DIY Wall Decor

I made these stars a couple years ago. I had seen some in a local store but they were bright colors and way too expensive. Hubby had some extra wood laying around so he helped me make these.

What you will need....

5 different colors of paint.... I used rustic colors... red, blue, green, brown and black.

Pliable wire for decor

Accent Fabric with like colors

Tools you will need...

Table Saw or Hand Saw

Drill with Drill bit

Pliers and round rod for bending wire

First I cut all the pieces. Sorry I can't remember the exact sizes but I made each stars 5 pieces all the same size then when down 2-3 inches each for the smaller stars.

Next paint your sticks to the desired colors. (you can also do a star in all one color) Use your sand paper to sand them down to give them the rustic look.

No you want to drill a hole at both ends of each stick. This is so you can hold the finished stars together.

Form your star the way you like it and take a small piece of wire and put it through the ends of the star. Curl over the back side to hold in place, then using your pliers and round rod, roll the wire making a curly Q on the front. Do this for all 5 sides.

Lastly, knot a piece of fabric on each end and your done.

Make 3 different sizes or display one large star. Can be used indoor or out. Just remember to use the correct paint and sealant if you would like yours outside.

Hope you enjoy your day!

Inspired by | ROCKS

Recently we visited the | Petrified Forest | and saw so many cool things. One of my favorites was the Petroglyphs at Newspaper Rock. 

There were over 650 Petroglyphs drawn at Newspaper Rock. This is one of the many photos I took. Aren't they just inspiring? I could just imagine the history behind them. So, so beautiful!

So.... I decided to look around the web at todays | Painted Rocks |

and here are some ROCKS I found out there that inspired me.

Aren't those some beautiful ROCKS? I found these images on GOOGLE. Go see what else you can find. Come back here and let me know what inspired you. 

I can't wait to get started painting a few ROCKS of my own. Look for a future post. I will be sharing them here.

Simple Lamp Makeover

I bought some lamps and shades at Target for my girls rooms. All they had was white lamps and pink lamp shades.

They would be fine like this. But the girls wanted to add some ribbons. So here is what we did. The little girls room has pinks, blues, oranges and greens. They both picked out pink and blue for their lamp. Cha~Cha wanted Purple. She has pink in her room, but we will be painting purple walls to match her cute new bedspread. So she chose purple.

I hot glued the ribbon on both ends of the ribbon leaving the part on the shade somewhat loose. Sooooo.... the girls could do this (below) if they wanted. A place to keep their hair clips. 

It would also be fun to slip some pictures in there too! We may add some lace or beads to the bottom, but as for now we wanted something quick and simple.

Scandle Shimmering Body Candle Review

{A Candle Never Felt So Good}

Are you fond of body massage oil and fragrant spa candles? What if you could combine them both into a massage oil candle that combined the potent scent of a candle with the comfort of a essential oil massage lotion? Our Scandle body candles do just that, beginning as a delightfulsoy candle that melts into a wonderful body lotion suitable for skin care or as a soothing massage lotion. There is nothing quite like a body candle massage, with the wonderful aroma of ourmassage oil aromatherapy candles working equally well as a room-enhancing scent and as a aromatherapy soy lotion for your skin. Consider a soy body candle for massage purposes, or just use one of our massage candle varieties for aromatherapy purposes—our spa candles have many uses, and are sure to become your favorite body lotion candle ...View Products

♥ Recently I was sent the Scandle Shimmering Body Candle for review. I reviewed the Warm Vanilla Sugar. It smells so good. The aroma through the mail package was so strong and once I opened it, my car smelled like I had just baked cookies. I couldn't wait to use it! The first time I used the Scandle, I used it to massage my own hands and arms. I read that some women use it for their cuticles and thought I would start there. I really liked the warmth of the candle. It was very soothing and to have the scent and shimmer to boot, I was thrilled. Next, I tried out this candle by getting my hubby to give me a massage. LOL Who doesn't love a good back massage. The Scandle burns at just 2 degrees above body temperature so when it hits your skin, it's not too shocking. It's actually very soothing. Scandle was designed to give you a healthy. sexy and flawless glow! This is perfect to use on those special evenings out on the town. Just make sure when you use the Scandle you burn it long enough for the melted edges to reach the sides of the tin. This will help keep the candle even and you will get more use out of it. The other thing that I loved about the Scandle Shimmering Body Candle is that it is made from 100% natural ingredients. It will also hydrate your skin. You will love using this candle and have no complaints. I fell in love with it as soon as I smelled it! The shimmer was a bonus. There are 18 different fragrances that you could choose from. Including.... honeysuckle, gardenia, lavender, margarita, eucalyptus and many more. They even have some holiday candle scents to try. These candles are only $22 so they are the perfect price for gift giving as well. The other bonus is that it comes in a travel tin. So take this on the road and give it as a gift too! You will not be disappointed and will go back for more! ♥

