Fixer Upper Coffee Bar (Contributor Post)

My parents are building a new house and my mom wanted to incorporate her old coffee station in the breakfast nook. The coffee station is a smaller set up and she had a long wall that needed to be filled. I immediately thought of the coffee bar on Fixer Upper (I believe it's on season two) that had blue cabinets, chalkboard and long floating shelves. My parents loved the idea so we decided to go for it!

Here's a picture of the Fixer Upper coffee bar.

(source)

They installed custom wood cabinets, but my dad really liked the idea of having a pop of color, so we sanded and painted over them with Farmhouse Paint. I've never painted cabinets so I was a little nervous, but they turned out great! If you are local to Battle Ground, Washington, Posh + Tattered carries Farmhouse paint it in their shop. I've tried many paints and it's my favorite so far.

Sorry about the low quality pictures, I had just snapped them with my phone as we were going along.

My brother painted the chalkboard wall and Tyler built the floating shelves. Taylor at @_katherine_taylor_ wrote all the quotes with chalk markers and she does awesome work! 

This was a big project to take on, but it is definitely the focal point in their new house. If you can imagine, there are windows lined along the side wall with a beautiful mountain view. I'm sure there will be delicious coffee and wonderful memories made for years to come! 

As always, thanks for stopping by and see you next month.

Jodi

"Hello! My name is Jodi from The Whispering Pines.  I love to decorate, refurbish old furniture, create small crafts and come up with unique party ideas. I also have a knack for organizing and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. My style is rustic with a touch of farmhouse. If you ask my husband, I could live in antique shops and home decor stores. I love being inspired by others and hope, you too, can gather a little inspiration for your home!" 

How to Antique a Metal Pail

If you have been following along with my monthly contributor posts, you will recall the post on the floating shelves Tyler made for my living room. I briefly mentioned how I made a shiny metal pail look old and dull, and today I want to explain how I achieved that look. 

I love old metal pails and had wanted to use one for an arrangement a few months ago. I wasn't having much luck finding it, so I bought a shiny pail from Hobby Lobby for about $2. I did some research on how to make it look old and found a very simple, easy fix. 

I ended up doing many more and now my house has metal arrangements scattered throughout the rooms. On my last post, I ended up taking the pail I was using for my floating shelves and planted purple flowers in it for my porch. I bought a new pail and decided to use it as a demonstration. 

All you need is Lysol Toilet Bowl Cleaner, steel wool and a pair of gloves (not pictured.) 

I poured some cleaner on the steel wool, and in circular motions, scrubbed the pail. Make sure you have gloves because it will burn your hands if you come in contact with the toilet cleaner. I let it sit for about 30 minutes and used my hose outside to wash the cleaner off. 

Side note: I have done this in many different weather conditions, and you will get different looks depending on how long you leave the cleaner on the pail and what the temperature is like. When it's very cold outside, I have left the pail for several hours, but today was 80+ so it didn't take long for the metal finish to age. 

Here are a few more metal arrangements that I have used the same technique on:

I have two vases on either side of my mantle, and my favorite florist and very talented sister-in-law put the arrangements together.

This is a sneek peek of my little boy's dresser that I will share the process of refinishing it another time.

As you can see, each pail has it's own look and I really like that they aren't all the same. It's a very simple process and an easy way to add metal to each room. I hope you were inspired and will give it a try. As always, thanks for stopping by!

See you next month, 

Jodi

"Hello! My name is Jodi from The Whispering Pines.  I love to decorate, refurbish old furniture, create small crafts and come up with unique party ideas. I also have a knack for organizing and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. My style is rustic with a touch of farmhouse. If you ask my husband, I could live in antique shops and home decor stores. I love being inspired by others and hope, you too, can gather a little inspiration for your home!" 

DIY Welcome Sign

Following along with DaNita's monthly challenge, I tackled my outdoor space. Moving into a new construction house has many benefits, but one of the downfalls is all the mud you have to deal with. We finally got around to pressure washing our concrete and are now focusing on getting grass planted in the areas that didn't take last summer. 

I have a nice porch so I really wanted to get it decorated with spring/summer decor to liven up the space. I've been wanting to make a "Welcome" sign so I decided now would be the perfect time. 

