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Valentine’s Day Fabric Heart

Happy Valentine’s Day! I have a special gift for you today. You might not think much of it but I spent a lot of hours doing it so, could you at least pretend you like it? (This is starting to seem more like a conversation with George than a post for this blog). Cuek.

Here is the deal, dear cyber friend, a long, long time ago I saw a photo on Pinterest that sparked my imagination.

Pinterest can be a wonderful place for inspiration, but it can also big a place for HUGE disappointment once you realize your life, home, and crafts look nothing like your Pinterest news feed, but I WON’T BE DISCOURAGED! And I will shout this until you believe me…

Well, looking for Valentine’s related crafts, I saw a heart made of fabric and thought to myself: “I have to do that for Valentine’s!!!” so I did. Little did I know that it was going to take twice the amount of time I expected originally.

After four hours of working on it I thought: “I am spending too much valuable time making this heart instead of watching The Vikings. Is this really worth it?” But then I realized I could watch The Vikings while making the heart and the whole endeavor didn’t seem like a super waste of time anymore, plus, I could soon see that the project was going to turn out very c-u-t-e! And it did.

I will pretend it is Valentine’s Day all year long so I don’t have to put this heart down ever! You will see.

Now, the moment you all have been waiting for, the detailed instructions of this art installation – this is how I am calling it because I like to be pretentious sometimes. (Warning: Max decided he wanted to pose for this post, so I let him do it. Prepare yourself for serious cuteness.)

3×3 ft Valentine’s Day Fabric Heart Art Installation

Difficulty (1-5): 1  Time: 6 hours  Cost: $80

Materials:

  • 20 ft Tulle fabric
  • 5 ft cotton fabric
  • 10 ft – 1in, 20 gauge chicken wire
  • Heavy-duty wire cutter
  • Scissors
  • Floral wire or another wire that is easy to manipulate.

1) Cut the chicken wire into a heart shape. You might need to make two halves depending on the heart size you want, as the chicken wire is not wide enough to accommodate a whole 3 ft wide heart shape.

2) Cut all your fabric pieces before you get started. This will make the project faster (Ford Model T, anyone?). The cotton pieces should be cut in triangles, so they are easy to tie down.

3) Start tying the fabric to the wire. I tied one piece of fabric per wire space. I also did one row of cotton and one of tulle. You need a big quantity of tulle for this heart to look organic and fuller, so I added the tulle on the rows that needed more fabric. The tulle is too transparent if you use it by itself. You need the cotton to fill in the translucent nature of the tulle.

4) Turn on a movie or play a podcast and BREATH! Finishing this project will take time but it will be worth it.

5) You want your last row to be made of tulle. Also, you can bend down any wires that stick out from the fabric, so you can’t see them in the final result.

6) Attach the two heart halves with floral wire.

There you go, my friends. I hope you have an excellent Valentine’s Day.

Today is a little sad for us because it used to be my father-in-law’s birthday and he passed away last year. Two days from now it is my dad’s birthday, who also passed away last year… very emotional week, indeed.

I hope you like this heart because I worked very hard to make you happy with it today.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

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String Light Christmas Tree Decoration

string light treeI have seen many photos of string light trees made on living room walls this season. I think they are a thing on Pinterest. Definitely a trend, so I decided to create one in my living room, in front of our mural – feeling inspired! Hint: It was not hard at all.

Difficulty (1-5): 1  Time: 20 mins  Cost: $20

Here is what you need (my tree (above) is approximately 4 feet tall by 3 feet wide at the bottom)

Small Command Hooks
LED Starry String 20 ft Copper Wire Lights-Warm White
Blue tape

1) Start with marking your triangle shape with blue tape. This way you make sure you get the shape right without defacing your wall with pencil. 2) Start applying the command hooks from the top – before I continue this explanation, I have to say that I am a huge fan of command hooks!!! They are perfect to hang all decorations without ruining your wall. I did not want to ruin that mural we worked so hard to paint for the One Room Challenge, so these hooks were the perfect solution. I also hung these wreaths with them. I have also used them for garlands and paintings. I bought them in all sizes so it is a command hook love fest around here. 3) Depending on how long your LED string lights are, you can decide if to go wider or closer between lines. I didn’t want a super full tree – I went for a minimalist look-, so I decided to use a 20ft string. For a fuller look, get a 30ft LED string light or longer. Also, the copper wire lights are CUTE! Copper is the new IT metal, so if you want your tree to be trendy, get the copper instead of normal string lights which are not as elegant. 4) Work your way down the blue tape, adding command hooks as you peel off the tape.  5) Turn on the lights and cry with happiness:string light treestring light tree

Ok. Now that you read that easy and fun DIY that could transform your living room into a sophisticated one in seconds, let us look at what others have been doing around the web and where I got my inspiration from:

Cox and CoxBehind The Big Green Door A Pair & A Spare AMM  Motanu Home Decor IdeasTrendenser

Moma Le Blog

Some of these are pretty gorgeous, don’t you think?