The featured product {s} in this post were provided to me free of charge by the manufacturer or pr company representing the company. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by anyone. By entering this giveaway you agree to Trendy Treehouse Disclaimer/Terms of use.

IKR Designs Review & Giveaway....CLOSED

I am very excited to share with you this great designer. Jill from IKR Designs has a great Etsy shop with flameless candles, adorable coasters, jewelry and more!

I received a great flameless candle and a set of chandelier coasters from IKR Designs for review. 

The candle I got was just in time for FALL. It has the most adorable pumpkin on it. It takes just two double AA batteries and you are ready for that beautiful, flickering glow. What I loved about them is you could set them to either on or timer. Yep, if you forget to shut them off, they will turn off on their own. There is also an off setting. Another great thing about the candles is they have a light scent. Nothing too over whelming. The best part about these flameless candles is they won't affect your loved ones who have allergies. My husband and my dad both have problems with flame and heavy scented candles. Now I can enjoy the relaxing light from my flameless candles. Thanks to IKR Designs beautiful prints, I can enjoy them with images of my choice. 

Jill offers many different options of designs for her candles. I was so excited about one in particular. The personalized candles. These are great for gift giving and for personalizing your home. I just had to buy one. So right away I emailed her a pic and asked if I could get it done. It was a family photo from last year.  But I had added something very special to it. My hubby had a poem written for me for my birthday, so in photoshop, I added it to the family photo. I was very happy to find out that the picture I wanted to use would work.  And with my review items, was my personalized photo candle too! It is so beautiful it brought a tear to my eye. I look forward to enjoying it for years. You just have to order some of these for Christmas this year.

The Chandelier Coasters that I got were perfect in every way! They came in a set of 4. Each coaster is 4 x 4 tiles with cork backing to keep your coaster in place. Just like the candles, you can get different images on them. I fell in love with the chandeliers. They fit my living room perfectly. But I also loved many of the other designs. You just have to go see them all. My kids loved them too. They thought they were puzzles. Because the Chandelier image is on all fours tiles and when putting them altogether, they make the finished chandelier. Very cute!

Some more great products that IKR Designs offers....

Domino Necklaces 

and

Stubby Glass Jar with personalizing options

IKR Designs is offering a giveaway too!

Jill is giving away a $40 GC to one lucky entrant

{ THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED }

Winner ~ DeAnn


You will have until  October 25th @ 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard time to enter this giveaway. The winner will be chosen by random.org and announced here. If the winner has provided an email address I will contact you. If you don't provide your email, you will want to check back here and see if you are the winner. The winner will have 48 hours to contact me or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is open to those living in US, CANADA & AUSTRALIA. You must be 18 years or older to enter. Thanks for entering at Trendy Treehouse. Good Luck and Have Fun!!

The featured product {s} in this post were provided to me free of charge by the manufacturer or pr company representing the company. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by anyone. By entering this giveaway you agree to Trendy Treehouse Disclaimer/Terms of use.

Book Paper Wreath Tutorial

I was browsing through youtube and found this great video on how to make a paper wreath out of old book pages. I loved it and knew I had to make one. If you want to see the video just go to THIS link. It is a easy tutorial and she is funny too!

There are other paper wreaths out there I found too that I would like to try, but this was tops because I had the supplies already. LOL So heres what ya do....

Some items you need aren't in this picture. Sorry!

What you will need...

