30 Before 30 ~ DIY Fan Makeover

The house that we purchased here in Texas was a foreclosure.  Now don’t get the wrong picture, it’s only 5 years old and it is in such great condition that when we looked at it, we first thought it was a brand new house.  The people before didn’t trash it (if they did the bank fixed it all) but they did take anything of value.  They took the stove, the motors for the garage door openers, the blinds, and even all the ceiling fans.  You know the bank spent as little as possible trying to get it in shape so they put in the $10 lighting fixtures in every room and being this is Houston, we desperately needed ceiling fans.  Kylee’s room was the last priority since, at the time, she was not staying in there.

My aunt took down an old ceiling fan from their house and asked if we wanted it.  We had spent a lot on the house already, so I’m sure as heck going to take something for free!  She took it out for a reason; it’s an old ugly plain white fan with GOLD accents and I HATE gold.  So I decided it’s going in Kylee’s room, why not make a project out of it!!!!  Heck, it was free, I have nothing to lose.

This was the fan when we received it, boring and outdated.  So my first task was to disassemble it and get rid of all the gold.  I took everything that was gold and applied 2 coats of Rustoleum hammered bronze.  I loved the hammered look and it really did turn out as good as it looks on the cap of the can.

The next thing I did was paint colored polka dots onto the fan blades that coordinate with the colors that I did in Kylee’s room.  I’m a perfectionist, so I used the spray paint can as a stencil for the circles and I carefully measured out where they went to make sure every fan was the same.

After that all I had to do was reassemble the fan.  Now the thing that I am most proud of is that Kyle didn’t help me with any of it!!  I took it all apart and put it all back together all by myself; the only thing he did was hang the fan in the room.

And here is the finished product hanging in Kylee’s new room, which she does spend a lot of time in now.

30 Before 30 Progress ~ Snowman Hair Clips

I now have 13 of my 20 DIY projects completed.  I got quite a few with Kylee’s party since I made SO much of her decorations.

It’s been a little hard to get into my Christmas festiveness as I usually would with the recent relocation notification but one thing I did do was make cute little snowman hair clips for Kylee and her cousin.  Lexie has significantly more hair than Kylee, so she can wear them right, but I had to put Kylee’s on a headband for them to stay in her hair.  Maybe next year that won’t be needed…

This project was super easy!  I made myself little stencils to trace to make sure everything was the same size, cut the pieces out of craft felt, glued the pieces together with liquid stitch, drew a smile on with a sharpie (my intent was to sew a smile on but I never got around to it) and hot glued a hair clip on the back!

30 Before 30 ~ Craftiness

One thing on my 30 before 30 list is to do 20 DIY projects.  I’m actually doing really well on that goal; steadily on my way there.  I’ve done several projects.  I have made the shirt that Kylee is going to wear on her birthday (pictures of that will be on her birthday post), I’ve made Kylee some cute headbands, I made a pin board to hold all of the cards we get from our family and friends, I made a snowman hat for Kylee, and I also made a bow holder to hold Kylee’s growing collection of bows and headbands.

The first thing I made was this pin board.  I see a lot of boards like this, but never in a pattern I like, big as I want, or as nice as I want.  So I decided to make one!  I bought a roll of corkboard and glued it onto a poster board.  Then I put two layers of batting on the board and covered it with the material that I liked.  After that I glued ribbon in a crisscross pattern.  I bought flat push pins and a set of black square brads from the scrapbooking section at Hobby Lobby.  I cut the prongs off the brads and glued the squares to the push pin, then glued them where the ribbon intersected.  I also made extras to pin stuff up.  I had measure the board to fit inside a frame that I had bought in the custom frame isle when they were half off at Hobby Lobby.

The next project I did was Kylee’s bow holder.  I simply bought a wooden K and a piece of scrapbook paper that I liked cut to fit the K and glued on.  I bought some hooks that screw on and painted them purple to match the paper.  Then I simply glued on ribbon to the back of the K to hang it and to clip the bows onto!

This is my project that I just finished today.  This is the first hat that I’ve made and I love how it turned out but there are some changes that I will make if I ever make another.  I saw this snowman hat and a penguin hat that I thought I would try to make myself.  I couldn’t find a tutorial on how to make it so I had to wing it.  I’m actually very proud of myself with how well it turned out with no instruction.  This one was way too much to try to explain, but maybe one day I will post a tutorial.  Kylee doesn’t look happy about the hat but it’s because she’s not feeling well, I promise!

I’m hoping to post more of these with instructions on how I did them so I can participate in Crafty Friday that the Crafty Nest hosts.  Hope everyone has a great weekend!  We are in Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta so stay tuned for pictures of all the hot air balloons!