About my tree,  I wish my photos would have come out better. I didn’t know how to take a good picture of the lights and the mural at the same time so this is the best I could do. In truth, I don’t think the photos do this cute little LED tree justice. Everybody that comes to my place comments on how cute it looks, so, once again, you will have to take my word for it. It is much nicer than what the photos show. string light tree

Hope you liked this one and, in case you haven’t seen how the rest of my home looks for Christmas, you can take a look here.

Thanks for stopping by!

*This post contains affiliate links. If you click and buy through them, I get a small comission. Thanks for supporting Jest Cafe. Creating this content is not cheap nor easy, but it is super fun. Thanks for reading. I mean it. 

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3 Cute Gold Ring Wreath DIY’s

Creating a beautiful gold ring wreath is very easy. That is a fact. If you are looking to create nice details for your home with a small budget, this is a great alternative.

I made three gold ring wreaths for this post in less than 40 minutes. How? Well, let me explain.

Difficulty (1-5): 2  Time: 15 mins each one  Cost: $6 each one

For all the wreaths you will need some basic materials.

Materials

-Metal Macramé Ring-Gold 12” and or 8”

– Glue gun

– Floral wire

– Greenery and other ornaments like pinecones

– Ribbon

The most important thing about creating gold ring wreaths is to come up with the concept and design first. Arrange (and rearrange) your materials until you are happy with what you see. Once that is done, use the floral wire and glue gun to finalize the design and attach materials to the gold ring.

Pink Peppercorn Wreath

I like the droopy shape of peppercorns. The way they fall is so beautiful. I knew I wanted one of my wreaths to have that organic shape. A little bit wild but also natural. The color of the peppercorns is so beautiful, too. I like the green tone of the leaves and the pop of color that the peppers bring. With this in mind, I decided to do a gold ring wreath using leaves from this tree. (If you look carefully, you can find Peruvian pink peppercorn growing in many places in LA, no need to buy it if you live here)
1) The first step was deciding the length of the leaves. How far did I want them to fall? I didn’t want them too long, so I went for half of the ring size: around 6″. 2) Once I decided on the right length, I cut the leaves and fastened them to the gold ring with a floral wire. The idea is to do a little knot with the wire on any place of the ring  – your starting point- and then wind the floral wire around the leaves to fasten them to the ring. I also used a glue gun but it was not necessary. The wire is strong enough to support the leaves. Cut out any extra greens you don’t need. Here is the result. As you can see, I went heavier on the right side to give the wreath a “falling” shape, more organic. What do you think?

Pine and succulent wreath

1) As I mentioned above, gold ring wreaths can be designed at the moment. Move your ornament and greeneries around until you are happy with your design and then attach the pieces to the ring with wire or glue.

2) I fastened the pine tree branch in this wreath with wire to the ring, but glued the succulents with the glue gun. I was impressed at the durability of this wreath. I made it two weeks ago and it still looks great. Final result:

Double ring wreath with pinecones1) For this wreath, I attached a 12″ ring to a 8″ ring. I used floral wire sprayed with gold paint to do this.
2) After attaching the two rings together with wire, I started playing with different designs. I went with a very simple design for this wreath. Just eucalyptus and pinecones.  3) I attached the greens to the ring with wire and the pinecones with glue.

4) I added small gold ornaments for an extra touch. I used fishing string to hang them from the top. Here is the result. Pretty simple.
Hope you liked this tutorial. You would be surprised at how long it takes to do these kind of posts! It is crazy, so I really appreciate you stopping by to take a look at my blog today.

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Colorful Calaveras – Another Cute Halloween DIY

halloween-wreath-22

Here is another Halloween DIY project we did last week. I have been trying to find decorations inspired by the Día de los Muertos, so adding calaveras was a MUST.  I came out with the idea of painting these calaveras for the front yard.

They were easy to do, but you have to wait for the paint to dry to be able to paint the details, and that takes a little bit of time. The trick to paint these calaveras is to make both sides of the face kind of symmetrical (doesn’t have to be perfect). To do this, you need to measure and mark all your face details with pencil before starting to paint. That part was a little time consuming.

Here are the instructions on how to make these beautiful calaveras. The look SOOOOO pretty in the front yard.

COLORFUL CALAVERAS

Difficulty (1-5): 3 Time: At least 1/2 day because you need to wait for paint to dry Cost: $15 per calavera

Materials:

  • Plywood panels- I bought 2’ x 3’
  • Small Roller, if you have one. Otherwise, a brush will do.
  • Black latex paint – sample size.
  • Color latex paint – whatever color you want for your calavera.
  • Small brush, to paint the black lines for the calavera.
  • Measuring tape
  • Pencil

calaveras-4

STEP 1

Have your kids help painting the whole panel black with the roller. It is no necessary to paint the whole panel black, but kids love doing it and why not giving them a little bit of love.

