Fourth of July is just around the corner and “Blogland” is completely full of fun creative DIY projects to make your 4th extra special. I’ve been noticing so many fun projects that I just had to share with you some of my favorites…
A 4th of July without Sparklers is like a Christmas without a Christmas tree! Dress up your sparklers with this adorable tutorial from Twig + Thistle. The tutorial also includes matchbox covers and drinking straw decorations. Click here to read the full instructions and to download the PDF to create your own!
Naomi from Bakers Royale takes the concept of fruit skewers to a whole new level with these super innovative fruit pops. Who knew watermelon, apples, and blueberries could be so adorable? Click here for a full rundown of tips on how to make your own.
Dress up your dessert table with a stylish (yet easy to make) Garland Swag from House of Three. They also offer a downloadable file (for $4) complete with artwork to make your own popcorn bags and sparkler holders. Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to make your own garland swag and click here to purchase the printables for all three projects.
Who said entertaining had to be hard? You can whip up a 4th of July party in 20 minutes flat. Yeah, it’s true. Check out this post from Dream Green DIY (guest posting on NoBiggie) on how to put together an easy 4th of July shindig without the fuss.
Speaking of super easy… easy can be chic! For instance, these dessert decorations from Style Me Pretty. You could even use them on store bought cupcakes to give them that homemade-yeah-I-totally-made-those-myself look. Click here for the full (crazy easy) tutorial!
If you are looking to go all out this year, Anders Ruff has got you covered! Their 4th of July Pinwheels party is out of this world! It’s chic, modern, fun, and adorable all at the same time. I for real can’t get enough of it. All of their downloads for the entire party are available (for $15) in their Etsy shop here. For more photos, check out their blog here.
I hope this 4th of July round up gives you some inspiration of your 4th get-togethers this year! What are your plans? Are you hosting or going to someone else’s for the festivities?
Over a year and a half ago we bought two of these planters from CB2…
We actually got them for the patio of our first place (a cozy two bedroom apartment on the other side of town). Back then, silver was our go-to metallic accent color. It matched everything we had, and it went really well with the exterior of our apartment complex. Around the time they came in, we were in the middle of the maybe-we-should-buy-a-house stage. In light of that, we decided to put the patio beautification on hold and store the planters in my parents’ garage. Fast forward a year and a half… The house had been bought, renovations were underway, and we were moving into our new (to us) house. While we were going through the “stuff” we had stored in my parents garage, we stumbled upon our unused planters – STILL in the box! We had totally forgotten about them. To make things even sweeter, we’d been looking to buy planters for the carport! Score!
Btw, it was SUPER hot outside. So the grass looked dead.
Since moving into the house, we’ve turned a page in the accent color book. While silver is a great color that we still use it from time to time, we especially like the way oil-rubbed bronze interacts with our dark floors and bright white trim. All of our door hardware (more about that here) are now oil-rubbed bronze, so it’s only natural that our planters be that color too – especially since they will be going beside the two back doors which were painted a black/brown. For our hue of choice, we went with Rustoleum’s Oil Rubbed Bronze Metallic Spray Paint. That stuff… is awesome. Great color, coverage and the whole nine yards. I wish we could find about a billion other things to use it on!
Obviously, painting plain planters (try saying that 10 times fast!) isn’t rocket science, so I’m not going to get into much detail there. You know the drill… keep the can about 10 inches from the surface, spray in steady back-in-forth motion, slightly overlap each stroke, yada, yada, yada. Just remember, you’re better off doing lots of light coats than a few heavy ones. It gives you better coverage and a streak-free final product. Oh, and we ended up using almost exactly two cans to do both planters.
Now that we had these spiffy “new” planters, we needed to fill them. When picking out flowers, we kept in mind they would be under the carport, so the plants we chose needed to be extremely shade-tolerant. We also wanted to get something self-contained that wouldn’t have to be transferred to a new container. Why? We wanted less fuss. Plain and simple. We’re definitely going to be getting our gardening on in the near future, but buying something that was already in a permanent home just made us feel more comfortable. Taking all of that into consideration, we settled on these beauties…
These are Impatiens. We picked them up at Lowe’s for $8.99 a pop. They haven’t fully bloomed yet, but if they end up looking anything like the tag, we’re stoked. The tag says they will bloom from spring through fall, they are fast growing (funny since they are Impatiens), and they are good to go in the shade. If you have brown thumbs (okay, enough with the puns… we are the Browns… brown thumbs. I know that’s got to be annoying but I couldn’t resist.) like ourselves, be sure to read the tag. The back of the tag is full of info about transplanting, water usage, pruning, fertilizing and such.
The flower pots are pretty shallow so we put some bricks we havd left over from a previous project in the bottom and set them on top. This puts the flowers just above the lip of the planters and keeps the planters from moving around as well!
