My Simple Valentine's Day Decor

I finished putting up my Valentine's decorations this week-I used a lot of simple whites and tans with just a hint of pinks and purples and my favorite aquas and yellows too. I admit I never used to decorate for Valentine's Day, rebelling against the whole marketing scheme to get us all to overspend, but it has become special to our whole family ever since we adopted our middle son almost two years ago on Feb. 14th! So, from now on it is "happy gotcha day" here at our house and I plan on overdoing it for my sweeties with chocolate and treats and sweets (oh, my!)  

I made the XOXO pennant as a photo prop for a wedding my husband photographed this summer thought it would be nice for love day too, so I draped it over my chicken wire frame. I painted the backing of an old frame with chalkboard paint and wrote the "be mine" message to hang next to my pennant. 

I still love these felt and lace heart dangles hanging in my windows. I made last year using starch and Mod Podge-it was an experiment that turned out nicely.

The paper hearts that hang on my key hooks were made from watercolor art my kids made, and then I cut out the shapes and used a hole punch to hang them. The chalkboard "LOVE" message was made by painting the backs of the frames with chalkboard paint, so I can change out the messages whenever I want to=the interchangeable chalkboard frame. 

The subtle "LOVE" garland that hangs on my fireplace was made from cut out circles from the translucent plastic from milk jugs. I then drew my design with a permanent white marker.

Looking forward to our big love day celebration and wishing you a happy Valentine's Day too! Next, I'll be sharing some reveal pictures of my kitchen and bathroom projects. Hope you stop by again to see what I'm up to and check out the rest of my tutorials! 

I link up with these parties. 

DIY Wedding Photo Props and Decor

I have been having whipping up custom pennants for my husband's photo shoots lately. I pretty much see pennants/bunting everywhere these days, and I am honestly not tired of them yet!  I think they are so versatile and pretty and are the perfect way to decorate for a wedding birthday party or simply a room in the house. 

And all you need are a few scraps of fabric here and there to make them. I have repurposed denim for my boys' name pennants for their room, cut out felt for my"happy birthday" banner and even made a small fabric one for my vintage chalkboard. 

My latest ones are made of repurposed leftover IKEA curtain fabric and some upholstery samples. (Anyone who has bought IKEA curtains knows they come extremely long and you always have to trim them down-glad I found new use for the fabric instead of just tossing it...IKEA would be so proud...) 

Maybe you've made a few, maybe this will be your first time but they are so easy, I promise. And, they are no sew! 

Here's what you'll need: 

-leftover fabric

-monogram stencil

-twine 

-permanent marker

-glue gun

-fabric scissors

-Basically, you cut out one triangle and trace the rest from the first one, then cut out. 

-Hot glue each one to a long piece of twine

-Use your permanent marker to stencil your letters

-Embellish by cutting out  hearts, whatever and you're done! 

Here is the "hugs and kisses" wedding pennant I made for one wedding photo shoot. (I think the newlyweds loved it!)

And here is the "vowed" pennant for this sweet couple.

(I like these so much I think I might hang them up in the house around Valentine's Day...)
There are so many ways to customize pennants and using a permanent marker instead of fabric paint makes them really fast and easy to make. I hope they never go out of style! Later on I'll show you a really cute one I made for a one year old photo shoot.

Hope you enjoyed these and if you liked what you saw here, feel free to browse around and check out more of my tutorials, and thanks for stopping by ReMadeSimple!

Denim and Burlap Name Pennant

Here is a project I worked on as a finishing touch for my Boys' Bedroom Makeover inspired by Land of Nod name pennants I've seen. (But, of course, this thrifty momma is not paying their price for something she can make herself!)

I created my rustic, all-American spin on name pennants using denim, burlap and twine. I was thrilled to repurpose a pair of jeans I was finally too small for and a burlap coffee bag for this easy project.

