Yes, the Swedes are at it again with their most unique and beautiful interior design. Swedish interior design blog, Annaleensa HEM, has a DIY section that is super inspiring to me right now. I especially want to try that basket lampshade. Wouldn’t it be so fun to paint it a neon pink or yellow color?
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I’ve been seeing some fun DIY’s that I wanted to share that seemed easy and fun. I especially want to try the tea bags – so cute!
Wouldn’t it also be fun to have a Valentine’s Day party? Who does that? I don’t think many do and it’d be fun to have one where you just eat delicious treats and celebrate love!
I am getting close to finishing all the gift wrapping … “wrapping up” as they say. Pun definitely intended. But before I started, I definitely searched on YouTube to how to wrap a gift. Now, I know how to wrap gifts. But I didn’t think I ever had the finesse. Oh baby, now I do. Now I know how they do it! It all makes sense now. And so I want to share it with you:
It was super fun to make and so I thought that I should show you all. So here we go, my first DIY: Yarn Snowflakes!
Ok, I have to admit, I did not come up with this idea out of thin air. One afternoon, I was shopping at West Elm and they had a display of something similar. And I thought, wow, this is something that I can actually make myself. So I did.
Here are the materials needed:
1. Yarn. One package is plenty, but it depends how many snowflakes you make. I used an off-white alpaca yarn that is super-fuzzy for that ‘rustic’ ‘crafty’ look. I was really close to getting metallic yarn though which would also look super snazzy.
2. Dowel rods. I used 12″ long ones that came in a pack from ACMoore. I cut some down to make smaller sizes as well. You need three rods to make one snowflake.
3. Glue. Elmer’s glue specifically. I just used the spray glue for reinforcement but it’s not necessary.
4. Scissors. And fishing line and thumbtacks (to hang).
Step 1:
Take three dowel rods of the same size and lie them in a snowflake pattern as above.
Step 2:
Without cutting the yarn, start wrapping the yarn around the center of the dowel rods in a “over” “under” “over” “under” pattern until the dowel rods are loosely holding together. Then reinforce it by looping the yarn around one time on a rod then move to the next rod and loop the yarn around it. Basically you just need to get the rods to not slip out of their “snowflake” shape.
Step 3:
You should get to this point where it’s secure but that the dowel rods may shift back and forth for adjusting (just keep them all even).
Step 4:
Now start wrapping the yarn up around one dowel rod — make sure the wrapping has some spacing in between (you’ll fill those in on the way down)
Step 5:
Once the yarn reaches the top of the dowel rod, add a tab of glue at the top and cover the glued area with yarn. Hold glued area with your finger so the yarn sticks and holds as you start to wrap back down. I found that after you cover the glued area, it’s easier to also hold the yarn about quarter of an inch down the rod and wrap the yarn around the top part.
Step 6:
Now wrap the yarn back down, filling in the gaps along the way.
Step 7:
Now the yarn should be back at the center where you can continue onto the next rod and repeat steps 4-6 until each rod has been “yarned” (yep, just made that up).
Step 8:
Ta-da! Once all rods have been “yarned”, your yarn string will back at the center where you can cut it off and tuck it in at the center to hide the end. No need to knot or anything, just tucking it in with the yarn at the center will be fine.
Now I made various sizes of snowflakes but it’s up to you! Now you can hang them or just have them arranged in a vignette around your home.
To hang them, you’ll use fishing line and thumbtacks. This is what you’ll need to do:
Step 9:
Loop fishing line under a strand of yarn near the top of one snowflake point. Then double knot the fishing line (double knot seems to be the trick for fishing line) and take a thumbtack (I have white ones — for my white ceiling) with the other end of the fishing line, fasten together and tack it up on the ceiling. Yes, you’ll have tiny holes then in your ceiling. However, thumbtacks are much tinier than a nail hole or anything else. I bet a strong tape would work as well.
I used varying heights and location of my snowflakes to create some depth. I apologize, my dining room gets no natural light (it’s also the room where we haven’t done anything to it. looks pretty sparse.) so it was tricky to show you guys a good photo…but here are they are hanging:
Voila! There you have it. Lots you can do with them. And, if you get tired of them, you just unwind the yarn and reuse it!
I’d love to hear if anyone tries this out! (And if there are any gaps in my instructions… it’s my first DIY… so let me know if you need more details.)
Just wanted to show our first tree together! It didn’t take us long to find it at the Christmas tree lot. We like it. My sad little tree skirt needs some help though. I think I want to make one for next year. Soft white with pom poms maybe. This is just gray felt left over from when I was a shark for Halloween.
Oh and here’s the easiest DIY ornament ever. Since we didn’t have many ornaments and a lot of time to make many, we bought some clear ornaments at ACMoore and some red floral wire (the basic green stuff would work too). We then just stuffed the floral wire inside. That’s it. It comes out to be a crazy wire design which looks pretty cool!
I just love me some envelope liners. It’s such an easy way to give those notes or invitations that extra “umph!”. Plus, you can go nuts with it – patterns, photograph, vintage book illustrations, maps…
Oh and here’s a DIY on how to make your own. Although, I just use a gluestick and it seems to work well.
I recently came across this amazing online store from Australia, Inky Co. They have such fun (and preeetty) paper goods and supplies. And, they even have a DIY section on their site. I have been into a neutral color scheme mood lately so my eye immediately was drawn to all of their black and white goodies…especially the black and white washi tape – awesome!
Yes, the Swedes are at it again with their most unique and beautiful interior design. Swedish interior design blog, Annaleensa HEM, has a DIY section that is super inspiring to me right now. I especially want to try that basket lampshade. Wouldn’t it be so fun to paint it a neon pink or yellow color?
With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I’ve been seeing some fun DIY’s that I wanted to share that seemed easy and fun. I especially want to try the tea bags – so cute!
Oh and here’s 
