk down memory lane.

Don’t you just love finding things from your childhood? Because I do! When my sister was in town the other day she helped my mom with some cleaning and when ever there is cleaning there are discoveries to be made. The great discovery of the day (at least to me) was when my sister found this doll house that my mom made for me when I was a child. There were some other crafting discoveries made that day that I will share with you on another day.

I loved this doll house! My mom made this from a pattern for my small dolls, I think they were called Glamour Dolls. I took this with me when we went to Utah to see family and I played with it all the time at home. You can tell that it was well loved by how dirty it is (I could blame it on it being in storage for so long, but that is not were all the dirt came from…)

The dolls’ hair is a little crazy, and again I can’t blame that all on the storage. I was rough on dolls’ hair, I loved to cut and dye and style my dolls’ hair. By the time I was done with them they looked fabulous, haha! And because I was my mom’s favorite child (haha) she even made clothes for my tiny dolls (which I am sure there were not easy to make). I am not quite sure why my dolls are all in sleeping clothes, maybe it is because pajamas are my favorite clothes…

This doll house was great! The sides zip up and down and the roof is Velcroed on so everything is self contained. My mom made it with plastic canvas on the inside which helped it hold its structure, but over time the plastic has begun to disintegrate so the house is no longer holding its shape. But that is ok, I think it still looks cute. The inside has a bed, couch, and chair. The furniture is easy to move around, but this arrangement was how I liked it best. The detail that my mom put into this house is wonderful, there are ruffles around the bed and the pillow even has ruffles, you can’t see it but the inside of the windows have lace curtains on them, there is detailing on the front door and there are shutters on the window. Now that I am older I can really appreciate the time and hard work my mom spent on making this doll house.

I remember playing with this for hours and my My Little Ponies would come by and play with the girls and my Barbie’s would stop by as well (I am sure that my Barbie’s felt like they were visiting a Hobbit house, but they came by any way) I played and pretended with this house for hours and it was so exciting to see it again.

Thank you for taking this trip with me down memory lane. What toy did you have from your childhood that you played with all the time?

DIY laptop cover

June 21, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / 3 Comments

Hello everyone!

The other day I was working on my laptop and just kept getting distracted about how boring it is. I mean, the laptop is just black, no color at all. And you all know me by now, so you know that this just won’t do. I had to fix it!

See much better!

Materials:

~ Laptop or any electronic

~ contact paper (I found mine on Amazon)

~ Letter stickers (I found mine on Amazon)

~ Exacto knife and scissors

Instructions

~ Cut your contact paper a little bigger than the laptop

~ Slowly and carefully peal the back off the contact paper and adhere to your laptop. Try to keep it straight and try and keep the bubbles out. I still ended up with bubbles, but that is ok. I think it adds to the creativity

~ Once the contact paper is on then carefully trim the edges with an Exacto knife. Smooth it all down and make sure it is secure

~ I love the chevron pattern, but I felt like it needed more so I added the purple, glitter letters. I think that was the right touch.

That is it! It is a great way to add character and personality to you electronics, and I already feel more productive!

And the best part is this was easy enough that you can change your design often. I have seen some really cute contact paper designs at the dollar store.

Turn Gift Bags into Wall Art

June 16, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / 2 Comments

Hello Everyone!

I have a serious question for you, have you seen the awesome gift bags at the dollar store? They are amazing! So cute and every design imaginable. When I see them I think that these should be hung on the wall and not given away. And that is just what I did.

This one I put in my teenage son’s bathroom. He got a kick out of it. We will see how long it stays there, haha.

This is not the most complicated DIY that I have ever done, but it is easy and fun and you can have new art work for a couple of bucks.

All you need are gift bags from the dollar store (from this picture you can see that I might have a problem collecting too many….. nah, I think I don’t have enough, lol)

And a frame ( I got mine from the dollar store as well)

Just use the glass from the frame to see where to cut and cut out the design and put in the frame and that is it! All done.

Think about all the options, you can switch out for the holidays (the dollar store always had gift bags around Christmas)

You can give a gift in the bag and give them a frame to use after they open the gift. It is like a 2 for 1 deal.

I thought that this one was very sweet, wouldn’t this look perfect in a nursery?

This one would look so cute in a nursery as well.

This one would great for newly weds, or even as a decoration at a wedding reception.

This one would be great for a boy’s room or a man cave. The possibilities are endless.

And the best part is that there is usually an identical design on the front and back so you can get twice as many pictures out of 1 bag. This is great if you have 2 kids that want the same art and you only want to buy 1 bag.

I did save the back of the bag for different projects in the future, so look forward to seeing these designs again.

I hope you can find some really great bags to hang on your walls.

Repurpose an old window into a Chalkboard

June 14, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

As many of you already know I was working a project for a Mental Health Awareness charity auction. We were all repurposing and painting old windows. Here you can see my post about creating a shabby chic message board. Today I am going to walk you through how I made this chalkboard with an old window.

