It wouldn’t be the holiday season without another Anthropologie dupe! I did a dupe this year on the Frosted Bottle Brush Tree Candle. This honestly was super easy, with endless options to customize and create your own. Originally these candles are priced anywhere from $68 – $16, these candles I duped were about $14 each or less.
The candles I found were at Home Good’s and Marshall’s by a brand called Sand + Fog, they were $7.99 each but came with painted lids with holiday prints. I also made sure to find holiday scents since I’m gifting them for Christmas gifts! Luckily, I had a decent amount of mini bottle brush trees from previous years, so I only had to buy a few new to create this craft.
Step-by-Step: 1. If your candle lids have a print on them, paint them white or color of your choice. You may need a few layers depending on the design. If you have a plain wooden top, skip to the next step! 2. Remove the base on your bottle brush trees, and trim off the excess wire with pliers. You’ll want the bottom of your tree as flat as possible. 3. If your bottle brush trees are all the same height, you can take pliers and cut a section off the bottom in order to have different heights. 4. Before gluing in place, play around with the heights and amount of trees you fit on the lid — I fit 3-4 trees depending on the size. 5. Once you have your placement figured out, generously apply hot glue to the center base of your trees and put into place – if your trees are taller, you may need to hold the tree in place.
So Many Brush Bottle Trees, So Little Time. As I mentioned, this can be tailored to your design and style and truly make it your own. I love a little more retro flair with my Christmas decor, so I found these cute retro bulbs and gold trees to mix into a few of my candle tops. On some of the plain green trees, I even added more white paint to make them look like snow-covered — you can also play around with spray painting the trees to whatever color you want. Finally, I do think adding in various heights can help add depth to the candle top, unless all the trees are different like the gold, silver, and white trio at the very top (which is one of my favorite ones!)
What do you think? My anthro dupe is definitely a different vibe than the inspiration, but replicating the originals would’ve been pretty easy to do by sourcing different bottle brush trees. It would be really fun to grab an extra-large candle to create a little bottle brush forest on top!
Oversized nutcrackers are definitely all the rage this holiday season if you follow any home DIYers on the gram. I’ve always loved nutcrackers since I was a little girl, and pulling out our nutcrackers each year to decorate was always something I looked forward to doing with my mom. So when I saw these little 2-packs of plain wooden nutcrackers in the Dollar Spot at Target over the fall, I snatched them up and brainstormed fun, easy, and affordable DIY, napkin rings!
The best part of this project is that it maybe cost me $17 to make — if you’re starting from scratch estimated $34 which comes to a little over $4 per table setting, as this makes enough napkin rings for 8 place settings. Which is well under the non-sale price of these similar Crate & Barrel nutrcracker napkin rings that start at $6.95 each.
I had old shower curtains that I utilized and then only ended up buying the blush chalk paint, utilizing other spray paint and colors I had, that would fit into my Christmas decor color scheme.
Once you have everything from there, this DIY project can be pretty simple. You can paint your nutcrackers all the same color, get more intricate and paint faces and detail out their outfits, or you can do a color scheme like I did mixing in your holiday colors. Mine are green, blush, and gold! One thing to make sure you do is to paint the bottoms of your nutcrackers, as that will definitely be a focal point to guests at the table.
Once all your rings and nutcrackers are painted, you’ll want to glue your rings to the back, bottom of the nutcrackers. I utilized hot glue, but recommend E6000 for a better hold that is a bit more durable. Wah-la!
Now you’re hosting holiday ready! The best part about this project is that you can always repaint these in a few years to mix up or adapt to your changing holiday decor and style. I also like these, because they’re smaller to store in your decor.
I’ve been itching for a DIY project, and as much as I love the looks of our sideboard that transitions seamlessly from our living room to our dining room, our project skills and taste have improved since we first did this project back in 2016. The functionality and size of this piece are ideal, so there was no sense in trying to find and buy something new, we just needed a little glow up. After much brainstorming, I saw @hotpinkpineapples cabinet makeover and was instantly inspired to recreate this beaded look on our doors — the color was just throwing me.
To throw it back to 2016, we found a battered bookcase on the side of the road and added doors to it to create extra storage for glassware, entertaining, and games. The legs on the bookcase have always been questionable, so with this glow up, I also made sure to reinforce and take the time to fix some things overlooked with the first make over – like new legs, reinforcing the bottom, taking the extra time to sand the doors to remove some of the roughness and using wood filler to create a seamless look.
