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Chalkboard Vinyl Menu-List-Note Frame

I’ve been wanting a Menu Board of some kind for a while now.

Mostly because I have a teenage son who tends to ask the minute he gets home from school, “What’s for Dinner?”
And then he proceeds to forget what my answer is, and ask again.

It would be mighty handy to have a place to write that info down – so he can check it out for himself.

I haven’t made one because I’m a bit fickle and I couldn’t decide on a style.
I don’t really have the counter space for just a menu board – I need to multi-task even in my decor for the tiny cave I affectionately call my kitchen.

But then the nice folks at Silhouette decided to save the day. They sent me a handy dandy roll of Chalkboard vinyl to try out – and it was perfect for creating a new Menu-List-Note Frame!

Isn’t it fun and retro looking? I love the backing fabric – my sis sent it to me. I have no idea what it is but it’s adorable.

So this is pretty easy – but here’s a mini-tutorial anyway.

You’ll need:
Frame
Fabric for the frame
Mod Podge
Backing Fabric
Posterboard
Chalkboard Vinyl

Cut out a border of fabric to wrap around your frame. You’ll want to slit the fabric at the inside corners so it will wrap smoothly.

Paint a layer of Mod Podge onto the wood of the frame, then wrap the fabric around. Start with the outside edges first.

Wrap the inside fabric in. Add a layer of Mod Podge over the fabric to keep it all looking nice.

For the backing fabric, I cut a piece of posterboard the size of the frame. I cut a piece of fabric larger than the posterboard and Wonder Under-ed it to the posterboard.

Slip the fabric into the frame then add the cardboard backing to the back of the frame.

Cut out your shape out of Chalkboard Vinyl -

I put the Silhouette settings on Magnet Paper – the vinyl setting won’t work with the Chalkboard vinyl. Trust me.

Add your vinyl frame to the front of the glass – and admire your cute new frame!

You can hang or display your frame any way you’d like – as I mentioned my space is limited. So I glued some strong magnets to the back and hung the cutie on my fridge!

I love that I can change out what it says super easily -
Chalkboard Markers are one of the coolest inventions – no mess – no scritchy chalk sound.

Isn’t it cute?? Do you have a menu board up at home?
Tell me – does it cut down on those “What’s for dinner” questions?
Fingers crossed . . . .

Category: Home Decor  Tags: ,  15 Comments

Shabby Flowers Spring Wreath

I think I’ve mentioned I’m ready for Spring. A few times anyway.
So I’ve decided it’s time to decorate for Spring – whether Spring’s ready to show up or not!

The first place to start is my front door – the poor thing has been naked for several months.

I really loved my Fall Wreath – so I wanted to use some of the same elements like the pennant – just altered a bit for some fresh Spring flowers!

Here’s my Shabby Flowers Spring Wreath!

Pin It

It has some pretty green moss and some sweet little felt and eyelet flowers to get us ready for those real spring flowers.
(Actually this is probably the closest I’ll get to real spring flowers – since I seem to have a black thumb.)

It also has a little pennant banner that shouts “SPRING”!!

Isn’t it fun? And Spring-y?

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own!

•   Grapevine Wreath
•   Green Moss
•   White eyelet fabric
•   White & Cream felt
•   Fabric for pennant – light colors so the printing will show up
•   Freezer Paper
•   Twine
•   Hot glue
•   Pennant Image Pattern

We’ll start with the felt flowers. To make these rolled felt flowers you’re going to cut out a spiral circle. To give them the little ”petal” look – you want to cut out a wavy spiral like the one below.
If you want, you can draw out a spiral as a guide, or you can free hand it. It doesn’t have to be a perfect circle (obviously :). You just don’t want the spiral sections to be too wide – otherwise you’ll have really tall flowers.
You might want to have some “practice felt”. My first flowers were a little sad and chunky looking.

Once your spiral is cut, start rolling up the flower at the outside end. Roll it tightly into a spiral.

You want the center pretty tight – then you can start rolling it a little more loosely so the outer sections look more like open petals.
When you’ve rolled the whole flower, you’ll have the little center section left. Glue this down to the center of the flower, then cut a small felt circle to glue to the base. This will hold the flower in place.

So for the wreath I made a few different sizes – to make larger versions of this flower you’ll make a larger spiral circle, but you want the spiral strips about the same size.
For my wreath I made three medium-sized cream, 2 small-sized cream and 3 medium-sized white felt flowers.

Now let’s do the big shabby fabric flowers.