Tyler had a plywood board laying around so I stained it with Miniwax Dark Walnut (I really just love that color!)

I bought large stencils from Hobby Lobby and placed them on the board to see how I wanted to position them and to make sure I had enough room for all the letters.

I then took the first stencil, centered it on the board and traced the letter with a pencil. 

One by one, I traced each letter and made sure they were all centered correctly. If I make a mistake, I just erase the letter and trace it again. 

For stenciling, I like to use acrylic paint and a thin tip paint brush. Starting from the top, I painted in each letter. I carefully paint the outside lines and then fill in the inside. 

After I finish painting each letter, I let it dry and apply another coat. It doesn't take nearly as long because you are just filling in the spots that need touch up. To add a little dimension, Tyler put a boarder around the sign with 1x2 pines and I painted it white.

My front porch looks much happier and I love how welcoming it is ;) If you've been wanting to stencil a sign, go for it! Tag me @the.whispering.pines so I can see your project. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Jodi

"Hello! My name is Jodi from The Whispering Pines.  I love to decorate, refurbish old furniture, create small crafts and come up with unique party ideas. I also have a knack for organizing and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. My style is rustic with a touch of farmhouse. If you ask my husband, I could live in antique shops and home decor stores. I love being inspired by others and hope, you too, can gather a little inspiration for your home!" 

DIY Floating Shelves

I have been eyeing floating shelves on Pinterest for quite some time. When we moved into our house, I found the perfect spot for shelves so I added it to the Honey Do List.  My husband, Tyler grew up with a shop full of tools to build anything the heart desired.  For this project, we didn't have all the suggested tools, but with some tinkering he made it work. Tyler liked to compare me asking him to build something to him asking me to make meatballs and mashed potatoes with a knife and microwave. Fair enough, but I think he did a great job! I had him follow this plan on Pinterest, but we decided to make the shelves slightly longer so they looked right on the wall I had chosen.

We stained the shelves with Miniwax Dark Walnut. Over the years, I've collected the decorations from a few different shops and stores, and I think they compliment each other nicely. 

The metal pail with dried flowers was once a very shiny pail. I'll have to create a post on how I made it look old and dull so stay tuned ;)

Originally, I wanted three floating shelves, but it didn't flow nicely with the light switch so we added the hall table as an alternative. 

I think the shelves are my favorite decoration in my house and I love how it adds dimension to the living room. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you found a little inspiration for your home! 

See you next time,

Jodi

"Hello! My name is Jodi from The Whispering Pines.  I love to decorate, refurbish old furniture, create small crafts and come up with unique party ideas. I also have a knack for organizing and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. My style is rustic with a touch of farmhouse. If you ask my husband, I could live in antique shops and home decor stores. I love being inspired by others and hope, you too, can gather a little inspiration for your home!" 

Farm Theme Birthday Party

A few weeks ago, my little boy, Saelor Ellis, turned two! (How does time go by so fast?!) Last year, I did a lumberjack theme for his birthday and this year I wanted to do something that he's interested in right now. I decided to go with a farm theme because he loves animals, especially farm animals, and his favorite song is Old McDonald. After some quick searching on Pinterest, I got to work on some farm themed crafts.

 Do you see where I messed up on the Old McDonald sign? I realized my A's were backwards when I was almost done, but was too tired to start all over. 

I bought the cupcake toppers from "A Little Paper House" on Etsy and Saelor absolutely loved them.  My in-laws bought him the barn for his birthday and we let him open it a day early so I could use it as decoration. I think I only had time to snap a few pictures before it was taken down because he was so excited to play with it.

It was so fun putting all the crafts together and the birthday was a hit! 

I hope you enjoyed this tour of Saelor's farm theme party.  

Jodi

"Hello! My name is Jodi from The Whispering Pines.  I love to decorate, refurbish old furniture, create small crafts and come up with unique party ideas. I also have a knack for organizing and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. My style is rustic with a touch of farmhouse. If you ask my husband, I could live in antique shops and home decor stores. I love being inspired by others and hope, you too, can gather a little inspiration for your home!" 