This was my first DIY with Chalk Paint… and let me say, I was not impressed, actually super bummed. I did the chalk paint because it’s supposed to be easy, durable, and little prep. I ended up sanding the old piece for the wood, but never primed anything… and as I was in the finishing touches stage the paint easily chipped off, or was stripped entirely when I was applying the wallpaper all the way down to the original dark wood grain. I wasn’t happy! So I made sure to get the wax to give it that protective finish – I did a couple coats on the high-traffic areas but am not convinced it’ll hold up. I also put contact adhesive shelf liner down inside to help with the chippy chalk paint.
Another learning on this DIY was gluing all the beads on, super easy, but the glue had a lot of leftover cobwebs, which was annoying when it came to finishing/painting – so either be careful or super diligent when you are gluing to avoid unnecessary webs. I am really happy with the 25mm size of the beads with my larger doors, they definitely make a statement!
Since the front was getting a glow-up, the inside also needed a makeover too. I wanted it to be a fun party inside, especially since this holds games, additional glassware, and other entertaining supplies. I think the fun tropical leaf pattern in black, white, and grey is super chic and lots of fun. What do you think?
I’m low-key obsessed with this makeover, and have found a small place for some green in my home with accessories and supporting pieces! Working on this project definitely got my creative juices flowing, it’s amazing when you spend the time creating and making something how that stems into other ideas and thoughts in other aspects of your life. 🥂
Picking out our kitchen remodel finishes was no easy feat. I wanted to be bold and make a statement, but also wanted to be classic and modern — it was finding a balance between the two that felt right for our home and our style. I realize that all-white kitchens may be a thing of the past? But, honestly, I don’t think you can go wrong – and love how everything came together. Without further ado, here are all of our kitchen finishes and even a rough breakdown of costs.
Hardware & Light Fixtures
We knew we wanted brass accents, because of our appliances (yes, we will get to those beauties, too!). So our hardware and accent lights were for sure going to be brass, in fact, the sconces were some of the first pieces I picked out and bought — I didn’t make a decision on our hardware until about a week before we were told our cabinets were going to be installed. One thing I didn’t count on was how much we would use our accent lights instead of our ‘canned lights’ – they provide plenty of warm lighting and truly create a mood.
Matching the brass finishes was a bit tricky, since I was doing most of my shopping online – if anything I was prepared to return, or I would order two different things and compare! It was a little extra effort, but worth it, IMO.
I also wanted to make a statement with our hardware, so we went for larger pulls on our upper cabinets which I just love – we even added in some glass knobs under the sink and on the pantry for a little extra something. We had a mix of 5″, 12″ and 18″ pulls with our knobs.
The backsplash was something I was really looking forward to finding something unique and different, and not being afraid to spend some money on it. Well, that totally didn’t really happen. I went to boutique tile shops and searched the interwebs, only to land on herringbone tile from Lowe’s. I was so disappointed about what the boutique tile shops offered (at least around here) and found this tile at Lowe’s that was pretty comparable to this super expensive tile I fell in love with online but for a fraction of the cost. We were especially cautious because we did counter to the ceiling on two sides above our sink and stove – and luckily we over-ordered our tile and were able to return to Lowe’s!
Our backsplash netted out around $900, with the cost per sheet was just under around $9 when we purchased (more expensive now) but compared to the $30 a sheet that I initially fell in love with, I’d say we replicated the same look for a third of the cost!
Can we just swoon over these quartz counters? Our counters are even better than we ever imagined, we lucked out with our counter company Granite Works Stone Design. Everything was amazing, plus they helped us find the perfect quartz to compliment our finishes. Our sales rep, selected two great options – but finding the Calacatta Miraggio Gold Quartz and securing the slab was meant to be.
The flooring was another sticking point that we ended up pivoting on multiple times. From initially thinking I wanted heated tile floors, to planning to refinish the floors we uncovered during demo, to trying to match our first-floor oak floors with hardwood, to then go in a completely different direction with a wide plank almost farm-like direction it was a doozy getting there, but we did. I’m also so glad we went this direction because it really warms up the space, cleans easily, is waterproof, and was only $615 vs. $3,000 to try and refinish our floors. Honestly, I’m just bummed I didn’t push harder to heated floors – I just couldn’t find anything that confidently said we could do it under this type of flooring.
Another bonus of our flooring is that Moz matches it, so when it comes to showing dog hair – we don’t see much, even though Moz isn’t that big of a shedder.