Cut two petal shapes out of paper, one longer than the other by about a 1/2″.
Cut 5 of the larger petals out of fabric and 7 of the smaller petals out of fabric.

Sew a gathering stitch along the bottom of the large petals, about 1/4″ from the straight end.

Sew the last petal to the first and pull up the gathering stitch. Knot the thread.

Repeat with the seven smaller petals.

Layer the smaller flower on top of the larger and glue together.

Glue a small felt circle to the back of the fabric flower and glue one of your small cream rolled flowers in the center.
You can also rough up the edges of the flower a bit to give it more of a frayed look.

Make two of these fabric flowers.

Glue a section of green moss to your grapevine wreath.

Glue your fabric and felt flowers onto the mossy section.
(Does the word “mossy” always make you think of the movie You’ve Got Mail? Me too.)

So cute!! Now we’re going to get the pennants ready. To get your fabric ready for printing, cut out a piece of fabric and a piece of freezer paper, a little larger than a sheet of paper.
Iron the shiny side of the freezer paper to the back of the fabric.

Trim the fabric/freezer paper to the size of a sheet of paper. This will even up all your edges and make everything nice and tidy. You don’t want to have frayed or uneven sides, it will be more likely to catch in your printer.
(Even so, I recommend you have enough fabric & freezer paper on hand in case you need to print it twice. Sometimes there are smudges from the ink.

Put the fabric in your printer so that it will print on the right side of the fabric. Print out your pennant letters and trim them just inside the pennant lines.

Peel off the freezer paper. Glue the pennants (check your spelling. . . ahem) to a long piece of twine.
Rough up the edges of your pennant pieces to give them a shabby look.

Tie the twine piece so the pennant is at an angle at the top of the wreath.

And your wreath is done!!

Hang it on your door – and hopefully Spring will get here soon!!


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I’d love to hear what you think!
What about you? Have you started decorating for Spring??

I’m linking to Sunday Scoop, Today’s Creative Blog, Met Monday, Skip to my Lou, Tutorials & Tips Tuesday, Funky Junk Interiors, Shabby Creek Cottage, and the other fabulous parties on the sidebar – make sure you check them out!

Stuff in the Works. . . .

If you’re a regular FT visitor – you know that I don’t do giant grand stuff too often. or Ever?
But I have some big things I’m working on and so I thought I’d share my plans with you! (And by big, I mean, big for me. Not like I-built-an-entire-craft/play/storage-space-in-my-hall-closet big. )
But fun for me all the same.

So here’s what’s up!

We’re redoing my daughter’s room. And as you might know, we can’t paint the walls (boo rental). So we have to add colors in another way.
The room is inspired by this pin:

Pinned Image
(This is actually a photo from the Etsy shop selling that darling vinyl quote on the wall. Cool huh?)

We’re tweaking the style a bit. My daughter already has a white iron daybed. So we’re adding these guys to either side of the bed and doing a long shelf close to the ceiling between them with some lighting.

The Bedding is Amy Butler’s Morning Glory that I picked up on clearance at BBB. Woot!
I’m accenting with other fabrics that match from the Lark collection. I am thinking it will be a really fun, bright room even if we can’t paint the walls.

Ok – so that’s the girl’s room. I’m also currently working on my bedroom!!

We had an Ikea bedroom set that’s we’d bought a few years ago. But last year after my Grandmother passed away, we inherited the bedroom set that was in her guest bedroom.
It was my grandparents bed when they got married and it’s been in the family for a really long time. I’m so thrilled to have it. So of course I have to redo my whole room. ;)

Here’s the plan.

My goal is to have an “antique” feel with the ticking fabric but with the modern gray, red and cream colors.

The ruffles section above are going to be this bit of gorgeousness – I am so in love with this ruffle throw.

Pinned Image
(This is by DIY Design and she has a great tutorial for it.)

I’m not as far along in my room as I am in my daughters. I still need to figure out the artwork over the bed. I have a giant gold mirror (also from my grandma) but I’m not sure about the gold.
Or if I want that over the bed. . . hmmm.

I like this big mirror – and they even have the ticking on their bed.

Pinned Image

But I also like these flippy wreaths . . .

Pinned Image

It’s a work in process. As you can tell by my master bedroom pinboard. It’s a bit all over the place.

So what do you think?

I’d love your opinion about everything – and any thoughts or suggestions you have!

I can’t wait to show you the finished rooms!!

Category: Home Decor  Tags:  16 Comments