Rusty Tin Monogram

 Good morning everyone! As I said last night in my giveaway, I told you I would be posting the full instructions on how to create this DIY rusted looking tin letter. I love how it turned out and it really looks like an antique right? This is perfect to hang in in a nursery above a crib, in the middle of a collage wall (like I did myself), or don't even hang it! You could just set it on top of a mantle or table. This really works anywhere which is why I like it so much. So what you'll need for this project:

{I found everything at A.C. Moore}

-Cardboard Letter of your choice

-Black paint

- Metallic paint (for tin, name is listed below)

- copper/ brown paint (for rust, name is listed below)

-hanging hardware (if you are planning on hanging your project) 

You'll also need some paint brushes, along with a round sponge brush.

First, paint the entire letter with black paint. It doesn't have to be super thick but just make sure you get a good even coverage. I just used some random left over paint that we still had laying around from our fireplace. Any paint would work for this- even spray paint if you wanted!

Once your black paint is dry, go ahead and paint on a layer of the metallic tin paint. Here's what I got from A.C. Moore.

 The tin color is Americana Metallics and the name of the color is actually "Tin". So that was pretty easy to figure out. As for the rusty color I was going out on a limb here. I ended up using DecoArt Metallics in "Rich Espresso" . I was hesitant to go with another metallic for the rust on top of a metallic. I was planning on getting just a regular reddish/brown color but I'm glad I went with the metallic now that it's finished!

When applying the metallic tin color, work in small sections because this dries super fast. Also, don't worry about getting a thick coat and making everything even! You can always add more. What I'm saying is, you might have some lighter spots where your brush strokes will show. This is GOOD! Once my brush started getting dry, I just kept running over those spots to get some nice brush marks and then left it alone. This gives you more of that aged "tin" look. Once that coat dries, if you think it's too light just go back and add more. You just don't want the entire letter looking a solid color. You want some of the black to show through. 

Once you're happy with your "tin" look, go ahead and start adding some rust. This step seemed to be the most challenging. Is there too much? Not enough? Do my marks look too spotty instead of natural? Listen, if you are a perfectionist like me you have to leave that somewhere else for this part.

First, you'll want to switch to your round sponge brush for this step. With your brush you can make your marks look different. Some spots I used it like I would a paint brush, other spots I dabbed on the paint (where you see the rounded spots with the lighter center). You can get so creative with this and it's all how YOU want it to look! I started adding paint to just certain sections and edges of the sponge to not make my marks so blotchy. You can also let your brush get dry and then go around and make some lighter spots. Go around to the corners and make some rust and blend it into the adjacent surfaces. Make sure you're not just getting the front of the letter, you want to get everywhere. 

If at some point you look at it and don't like how a certain spot looks or you have too many in one area OR you want to tone down the color on some of them, you can go back and apply a thin layer of the tin color again! This saved me because I went back and forth a few times between certain spots whether it was changing the shape/size, or just creating some different tones. 

Once I was finally happy with it and it was completely dry, I hammered in some hardware to the back and hung it up!

There it is my friends! A pretty simple and minimal DIY project! Don't get me wrong though, the result is super cute! Let me know any thoughts or if you have any input. If you make this yourself please tag me on Instagram @farmhouseflare or my Facebook page! I would love to see what you create with yours! Now go get paintin'!

Sincerely, 

{Lauren Travitz}

Farmhouse Flare

Very FIRST Giveaway Winner!

***The winner has officially been announced!***

 Congratulations to Carmen @jmommy2012 for winning my first giveaway! Carmen will be receiving one of these DIY monograms I made with the letter of her choice! Instructions for this DIY project will be posted tomorrow. Thank you all for your participation and feedback during my very first giveaway! You all made this a great experience and I can't wait to do it again! 

 Sincerely, 

{Lauren Taylor}

Farmhouse Flare 

 

A Rustic Headboard

Have you been dreaming of that perfect headboard when you go to sleep every night? Have you looked up every beautiful headboard out there and almost considered paying an arm and a leg for one like I did? No worries, I got ya covered. If you want to save ALOT of money and just put a small amount of work in yourself, then look no further. I'm going to show you how I turned this $30 old door into our stylish new headboard for our master bedroom for only $50! 