• Old Book (I found mine at a thrift store for $2)
• Square wooden or foam core board
• Scissors
• Tape
• Stapler
• Pencil
• Hot Glue Gun

.... How to make this ....

First, you want to start off my getting all your book pages ready by cutting (tearing them) out of you book. I said tearing because it is much quicker than cutting. Usually the paper is easy to get out.  Just cut back the book cover and pull the papers out. Some books are glued and in my case they were glued and tied with string. But still very easy to get out. Before I forget, since this wreath was intended for my daughters room, I used a kids craft book. I wanted bits of color to pop out. But if you are making this for your living room or any other place in the house, you can use a regular book. This wreath is larger also because the book was extra big. You can still use the same measurements with any book size. You will see what I mean about measurements below.

Once you have all the papers out of the book, its time to cut the glued edges off. I used scissors which took a little while. I couldn't find my paper cutter. Which would be much quicker. So I recommend that you use one. 

Now comes the rolling of the paper. LOL This takes time, but is so worth it when you see the final result. And by time, I don't mean a whole lot. It only took me about 40 min (including stopping to help 7 kids, it was a play day. LOL) If you have lil hands willing to help, be sure to enlist!

Take your paper and roll one corner towards the other side while curling under. It will look like the photo above. Fold the remaining paper over the top. Just keep rolling back to make a cone shape.

Once all the way rolled back you will want to take a small piece of tape to hold it into place. I used regular tape but you can just as easily use double sided tape if you wanted to hid the tape. I didn't worry about it. For one, I did not have the tape along with all the other supplies and I knew that I wouldn't see it once I put the wreath together. 

Once you have your cone taped, staple the bottom of each cone about 1 inch above the bottom. Again, you really don't have to be that accurate. Mine were definitely not all 1 inch. I had lil hands helping me. I would much rather have them help than be perfect. LOL They love crafting.

Keep making your cones until you have a huge pile. Sorry, I wasn't thinking of counting each one. But you will need quite a bit. I used half of the book pages from my book. 

In between all this cone making, my son grabbed us a snack. Sesame sticks. mmmm! He said, "Mom, these would make great snack holders!" So you know what we did. YEP! We used a couple to hold our snacks. LOL KIDS! They sure are smart lil stinkers. I thought this was cleaver and had to share because you never know when you might need something to hold a treat. If you don't have a bowl, grab a magazine or piece of paper and roll up into a cone for a snack holder. Just tape these. No need for staples. Then just throw in the recycling bin when done or reuse again and again.

It's time to make the wreath. YEAH! This part is fun!

Get out your square board or foam core (I had the board already) Trace an 8" circle, 4" circle inside the larger circle, then a dot in the center of the board. My circles are not perfect. They are just there to give you an idea of where to place your cones.

Then start by Hot Gluing a cone to the 12 o'clock, 1, 3 and 6 o'clock positions. This will be your starting point to follow your wreath shape. Make sure the open end of the cone is facing up before you glue it down.

Continue to add your cones to make a full circle. It's looking beautiful already. Don't you just love all the color popping out from the craft book pages.

Start your second layer the same as the first by starting at 12, 1, 3 and 6 o'clock. When you glue your second set down, make sure you go in between the first cones so you will end up covering the board. As you can see from the photo above, the cones do not have to be perfectly aligned. You will fill in areas as you go to cover all bad spots. See below... look how great this is looking with just two layers.

Again, for your final layer start with 12, 1, 3 and 6 o'clock. Then just keep glueing around until you have your desired look and covering up any parts of the board that may be showing. The picture below shows the finished third layer. Love it! So pretty.

On the video I watched, she used small ornament balls and buttons to fill her center. I wanted something different to complete this so I made my own paper flowers for the center.

Take one sheet of paper and cut in half. Fold the one half in half. Then cut strips down the whole side of the paper. Don't cut on the folded edge, you want this to stay in one piece. Once you have the whole piece cut, fold back the two paper in opposite directions making your petals. I just folded them quickly by using the edge of a table. Roll the bottom using the table and roll the tops back after that. The bottom row will now be out of your way. Pretty easy. I tried it one at a time and that was too time consuming.