Confession: We may have designed our kitchen finishes around our Cafe Appliances. I found these appliances while we were awaiting our permits, aka early on in the kitchen reno process – and – to my surprise, didn’t need to spend too much time convincing B on splurging on these appliances! The white matte with brass hardware was just so beyond, the price was also a bit beyond, but something that B and I both loved, agreed on, and wanted without compromise. It ironically matched up with our fourth wedding anniversary gift. From the dishwasher to the fridge and stove we had to have the complete set. We loved the matte finish, the built-in WiFi options on the stove, and brass hardware — not to mention, everything was in stock so we ordered it ASAP to get ahead of any potential back orders and delays. Our appliances were definitely our biggest splurge, but we don’t regret that for a second, especially now that we’ve been living with them! And yes… you’re doing the math right our appliances were over $10k combined. 😇
We lucked out ordering our appliances in June 2021 and receiving them in the Fall, we did have some issues with our stove, coming a bit banged up but luckily was able to get money taken off with some fierce negotiations. 😏 I think the stove is my favorite, next to the dishwasher and I’m adjusting to life with a two-door fridge. 😅
I really wanted a bridge faucet, but most I found were itching close to $2k. With time, I lucked out and found this more modern and affordable one by Allen & Roth at Lowe’s. We have a very good friend who is a plumber, and he was very adamant on getting an InSinkErator for the garbage disposal. Luckily, we were able to get a brass flange for our garbage disposal too, yes we covered all the bases!
Getting Ruggables for the kitchen was also non-negotiable, with the number of dogs that can be at our house at times and with the back door being our main in and out, we needed something we could keep clean easily! The runner miraculously fit in front of the stove, with a smaller 2×3′ in front of the sink area.
Woah, that was a lot! What did I miss? Any other finishes you’re curious about that I may have missed? My tip if you’re starting any sort of remodel or big project, is to order stuff you like as soon as you see it, and depending on what it is more than enough (like tile), just in case by the time you get to install it could be discontinued or have a longer lead time.
Our first project of the year is complete! After being sick most of January, we finally had enough energy to conquer this project which was a quick 3-hour project with a huge impact. After seeing Peony and Honey’s stair runner makeover, the wheels were spinning, but nothing started to move. It wasn’t until we put our removable stair treads back on our bare wooden steps that I was not loving the look anymore! So I did a little extra research, found some runner options, and pitched the idea to B.
We had a two-tiered staircase with a larger landing with bay windows going up to our second floor. So there was some debate about how to treat the landing – which may still be coming, but for now is going to be bare wood floors. Regardless, we needed to get two runners for our project to account for the two runs. We figured out our length needed by measuring the stair height and tread and then multiplying it by the number of steps to get our total length in feet. Oh! And this is definitely a two-person job if anything to help keep the carpet tight while the other staples in place.
I was honestly hoping this project would be a little more affordable, but we ended up picking out runners that were more expensive, which drove the majority of the budget. The runners are definitely more plush, which was good for hiding the staples. This one couple, which was part of my research did theirs for $100 – so it’s definitely possible to do this on the cheaper end with some more affordable rugs and different nailing tools. This DIY project was around $360 for us.
Before we got started, I vacuumed and washed the steps with Murphy’s Oil Soap to make sure they were super clean (& dry) before we put the runners on. After all of our construction, they definitely needed it! The smaller of the two stairs took us a little over an hour to get the runner on, and then larger steps, closer to 2-hours because it was a little bigger and these are the main stairs you see from the first floor.
Step-by-Step: 1. First you start at the top of your stair, with the flat end of the rug – make sure it’s centered within your stair with equal length on either side before stapling into place. Stapling along the sides of the rug and top is key to getting it secure! 2. Make sure it’s tight, as you work into both back of your stair to fold over top on the stair topper. 3. Once you get to the first ledge, it’s important to fold over and staple along the length to keep it in place and tight! Ours was tricky because it was very plush, so finding the sweet spot in between the plush was crucial to getting a tight and secure staple in. 4. Basically rinse and repeat down your stairs! You definitely get the hang of it after the first couple of stairs. 5. Once you get to the bottom, get an exacto knife to cut your leftover rug. We put a piece of wood underneath as to not damage our flooring and get a good straight cut across. Using heat along the cut edge will help from fraying – I suggest a heat gun. (We ended up cutting a little longer, and folding under to avoid the fraying). 6. Afterwards, I went back and replaced any staples that were super noticeable, or hid them by adjusting the rug with pliers ever so gently. I also went and reinforced any sides and areas that moved more than I liked.
