Frame Refinish with... Electrical Tape!

For Christmas, we received these two gorgeous and adorable pet-themed frames from my mother-in-law. One is dog themed and the other is cat themed. I absolutely love them. This is the cat themed:

I needed new frames to add Milo and Remy to our family photo wall, and these were perfect... except for one thing. They were red. As you may have seen in my Christmas post, our living room wall is a gorgeous deep red. I can't put a red frame on a red wall. That would be a huge #fail!

They needed to be black to match my other frames. Okay, I thought, no problem! I'll just paint them black! Then I started thinking back to the last time I tried refinishing something with paint... It didn't go too well. I still need practice with that... So what else could I do? I searched my house for craft items I could use. Then I came across a roll of black electrical tape. Ah-ha! I've seen countless Washi tape posts by bloggers all over the internet, but not too many about electrical tape. I thought I would give it a try.

Materials used:

- Scissors
- Electrical Tape
- Photo frame

I was lucky in that the tape was the exact width of the front edge of the frame. Score! I started with the top and bottom edges. I stuck on an inch at a time, carefully smoothing out the tape as I went. then I did the other two edges.

The sides of the frame were unfortunately wider than the width of the tape, so I needed two rows for them, being a tape surgeon to carefully stick one right next to the other. The inside of the frame, against the glass, were left red. The overlapped tape at the corners formed a slightly elevated ridged square, which I ended up liking.

The finished product:

Kind of looks cool! I love how the electrical tape has a slight sheen to it! I did the same for the other frame, and now they both match the ones on our family photos wall. The best thing about this idea is that the tape easily comes off if ever I want to display that gorgeous red border again.

How did I do? Have you ever used electrical tape in your DIY projects? Share them in the comments! :)

--Anita

PS. Obligatory Pinterest Photo ;)

Washi Tape Light Switch Makeover

It's about time I get on the Washi Tape bandwagon! I discovered Washi on Pinterest and other blogs a few months ago, and fell in love with its diversity and many uses. I had to buy some. And test it... and of course blog about it. So without further ado, my first washi tape project!

It's pretty simple. Light switch covers are boring. I had to jazz this one up a bit!

I used a cool teal blue patterned tape I came across on one of my grocery shopping trips. I simply unscrewed the cover from the wall, covered it row by row with the tape, then screwed it back in. It took about 10 minutes. And it looks pretty cool!

Have you washi-ed a light switch cover? Share your designs in the comments! :)

--Anita

{Holiday} DIY Budget-Friendly Personalized Christmas Stockings

I love that I started this blog in December - it means that I get to share a bunch of my Christmas projects! I love Christmas. Actually, love is an understatement. Christmas makes me all warm and fuzzy and giddy inside! All the lights, decor, people getting together and appreciating what they have, cheesy made-for-tv Hallmark movies... I love it all, and I love getting into the spirit of things. But I, like many others, do have a budget when it comes to decorations, and buying ~$15 personalized stockings isn't exactly within it. Enter the DIY version! And it was easy peasy.

Materials needed:

• Budget Stockings (I found these at the local dollar store for $2)
• Embellishments (Also found at my local dollar store!) 
• Glue gun

(Please excuse the first few phone pics... it was all I had at hand when I made these.)

For these stockings, I wanted to go really simple and clean. I just wanted our names at the top.

First, I placed the letters on the stockings the way I wanted them. Then I simply glued them in place with my glue gun. That's it! Two easy steps!

And now the pretty photos of the completed set! The third mini stocking you see there is for our dog Milo, and it was also found at the dollar store for $1.25! Cute, right?

Amazing how something so simple can give a cheap stocking a little more punch. Have you decided to customize your own stockings this year? Share them in the comments!

--Anita

{Holiday} Christmas Gift Wrapping - White with coloured ribbon

Last year I had a lot of fun planning how I was going to wrap up my gifts. I spent a lot of time on Pinterest looking for ideas. I was finally inspired by a few pins and I created my theme: white wrapping with thin ribbon. Since I was on a budget and didn't think buying plain white commercial wrapping paper was worth the cost, I used what I had readily available - plain white printer paper!

It turned out great! Every person had a different colour ribbon. I also made little gift tags (templates found here and here) with cardstock to match the ribbon colour.

For the people receiving gift cards, I nestled them in a Christmas card with a white envelope, and wrapped them with ribbon in the same way. It really added a little something special to a plain gift card.

 Got any other fun ideas to wrap gifts? Leave them in the comments! :)

--Anita