Black and White Table Runner

When we bought our house we knew that we would need some new furniture. One of the first sets that we bought was a new kitchen table and chairs. We found a set that we loved on sale and knew that it was meant to be. We got an espresso colored, counter top height table, and 8 chairs. We were so excited!

Once the set was delivered we quickly found that the surface of the table scratches quite easily. So, we decided we needed some way of protecting it, but we didn't want to use a tablecloth all of the time. We bought a table runner and 4 place mats that we found for super cheap. We weren't too specific when choosing them, other than the fact that they needed to be cheap. Now I have decided that they definitely aren't the colors that I'd like to use in the kitchen, so I have been looking for black and white fabric to make my own table runner.

On Saturday I went on another Joanne's adventure and found that the quarter yard fabric samples were on sale for $1.29 instead of the usual $1.99 price. I was sifting through these squares looking for fabric for other projects and came across these black and white samples.


I loved them, and they were exactly the right price... cheap! I ended up buying 2 of these, thinking that I could maybe sew them together to make a runner. Once I got home I went to town. You should know that I am still kind of new to sewing. I know just enough to get by with making pillows and sewing straight lines. Luckily for me, this project was as simple as it could have possibly been. I sewed them together and then sewed seams around the edges.

Overall, I think it turned out prefectly, especially with a price tag of less than $3.00. My next project for the kitchen is to make curtains. Yikes! Hopefully, I'll be finished and ready to post about them in the next few weeks.

Front Door Wreath

Again with the wreaths... I know! But, this project turned out much better than our last attempt at a wreath.


I have been wanting a cute wreath for our front door, and thought it would be neat to have one for each season. But I wondered where I would store them all when they weren't in use. Then one day I found a cute wreath idea on Living Life Crafty and thought it would be cute to have for our front door. I thought about it for a couple of weeks and then decided that I must make one. I also figured out a plan to incorporate my seasonal wreath idea. I would make a simple and bare wreath and then add seasonal items that could be switched out with each changing season. This way, I won't have to store a bunch of wreaths. Instead, I could just store the accessories. Once I had that plan in mind, I just had to do it!

I took myself to Joanne's and found a simple wood branch wreath for $3.99 and an M for McChesney. You know me and monograms, I just love them. I also bought some black, outdoor, craft paint, red ribbon and a couple stems of red artificial berries.

I started by painting the M black.


Next, I attached the M to the wreath using small red ribbon that I happened to have. Let me just say, this was not my first choice of materials to use to attach the M. I was hoping to use fishing line, but unfortunately we are not fishers, hence no fishing line. I know it doesn't look the best, but I figured that I could get away with it because of the red berries that I was going to add later. I plan to switch out the red ribbon for the fishing line when I dress it up for spring. This will give me a couple of months to find some.

Once the M was attached I added the berries in clumps of three, sporadically around the wreath. Lastly, I cut a long piece of thick red ribbon and tied it loosely around the top of the wreath.

Now, our lovely winter wreath is hanging on our front door. I love it! AND it will be easy to change out when spring comes around. The sooner the better, I say!

Christmas Wreath Wreck

Say that five times fast...

Here is a little story to warm up your "after the holiday blues"... I meant to actually post it during x-mas, but just never got around to it.

As Trav and I were putting up our Christmas decorations this year, we realized that we were a little short on supplies. We thought that we had plenty, but quickly figured out that we had more than enough for our little condo which was half the size of our new house. This year our decorations looked a bit sparse.

In typical Sara fashion, I turned to my favorite blogs for help. I was on the hunt for cheap DIY projects. ALAS, I found a cool post for making a cheap ornament wreath on one of my new fave blogs, Fingerprints on the Fridge. Check it out if you have a minute, it's great!

All I needed to make this was... 1) a wire hanger and 2) a bunch of glass bulb ornaments. EASY!!! Anyone who knows me well, knows about my love of the Dollar Tree. So, I headed there in search of ornaments and found all that my heart could desire! I bought 6 packages of different colored ornaments. I was a little worried about the wire hanger part though. The previous owners of our house left us with an abundance of wire hangers, which I promptly threw out because I think they are the devil. Once I got home from the dollar store, I went on a hunt for any remaining wire hangers. Luckily, I found one who had escaped my wrath.

I started sliding the glass ornaments onto the wreath using the metal hoops at the top of each ornament and in no time at all I had a great looking x-mas wreath.

Remember, this post is called "Christmas Wreath Wreck". So here is where the wreck part comes into play. My hanger was all filled up and was ready to tie the two ends together. The last step was to tie a lovely piece of red ribbon at the top so that we could hang it from our door. I asked Trav to use his big strong muscles to wrap the two ends of the wire together to complete the circle. He had no trouble with this, except for the small fact that the bulbs kept popping off their toppers. Unfortunately, I had overlooked the small step of hot gluing the metal toppers on each ornament. Trav was having a hell of a time getting the two ends together AND trying to manage all of the bulbs popping off. And then finally, in a Christmas miracle he was able to get the wreath finished with all bulbs back on their toppers. What a swell guy! He was walking the wreath over to me in the kitchen when IT happened...

It was like one of those moments where time slows down and everything goes into slow motion... One little bulb jumped off the wreath! Trav being the awesome husband that he is, reached out to catch the bulb... I can picture it now. Trav saying "Oooohhhh Nnnnooooo!" in the deep slow motion voice that they use in the movies. While Trav was reaching out trying to catch the stray bulb with one hand, the wreath slipped out of his other hand and went smashing to the ground.

Many of the bulbs broke into tiny smithereens. Here is proof! I had to capture this mishap on film.

Luckily, I was able to salvage some of the bulbs that were still intact. We had a good laugh while sweeping up all of the broken glass. What else could we do? We had to admit defeat by this evil project. Looking back I should have hot glued the tops onto each bulb. I think this would have saved on a lot of frustration.

Now, the survivor bulbs are tucked away safely in a storage box in the crawl space, until... next year... (enter the Jaws music theme).