After a little snip of the hangers and a drink of water, the flowers were all set in their new home…
The plants ended up being the perfect size for these planters. They aren’t too crowded so they have enough room to grow…
Yay for the long lost planters! Now we’re one step closer to completing Operation Carport Prettification. It’s a small step, but it’s a step nonetheless. We’re going to keep our fingers crossed that we have a bright and sunny weekend so we can move on to our other outdoor projects!
I’ve been seeing Krylon’s Looking Glass spray paint on the blog-circuit (particularly the “DIY Mercury Glass”) for a while now and I’ve been dying to try it out! So off I went to three local craft stores, Sherwin William’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot and everywhere I went, they were out or hadn’t heard of it. Therefore, I eneded up ordering it online from Hobby Lobby. It wasn’t the most economical option, but I was being rather impatient at the moment. A few days later, the spray paint came in the mail and I was off to work. About 24 hours later, this is what I ended up with…
Pretty cool, huh? I didn’t go by any particular DIY Mercury Glass tutorial (there are a lot of them out there!) but I ended up forming a concoction of methods to get the result I was looking for. Plus, I wasn’t necessarily looking for a “Mercury Glass look”, just something cool that would give me an excuse to try this paint out. To do this project yourself, here’s what you need: Krylon’s Looking Glass Spray Paint, spray bottle (filled with water), glossy black enamel paint, metallic glossy gold enamel paint, scrub sponge, paint brush, and a glass piece you want to paint (I picked up this particular piece at Ben Franklin Crafts for $3 bucks).
Start out by covering the outside of the glass with a few magazine pages and painters tape to prevent getting spray paint on the outside. This step is optional, but I did it just in case. If you end up getting a little on the glass, don’t worry. It scratches right off. Make sure your glass is super clean (especially on the inside). If you leave smudges, it will cause the “mirror” effect to be a little cloudy and not as reflective. Once the glass is sparkling clean, lightly spray the inside of the glass with water – just enough to form some good-sized water beads.
Note: Rather than doing it outside in the rain, I decided to do this project in the laundry room. I don’t recommend it, though! Even with an open window, it got realllly smelly in there. And there may or may not be some reflective paint on the wall to the right of the washer. Whoops!
Right after you spray the water, lightly coat the inside of the glass with the Looking Glass spray paint. Since you’re probably going to be spraying inside a relatively small surface, it’s hard to do even sprays. Just try to keep things as even as possible. Like any spray paint project, it’s best to do a lot of very fine coats than a few thick coats. After each coat, quickly turn the glass upside down to dry. When you turn it upside down, the paint will run but that’s okay! That’s a part of what gives the finished project an aged glass look.
Make sure you put the glass (upside down) on a drying rack so air can get in there to dry both the paint and the water. If you don’t have a drying rack on hand, balance it on two upside down paper bowls. That’s what I did and it worked out really well and I didn’t have to worry about getting paint on anything (else).
About 4 coats later, here’s what the glass looked like…
It almost looks cool enough just like that, doesn’t it? I thought so, but I wanted to go for a more aged look. After the glass is completely dry, it’s time for a little bit of enamel paint. This step was a tad intimidating before I got started, but it ended up being really easy and fun. Start out by using the scrubbing sponge to scratch away some of the Looking Glass spray paint here and there. There’s no science to this, so just do what you think looks good. Here’s what it looked like in the beginning stages…
After you rough up the inside, apply thin layers of the black and gold enamel paint using your paint brush. I ended up mixing the gold and black paint here and there to make it look a little more blended and less choppy.
Rather than thinking about how it was looking compared to “real” mercury glass, I just focused on making it look cool. As a side note, if you’re planning on using your piece as a candle holder, remember not to go to heavy on the enamel paint. You still want the candle light to shine though. Like I said before, this isn’t a science, so just do what you think looks good. It’s kind of like applying makeup: you have to know when to stop. Too much scratching/painting will take away the mirrored aspect. So just be sure to not overdo it.
If you get to a point where you aren’t sure if you should keep going or not, go ahead and put it down for a few minutes (or even a few hours) and come back to it later. With this project, it’s totally okay if you let it dry and come back to it later. There’s really no right or wrong way to do it!
A scratch here, a scratch there, a dab of paint here, a dab of paint there, and, once again, here’s what the final product looks like…
The candle gives it a really cool glowing effect at night…
The total price tag for this DIY project was around $20 (the spray paint was a little more expensive because I had to order it). Not bad for a one-of-a-kind accessory! It looks just like something you would buy at a home decor store. However, I secretly love it when I can say, “I made that!”. Well, sort of… I don’t know how to blow glass… yet. ; )
