DIY Ornament!

Hey Everyone and Merry Christmas!

My friend went to Target the other day and fell in love with some Christmas ornaments that had baby pine cones but they were a little too pricey to buy a lot of them for her Christmas tree, so we decided, of course, to make them ourselves!

We used foam balls and a box of baby pine cones we found an Joann's fabric and some twine she has laying around the house. We glued everything together with a hot glue gun.

Start gluing the baby pine cones to the foam ball one by one, being careful not to get the glue gun too close to the foam because it will melt it and open a hole on it! It takes time to make but its very simple and making it with a friend always makes things more fun and not that tedious!

When you are half way gluing the pine cones, glue your twine to the ball with more hot glue and continue gluing the rest of the pine cones to the ball. Arrange the baby pine cons around and choose the smallest ones to glue on top of the twine to hide it.

And you are done! Your very own baby pine cone Christmas ornament! If you like some glitter and sparkle, brush a thin layer of glue to the tip of the pine cone and dip them in some glitter! I think it will give a very cute effect! I hope you enjoyed this simple DIY and Merry Christmas everyone!

Lily

Transformed Mirror

Hey Everyone!

Here is a quick look at how I transformed a mirror I had in my room for ages. My mom bought this mirror forever ago and never used it for anything, I took it to my room because it was a pretty good size mirror but it was just sitting there on the floor looking ugly, so with my whole room transformation kick I been on lately I decided to do something with the mirror to make it look nice and actually hang it! So I painted it white to match my room decoration and hung it on the wall, it fits in perfectly with my decoration and not its just not sitting there lonely! Here is a little overview of how I did it. I hope it inspires you to take pieces of furniture you have around forgotten and giving it a make over!

For this I used a mirror bought in ROSS, white semi-gloss paint (spray paint will do just fine) and tape!

I tapped the inside of the mirror so I don't get paint all over, because lets be honest, I am the messiest person in the world! Then  I started painting the frame of my mirror, it took about 4 coats of paint because I forgot to sand the wood of the frame before applying the frame... oops!

And here is my pretty finished mirror! I really do love it and I'm happy I took the time to give it a makeover! I like how you can kinda see original brown color of the frame through the white, it gives it a vintage vibe that goes perfect with me room!

I hope you enjoyed and have a beautiful day! or night !

Lily

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving, spending time with my family is just one of the things I love to do most, and adding tons of food to that it's just the cherry on top! =) I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and give thanks for what you have, even thought it might seem sometimes you don't have enough, or want more, you are blessed in different ways! Be thankful for what you have !

Happy Thanksgiving and have a beautiful night!

Here is my contribution to our family dinner, pumpkin whoopie pies! My entire family completely adored them!!

DIY Cherry Blossom Tree

Hey everyone! Today I have for you a project I'm very excited about, it took longer than I thought but I am absolutely loving how it looks now. I always wanted a wall decal of a cherry tree, but they were always too small, or not the shape I wanted. And lets be honest; most of the time it was just too expensive! So I decided I would paint my own cherry blossom tree on my wall, and I loved it! its easy to do and needs little materials, and if I could do it you can do it too! Trust me, I'm not artistic at all!

Materials:
- Black or brown wall paint, whichever color you prefer
- A medium size paint brush and a skinny paint brush
- Paper flowers, as many as your tree needs. I used 2 pink jars and 1 white jar ( I bought mine at Michael s for about $4)
- Glue ( I used regular Elmer's glue)


Lets get started!
First, I took a pencil and sketched on my wall the shape of the tree I wanted, it took a lot of erasing but with patience I got the shape that I wanted. Don't put too much pressure on the pencil and it will be easy to erase with a normal eraser.

I then grabbed my paint ( I choose black) and with a medium size brush painted the tree branches and with the skinny brush I painted the tiny branches where the flowers were going to be. This might take a little while because you need to be careful to get the lines straight on the wall, but with some music its not that bad.

Finally, the tree was painted and it was time for the most time consuming and pain in the butt task of all, gluing the flowers to the tree! ( Just being honest haha) With some regular glue I dipped the little paper flowers and placed them in the smaller branches of the tree, I used a picture of a tree for reference, even tho I only looked at it for a few minutes then decided I would just randomly paste them where I wanted.

 Ta Da!! The tree is complete! I loved how it turned out. And there is so much you can do with it too. My mom's room is decorated with earth tones, and I want to draw a tree on her wall and paste leaves with fall colors, I think it would look nice. I hope you enjoyed!

Lily

DIY Earring holder!

Hey guys!

