I went with my mom a few months back, and she helped me fight off the crazed bargain hunters, even agreeing to guard the buggy with her life.  I found this cute little prize while digging through bins, and immediately I was drawn to the pop of red inside.

I knew I could add a little summn summn and make it work.

(enter the latex gloves and fun, bronze spray paint)

After only an hour of work, voila–make new.  And it matched my rustic parisian theme in the bathroom.  So, you can’t beat that for the $5 total investment.

Today’s DIY is for all you girls out there – like me – who can’t seem to keep your jewelry organized I’ve always loved how our stores display accessories, particularly the wooden jewelry boards.  Our Farmington FP girls put together this awesome and thorough tutorial on how to make one! It’s a bit long, so click “read more” to view all of the steps.

What you need:

(all supplies can be found at Home Depot)

1. 2 x 4 – Get this cut into pieces. About 3 pieces 12″ long (home depot will cut it for you).

2. Box of Cut Nails – We wanted to use something more decorative that standard construction nails. Cut nails or antique nails are perfect. You can also search them online and find some really cool shapes and finishes.

3. A box of Screws OR fasteners long enough to screw through the 2 x 4 and Jewelry Board.

4. Wood Stain – The color is really up to you! We used Minwax Jacobean!

5. Rags – To apply stain.

6. Tools – To assemble, preferably a drill.

7. White Paint and a decorative rubber Stamp.

8. Large piece of wood. We bought a large piece of wood from Home Depot and had it cut down to 36″ but you can really get whatever size works best for your space!

Step One: Prepare to stain your wood. We set up on the back deck just in case we spilled! Grab an old rag (we used an old towel) to apply the stain.

Step Two: Stir your stain. Dip rag into the stain and start to apply to your jewelry board. Apply going with the wood grain. In this case, up and down, not side to side.

Step Three: Cover the whole jewelry board with stain, including the sides. We chose not to do the back, because you won’t see it once hanging on the wall.

TA DA!

Step Four: Take your nails and place them on your jewelry board where you would like them. The nails at the top we wanted to use for longer necklaces and the nails at the bottom are going to be for bracelets!

Step Five: Once you’ve laid all your nails out and have a good idea of where your going to nail them in, measure with a measuring tape to make sure they are the same distance apart.

*The bracelet nails are 3″ apart*

Step Six: With a pencil, make small marks as to where the nails will go on the board.

Step Seven: Turn your board over and grab one of the cut 2 x 4 pieces you have set aside.

Step Eight: This is how we will be mounting the board to the wall. On your cut 2 x 4 make 2 marks equal distance from the edge on either side as to where you will be drilling holes.

Step Nine: Take your drill and make 2 holes where you measured in step 8.

On another piece of wood we will be drilling in nails to fit into the holes you are creating in this step.

Step Ten: Take your other 2 x 4 piece and measure where your drill holes are, so they match up and the nails will be able to fit into the drill holes.

Step Eleven: Drill your nails into place, where you made marks. Once you’re finished you should be able to fit the two pieces of wood together. The nails should fit into the drill holes.

Step Twelve: Using your Screws or Fasteners, drill the piece of 2 x 4 with the nails onto the board.

Step Thirteen: In this step we used a stud finder to find where we could drill into the wall. Drill with screws or fasteners the piece of 2 x 4 with the drill holes onto the wall!

Step Fourteen: Following the marks you made in Step 6, nail your nails into place!

Step Fifteen: Using white paint and a rubber stamp, we applied a decorative touch to the sides of the board.

Step Sixteen: Your board should fit onto the wall. Line up the nails with the drill holes and it should lower into place.

Almost DONE!

Grab your jewels and start hanging on your brand new JEWELRY BOARD!!!

Source: Wednes-DIY: Jewelry Board – Free People Blog | Free People Blog http://blog.freepeople.com/2011/10/wednes-diy-jewelry-board/#ixzz1wB4WOlw4

For the entire step-by-step process, visit the post from In My Own Style.

One of the perks of living in Nashville is the proximity to the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchberg (which is, oddly enough, a dry county). This weekend, we stopped by Southeastern Salvage, which always has a hodgepodge of items for your indoor or outdoor needs. This particular Saturday was an outdoorsy type day, so we were on the hunt for flowers and things for the patio.

