Brown Paper Flooring

Phew! I'm so amazingly glad these look awesome. I might have cried if they didn't. MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR shout out to Lovely Crafty Home for this and the instructions! You were fantastic!!!

Where I got the Idea: Lovely Crafty Home

Time: Multiple Days (break down is below)

Shopping List:
Hammer
Tool to pull up tack boards
Carpet Cutting Tool (we used a diving knife...don't ask)
Elmer's Wood Filler Max
Scraper Tool
Shop Vac (vacuum will work too)
Sander - I used 120 grain sander
Brown Paper (get a giant role or 2 large ones. My in-laws had a giant role they let us have)
One Gallon of Elmer's Glue
Red buckets (for glue)
Mask (I got the cheap back for like $1)
Water
Paint Brush (we had two good ones that we used...)
Gloves (cheap latex that came in a back of like 8 for $1.50)
Lambskin Pad with woodblock
Cheap 3" chip brush
Extension Pole
Minwax's Jacobean Finish
Sponge Pad on Wood Block
Polyurethane


That list is really long, and I just meant to include the other tools I used. I'm going to put the instructions in phases, like we did them. This will help show the time for each step.

1. Prep work (4ish hours - Monday & Tuesday Evenings): 
The first thing you need to do is remove the carpet. We had missing carpet from the wonderful two dogs we have, so part of the job is done. I was doing this in sections (cutting a few pieces at a time), which took much longer. HOWEVER, I was able to easily dispose of the carpet & padding much easier (i.e. sneak it in the trash can). After my husband came home from work (I took the day off, because the exterminator man was coming for our yearly check-up), we moved the rest of the furniture into the guest bedroom and removed the carpet. This made the process go by sooooo much faster!

 If you have dogs (or I would imagine kids), be prepared...the stains/smells you thought you removed...come back to bite you! Yuck - I've decided carpet is the root of all evil and just exists to trap stains & smells.

So anyway, after you roll up the carpet & pads, you have to remove the tack boards. If you purchase a tool such as this at Home Depot, it will make life so much easier. Unfortunately, we basically used a paint scraper. It's not a bad tool, it's just not made to bring up tacks. A note to the people who put in the carpet originally - you are jerks. You put nails way too close together and it is unnecessary and made it that much harder to tear up. Thank you.



Also check where you can dump carpet. Our trash company doesn't take carpet, because it's construction material. Plan to make the hike to a local landfill (costs less than $10) to dump the carpet, tack boards, & foam pad.

After you pulled up the carpet, you'll want to sweep up first (the tack board leaves a lot of pieces of wood lying around), then use a shop vac (if you have one). We used a vacuum, but I'm almost positive we shortened the life of the vacuum. Be very careful with the nails...you may end up having to get a tetanus shot afterwards. Also if you have stupid dogs like we do, be aware. They will eat anything left on the floor - staples (that held the carpet pad in), nails, bits of wood, etc. Again....I have stupid animals. Okay it was just Lucy. Gus just got in the way.

2. Fill in Wood Glue  (3 hours - Wednesday Night)
The wood glue was really not that much of a problem. We grabbed one container of Elmer's Wood Filler Max & two tubes of Minwax Stain-able Wood Filler. In retrospect, I wish we had grabbed two containers of Elmer's- oh well live & learn! So we filled in all of the cracks and edges of the wood. We used that paint scraper to smooth over the filler. It doesn't have to be perfect, because you are going to sand it. It does make the filler last longer if you occasionally wipe off the scraper. We were generous in many of the areas, because we were told it shrinks. I'm not sure whether this was true or not, but better safe than sorry. We initially were going to fill in the small nail holes from the carpet tacks, but after about 30 minutes we said screw it (no pun intended). This takes about an hour to dry fully.

So then we sanded the floors with 120 grit sander. When sanding:
A) wear a mask there is a whole lot of dust that comes up!!!

B) If you have glasses and wear a mask...they WILL fog up.

C) Open a window and don't do this at 10pm or you'll annoy your neighbors.

D) Have fun! I don't know what it is, but sanding was really fun. It went by quick too!!! You'll want to sweep then vacuum after this!

If you have time, you could go ahead and start papering the floor. Because we were doing this after work, this was all we did that night. Well that and rip & crumple paper.