I was wandering around our local antique shop (not even looking for this in particular) when I came across this beautiful old door. Yes it has a hole in it but when I saw the price of only $30 I was sold! I knew I could work around it. Right then I knew I was going to turn it into our headboard since I had been on the hunt for months. It was the perfect size for our queen bed and even a king (79"x38.5"), perfect color, and perfect price! Depending on the vendor and the size, usually you can find old doors like this from about $25-$60. 

I was so ready to hop right into this project! But unfortunately we already had so many other projects going on that it ended up sitting in my garage all summer. Finally in the fall I got around to it. 

It's a good thing I waited because I lucked out. Cody had found these two old and weathered pieces of wood and brought them home for me (you can see one of the pieces in the picture above). The natural weathered gray was exactly the look I was going for with the frame so no staining needed! Cody just scored 50 points on that find! 

Once I knew my project was coming together I got started. First I cleaned off the entire door with a damp rag to get any loose particles off. I didn't want to scrub it because A) I didn't want to chip off more of the paint and B) scrubbing would take away the natural distressed stains. Next, we removed the old door knob and face plate (we weren't able to remove the internals). This part didn't matter so much because we knew it was going to be covered by the bed since this would be the bottom of the headboard. 

Now we were able to start putting it all together. We attached both of the weathered pieces to the sides, making the top of the sides flush with the top of the door. 

We screwed them to the door directly from the sides. In the picture above Cody just has the piece flipped to make his pilot holes. 

Once they were attached I needed to figure out a top. We grabbed a 2"x4" at Home Depot and cut it lengthwise 

 to size. We screwed this piece through the top down into the side pieces and along the door. 

Next came staining this piece to match the side pieces. This took some testing before I got it right. I was just using everything I had available at home because I was really trying not to run to the store again, but of course I ended up having to go back anyway for some more white wash. What I ended up using was a first coat of Minwax Jacobean and applied a VERY light coat. Be careful using this because it is a very dark stain. I went in small sections and pretty much applied and then wiped right away. You can always do more coats if you don't think it absorbed enough, but if you put on too much it's hard to fix. I needed to use this stain though to give it a slightly dark base. Next I went back and forth applying  Minwax Weathered Oak and the Minwax White Wash (in the picture above). If I remember correctly I applied the white wash first (again, doing small sections and wiping immediately after applying) and then doing some Weathered Oak and then some white wash again and so on. I just kept going back and forth until I got it to match up with the side pieces. I also did a light coat of white wash on the side pieces to help blend it all together.  

Above you can see the end result after staining. 

The last thing to do was to make some sort of base to help raise it off the floor a little. Originally with this design, we intended to attach this to our bed frame. However, once we got the headboard in our room and it stood on its own we decided not to attach it to the bed. 

We just found two pieces of scrap wood and screwed them together like an "L" and then attached it to the side pieces. Easy as that! 

Hello headboard! Surprisingly this has got to be one of my "thriftiest" projects yet! When I was first thinking of making a headboard I thought for sure I would be spending at least $100 on it. I ended up only spending $30 for the door, $10 for the White Wash and about $7-$8 on the top piece! So under $50? I'll take it! 

If you liked this project please share away! Comments and questions are always welcome too. Thanks for reading!  

There's plenty more to come! If you want to stay updated, don't forget to go follow my instagram @farmhouseflare and like my Facebook page! 

Sincerely, 

{Lauren Taylor}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Happy New Wall!

Helloooo and Happy 2017! It's so nice to be back writing again! From the beginning of Halloween up until the new year, this holiday season was super busy. Now that the season of "hustle and bustle" is winding down, I wanted to start sharing some of my latest projects starting with my most recent; our wall makeover! 

 This was a spur of the moment project as you can tell because we decided to spend our NYE countdown working on this into the new year! I've been needing a space to act as a "mudroom" since we currently don't have our attached garage available yet. It was getting to the point that it was driving me absolutely crazy how all of our winter coats were just piled on top of our dining room chairs. I originally was just going to grab a piece of weathered pallet wood, slap a few hooks on there, hang it and call it a day... until I thought of this instead. Why not utilize my entire back wall of our family room as a decorative and  functional space? It makes sense: it's the entryway into our home, it's currently unused space, and it was a bland space that could use some attention. Decorative and functional is always a win in my book! So, if this is something you could utilize too, just keep reading! I promise it was super easy and not hard on the wallet either! 