Once all the papers are curled back, just roll your strip into a flower shape. Secure with tape. Shape into the flower shape that you like. You will want to make 8 of these for the center of your wreath.

Glue all 8 to the center of your wreath. Start by gluing 7 paper flowers into a circle, then add your final paper flower to the center to complete it. Shape the paper if you need to.

Glue on a wall hanging bracket and you are all done. Ready to hang and enjoy.

Here is our completed wreath. We love it! I already have people requesting them for their homes. Phew!

FYI.... My son helped me assemble this whole wreath. I added the glue and he did the rest. He did a great job, don't you think. I made all the cones of course. He thought that part was boring. LOL. But thought I would tell you because this can just as easily be a kids craft as well. 

Tips and Tricks... 

• To make this a smaller wreath, cut your book pages in half. Make two layers instead of three.
• Afraid to use a book ~ use a magazine or newspaper. Or just get an old book that had been worn out (papers missing or torn)
• Find some old music sheets that are unusable. That would make a beautiful wreath.
• Use wrapping paper or colored paper.
• Fill your center with buttons, rubber bands, hard candies, flowers.... Be creative
• Make themed wreaths for holidays or birthdays
• Add ribbons and flowers to embellish your wreath.
• These would make amazing gifts for anyone.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Please share with me what you did with your wreath. I would love to share your photos in this post as well. Have fun making yours! We did!

Hair Accessory Frame Tutorial

I made this adorable Hair Accessory Frame for a good friend on mine. She just had her baby this week. Congrats Jenn! I will be delivering it soon.

What you will need...

• Frame (whatever size you like, but larger is best for space)
• Can of spray paint ~ I chose this color to match the lil ones room
• Blocks (in this case I used pipe let over from hubby's job)
• Sand Paper (Fine)
• Scrap Fabric (large enough to cover the inner frame)
• Blanket Batting (a little smaller than your fabric)
• Staple Gun
• Buttons
• E6000 or Hot Glue Gun
• Paint Pen (colors of your choosing)
• Embellishments

How to make this...

First,  take the back off your frame. Place the frame on your blocks (these pipes came in handy, so if you have them, use those instead). This makes it easier to do your painting in 1 step. You can get all the outside and inside sides easily too!

Grab your spray paint and start spraying away. With this particular frame I wasn't worried about covering it completely. You'll see why in a second.

Once dry, take a fine piece of sand paper. Lightly sand the edges and sides. Rough it up a bit! I like the worn look. If you don't, you can skip this part. See below how cool it looks. LOL

Now your ready to go indoors and have some fun decorating. Take your blanket batting and cut to fit the inside of the frame opening, set aside for now.

Now take your fabric scrap and cut it to the size of the whole frame. You want it larger so you can fold it over and attach it to the back. But don't do that just yet. We need to add ribbons. Make sure you place the fabric over the batting. The batting is to give it a little extra lift and softness to the board.

It's time to lay out your ribbons. I used a variety of ribbons so I could give it a lot of color. Make sure you line it all out how you want them because your next step will be tacking them down.

Carefully turn over the frame so it is face down. You don't want your ribbons to fall out of place. Now grab that staple gun and tack down your fabric, making sure you get all the ribbons too! Trim excess fabric and ribbon. Don't worry about how ugly it looks, you can cover the back with a trim piece. I like to cover the whole thing. Once these are made, you won't take them apart anyway!

Now you want to use either a Hot Glue Gun or E6000 (I used E6000) and glue the ribbon to the fabric. You only want to glue the ribbons where they meet. See where the tip of the glue cap is. Glue those two ribbons down.

Now you get to pick some cute buttons to glue on top of the spots you just glued. You can use large, small and shaped buttons.

Finally, just embellish your frame with paint pens, flowers, a name, ect. I used scrabble pieces for her name and some newspaper flowers that I had made recently. Don't forget to cover the back of your frame with a large, thin piece of wood. Just tack or glue in place. Add a wall hanger and you are ready to hang and keep some cute hair accessories.

I think this turned out very cute!

I'd love to see your pictures, if you have made one of these! Send them our way and we will link them up to this post!