We filled two trash bags of crumbled paper, and that was ALMOST enough pieces to do the edges.  Make sure you separate the edged pieces out first in a separate bag (hence the two bags). We absolutely ran out out of the other crumbled papers so, we ended up just ripping paper as we went. We actually didn't even need to crumple it after a while, because we crumpled it as we wrung it out in the glue bucket. After you do the edges, it doesn't matter if you separate them or not.

3. Brown Papering Floor (8-9 hours - Thursday & Friday nights)
This was the longest part. We definitely didn't plan that one out. So papering..yikes. Papering is NOT hard, it's just sole crushing and takes forever. The few times it was just me papering, I turned on Netflix & had Dawson's Creek playing. Alex put the kibosh on that so we watched Archer (a favorite, but you need a 40 min show or movie...stopping to hit play every 20-23 minutes is a little long.
Anyway, so back to the real stuff. We did the edges first. That didn't take too long. Alex and I moved on different sides of the room. First task is to mix the glue. We used these red buckets from Home Depot & mixed 1 part Elmer's Glue (I had to get this at Staples, as that was the ONLY place that had gallons) with 3 parts water. We ended up using pretty much the entire gallon. We used a plastic measuring cup to measure out the water & glue...mainly so we could just trash it later on.

 Next grab your gloves (although we stopped using gloves eventually and just used our hands), use a good paint brush and lightly paint the floor section you are about to work on with the glue mixture. Then dunk 4-6 pieces of paper in the glue, swirl them around, and then wring them out well. This gets them nice & soaked, but not enough where you are going to have to worry about bubbling. Use the edge pieces to go around the room like so.

The easiest way to smooth out the paper is to smooth out an edge and then push the paper out towards you. If the edges end up bubbling, it's not the end of the world, if you are going to but in quarter-round molding (which I suggest you do).

Once you get the edges done, continue papering yourself out of the room. I started in the closet & Alex in the far corner and we moved from there. The area by the door where we have carpet is less than great, but that's why we bought a threshold to cover that up, until we do the hallway! If you see pieces that are bulging, now is the time to fix them. You can either try to peel up the pieces or use an exact o-knife to pull up the area. You'll be glad you did!


The floor is very rough like this, but looks very cool. Don't worry about the different shades. The glue will just dry differently. We did 6 hours of floors Thursday night. At 11:45 decided we needed to stop since we had work the next day. We had about 2 1/2 hours left Friday evening. Note: This time frame is with TWO people doing it...with one...you're in for a much longer time. We have a fairly large master bedroom.

 Also of note, we are repainting the floor boards, so we didn't tape them off. Here's a close-up of the texture on the floor. It looks really cool - veiny & marbley.


We let the floors dry over night and started about 9 AM with the stain Saturday morning.





 
4. Stain (45 minutes to apply; 48 hours to dry)
We learned a lot of lessons with the stain. First, if you apply with a heavy hand you will absolutely want to wait 48 hours. Lovely Crafty Home said 24 hours, the varnish said 72hrs...we found it was about 48. We used two quarts of Minwax's Jacobean Finish.

We initially had two sets of everything, but had issues putting on the stain paid on the second extension pole...so we nixed the idea and returned the second set. I recommend getting two chip brushes to do the edges, but only one extension pole. It doesn't take that long to apply and will save you a lot of money. So we have the Lambskin Pad with woodblock, a cheap 3" chip brush, the finish, an extension pole, and a paint tray.



Apply the edges pushing out towards the center of the room. If you happen to have a heavy hand (no names mentioned), be sure to have a heavy hand when you switch to the extension pole (hint hint). The stain is pretty smelly. I think it's more smelly than the polyurethane.






We had a fan going in the bathroom, but that just seemed to push around dust that fell from the ceiling fan (Note: DUST THE CEILING FAN BEFORE YOU DO YOUR LAST VACUUM!). Again, the stain did not take long at all to do. We used broad strokes. I tried to warn the person who did the stain to swirl around the stain to make it all match...it didn't happen too well. The circles are a little hard to do, but be sure you at least blend everything together. Again, you'll be thankful later you did!

The closet is above and a majority of the room is to the right. Here's the closet, which looks really good. And the finished floor looked great. It isn't quite as dark once it dries. Waiting 48 hours took the tack away that Lovely Crafty Home mentioned. It did eat up two days (which I went a little crazy with other projects). Doing it again, I'd plan to do the stain on like a Wednesday night, that way by Saturday morning I could start doing the varnish.