So I was looking at my favorite website Craftwker and I saw the cutest idea for an earring holder! I was very excited because my earrings are just a mess and i don't know what to do with them anymore, and I have been re-decorating my room lately to make it look more vintage so this project was just perfect!  So here are some pictures of the work, I hope you enjoy and try it out!

Materials:

- A picture frame

- White paint ( spray paint works well too)

- An old rag

- A necklace chain ( Also long pieces of lace would look cute too)

I bought this picture frame from Ross, I loved the detail of the frame, and it was going to make the antiquing of the frame even better. I then painted the frame one side at a time with semi gloss paint that was left from when I painted the doors of my house.

I then took an old rag ( it will get ruined, so make sure you get an old rag you done care about) and then when the paint was a little bit dry but not dry all the way, I rubbed the frame with the rag, the more pressure you put the more of the original color of the frame will come out. I wanted to have a lot of the brown color so I took off a lot of the white paint.

And here is the finish product! I glued some old necklace chains that I had laying around in my house to the back of the frame with a hot glue gun, and just hanged my earring on it! I'm absolutely in love with it and I think it looks great in my room. Please excuse the quality of the pictures, it was really late at night when I did this and I had to use the flash of the camera to take the pictures.  I hope you enjoyed! and here is the link to the blog where I saw this awesome project!

http://thevintagelemon.blogspot.com/2011/11/handmade-holidays-diy-lace-earring.html

Have a beautiful day!

Lily

The White Queen

Hey guys! So I read "The White Queen" and I could not put it down. It was a very good book, extremely well written, and the story catches your attention and holds it until the very end of the book.  I'm going to write the summary at the end of the book and then my little review on the book, so here is goes!

The Cousin's War Book One (So apparently it does have more books!)

Brother turns on brother t win the ultimate prize, the throne of England, in this dazzling account of the wars of the Plantagenets. They are the claimants and kings who rules England before the Tudors, and now Philippa Gregory brings them to life through the dramatic and intimate stories of the secret players: the indomitable woman, starting with Elizabeth Woodville, the White Queen. 
The White Queen tells the story of a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition who, catching the eye of the newly crowned boy king marries him in secret and ascends to royalty. While Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for the success of her family, her two sons become central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing princes in the Tower of London whose fate is still unknown. 

Ok then, this is what I think of the book: This story is base in facts but it’s a fiction novel, which to me is very interesting because I have always loved English history, especially when it comes to royalty and the wars to win the thrones. This book takes places I believe in the 1400s and its about this widow woman with two children that decided to wait for the new king in the street to ask him for his help to obtain her lands back that were taking by her husband’s family. She is a woman of great beauty and the newly crowned king falls in love with her after seeing her and speaking to her on the side of the road. Here is where the book immediately grabs you because it is not a normal love story of a king marrying a young princes, this story is about a king that falls in love with a commoner that is older than him, with two children off the side of the road.
The king marries her in secret for love, which is unheard of in those days where marriage was always arranged for power. Later on he brings her to the castle making the marriage public and making her a queen. This upsets the “king maker” who has already arranged to marry the king to princes; this “king maker” will bring a lot of problems later on in the story for the king and the new queen. 
What I also love about this story is how besides all the wars and the fights and the problems they have, Philippa stills maintains during the entire book the incredible love they both have. Even after the king makes some terrible decisions that Elizabeth does not agree with, she still loves him with all her heart and you can see this thought the book.
The story continues with the conflicts of several people trying to dethrone the king. Many great characters in the book die, which might come as a shock and bring you to tears. Also, sprinkle around the story is a brief part of the story of Melusina, the water goddess, which Elizabeth is known to be descendent of and have some special powers she uses a few times in the story to help her husband at war, and also to have revenge on the people who hurt her.
So overall I think this is a great book that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in history of that time period, someone who like a good romance story mixed with royalty, mixed with wars and history. It’s a book that will have you reading all night long without wanting to put the book down. I will certainly be purchasing “The Red Queen” which is the story of the other queen fighting for the throne. I don’t think I will ever be in the Red Queen side after reading the story of the White Queen, but I will give the book a try.
Let me know if you have read the book what you thought of it, or if you want more information about it!


Lily

Used Books!

I went book shopping today and decided to get books I usually would not get just to read something new and exciting! I usually buy books that are series just because I love the excitement of getting the next book or the anticipation of having to wait for a book to come out to continue the story; books such as Harry Potter or The house of Night series are my favorites. This time I bought books that did not have a book following them, except for "The White Queen" which I believe has a parallel book to it called "The Red Queen". I'm going to write a review on each of the books when I'm done reading them just for fun or just in case someone is interested in them!

Lets see which one I will read first!

Lily