What you'll need for this project: 

{As a reference to our project, our total dimensions measure L113.5" x H61.5" with 8' ceilings.}

-1"x6" tongue and groove boards (as the shiplap, cut to size)

- nail gun &nails

-1"x2" pine piece 

- 2 pieces of decorative trim (cut to size)

- 1"x6" pine board (cut to size)

- 1"x8" pine board (cut to size)

- corner trim (cut to size)

-paint

-coat hooks (5 used in this project)

In the above picture, you can see how plain the space was before. The first thing we did was place the shiplap. In our past project, we used 1/4" plywood as the shiplap, placed pennies in between the boards to create the even gap, and air nailed them onto the wall. This method was more cost efficient and turned out with more of the old original farmhouse look. If you're looking to put out a little bit of extra money but save some time, you can do what we did this time around and use tongue and groove boards. Doing the shiplap this way not only saves some time, but it gives it a little bit of a cleaner look verses rustic.

After we had all the shiplap placed, it was time to work on the shelf. The first step in this was placing a 2" piece of wood above the very top shiplap piece. You'll see why this is used in the next step.

Next, we placed the 1"x8" board across the front, being flush on the top where the shelf will lay. You can see now why the last step was needed. 

Next we placed our lower decorative trim piece. 

Now we went on to nailing and screwing in the shelf on the top, followed by placing the remaining decorative trim piece underneath. 

Once we had the shelf and the front put together, all we needed to complete was the finishing touches!

You can see below how we cleaned up the edge with a corner piece of molding to make it look seamless. 

Next, it was onto paint (we used a bright white with an eggshell finish) and finally mounting the hooks! 

We found these coat hooks at Home Depot for about $3.50 a piece. We searched at Lowe's first but unfortunately they didn't have nearly the selection as Home Depot. 

Annnd that's a wrap! Project done in less than 24 hours, completed by the end of the first day of 2017! I'm so excited how this turned out, I absolutely love it and can't stop turning around on the couch to look at it. Now, just wait for my next blog post of the bench with cubbies we're going to make to go perfectly with this space! I hope everyone had a great New Year and I wish all of you a healthy and prosperous 2017 filled with love and joy! 

Thanks for reading Farmhouse Flare today! Stay tuned for more upcoming projects of the new year! 

*Don't forget to like, comment, and share!* 

Sincerely, 

{Lauren Taylor}

Floating Witch Hats

 Is October finally here?! Hooray! I absolutely love this time of year! Who doesn't? The leaves are changing into beautiful colors, pumpkins are everywhere, Halloween is just around the corner, and best of all- the decorating is too much fun! Last year I had a few Halloween projects on my list but never had enough time to complete them. This year I made sure to get ahead. One project I completed so far are these floating witch hats! This was super easy, cheap, and looks spooky, especially at night! 

For this project I used: 

-4 Witch Hats 

- 4 battery tea lights (or glow sticks)

- elastic string (or fishing string)

-4 screw eyes

The first thing I did was measure how long I needed to cut my pieces of string. This can be just a rough estimate because you can adjust it at the end. Once I had the pieces cut, I tied the string around the "flame" of the candle, and then double tied a knot about halfway in the middle of the string. 

As far as the Witch hats go, I found the cheapest ones I could find. I ended up finding these at Walmart for about $2.00. They had fake hair on them, so I just cut it off. I lucked out with this step because the tags were punctured in the tip of the hat. I turned the hat inside out and threaded the string through the hole and when the knot reaches the tip it will turn the hat out again. If you aren't so lucky at this step, just use a needle to thread your string through the tip of the hat. 

  

Once I had the hats squared away, I figured out where on ceiling I wanted them. I spaced them out evenly, but off- off set them a little that way they weren't in a straight line. I drilled a pilot hole first, and then screwed in the eye.

I tied the hats to the eyes and done! Now when I tied them, I made them different heights. This is where I said you can adjust the length of your string at the end. 

For now I just used the battery operated tea lights because that's what I had at home. They do flicker which is nice, but to be honest, they aren't the brightest at night. You can see them just fine up close but from the street I can't even see them. As an alternative you can use those orange glow sticks with the hook and just tie the string around the hook. If you go that way, you'll have to replace them every day then. They also make LED glow sticks which is what I might use instead. These are probably the best for brightness and you can reuse them every day. 

Other than my experimenting with the lights, this turned out to be a cute project!  I already got a few compliments from friends and neighbors. I can't wait to show off my spooky witch hats during Trick-or- Treat and my Halloween party!

I hope you enjoyed this fun Fall project! Please share if you like it! Thanks for visiting Farmhouse Flare today!

Sincerely,

{Lauren Taylor}