5. Varnish (10 minutes to apply, 45 minutes to dry...times 12 coats)
So once the stain dries you'll need to put a whole lot of layers of varnish on. We used the more expensive stuff, and needed to buy a second can. Yikes! I did get Free Braves tickets for spending over $100 at Home Depot this weekend...that was a win! So Yes, Varnish. This is easy again. We opened the windows (turned off the fan), and didn't have any problem with the smell.
The varnish went on easy and the brush goes on easily as well.



We used a sponge this time (found right next to the lambskin pad). We have 4 layers down and have a few more to go tonight. It dries in about 45 minutes, so the layers go pretty quickly. I'm not sure I'd sand the floors yet, but it's nice to be able to walk into the room again! 


6. Molding - We haven't done this yet, but we did buy quarter-round molding from Home Depot and will be painting that. I'll have pictures later. 

I absolutely love the floors and thing they are really really neat!Everyone who sees them loves them! The edges did bubble a bit , but I'm not going to concern myself too much with that. We'll smooth it over with the molding. We did use 3 gallons of polyurethane though...I'm not sure if it's just because it's a large room or we wanted to be extra careful.
      
       

Second Coffee Filter Wreath

I promised my mother in law that I would make her a wreath at the same time as my mother's. My mother in law's took a wee bit longer, and I was finally finished tonight. Rather than the earth tone colors my mother wanted, my MIL wanted greens, as that would match more things. That was actually easier to paint. So to show some of the pictures of the in between of actually making the flowers, I decided to take pictures!

I think I like the multi-colored one better. I don't like the all-green one quite as much. Then again, it isn't going on my door! 

So here's how to actually make these time-consuming flowers (that can be crushed so quickly if your car battery dies in the Kroger parking lot and the dog starts freaking out and jumps into the back trunk area (is it called a trunk in a Highlander?)....not that that happened). 



After you dye/paint all of the coffee filters (and let them dry), you'll want to fold all of your flowers. This lets you keep them organized if you do the project over multiple days (which is highly recommended, unless you've solved for the space-time continuum). Take 3 to 4 (I used 3 for all of these flowers) filters and put them on top of each other. Fold the filters in half twice so you get a cone.

As a side note, this reminded me of making snow flake chains in school. So then cut out the bottom out of the coffee filter. You can kind of see what I did in this picture. You're going to twist the centers, kind of like a figure eight. This took me a little bit of time to figure out, once you do, it's easy. Take each center and put on the end of a piece of masking tape. I found it's better to have too much masking tape then too little!

Then it's time for the ruffles. The cut remaining part of the coffee filters (just one quick snip). Then make overlapping ruffles along the masking tape, like so. I can't decide if I liked small ruffles or larger ones. I think you can do more (and if you are running out of coffee filters) with the large ruffles, but small ones are good for diversity!

Once you are done with the first filter, just pick up with the second and keep going until you've used all 3 filters to make a line of ruffles. Now it's time to roll the flowers. You'll want to start with the centers side and start rolling the flower. You can shape it however you want, depending on how tight or loose you want the flower. I found that rolling it tighter in the center makes prettier flowers. Plus if you used large ruffles, you can make the tape tighter but the flowers fuller.

Keep going and if you have extra tape on the end, either wrap it around the flower or cut it. You'll end up with a nice pretty carnationy looking flower!

While I was gluing the flowers onto the wreath, I found sometimes having the end of the flower to slide under other flowers helpful. Other times, I cut the bottom off and glued it flat. I think this gives a nice variety of flowers either facing straight up or to the side.  It's your wreath, do as you please. Although after making two...I highly doubt I'll do another one.

Side Note: HOLY CRAP Don't burn yourself with a hot glue gun. It hurts...like major hurt. I held an ice cube on my finger for over an hour and still burned. It blistered almost immediately.

I think it turned out nicely. I was a little annoyed it got smushed in the back seat, but such is life. I'm just glad to be done with the project!

Painting the Ottoman

We purchased an ottoman like this (but it came with 4 tiny collapsible mini ottoman seats) from Bed Bath & Beyond a few years ago to replace the giant glass one we had borrowed from my in-laws. We liked the glass, but it was heavy & huge. So to tie in the red, we painted the bottom of the table red (we figured if we didn't like it, we can always flip the ottoman & just have the cushion top!). 