After picking up a few potted flowers, we came across these lovely guys (Jack Daniels whiskey barrels), and they were a steal!

Half barrel planters are all the rage, so we were excited to try our hand at converting it into a garden staple.

1. Drill holes for drainage
Before you begin the process of planting, you should ensure that your plants will have plenty of holes for proper soil drainage. Nothing kills a plant faster (speaking from experience). My husband did a lovely job drilling the oak barrel with this drill attachment. It makes perfect quarter-size holes.

2. Decide if you want to line the planter
After doing research, there isn’t really any conclusive evidence that says that a plastic liner slows the aging of the barrel, so we decided against the liner. But if you choose the plastic liner route, be sure to punch holes in the plastic directly over the holes in your barrel.

3. Give it props
If you are putting the pot on a patio or deck, put it on casters or wheels for easy transport. We put it in our garden, so we built a platform under it to give it room to drain. For the esthetics, we buried the bricks so that you couldn’t tell.

4. Fill it with potting soil
A standard half barrel will hold around 4 cubic feet of soil, but we used roughly 3 for ours because the plants we put in it had rather large root balls. We used a moisture control potting soil which ran us about $14 at Home Depot.

5. Water the plants
Be sure to soak the roots of the plants before you place them in the barrel. I’ve read different opinions, but the plants should be watered often for the first 3 days to avoid transplant shock. Around half a half a gallon a day.

Now, you have a beautiful and rustic way to showcase any plant. We chose a hydrangea bush and a butterfly bush, both attract butterflies and hummingbirds (fingers crossed).

Any gardening tips that you would like to share, feel free to put them in the comment section.  I’m always looking for secrets to keeping my plants alive once they’re in the ground!  :)  And since it is planting season, my readers would appreciate them, too.

Start with soundproof foam glued to pegboard, cut to size.  My hubby already had the foam panels and pegboard created and wrapped in a different fabric.  We purchased cute print fabric from Ikea on our Christmas trip to Chicago. 
We purchased about 5 yards of fabric for 3 panels, but you should measure according to the size of your panels.  You will need a good staple gun (we tried once before with adhesive spray and I think my fingers stuck together for weeks after that).  We used medium staples–but we already had two layers of fabric to cover, so we needed some length to the staples.  

Staple close enough to the edge that you can trim the fabric.  If you are going to hang these from the wall, you will need to have access to the peg holes.  We had to cut excess fabric.

Thanksgiving is also the perfect time to put up the Christmas decorations, play some holiday tunes, and fail try to re-create those childhood holiday memories.  This year I went a little crazy at Michael’s (who is having an awesome 50% off their Christmas decor, btw) and found the perfect glittery poinsettias and curly sticks for my Christmas tree topper.

I went with a silver-glitter theme (or, as my husband would say, glitter santa-threw-up-everywhere theme).

I found some other creative christmas tree decoration themes I thought were worth copying sharing…like this Kitchen themed tree from HGTV.

“Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree…”  I thought this Christmas tree from Anthropologie was a cute way to use some old sheet music, or maybe buy an old hymnal from a thrift store and cut the squares yourself.  Definite DIY potential!

If you have kids, or you just love Candyland like me, you will love this tree.  You would need a dumptruck of cool decorations to make it seem as full as this, but one day, I promise I’m going to do this in my kids’ play room or something.

I will be posting the step-by-step for my tree topper soon.  In the mean time, here is a recipe for the best Pecan Pie Ever!!  My husband’s aunt gave it to me, and it slays all other recipes out there!

Find a page that has clean images and use that to cut out the block letters for the name.  I traced the letters with a pen or sharpie and then cut them out and placed them before pasting them to the box.

Instead of spending money on a store bought greeting card, select a memorable quote that matches the person’s character and write a personal message instead.

And there you have it, a free and fabulous way to wrap your gifts at home.

I figured I would share some cute costumes I’ve come across this season!

I don’t know which is cuter, the outfit or the little girl!

Cute giraffe and elephant…but those cheeks are to die for!

Make your family into a sushi roll with this Nigiri baby sushi roll, and if you have enough kids you can make the complete roll.

And this Ocean Spray Cranberry Farmers costume gets the most creative award!

Who won the cutest costume award in your neighborhood?