Easy DIY Growth Chart Ruler

Hi all!

I've had this board in my garage for many years now.  It's been white and plain jane until today. For years,  I planned on making it into a semi cute growth chart ruler.  

I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it, as it is in my garage and it WILL get dings and markings and  wrecked by my five boys.  Believe me, I know, because my garage is so very trashed!  They have about a gazillion dings in my fridge and freezer out there.  

Well the other day, my husband was asking me when I plan on making the ruler.  It's been up for many years, but just as a white board and we've been marking our boys height on it with pencil.  Not to mention that when it's actually hung up on the wall it covers some of the damage the boys have done to the wall.

Today I was painting some frames with  this vintage blue color and I decided to paint the board and actually get to making the ruler today too. 

As crazy fast as I did this thing I questioned why I waited so long to make it.

It's certainly not perfect.  It literally was done in about an hour, so it's not my very best work ever, but like I said, it will get beat up on, so that's okay with me. 

We love marking our boys' height every so often and being able to compare from year to year.  It's really neat.

This is the paint I used to paint the board: 

After the board was dry, I stretched my tape measure out and marked the lines that I wanted with pencil.

Then using a ruler to keep straight lines, I used this painters pen to mark the line and the numbers so they are permanent.  A permanent marker will do the same thing.

For the numbers, I printed them out on plain paper, marked the back of each number with pencil, creating a transfer (scribble pretty hard on the back of the paper.)  Flip the number over and put it where you want the number to go and trace it and the pencil markings will transfer.  Paint over your pencil markings.  I use this transfer method a lot. 

When your board is all done and dry. Seal it with wax or poly and start marking your little ones height.

 

There you have it... a quick and easy DIY Growth Chart Ruler.

May you be a little inspired!

Until next time,
DaNita 
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View more of my Most Recent Projects HERE.
 

DIY: Christmas Crafts

Christmas is my favorite time of year. There is something enchanting about cold weather, decorating the house, delicious food, family time, and of course celebrating the birth of Jesus. When I need a little decor inspiration, Pinterest never fails to give ideas to get your house in the Christmas spirit. A few months ago, my husband made a hall table for my living room and I wanted to decorate it in a more neutral, woodsy theme for Christmas. I kept coming across two crafts that looked fairly simple and cheap: a pine cone tree and a sock snowman.

For the sock snowman, I didn't have any long, white socks to use so I started out with a white piece of fabric from Hobby Lobby.

  First, I folded it in half, then hot glued both sides to make a pouch with one opening.

I then flipped it inside out so the seams were hidden inside.

I poured white rice inside the pouch and tied the top with string.

 I tied another piece of string around the middle of the snowman to give the appearance of two snowballs.

I tore burlap so that it was frayed on the edge. Then I hot glued the burlap around the snowman head to build a hat.

I tied string around the top of the hat to make a furry ball and added some twine around the base of the hat to give it a finished look.

Then I just added accessories with hot glue, brown fabric for eyes, twine for the scarf, buttons from Michaels, and a wooden nose wrapped in orange fabric. (My husband made the nose out of dowels by sanding them into a cone shape.) I made two slightly different sizes and I think they turned out so cute! 

The pine cone tree was very simple, but a little time consuming. I bought a styrofoam FloraCraft cone from Hobby Lobby and wrapped it with brown fabric using a hot glue gun.

I bought some smaller pine cones from Target and starting from the bottom up, hot glued each one around the tree. I used the largest pine cones for the bottom and gradually went up the tree to the smallest pine cones on top.

 Please note, this will use a lot of hot glue so make sure you have plenty on hand. Very simple and rustic! 

I love the Christmas feel my hall table brings to my home! Give these crafts a try and let us know how you did.

Happy Crafting & Merry Christmas!

Jodi

"Hello! My name is Jodi from The Whispering Pines.  I love to decorate, refurbish old furniture, create small crafts and come up with unique party ideas. I also have a knack for organizing and enjoy experimenting with new recipes. My style is rustic with a touch of farmhouse. If you ask my husband, I could live in antique shops and home decor stores. I love being inspired by others and hope, you too, can gather a little inspiration for your home!"