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} White, Gold, Fluffy Christmas Village!

Being that this is our first house, and our first Christmas season in our first house, I wanted to treat myself to some special decorations that would last us a few years.

We have a beautiful fireplace in our living room on which our stockings hang, but I wanted to add a little something extra to the boring floor in front of it. A little dreamy Christmas village!

Cute, right? As you can briefly see, we have a red wall in our living room, and we also have some cream coloured furniture (you'll have to wait until the new year for a peak at that!). Already pretty Christmassy! It wasn't too difficult to pick gold as an extra accent colour.

How cute is that dear? I found him and the light-up acorn tree at my local HomeSense. The minute I saw them I fell in love and had to buy them. Walking through another isle of the store 2 minutes later, I found the gold gift box. I actually squealed out loud (which my husband is used to but I don't think the customers around me were). I had to buy it as well. That was it - I had created my little village in my head now.

But wait! It needed one more thing... snow! Not the cottony flat stuff I normally pick up, but soft, fluffy, dreamy looking snow. Then my brain sprinted through a few past shopping trips and, ding ding ding! I remembered this beautiful fluffy Flokati rug I saw at Walmart... for only $20! Done deal.

What do you think? What would you add? Have you created your own little dreamy Christmas village somewhere in your home? Share in the comments! :)

--Anita