Here's what you'll need to make your own: 


scissors
burlap
denim
glue gun
twine or rope
colorful Sharpie permanent markers 
letter stencils


Here's how to make them:


1. First cut out triangles out of denim in the same shape.
2. Then, trace and cut out circles with burlap fabric

3. Hot glue your circles onto the center of the denim. 
4. Hot glue your twine to the tops of triangles forming your pennant.
5. Finally, take your letter stencil, hold down onto burlap circle and color in each letter with your Sharpie marker.

Pretty darn cute if I don't say so myself! And it actually cost me nothing since I already had the materials on hand-but if you don't it is still pretty cheap to make. And, the boys love seeing their names hanging in their newly remodeled room. Thanks, Land of Nod for the inspiration!

Thanks for visiting ReMadeSimple! Can't wait to show off some more how-to's and before and after's from my Boys' Bedroom Makeover with you in the next few weeks!

Linking up with these parties.

Vintage Chalkboard Revamp

Last summer, this easel chalkboard was sitting at an antique store just begging to be thrown in a dumpster taken home by me with its clearance price tag. At $15 I couldn't resist.

I imagined using it to write fun messages on it for birthdays and letting the kids use it as an art easel. So far, it's been used for all of those things, but I had been wanting to do something bright and cheerful to the top scroll part.

(I guess from my research the scroll had been used in some way for school-for the alphabet or nursery rhymes.) Well, I finally made some beautiful changes that I'm happy with: But I do have a question about the wood-should I paint it? 

Here's what I did to change the look of the chalkboard so far:

before

starting to paint the scroll a pale aqua

I had some upholstery samples I had bagged up at my local Scrap 4 Art store and thought all the bright colors would make a great pennant. So, I used my fabric scissors, hot glue gun and some twine to create the look below: 

Wouldn't this chalkboard be a cute message board at a vintage style wedding?

But,  I'm still sitting on the fence about painting the wood-what do you think I should do?

Linking up with these parties.

DIY Birthday Pennant

This weekend we celebrated my youngest son's second birthday! Where has time gone?

It really is crazy to think that my little baby, who I thought at one time would never sleep through the night is now a big boy, running around, talking, laughing, getting into trouble every day!  

Anyway,  I've been working hard on an idea I thought up for a cloth birthday pennant that would last a lot longer (and look a lot cooler) than your typical paper store-bought decoration, for only a few dollars to make. 

I used a lot of different colors and textures to make it cheerful and interesting to look at, with yarn letters just for fun. 

And, here at ReMadeSimple I try to do most things with a "re"in there--so here you have a "reusable, recycled" no-sew birthday pennant! 

To make this you'll need:

several pieces of felt (I like Eco-fi because it's made from 100%recycled plastic bottles)

scrap pieces of fabric (I used a woven burlap type of fabric)

permanent marker or pen

yarn

glue gun

scissors

Here's how I made this pennant:

You'll basically cut out your triangles (13) as large as you want them to be. 

I measured and cut one, then traced the shape with permanent marker onto all of the other pieces of felt and cut those out.

Then, arrange them right next to each other on a table or floor and use their length to see how long you'll need your yarn to be. (I allowed for about two feet of extra yarn on each side).

Use your hot glue gun to glue the edge of each triangle to the yarn.

Next, trace and cut out 13 circles out of felt or fabric in whatever color you want.

Hot glue each one to the center of the triangle.

Finally, cut small strips of yarn and shape them into letters, glueing small pieces at a time.

 (It might help to shape the whole letter first to make sure it looks right.)

The finished pennant hanging in a window, so bright and cheery!

Making this pennant took me a few hours, but it now makes decorating for birthdays

and tearing down so much easier and quicker.

The pennant will just fold up and could be stored in a small pouch for next time. 

(Maybe I'll have to fashion one of those next!)

I purposefully used colors and style that I can use for our whole family for years to come,

 and I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

(It's so fun to see something you imagine turn out exactly how you want it to be.)

What do you think?

Thanks for visiting today! I hope you leave feeling inspired and took some time to snoop around at the rest of my projects and tutorials!

In my next post, I'll be bragging more about how cute my two-year old is with some photos of his birthday bash and the fun theme I chose for him.

Until next time, 

I regularly link up with these parties and this party.