DIY Shabby Chic Chandelier

Who wouldn’t want this beauty hanging up in your room/bathroom/closet?

Gorgeous, isn’t it? What would you do if I said that 95% of this is completely DIY? And I’m going to tell you how to recreate this beauty!

All you need is an old metal framed lampshade (you can find all sorts of shapes and sizes in antique shops, and they sell pretty cheap. Try to find one that has a damaged shade so that it will be cheaper and easier to take the shade off), scraps of lace or lace like ribbon, faux crystals, an Edison light bulb, and a light mount if the shade doesn’t come with it.

Once you get the metal framed shade, remove the old shade, but don’t damage the frame. This only takes a few minutes. Next, loop strips of the lace (you can even get the ribbon that looks like lace) around and tie in a double knot. Alternate the knots from top to bottom to give it a fringe-y look. Next, fasten the crystals around the bottom of the shade. Then all you have to do is hang it up and screw in an Edison light bulb (they are the old-fashioned ones that are elongated). And there you have it!

A beautiful chandelier for just about $15.

I hope this post has been inspiring to you all! Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

Spring Nails

So, I was just messing around on my computer, jamming out to my iTunes on shuffle (2.9 day’s worth of music all on random), and I had the urge to Spring-i-fy my nails. I quickly skimmed over Pinterest to see what the latest trend was and it turns out it’s a tie between gradient/ombre nails and pastel nails. I flipped a coin for one to do, and got Pastel Nails (which is probably a good thing since I don’t have lots of time to wait for my nails to try like usual.)

My colors of choice were Mellow Yellow and Sun Kissed from the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polish collection. I got all set up to make my nails trade off between the Mellow and the Sun and then thought to myself, “Why not actually make my nails be SPRING?” The result?

I’m rather proud at the outcome! It’s definately very Spring-like. The grass and flowers were done with It’s So Easy STRIPE Rite skinny brush nail polish. The clouds were just done with a cotton swab and some white polish. Nifty, huh?

Here’s the tutorial! Enjoy!

Materials:

You can see my iTunes in the background

• Base coat/top coat
• Green polish
• Light blue polish
• White polish (I forgot to put it in the picture)
• Green skinny brush polish
• Pink/purple/whatever flower color you want skinny brush polish
• Tape
• Cotton swab (You only need one for this)

The method:

1. Clean your nails, trim them, pamper them, and then add a layer of protective base coat
2. Once this is dry, tape off the area of your nail for the sky.
   

   Just tape the lower 1/4 of your nail

3. Paint the blue for the sky. I removed the tape after a few minutes so the polish was still wet. 
4. As you can see in the above pic, the tape took off some of m base coat. This is okay. You can always add another layer when the sky part dries. Now you fill in the gap with a few mini swipes of green polish. 
5. Next, you dab some white paint onto a cotton swab and make some puffy clouds. I also made a sun.
6. Now, swipe on some blades of grass with the green skinny brush polish. Of course, you could forgo the first green step and only do this step for the grass.
7. Once the grass is dry, dot on some flowers! 
8. Finally, finish it off with some clear coat! (The above picture is the final picture)

Now go and show off your Spring inspired nails! I hope this has been interesting to you all! Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

Galaxy Nails for Fashion and DIY

Ok, so I may be a little late on this awesome fashion trend, but galaxy nails are awesome! What better way to remember that there is more in the galaxy but by having different galaxies (made up or not) shining on your fingertips! I think it is very inspirational. So, regardless if it’s still considered ‘fashionable,’ here’s an easy tutorial on how to do them.

Materials: 

• Base coat/top coat
• Main color–I used black, but you can also use navy blue or any dark color
• Secondary colors–I have 7 here that will be used to color the galaxies. Metallic colors tend to be more spacey.
• Cotton swabs/ear swabs for dabbing the secondary colors on–you can also use sponges
• Glitter coat–I have 2, a very fine glitter coat and a coat that has bigger pieces of glitter
• Nail polish remover–for a quick clean up any paint on the skin around the fingers or if you need to take off an entire nail’s polish
• Plenty of drying time

The Process:

Before we begin the actual painting process, clean your nails, file them, trim them, shape them, etc. When your nails are prepped and ready to go, apply a base coat and allow to dry.