Where I got the idea from: myself?

Time: 2 hours

Shopping List: 

Acrylic Paint - $3

Gloss Finish - $2

Paint Brush - $1

Instructions:

1. Initial note: The trick here is letting it dry. This was our first attempt with a finish. It didn't turn out great, but it was okay. 

2. Prep: Alex wiped down the ottoman (we have 4 animals...their fur is EVERYWHERE). He then taped off the sides. 

3. Paint: We used two coats of paint to get the color we wanted and let that dry (we set them outside in the sun, because it was super hot this weekend!). 

4. Gloss Finish: After that dried completely, he painted a coat of the finish. This was not done as neatly as possible (lesson learned). We have to make sure it's even. Alex did a second coat, but it still was a little splotchy. 

The centerpiece & remotes, mostly cover the splotchy parts. It's not bad for our first attempt with a finish, but it's probably my least favorite. All in all, it does help add color to the room, it just looks a bit DIY beginner. 

You can really side the sides on this one where the varnish didn't quite make it...

Coffee-Filter Wreaths

I'm still working on these, but will never ever do this again. Wow did this take much longer than I thought! 'm not sure I'd recommend this again. Granted, I was trying to make two wreaths at once (one for my mother & one for my mother-in-law). This is why they aren't red and black...I asked what colors they would like so they would match their houses.

Who I got the idea from: Lovely Crafty Home 

Time: Multiple Days 

Shopping List: 
2 packages of Coffee Filters (if you have extra...well it only costs $2 per pack of like 200...)
Acrylic Paint
Paint Brush
Cups
Cardboard Wreath Print Out
Ribbon
Scissors

Hot Glue

Instructions:

1. Prep: Be sure to prep your area. You'll want to hang clothes lines with clothes pins around the house. Please be sure to tell people you are doing so if you choose to use a chandelier & a door as part of your line. Put down painters cloth on the table  and underneath the pin area.

2. Paint: So for the colors here...I blended as I went so I'll show you the steps. The less paint, the quicker it drys. It only takes one or two to realize you should have let them dry longer. Semi-wet coffee filters don't stick to tape very well. 

• Cup A - Coffee: I used strong coffee for the first set of colors. They gave the cream colored flowers. I had 50 clothes pin, so I did 50 of these. 
• Cup A - Pink: I poured some more coffee into a cup and pink paint. The water cuts the paint so it doesn't take as long to dry (and makes the paint go further!). When you're done...don't dumb this cup out. I had 50 clothes pin, so I did 50 of these.
• Cup B - Yellow:  I poured water & yellow paint for the yellow flowers.  I had 50 clothes pin, so I did 50 of these. 
• Cup A - Burgundy: I poured the Yellow from Cup B into the Cup A for the pink. I added some dark red paint and swirled until i got a color I liked.  I had 50 clothes pin, so I did 50 of these. 
• Cup C - Green: I poured a little bit of green paint, lots of water, and green food coloring in to get a pale green.  I had 50 clothes pin, so I did 50 of these. 
• Cup C - Darker Green: I poured a darker green into the cup (and added more water if needed) and some more green food coloring to get a darker green. Can you guess how many I did?
• Cup C - Dark Green: For this one I poured more green paint, green food coloring & blue food coloring into the mix. This gave me a rich dark green.

3. Make the Flowers: How I make the flowers, I'll defer to lovelycraftyhome.com. This takes about 6 minutes per flower. I suggest making one of each color as you go. That way you can start hot gluing the flowers in. This will make you a lot less depressed, since this takes so amazingly long.

4. Ribbon: I cut a hole in the middle of the cardboard wreath. I put both sides of the ribbon into the slot and wrapped it around through the large center part of the wreath. I tapped & glued the ribbon in place. If you do it this way, it's important you do this before you begin gluing the flowers!

5. Hot Glue: Glue the flowers onto the wreath. I tried to stagger the pattern a bit. In retrospect, I could have used another color, but I'm getting anxious just thinking about it. I originally cut off about half of the "masking tape stem" so I could stand them up. After the first 5 or 6, I stopped and just glued the bottom. As you're gluing you'll find you smush the flowers a bit. It's okay, just well unsmush them and be careful. 