B and I love how this turned out – and it is definitely an upgrade! As I mentioned, we may add a runner to the landing that matches or update the landing rug on the second floor to match this as well for a little more cohesion. I also feel like we need some new curtains for the bay windows… *immediately opens the Target app*.
As soon as I saw Anthropologie’s Monogram Ornaments, I was instantly in love, instantly inspired to create my own twist. So here is my easy Anthro ornament dupe. (I mean, I’m not saying mine are cuter than Anthro’s but they’re still cute!)
Since this was pretty similar to a Pottery Barn place setting dupe I did a few Christmas’ ago, I had a pretty good game plan of recreating these monogram ornaments.
Step-by-Step: 1. First things first, you’ll need to cut an opening in the bottom of your plastic ornaments. This was a bit tricky to figure out, and should be done very carefully! I used a sharp mini Philips head to poke a hole in the bottom. Once I had a hole, I used a Uline knife to cut a smaller circle for the opening, go slow and wear gloves to protect your hands. Repeat based on the number of ornaments you’re making – this is the least fun part of the whole project!
2. Before you get this started, you can start painting your letter. Make sure to paint both sides – pick fun colors that will coordinate with your metallic bottle brush trees. The bottle brush trees I recommend are also a bit too tall, so you’ll have to pull the bass off, cut about a half-inch off, and then reattach the base with some hot glue!
3. Using thicker paper, trace a circle using a drinking glass that is rounder than your ornament, trace, and repeat to cut the same number of circles as you have ornaments. These are your bases!
4. Once your letter is painted, and your tree is trimmed it’s time to hot glue your letter into your tree! You can try this out before committing with the glue, but just rest the letter in nicely. Then you can glue the tree to your base, pull apart a cotton ball and glue it down for your faux snow. Afterward, you can push this up into the ornament and glue it around the base at the seam.
5. With white paint, you can create a snow top, on your ornament – I needed to do about 3-4 coats of the white paint until it was thick and nice. You can then use pipe cleaner or ribbon to add a finishing touch around the base. Using ribbon and pom-poms you can dress your top however it works with your letter!
Gift to friends, family or trim your own tree with a fun keepsake ornament for the year! I may be making a few more of these – but for now, these are the finishing products.
Of course, I wanted to share this a week earlier – but I have been super behind on all things Christmas this year, we JUST got our tree and decorations up this past weekend. BUT – I have been crafting away and can’t wait to share my two latest Christmas crafts this week. The first one was inspired by social, and I just had to recreate my own – it’s using wooden birdhouses from Michaels and turning them into Christmas Village houses, the best part? Totally customizable to your Christmas decor and colors! Here is how I DIY’d a birdhouse in three different ways – because what started with a good normal idea, turned into some fun as the creative juices got flowing.
Anything else that might be festive or ‘Christmas Village’ related could be used as a finishing touch to your Christmas birdhouse – I definitely got created and created my own pieces from what I had.
a Retro Christmas Birdhouse
I had the Corner Lot Birdhouse for some time, as I had big ambitions a few summers ago to do some birdhouse crafts – so when I was inspired to create, I was trying to work with the birdhouses I already had. I started somewhat bold with the color choice for my Corner Lot Birdhouse… and I quickly was regretting it and going to scrap it since I was able to secure two Brownstones. But, as I started to dig through my craft supplies, I found my silver pipe cleaners, had a mini silver bottle brush tree a silver, green and blue jingle bells. I was instantly inspired to create a retro Christmas birdhouse. And, oh my gosh I’m obsessed. The silver bottle brush tree also fit perfectly in the little corner behind the fence.
Painting Tip: For clean lines, I used tape to create a clear line between the fence and each house, the back houses as well. There are also a lot of nooks and crannies so take your time and be prepared to paint!
GlamBrownstone CHRISTMAS birdhouses
My original plan for the Brownstone Birdhouse was to go white and gold, which goes perfectly with all of my other Christmas decorations. Painting this white, was definitely tedious, but also relaxing – I did have to do multiple coats with the white colors, at least 3 or 4. Darker colors only took about 2-coats. As I worked through my Gold Brownstone, I still wanted to do something colorful, but not so bold as the retro house, and something that would still fit into our decor – that’s when I was inspired to create a pink and gold Barbie Brownstone to go with my Barbie tree (she is definitely my favorite!).
