It’s been so fun decorating the 1905 Cottage for the holidays. I’m sending my holiday cards out this week and we have had quite a few come in so far from family and friends. I love seeing all of the beautiful cards and family pictures and I love to display them. So I thought it would be fun to create a pretty card display.

And as I was thinking about it I thought it would be fun to create something that can be changed up and left out all year. So during December it can display holiday cards, but in January and February it can display Valentine’s cards. And then throughout the spring and summer we can use it to display Instagram photos and other momentos.

And my friends at Duck Brand asked me to create a project using their Duck Tapes, I thought it would be perfect for this project. There are SO many cool patterns and finished of Duck Tape now. Sparkly ones, all kinds of colors, and fun designs too!!

So here is how I created this interchangeable Snowflake Pallet Card Display:

You can use any pallet or make one on your own. This little pallet was pre-made at Michaels. All I had to do was spray paint it!

While the pallet was drying, I stained my snowflakes. These are from The Wood Connection. I love this Mini Wax Wood Sheen stain – it’s more of a gel consistency and it’s easy to apply. All I had to do was apply some to a damp paper cloth and rub the stain over the snowflakes.

When the paint was dry I put three strips of Duck Tape on the pallet. SO easy!

Then I attached the snowflakes to the pallet with Command Strips – which are easy to take off. You can also use big glue dots.

Then I hung the pallet up.

Now I have a pretty place to display my cards!!

And I can keep the snowflakes up all winter if I want.

In February I will take the snowflakes down and put up some pretty pink or purple ducktape along with this little Valentine’s Day banner and display my Valentine’s Day cards!!

There are so many fun things you can do with Duck Tape.

You can see more awesome ideas to make with Duck Tape by following along with them:

Duck Brand on Facebook

Duck Brank on Twitter 

Duck Brand on Pinterest 

How do YOU display your cards? 

Have a HAPPY day! 

xoxo

This post was sponsored by Duck Brand. All ideas are my own.

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This month as part of the #MichaelsMakers team we were asked to make a project using their new Denim line. So fun!! It fit in perfectly with the room makeover I am working on for Ella’s room at the 1905 Cottage. Love this organizing station!

I headed over to Michaels and was so excited to see all of the different denim product they have available.! I ended up buying this unfinished crate that was in the Make Market section. I wanted to make it into a organization station above the desk in Ella’s new room! And I thought the denim theme would work in perfectly with the theme that we are developing for both Ella’s and Hannah’s rooms.

This is how I made the Denim Organization Station:

I took the unfinished pallet, painted it white and then used the special denim brush to add dark blue to the pallet that looks like washed denim.

I then took some craft wood and added it to the top and bottom of the pallet to create shelves.

I also found this fun basket in that section and I thought it would be perfect to corral desk items for Ella.

And I love this linen-covered canvas that I added to the back of the pallet to hang special mementos and pictures in her room.

Another element I love is the metal tape. It’s magnetic! I hot glued it to the top and bottom of the pallet and I covered magnets in washi tape. It’s a great way to hang special notes and memories.

My sisters were out visiting and I enlisted them to help me with this project! Ashley helped with the denim paint! And Wendy helped by making fun envelopes using my Home+Made paper line. I also added some cards from my Home+Made Project life Dazzle Mini Kit.

I can’t wait to show you the girls’ rooms at the cottage!! They are going to be so fun. And Ella is so excited to hang the Denim Organizational Station in her room.

Thanks for coming by!! Be sure to check out the cool Demin Makers display at Michaels!

The denim line is not available online, so get out to your local Michaels store and get all of the denim products!

The denim products are part of a new line called Make Market that Michaels debuted this month. Make Market is a combination of home décor and DIY products made of on-trend surfaces and textures, like chalk, denim, burlap, galvanized, cork and metal. I just love the items in this line!

xoxo

This post sponsored by Michaels. See my disclosures.

[inlinkz_linkup id=493623 noentry=1 mode=1]

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BALLARD-DESIGNS-INSPIRED VALENTINE’S PALLET HEART

I love a good pallet project! And I love some Valentine’s Day decor. When I saw a project at Ballard Designs, I thought “I like that, but I’d like to do it a little differently!” So here’s an easy, one-hour project (not counting waiting for paint to dry): a Ballard-Designs-inspired Valentine’s pallet heart!

I really liked the look of this because it matches my decor, and it’s a fun way to celebrate Valentine’s day with colors that aren’t the traditional red and pink.

I am a little obsessed with the new Taylor Swift album, and I liked the straightforward lyrics in one of the songs on the new record.

