Top Posts of 2012

My top 2012 posts are as follows:

DIY Burlap Wedding Shower Invite

Red Envelope Knock-off Artwork

Craft Room Reveal

Chevron Curtains

And my most popular post of 2012 is my DIY Pouf

I can't wait to share my projects in 2013! Happy 2013 to everyone and thanks for reading!!

Burlap Wedding Shower

 Last weekend we hosted my sister's wedding shower. Since my sister wanted a joint shower with both sides of her future family we decided to have it at a restaurant! After the insane April we have had, it was a great decision! My youngest sister put together this cute towel wedding cake display for our sister. We used burlap circles to decorate the "cake" and a rhinestone hair pin on the top for a little extra bling.

 Since we used burlap on the invites (and I am sort of obsessed with it at the moment) I made a burlap banner. ( I wish I would have hung this a bit higher, but oh well it still looks cute!!)

This was so simple to make. I simply cut out 4 - 5.5 x 5 inch burlap squares. I then made a stencil with my Silhouette (you could easily buy something, or free hand if you like) and used my trusty black acrylic paint to fill in my stencil. Once dried I used my sewing machine to sew the squares together onto a piece of jute. So simple and so cute!!!

 Then I made the Bride and Groom initial canvas artwork for them to use as they wish! I found these great linen canvases at a local craft store. I LOVE the color and love how they are not white but already have that great linen texture!! (I bought 4 more for myself for TBD projects!!! I love them THAT much!!!)

I again used my Silhouette to create a stencil for the letters. (Again you could use other options to achieve this looks!) Again used my acrylic black paint (that's what the label said!!) and created this cute simple artwork!

The last project I created for this shower was the favor. You can't have a shower without a favor!!! I ran to Home Depot and picked up a few packages of Gladiolas bulbs. We then cut and wrapped them in burlap. (See how to cut burlap)  I used a stamp set to stamp the phrase "Let love grow" onto a piece of card stock and included basic planting directions (we didn't want anyone to think it was something to eat.....) and there we have a simple but cute favor to match our burlap themed wedding shower!

The best part about using Gladiolas bulbs is this was my grandpa's favorite flowers. He used to grow these flowers and they really remind me of him!

The whole look!!!

DIY Burlap Wedding Shower Invite

Check out these wedding shower invites I created. I saw the concept of "tying the knot" online (I am sorry I don't remember where) but took my own twist on it by using a DIY burlap ribbon. After this project I am annoyed with burlap. It's messy, smelly and very messy!!! We had a major craft fail cutting the ribbon stripes, but luckily I figured it out!! See my How to Cut Burlap post.

How to cut burlap

I am not a fan of burlap at the moment, but only because we used it to make my sister's shower invitations and it makes a huge mess and smells a bit funky!

I originally gave my mom the task of cutting the burlap into strips. Well that did not work so well because we did not realize there is a WAY to cut burlap and in case you do not know how, here is how you do it! We were even considering ordering burlap ribbon because it did not look nice once cut! But this easy trick saved us the $20 for a roll of burlap ribbon!

Determine where you want to make your cut and pull out a piece of the string as shown below. Continue to work the entire string all the way out.

Then you have a nice line where you can make your cut!
Use your sharp scissors to cut along this new line!
Look no fraying!
And now you have a nice piece of burlap!