If you don’t have kids, or want to do this project all by yourself (totally understandable. Been there, done that.) Just go to Step 2 and, after outlining your calavera, fill up the empty spaces with black paint and your brush.

IMPORTANT TIP: Paint the back of your panel, too, otherwise the wood will start to warp.

halloween-wreath-5STEP 2

Outline the calavera with a pencil. It is important that the right and left sides of the calavera are somehow symmetrical. Mark your main points so you know where to draw the lines. Here is a photo of the main points I marked. I made sure they were at a similar distance from the sides, bottom, and top. Paint the calavera.
calavera-1STEP 3

Draw the features of your calavera with your pencil. To do this, you need careful measuring to achieve that symmetry calaveras need. Take a look:

calaveras-3 For the teeth, for example, I marked how wide (2 inches) and long (3 inches) each tooth had to be. I made sure the line in the middle was straight and then draw the rest of lines with a pencil. It looked like this:
calaveras For the eyes, I just marked a middle point and then eight points 4 inches away from that middle point at different sides. Then I made lines between these points and made a big circle. I used these eight points as reference to create the outside petals for the eyes in the orange calavera.

See here:calaveras-5 Step 4

Paint the black lines with your thin brush and black paint. It is easier than it sounds. If you go slowly and with patient, it is not difficult to achieve. You will need 2 coats of black paint for the details. Wait until it dries.

Here are more photos and thanks for stopping by.

Also, a post about a ghost family for your front yard, a ghost wall decoration, and how to make a Halloween wreath.

calaveras-22calaveras-17 calaveras-16 halloween-wreath-15 calaveras-14

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halloween diy

A Halloween DIY Decoration You Can Do With Your Kids

halloween diy

I have small children (3 and 5 year old), therefore I need to choose craft projects wisely.

Like any other kid, my sons want to participate in everything I make, but not all Halloween DIYs are good for kids, not only because children don’t have the skills for major craft projects, but because some materials can be dangerous. A glue gun, for example, is better on the hands of adults only, but, how do you explain that to a 3 year old in a convincing way that guarantees him not touching it? Well, if you have a trick on how to do that, please, let me know. I would love to hear (PS- Saying “don’t do that” is not enough).

Victor has been excited about doing ghosts because the are SO easy to make, so I decided to do a “wall” of ghosts for Halloween. This year, I am finding inspiration from the Day of the Death celebrations for all our Halloween decorations,  so I decided to add purple, orange, and yellow ghosts to the mix.

Here is what we did:

GHOST WALL

halloween-decorations-2

Difficulty (1-5): 2 Time: 2 hours  Cost: $20

Materials:

  • White Tissue Paper. I bought two sizes of white paper: 20×30 and 20×26. If you buy one size only, I would go for the bigger size.
  • Package of Tissue Paper in different colors. Remember that color fades when exposed to sun. Ghosts will last only 10 days looking good. Have this in mind before choosing to buy colored tissue paper. If you want your wall to last longer than 10 days, make only white ghosts.
  • 1 roll of White Select-A-Size Paper Towel. (BTW, newspaper won’t do because it shows through the tissue paper and the ghosts don’t look like one solid color.)
  • Fishing string
  • Scissors
  • Rope – to hang ghosts.
  • White string to tight ghosts’ necks. If you want to be a perfectionist, you will need colored string that matches the color of your colored ghosts, BUT, there is no need to be a perfectionist regarding Halloween decorations.
  • COFFEE! Believe me, you will need it.

halloween-decorations-6

STEP 1

Have your child or children tear the smallest size of paper towel. Have them roll the paper into a ball. You will use this as the head of the ghost.

STEP 2

Place the paper towel ball in the middle of an open tissue paper. This will create your ghost head and shape.
halloween DIY-6 halloween-diy 3

STEP 3

Cut a short piece of string- Use it to tie the tissue around the neck.

Halloween DIY 2

 

STEP 4

Tie a rope on top of the place where you want to create your wall. Horizontally.

halloween-diySTEP 5

Tie the fishing string to the string on the neck of the ghosts. Cut the fishing string at different lengths. Start hanging the ghosts to the rope one by one. Don’t place them too close to each other. Try to leave ½-1 inch between ghosts so the wall doesn’t look stuffy. Once you are done, look at the wall and make sure there are no big empty spaces.

Hanging the ghosts can be a little bit tedious, so get some coffee and take your time.

halloween-diy 4 halloween-diy 5halloween-decor2 halloween-decor3
halloween-diy-2max

With the wind, the ghosts look like they are flying. It is pretty cute to see. Also, I have had neighbors coming to tell us how cute the little wall looks. That is sweet.

For added spookiness, ask your kids to make spiders with black cardboard. You can hang them in between the ghosts.

Also, you can find a post on how to make a ghost family for your front yard, how to make a cheap and easy Halloween wreath, and other beautiful Halloween inspiration.

 

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