1. Apply a coat of the main color. Several coats are allowed if one coat isn’t enough to cover your whole nail. Be sure that if you apply who coats, wait for the first coat to dry thoroughly. If you don’t, it will take your nails even longer to dry in the long run, and it makes your nails vulnerable to being messed up by being bumped or scraped. 
2. Select the first color of your galaxy. Dab the tip of the ear swab into your first selected color and dab it onto your nails in any general direction. You can make the direction be more spherical or square or diagonal if you want to. be sure the you allow the color to dry before going to step 3.
3. Repeat Step 3 for all additional colors as you wish. Once all color has been dabbed onto the nail, allow to dry completely before moving on to Step 4. 
4. If you have two different types of glitter glaze like me, begin with the smaller sized glitter and allow to dry completely. Then move on to the second and allow to dry completely. If you only have on, you can add however many coats of glitter coat as you wish–just be sure you allow it to dry completely between coats.
5. Finally, finish with top coat. 

You can look at actual pictures and model your galaxies off of them, or you can create your own galaxy(ies). Often times, when I’ve finished the galaxies, I will take the small paint brushes and paint on spacecraft and meteors and the like, but my thin brushes are defunct at the moment.

I hope this post has inspired you all to go out and create and/or paint galaxies on your natural canvases. Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi

Make Your Ceiling Fabulous!

Hi, all. I’ve officially written out my schedule for my blog, and I then realized that it’s in the middle of the week! So, in order to stay with my schedule, I’m going to post 4 posts today as opposed to waiting for a few days before posting again. Here is my first post for DIY Mondays! Enjoy!

How often have you walked into a room and the walls are gorgeous, the floor and spectacular, and–the ceiling is just a plain ole white? It may have popcorn on it, it may not, but the ceiling just utterly takes away from the design and theme of the room . I know I have–multiple times. However, not everyone might be willing to just cover up the white with the same color paint as the walls or even a different color because it may take away form the overall effect of the room. They know what the effect is presently, and they fear that just painting the ceiling would take away form what effect the room has. I have a solution that not only gets rid of the standard ceiling but also give the room grandeur. Try wainscoting.

My parents began to remodel their master bathroom while I was off at college, and I went home this past week for my spring break. I became my mom’s sounding board for the project, and she bounced the idea of a wooden ceiling off of me. I was all for it! I knew that they were painting the walls a light blue and would put white wainscoting around the lower half of the walls, and I knew that they were going to put white tile down on the floor–I could just see how spectacular a wooden ceiling would make everything come together (even though it was just for the bathroom.) A few days later, my dad enlisted me in helping him stain, varnish, and actually put up the ceiling.

First, you’ll need some pine wainscoting–pine is what we used, but you can use whatever wood you would like. You can get some from Lowe’s for around $11 a package that you can stain and varnish yourself, or you can get some that is already stained and varnished and ready to install for about $15. What you need to do I measure the length and width of the ceiling that you will be remodeling.

Next, you’ll want to have the stain and varnish that you would like to use. If you opted to buy the pre-finished wainscoting, you don’t need to buy some (or use some). We used a pecan stain with a clear varnish. You can also get stain from Lowe’s for around $10 and varnish for about $13. Or, you can buy the stain and varnish in one easy step for about $13. We tried to use the two-in-one, but the color was much paler than we felt it was supposed to be (we compared it to the actual stain and it was several shades lighter.)

After you decide what shade you want and you have bought your supplies (if you want to stain and varnish it by hand), set up an area where you can stain the wood where you won’t worry about it dripping and ruining the ground or floor. My dad and I set it up on our back porch over thick canvas. Be sure you wear gloves and then follow the directions and stain and varnish the wood. It may take a while, depending on how much wood you need to cover the surface of the ceiling. Here’s a picture of the wainscoting that we used drying in the sun (the shadows are from our deck). After it dries, all you have to do it measure how long you need it, saw it if it’s too long, and then simply attach it to the ceiling. My dad used his nail gun and made sure the nails were inside the grooves that you see on the wood. We had to cut a few pieces for the air duct, but the overall installation was pretty easy since the pieces interlocked with each other just like hardwood or laminate flooring.

 

The overall cost, depending on which options you choose and how big the ceiling you will be covering will be different for everyone, but the overall effect of the nice wood ceiling makes the room feel nice and cozy and gives it a sort of elegance that I feel would not be achieved by merely paining the ceiling. I hope this has inspired you all! Thanks for reading!

~Love Lindi