Fabric Corkboard - The CGP Office

This corkboard is one of those projects I bought supplies for a year ago and never got around to doing. The nailhead goes in like push pins, so it's actually a really easy project because the only other thing you need is a staple gun to attach the fabric. I used this blog post as inspiration, because I didn't want to take the frame off of the corkboard and this blogger didn't either.

I guess painting the office was the motivation I needed to take down the whiteboard calendar I had been using and put this up in its place.

I'm excited to fill this up with save the dates, invitations, thank you cards, and photo booth pictures from my brides!

Now I just need to get some canvases printed to fill up the rest of the walls!

Pinterest Projects ~ Snowy Pinecones

When all the Christmas decorations are finally tucked away, I always find myself with an odd assortment of decorations that are wintery without being Christmasy. I'll have to share my little tablescape Monday with my weekend wrap up, but today I just wanted to focus on the cute little wintery pine cones that perfectly transition from Christmas to winter.

These little cuties were the result of a Pinterest experiment day with a friend last year. And I say Pinterest experiment, because you know how some of those oh-so-adorable-and-easy-looking projects can turn out.

Two of our three projects turned out awesome, but the other pine cone option we tried (paint dipped pine cones) was a disaster! We hung them up to dry for the whole weekend and they still had some wet spots deep in the pine cone crevices. And they just looked crappy.

But this project is not only adorable, it's significantly easier to accomplish! And since you're using so little paint, it's easy to paint a third or so, sprinkle on the glitter, and let it dry before painting another section.

But I'll let you click through to Dream a Little Bigger's explanation of her Faux Snowy Pine Cones.

Pinterest Projects ~ Date Night Jar

The date night jar is a pretty popular project on Pinterest. And with good reason. Ryan and I aren't the most spontaneous people and we're also not that good at thinking of good date night ideas. (Especially things that you can do in the winter!) So we fall into the rut of movie or TV nights at home and eating out at the same restaurants.

The last time I got really fed up with this rut, I started making a list of date night ideas. I scoured websites and copied their date night lists. And you know what happened to these lists? They sat unused on my computer.

That's why I think the date night jar is such a good idea. It's a physical list that sits on a table and reminds you that you haven't planned a date night for this weekend. And if we don't plan a date night, it doesn't happen.

Like many of the other date night jars (see two of my inspirations here and here), I color coded the sticks. I plan to add a 4th color for more expensive dates, but for right now we have:

Blue - at home dates

Dark Pink - free or almost free

Light Pink - costs money

I tried to incorporate things that we didn't do very often and things that we've never done. Here are some of my dates:

Blue:

-Make a 5 year plan

-Plan a vacation

-Play 20 questions

-Mute a TV show and make up the dialogue

-Rearrange a room

-Cook breakfast and eat it in bed

-Map out our dream home

Dark Pink:

-Play tennis

-Thrift store shopping

-Star gazing

-Window shopping downtown

-Farmer's market

-Go for a hike

-Drive to nowhere (flip a coin for directions)

Light Pink:

-Paint pottery (maybe make some new mugs!)

-Berry picking

-Eat breakfast out (IHOP doesn't count!)

-Bookstore and coffee

And the best part with using a jar, is that if we don't feel like doing that particular date that week, we can stick it back in and pull out another idea!

Pinterest Challenge ~ New Crochet Stitch

I've mentioned before how much I love following Young House Love. And I've wanted to participate in their Pinterest Challenges since I first saw them post one. Because who doesn't want to actually do more of the things they find on Pinterest?

But the challenges have always come at a really bad time, like right before we go out of town, so I haven't been able to participate. So when I saw this super adorable video last week, I knew I wasn't going to miss out this time.

Ryan is super busy right now with tax season, so I knew whatever I chose couldn't involve his help. So after a little hemming and hawing, I decided that I would learn a new crochet stitch.

That might sound kind of lame, but I knew it would be attainable. And obviously making an entire baby blanket with said new crochet stitch in one week wouldn't exactly be attainable.

I've been crocheting since elementary school, but I've always stuck with the basic single, double, and triple stitches. Crochet patterns can be really confusing, because they use tons of abbreviations. And I need pictures to make sure I'm doing something right.

And then I pinned something from Crochet Spot. Finally! A simple explanation of various stitches (with pictures!)

So I decided to give the blanket stitch a whirl.

Look how pretty it is! And you repeat the same set of stitches over and over, so it's really not as hard as it looks.

Now to make a pink and white striped blanket.

Want to see what Young House Love and the other hosts came up with? All of their projects are much more awesome than mine, so you should definitely check out Young House Love's awesome hallway project, Bower Power's cute growth chart, The Remodeled Life's beautiful DIY ottoman, and Decor and the Dog's adorable button wall art.