DIY Sunday Projects

Yesterday I decided to get all crafty and do some DIY projects I've been wanting to do. I thought I would share them with you. The first is a headband holder. Lately headbands have gotten very trendy and I love them. They keep this mess I call my hair out of my eyes and out of my face which allows me to keep it long and curly. Well, I've accumulated quite the collection of headbands and they are impossible to store neatly. I decided to do a search on Google to find a headband holder and I came up with an idea all by myself. Well, not really all by myself. I found one idea and then just tweaked it a little. So, here goes:

First of all what you need for this project is:

1 roll of paper towels

1 piece of fabric of your choice. You will need about 1/4 of a yard or they also have these little squares of fabric at Jo-Ann's that will work. They are super cheap too, especially now because they are on sale for 99 cents. Normal price is $1.99 so even if you have to pay full price it isn't that bad.

1 silk flower, preferably a large hydrangea

1 wooden base. I found them at Michaels for $1.99 for a large one which turns out is a little too large for me. I'm going back and get a smaller one and it was only 99 cents

Spray paint to paint the wooden base. You can get cheap spray paint at Wal-Mart for like $1.99 and will have plenty left over. I just used some that I borrowed from my sister.

1 hot glue gun and glue sticks.

That's it for supplies. Total cost: approximately $5.00 - $6.00 depending on your choice of fabric or flowers. Total time involved, approximately 1 hour (but I did seriously burn my thumb on the stupid high temp glue gun and that delayed me a little)

To assemble:

1. Unwrap the plastic from the roll of paper towels but leave the towels in place. You need a full roll, not an empty one.



2. Wrap fabric around the roll of paper towels and put a row of hot glue on one end of the fabric. Fold the other end over so the seam is smooth and glue down to the other side. Leave about 2-3 inches of fabric on either end of the roll of paper towels.

3. Close the ends of the fabric by folding in on itself and glueing as you go. End result will look like this:

4. Put a couple of circles of glue around the top of the roll and put the stem of the flower through the middle roll and glue down. This will be the top of the holder. It's not necessary for the design but it makes it look prettier.

5. Lastly run several circles of glue on the otherside of the roll to attach it to the base. Center it on the base and hold it down for a few seconds to allow the glue to adhere the fabric to the base.

That's it! Now just add your headbands. Here is the final picture with a few of my headbands added. I figured out that I'm going to need 2 of them for all of the headbands I have but I figure they will look good on my vanity on either side of my mirror. Yes, I have that many headbands.

My second DIY project I did yesterday was adding some pizazz and length to a lamp shade. I got this very cool lamp at a garage sale for $1.00. It came without a shade though. So, I went out and bought a shade at Hobby Lobby when they put them on for half price. Unfortunately it wasn't quite long enough and you could see the bottom of the light bulb holder. So, I bought some trim and hot glued the trim to the bottom of the shade. It made it match my decor even more and also hid the light bulb holder. This project was not all that cheap because the trim I picked out was quite pricey. However, with the price of the lamp being so cheap and the shade on half price, the total price of the entire lamp was still under $40. The trim was $12.99 a yard and I got 2 yards. I used about a yard and a half of it so I could have probably gotten away with just 1.5 yards but I wanted to make sure I had enough. Here is the final project:

And here is the total vignette where I have this lamp. I love this! It's in my entry way.

I hope this inspired you to try and make some things for yourself. Not only does it save you money but it's fun as well!