*****UPDATE: So as you can see I finished the first wreath. I feel as though I could be lulled into a sense of "oh you can do it again." To break down the hours:

Set up: 20 minutes (includes stringing lines for the filters to dry & cutting wreath out of cardboard)

Painting Filters: 2.5 hours (I did four colors so 30 minutes x 4 plus any in between time)

Each Flower: 3.5 hours (6 minutes to make & there were probably 36 flours on the wreath)

Gluing onto the Wreath: 15 minutes

Total Time: approximately 6.5-7 hours

The biggest task is painting the filters. Beacuse I did enough coffee filters for two wreaths it took most of my day on Sunday. Doing a few flowers a night while watching TV wasn't bad at all. 

A Few Final Notes:

• I varied between wanting little flowers & big flowers. Ultimately be generous with your masking tape so you can make large ruffles for large pedals. This will take up space on your wreath and they don't look bad.
• I realized I didn't have cardboard after I started, so I found an old Christmas Garment  box and cut it from there. This gave me two wreaths and worked pretty well. I mean we collect the "gently used" boxes every year and they seem to just collect in a pile so why not!
• If you were slightly impatient like me and didn't wait for the filters to dry, if you leave them overnight, they dry!
• I also folded all of the flowers into 4 for easy storage. I didn't trust either of the dogs or cats to leave alone a pile of coffee filters. 
• Last, I'll post the green one once I'm finished. I have about 4 hours to go on that one.

UGA Organizational Board

This was a lot of work, but I think it turned out great!

Who I got the idea from: Girl Loves Glam

Time: 5+ hours

Shopping List:

19x31 Piece of Plywood

2 8x10 Frames

2 5x6 Frames

2 Large Clips

3 Frame Hooks

2 8x10 pieces of Colored Card Stock

3 Packages of Command Strips

1 Paper Mache Box

Black Paint & foam paint brush

Hot Glue Gun

Scrapbook Kit

Dry Erase Markers

Nails & a Hammer

Instructions:

1. Paint Plywood: I had my Dad cut me a piece of plywood. I think mine is actually 19x30. The exact size fits to your needs. Then I painted the plywood & the paper mache box. I put two coats on and let dry overnight (this is why it took so long). 

2. Frames: Hot Glue the glass to the inside of the frames.  

3. Print Offs: Print out the lists that you want. I made my own, because I wanted them UGA themed, and I'm a bit of a freak. I also wanted to use the same font - I used Kristen. The original website had links to what she did. 

Calendar: I used a table in Microsoft Word word. I left extra space at the top so I could write the name of the month. I then printed on Red Card Stock I got from Hobby Lobby. Then I put this into one of the 8x10 frames.

 
To Do List: I changed Microsoft Word's page size to 5x7, printed it on white paper & put it into one of the 5x7 frames.  


Scrapbook Kit: I had a scrapbook kit I never used that was UGA themed. I used boards & stickers from that kit to add color to the lists. 

 


Chore List: I knew I wanted a quarterly list, but seasonal fit better so it was named seasonal. I think the important thing to remember with this type of list is make sure you put down what you're going to do. If you're not going to vacuum every day, don't put it down. You won't want to see that on the list and you'll ignore doing it.

 
  
Menu:  The menu was easy enough. Again word and 5x7. I would suggest starting the week on Sunday or Monday depending on your schedule. I do my shopping on Sunday Morning so it was best for me to put Sunday first.  If in your mind you run Monday-Sunday, then put Monday first.

4.  Command Strips: Put command strips on the back of each of the frames (I used 4 for the big frames, 2 for the 5x7s, 3 for the paper mache box, & one for each of the clips). 

5. Picture Frame Hangers: I used the tooth hangers, because that's what the original post had. I was clearly not thinking and spent quite a bit of time putting them on the back of the board upside down. This was the hardest part, because the stupid little screws wouldn't go into the plywood. I don't really have a better suggestion other than patience & a glass of wine. Be sure the strips are level...if not then you have to make the nails in the wall uneven so that the whole thing is even.

6. Organize: Lay out the frames & clips on the board how you want them. Then peal off the command strips to put each piece on the board.

7. Hang: Hang up your frame! I used three nails, because I was sure it was coming off the wall. So far it's held up after 2 days!

Notes: Use Expo Dry Erase Markers. I bought ones with an eraser on the top. They weren't as good as Expo.  If you don't plan out a menu...don't put it on there. If you know you won't use an item, then don't bother putting it on there.