More Pinwheel!!

I came across some pinwheels sold by Crate & Barrel which I thought were just darling (and surprisingly inexpensive) but that prompted me to go on the hunt for some great DIY tutorials. To be completely honest I’ve never made one myself, they’ve just never really called my attention as a fun purposeful project or party theme (unless it’s for Fourth of July.) So on my hunt around Pinterest I was surprised to find so many beautiful pinwheel projects for so many different occasions. Conclusion: I’ve changed my mind about them, I love them now! Here are some of the awesome projects I’ve found so far…

Pinwheel Wreath

This pinwheel wreath is just adorable and very simple to make. It’s perfect for Spring and Summer depending on the colors. I think I’m going to modify this for a summer nautical theme and add some deep blues and reds…and stripes of course. Love stripes.

Pinwheel wreath from Neverland Nook

Pinwheel Wall Art

This one is just adorable and they look perfect frame along with these other cutie works of art. The pinwheels are made of felt and the bling bling in the middle is a vintage earring which can get from any thrift store. This would be a very easy DIY project where all you’d need is an old frame, old earrings and spray paint and a glue gun.  Head on over to Allison’s for a step by step. (by the way, looove her blog!)

Gift Topper

How about this gift topper designed by Patti Milazzo on fiskars.com. Next time you find your gift a little on the boring side just whip up one of these and spruce up the look. I’ve found that people appreciate the wrapping as muchand sometimes more) than the gift itself. A beautiful wrapping shows you took time and care about making that person smile. BTW…have you been to fiskars.com? It’s pretty cool and they have a neat project gallery.

gift topper designed by Patti Milazzo

Pinwheel Stationary

Looks like I’m not the only one that has the Pinwheel revelation. I just had to laugh while reading Kimberly’s  blog post “Seriously, you need a pinwheel right now. They are amazing. I have discovered if you add a pinwheel to anything, it suddenly becomes epically awesome. Have a piece of paper? Put a pinwheel on it! Have an ugly, plain wall? Put a pinwheel on it!” Just made me want to sing “if you liked it then you should ‘a put a ring on it”… But really, she has some beautiful pictures of her pinwheel stationary project.

Make your own cards

Giant Pinwheel

These giant pinwheels would be great for summer parties. I can just imagine the kids running around with them. These playful pinwheels were featured in the December 2008 issue of Creating Keepsakes magazine. You can download the Flower Pinwheel pattern here.

Giant pinwheels...yes please, thank you!

Back to School Pinwheel

I think this is one of my favorite pinwheel DIYs, simply because I love vintage maps and travel themes. This would be a beautiful “back to school” little gift for teachers (better than an apple) or inspiration for a Back-to-School party. Guess what the best news is…you can just buy these on Etsy! The store owner is Betsy Ryan Hany and her store, Elizabeth St, is just darling.

Back to school

You can also buy this super cute Cake Topper from Pickled Parlor

Cake topper

…and since we’re getting into the party mood, let’s talk about Place Settings…

How cute are these???

Where did I come from? Who made me?

Farm Wedding Place Settings

…and here is another amazing example. These wedding pictures are to die for. I agree that “burlap table runners, mason jar vases and chalkboard signs are just a few of the details that made this wedding stand out”. Check out the rest of these southern country wedding  pictures here.

Pinwheel place settings

Baby Shower Favor Gift Boxes

Lastly but not least…you have to see this baby shower…A-MA-ZING! And the best part is that anyone can set up this beauty of a party, I swear! You can do it! Just keep in mind details like the flowers in the glass vases, lace cupcake toppers and rock candy keep it fresh and elegant. The most important trick to making your table a perfect 10 is keeping it perfectly simple.  Even though this table is your typical pink and white, the reason it looks elegant and not trite is that they stick to ONLY pink and white.

pink baby shower party favor topper

Photos are originally from Eat Drink Pretty.

As you can see the table is mostly white with pops of pink and details of green.

There aren’t any other patterns involved or competing colors.

Don’t you just want to have a baby now? hehe 🙂

OK, lovies…hope you enjoyed these as much as me. I hope I have inspired you to try making some fun loving pinwheels.

Elisa
Live.Play.Love

Splurge vs DIY

Love these painted spoons from Anthropologie? I’m sure you do…and so do I. But now a days there are so many DIY ideas out there (like this one from CreativelyChristy) that you don’t need to spend $36 plus shipping on these. I say, head on over to a thrift store, get yourself a variety of silverware and make a DIY fun filled weekend out of it.

Here is another great example from 100LayerCake

Looooove these doves, by the way ❤

Have fun!

Elisa
Live.Play.Love

Inspirational blog – Young House Love

I’m sure you’re familiar with Young House Love, right? OK, well then you should be! Young House Love is an amazing blog run by self-proclaimed “DIY dorks” Sherry and husband, John. They are really such an inspiration to everyone of their fans and I think the main reason is that they are genuine and full of love…and this shows in everything they do.

I’ve always been into reading DIY blogs but after coming across them is when the idea really stuck in my mind that…hey, I can do this too.  I can turn a passion into a “job” that I love to do everyday! Eventually Live.Play.Love Shop came into the picture along with this blog and of course Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr…uuggghh social media overload!! I did not realize how time consuming this would all be! It’s difficult to split my time b/w work, school (I just started an MBA) and friends/family. Not to mention that reading a blog and maintaining a blog are two completely different things (duh)…as verified by Young House Love in their very interesting post Blogging FAQs where they share in detail everything about their experience blogging…all of the behind-the-scenes happenings, how their blog grew, how they make money, how they get sponsors, the top ten things they’ve learned about blogging and MORE. It’s an extremely informational post and worth reading by everyone. Here are some interesting pie charts…

A global look at how they spend their time...as opposed to the somewhat random and always-changing things that get done in a day.

Here’s a further breakdown of the breakdown above to give us a better sense of what they really do within those general categories.

And for an hour by hour play of what they day is like check out their post Blogiversary IV: Day In Da Life

See...I told you it was time consuming!!

I think a HUGE reason for their success as a business and as a happy family is teamwork. They really seem to split the work, responsibilities and the fun between all in the household (even Burger get a cut). Another reason is that they are honest and genuine people so it’s easy to love them…and their immense list of projects

Get to know Sherry, John, Clara and Burger and fall in love.

Get to know them

With 40,000 plus Facebook fans, 18 thousand plus Twitter followers, 68 million blog hits to date (and counting) they surely have a thing or two to teach. And to someone like me, a small timer just beginning to wet my feet in this blogging world, their knowledge is extremely appreciated. They always were and continue to be an inspiration.

I hope you guys enjoy their blog as much as I do.

GET INSPIRED!

Elisa
Live.Play.Love

*All the images on this post come from Younghouselove.com.