The lyrics I used are from Taylor Swift’s You Are In Love, which, as far as I can tell, available only on the Target Bonus Edition of her new 1989 album. (You can read about the song and read the full lyrics here.)

Here’s what I did:

I loved the Ballard Designs striped heart plaque, but I wanted it to be a little less “imperfect” and wanted to use words that were a little more meaningful to me.

So for this project, I got some higher-grade 1x2s. I trimmed off the rough mill ends and then cut eight 26″ lengths. (Mine is slightly smaller than the Ballard Designs heart – that one is 30″ square.) I used two leftover pieces behind to hold the boards together and used my air nailer (below) to put it all together.

(For more details about how I build a faux pallet (remember, it’s pronounced “foe pallay” LOL), check out my post on building the Valentine’s Rope Light Pallet.)

Then I spray painted the pallet metallic dark silver (Valspar 85053 Aluminum).

Then I cut out a paper heart from a piece of poster board and traced the outline onto the pallet. It was a little small, so I left off the easy-to-finish point at the bottom.

I taped stripes and painted the stripes inside the heart white.

I then used a Sharpie to practice my writing, see how big I needed to write, and see how much was going to fit – using the cutout paper heart – before I wrote on the pallet. I used a black paint pen to write the lyrics on the pallet, going back over it two or three times to make it thicker and bolder.

I love how it turned out!

BALLARD-DESIGNS-INSPIRED VALENTINE’S PALLET HEART

My favorite part of building the project was using my new Ryobi air nailer!

Happy late Christmas to me! @Ryobipowertools cordless air nail gun. #1905cottage #planking #yay

A photo posted by Tatertots & Jello (@tatertotsandjello) on Jan 3, 2015 at 1:09pm PST

It’s the Ryobi 18-Volt ONE+ AirStrike Nailer. I like it because it’s cordless and has its own air compressor built in. It worked great for this project!

I’m excited to use it for the wall planking in the #1905Cottage addition, which is coming along! I can’t wait to share more about every room!

* * * * *

xoxo

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While I’m a big fan of the big projects, like a permanent, wood-backed marquee heart, I also like fairly quick and easy proejcts. This Lowe’s-sponsored #LowesCreator project goes pretty quickly and is fairly inexpensive … and it looks great on the #1905Cottage porch!

You’ll love this Easy Valentine’s Day Pallet Rope Light Heart, and you can easily customize it for your space.

It’s a straightforward project – you just need some inexpensive wood and a rope light kit from Lowe’s. I chose the 24-foot incandescent rope light, but if you can find a length on sale from Christmas or prefer the LED set, go for it! You can easily adjust the project to accommodate. The kit comes with all the cabling you’ll need, and even the brackets to attach the rope light to the board.

Here’s what else you’ll need, and how easy it is to make it:

Mine is about two feet square. You can adjust to fit whatever space you’re decorating — and if it’s smaller you may even want to buy the shorter lengths of rope light.

I used 1x4x8 firring strips, the inexpensive ones. The advantage is they’re about $2.50 each – the disadvantage is that you have to pick through the pile to find the ones that are the straightest (be sure to look at each board from all angles).

Here’s exactly what I did — adapt for your project size!

Materials:

• 4 1x4x8 firring strips (basically like 2x4s, but half the thickness)
• 24-foot rope light kit
• Air nailer (substitute whatever you have available, like 1″ screws or even liquid nails if you’re patient)
• Power drill and appropriate bits
• Saw (miter saw is the easiest)
• Spray paint if you want your pallet a color

How to make it:

We’ll start with building the faux pallet (properly pronounced “foe pallay.” LOL.)

Since I knew I wanted to have my pallet about 3 feet square, and that a 1×4 board is actually only about 3.5″ wide (not really 4″), I did some math and figured out that I needed to have 10 boards to come to about 3 feet – 35 inches. Knowing that 10 boards laid side by side is 35 inches, I knew I needed to cut them each to 35″ long – so I did. (If you want smaller or larger, adjust accordingly.)

First, cut the rough mill edges off of the ends of your boards. Then, cut 10 boards to 35″ long each. Save two of the “remainder” pieces from the original 8-foot lengths – we’ll use them as cross pieces behind. Rather than have to re-measure every piece, after you measure the first board you can use it to measure the second board (see the middle picture above).

Once you’re done, lay the boards face down and get them fairly square. Lay two of the “remainder pieces” behind and about 4″ in from each side – see the right picture above. (Did you notice that none of the boards are perfect? That’s because I wanted that rougher look – to resemble a pallet. If I wanted a better, smoother look, I’d have chosen a better grade of wood.)