Materials:

~Old window. This window had pealing paint and a crack in the Plexiglas, so it was perfect for this project.

~ Cleaning supplies and sandpaper

~ Paint, brushes, and tape for the frame

~ Primer, chalkboard paint, and brushes for the chalkboard part.

Instructions;

~ The first step is to prep the window. Not the most fun, but it is necessary for a successful project. I sanded all the edges until they were smooth and ready to paint. This took a while because the window was so rough.

~ Then you paint the frame. I did tape off the Plexiglas because I am not the neatest painter. I used Artist’s Loft in Metallic Cobalt Blue, I love the iridescent quality of the blue paint.

~ Paint away. Kitty help is essential to the success of any craft project Smile Starlight is my favorite kind of help, lol.

I did 2 coats of the blue

~ After the frame had dried for a day I taped off the frame part and prepped the Plexiglas. First I lightly sanded the glass so that the paint would adhere. Then I put a coat of primer on according to the directions. I used Kilz primer.

~ Once the primer was dry I painted 4 coats of chalkboard paint on according to the directions. I used Rustoleum Chalkboard paint. Once it was dry and cured for 3 days I conditioned the chalkboard according to the directions.

~ Once it was completely dry and conditioned I took a stencil and painted a design in the corners and added some flowers and that is it. A new chalkboard for an old window

Have you painted and or repurposed an old window? How did it turn out? I would love to see pictures!

Re-purpose an old window into a shabby chic message board

June 2, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / 2 Comments

If you follow my Instagram (taketimetocreate) then I am sure you have already seen the reveal of this repurposed window. For those of you who don’t follow me there here the shabby chic message board!

I have to say I do love the way it turned out! This all started when my friend asked me to paint a window for a silent auction for mental health awareness. At first I wasn’t too interested, not because I didn’t believe in the cause (because this is one cause I totally support) it was because I wasn’t sure I had a design that would work. Most everyone else did a more traditional painted window with flowers on the glass and things like that. Well of course I didn’t follow the crowd. So I did my own thing and hopefully it will bring in a lot of money for the charity!

Here is how I did the repurposing.

Materials:
~ old window (for this to work you for magnets you will need one with a metal screen)
~ sandpaper, tape, cleaning supplies
~ paint and brush
~ cork
~ flowers, magnets, tacks, and clothes pins
~ ribbon and burlap

Instructions:
~ The first thing you will need to do is sand down all the rough edges and smooth it out. Once you like the feel of the window then give it a good cleaning.

~ Now you are ready to paint. I taped around the edges to help cut down on how much paint went on the screen, and this seemed to help.
Paint a couple coats until you get it to how you like it. I used this white acrylic paint that I had on hand.

~ Cut your cork down to size and glue it on to the screen. I just glued the edges with a metal glue and that seems to hold it pretty well.

~Then I went to work decorating the edge. Shabby chic is all about layers so that is what I did. I put down a layer of burlap, the layered on a layer of crochet ribbon that I had in my stash.

That looked good, but I felt like it was missing something, so I added a ribbon on top and flowers in the corners.

Then I added ribbon to the bottom of the screen and to the bottom of the window. Once that was done it was time to add the flower decorations.

~ For the flowers add a magnet the back of some and tack to the others. For the clothes pins I just added ribbon to a plain clothes pin I got from the dollar store.

And that is it. This is a very fun project that is easy to do and I loved using what I had on hand. I can’t wait for the auction and hopefully they will make a lot of money for their cause!

Artwork from a Dollar Store Placemat

May 26, 2016 / TakeTimetoCreate / 6 Comments

I have this little area in my office that needs some artwork. It is near the coffee pots, so you know it is one of the most important areas in the office Smile

Anyway I was at the dollar store and saw these really cute placemats and thought they were perfect. With some dollar store frames I was able to get 6 pictures for $7! What a deal!

Here is how I did it:

Materials:

~ Placemat (I got mine from the dollar store)

~ frames ( I got mine from the dollar store)

~ pencil

~ Scissors

Instructions:

~ I used the glass from the frame as a template for the correct size, and I just drew around the glass

~ Then I cut the placemat along the pencil lines.

~ Place it in the frame and you are done! Some patterns might be too close together so you might want 2 placemats so you have a little more freedom as to where to cut out the desired design.

And that is it! A very easy project that didn’t cost too much and it will be a perfect addition to the office!

Take Time to Create

Taking a few minutes in our busy lives to create new and wonderful things

TBT Restoration Hardware Chandelier DIY

DIY Duct Tape Covered Plastic Basket

Recycled Glass Vase DIY

DIY Sparkle Watches

TBT Handmade dollhouse from my childhood

DIY laptop cover

Turn Gift Bags into Wall Art

Repurpose an old window into a Chalkboard

Re-purpose an old window into a shabby chic message board

Artwork from a Dollar Store Placemat