Now, flip the whole pallet over and use whatever you prefer to affix the front boards to the two backing boards. I used my cordless nail gun (top left). Make sure it’s square as you go. If you’re using screws or glue, you may prefer to leave the pallet face down as you work. I liked the rougher look of the nails in the front of the faux pallet.

Then, lay your rope light on top of the pallet and estimate where you’ll need to place the holes. For me, it looked best to drill one hole in the center of the second board from the bottom and the center of the third board from the top. I used a 1 1/4″ bit (top right) to make the holes.

Now we can feed the rope light, but it’s tricky to make sharp turns … thus the holes in the pallet!

Then, as you can see in the finished result (above), I started the rope light in the bottom hole by feeding it from the back. Once I saw where looked best I attached a rope light clip right behind the hole (see pictures at the bottom). I then estimated where looked best to curve the rope in two places on the right of the pallet and added clips there (don’t forget to predrill your screw holes) and then fed the rope back behind the back. I looped it around behind the back to help the rope turn and added a clip behind to hold it in place.

Then I did the same thing on the left side of the pallet … and fed the rope light back into the bottom hole. If you’re like me and wanted a second row of lights on the heart, it’s easy: just place a second set of clips just to the inside of the previous set. Your rope light will be a tight fit in the holes but that’s better than having the holes ginormous.

Now that you’ve done all that … if you’re going to paint your pallet, remove all of the rope lights and go forth and paint. Once it’s very dry, just replace the rope lights and you’re ready to go!

(In my case, I still had about 6 feet of rope light left, so I made a square in the back with the leftover light to provide some rear illumination.) Here’s my test once it was all done to make sure it worked:

It’s difficult to see in this picture, but with the pallet painted, the rope light almost seems red!

It’s a fun addition to my Valentine’s Day porch at the #1905Cottage!

 * * * * *

I like this project so much I kind of want to move it inside!

Thanks to Lowe’s for the materials to make this project. You can also follow  Lowe’s on Facebook for more great ideas and sign up for their FREE Creative Ideas Magazine with TONS of great DIY  ideas and instructions!!

xoxo

Materials for this post were provided by Lowe’s; however, the project and content are all mine. See my disclosures.

The post Easy Valentine’s Day Pallet Rope Light Heart! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

I love being a part of Lowes’ Creative Ideas blogger team. I love seeing what monthly themes they give us. It really lets me use my creativity. This month a couple of the themes we were given were Submerged Colors and Outdoor Wall Art. I decided to combine the two together and make some Submerged Color Wood Slad Sconces. I think they will be perfect hung on my patio once the weather warms up a bit. (it snowed here yesterday – ugh)

Via TrendBible

I headed over to Lowes for supplies. In their lumber department they have little bins of thin wood. That’s where I found the slats I used for this project. I toyed with the idea of using paint sticks or wood shims, but they didn’t seem like they would be long enough. So I picked up 10 6-inch wide wood slats, along with 4 3-inch wood slats to use as supports on the back of the pallets. And I didn’t even have to cut the length – it was perfect at 3 feet long.

Then I headed over to the paint department and picked up 5 of their sample paints in ocean colors, along with some foam brushes. And the last thing I did was I grabbed 4 of the wood-wrapped tealight candle holders I found at the front of the store. They were only $4.95 each and I thought the wood really would go well with the submerged ocean colors.

Here’s how I made the Wood Slat Wall Sconce Art: 

I wanted to make two pallets. So I bought 10 wood slats and painted them in 5 colors.

Once they were dry, I arranged them in the colors I wanted for each pallet and flipped them over.

Then I attached the smaller slats I bought to the back. One at the top of the pallet and one at the bottom. I did have to cut these with my saw. I used small finish nails to hold them in place, hammering a nail through the smaller slat into each of the boards to secure them together.

Once the pallets were constructed, I used my mouse sander and sanded the pallets. I wanted it to look very worn and beachy so I sanded a lot of the paint off.

Then I applied some stain to the whole pallet to give it an even more weathered and ocean look.

To attach the wood-wrapped tea light holders, I placed them on my pallet to see the height I wanted and marked it with pencil. Then I drilled two holes where I would attach the tea light holder to the board. I used zip ties and threaded it through one hole, through the tea light holder and back through the other hole, and tightened the zip tie at the back to secure it in place.

And voila! Now I have some pretty art which also will be so pretty on Summer evenings on my patio. I can’t wait to use them!!

Do YOU have any projects you are excited to make for Spring or Summer?

Share them with me in the comments. I would love to know!!

Have a wonderful day!

xox

You can also follow  Lowe’s on Facebook for more great ideas and sign up for their FREE Creative Ideas Magazine with TONS of great DIY  ideas and instructions!!

PS: I’ve linked up this post to these fabulous blogs this week!

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