Creating garland and the wreath’s for finishing touches was also fun and used with pipe cleaners. I wrapped at least 3-4 pipe cleaners to create fuller wreaths to hang on each of the houses. The garland was created with at least 3 pipe cleaners woven together and then I added some clear beads along for added detail and to look like lights. To finish off the pipe cleaners also really added a pop along the base and roof lines to really give these a finished look – and the mini bottle brush trees were extra that I had, that were a perfect finishing touch.
The last detail is adding some sparkly snow to your rooflines, stairs and landing – with modge podge I just went glitter crazy and added as a fun pop!
Which birdhouse is your favorite? B loves the white and gold one… I’m a fan of the pink one but also really love the retro birdhouse, since I was about to give up on it early on.
National Prosecco Day was last month and I always first think holy sh** we’re half way through August and Summer is over… and then instantly like, oh but it’s National Prosecco Day. *pops open a bottle of bubbly* — I often joke that I try to live every day like it’s National Prosecco Day… but adulting and life sometimes interfere.
To commemorate a much delayed NPD, I’m sharing a few of my latest process-obsessions. We’re in the process of creating a built in bar in our basement to further complete our intimate basement space — and the best part about it all besides having a new space to decorate is the fact that we bought a champagne fridge! (I mean technically it’s a wine fridge, but we’ll be stocking up on the bubbles). So without further ado, here our my latest obsessions to help make our bar a bubbly sensation!
Prosecco Prints. I am playing around with a prosecco themed gallery wall – I love the idea of pulling in black and white to match our large painting we have in our basement. Fun illustrated bubbly bottle outlines, or even great champagne inspired quotes (ugh, there are so many good ones!) is what I keep coming back too – but can’t decide on.
Bubbly Quotes. OK, so there are like SO many good quotes about champagne (I know it’s NBD) and bubbles. And a lot of them are from the great F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Here are a few of my favorites: – “Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald – “Among the whispering and the champagne and the stars.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald – “Now we sip champagne when we thirsty.” – The Notorious B.I.G. – “My only regret in life that I didn’t drink enough champagne.” – John Maynard Keynes
Champagne Fridge. We scored this fridge at almost 50% off – just by chance. We were going to do a bulk online order, and I just happen to just go into the store and saw it was discounted in store! Score – we just had to drive to another location that had the last one in stock. This Frigidaire 34-bottle wine fridge (is actually still discounted from $419 to $319) and fits better with the pre-fab cabinets we got as well. Even better, champagne bottles fit just as easily as the wine bottles. Now, we just need to keep it stocked!
DIY Cork Memories. Another fun little project I may tackle, is creating 3D art with champagne corks that we’ve saved and written on documenting special moments. We have one from our first Christmas married together and a few others – I think it’ll be a fun way to use those, while also creating a custom piece that is special and meaningful to us!
Life of course has been a little nuts, as I had full intensions on sharing this post a few weeks ago on National Prosecco Day, but that’s life! I cannot wait to share our DIY built in basement bar with all our fun bubbly pops and personal touches with you soon!
Welp! Demo has officially started on our kitchen reno, perhaps a little preemptively but after meeting with our contractor to talk him through the plan – we quickly realized there were a handful of hidden outliers that had B and I itching to uncover. So last Saturday, we just tried to rip up a few of the lament floor tiles to see if the hardwoods were wrecked or not… a few hours later – we had half the room ripped up and the floor was looking in pretty tip-top shape. Since then we’ve (mostly B) taken down the ceiling, layers of plaster walls to continue to uncover what we’re working with. I mean… we live in a 100+ year old home. So far, we’ve uncovered a ceiling leak (thanks rain) and a few other janky workings.
I say we preemptively started demo, because once we start something – we can’t stop (especially B) and also because, we don’t actually have any contractor confirmed for when work is going to get started. We have gotten a few different cabinet quotes and think we have that nailed down at least the company and general direction we want to move forward with. But now that demo has started – there is no way this kitchen isn’t happening this year. We’re hoping to get a few follow-ups from our slow contractor and then go from there. So until then, I’m working to finalize some of the design and details as we work through the demo — it’s funny, now that we’ve disrupted our currently living room and are starting to get a blank canvas, the design and finishing inspiration is finally coming to life for me.
So now what? We’re going to continue to move forward and get our kitchen cabinets and counter tops finalized – the company we’re most likely going to move forward with the in home field measurement and design consultation to make sure we’re optimizing the most out of our space. Yes, this is getting us more kitchen, but it’s still going to be relatively cozy (that’s the nice way of saying small) — compared to what we’d really want in a dream kitchen — and sadly that still includes moving walls to extend our footprint.
Having a design consultation will be exciting and then we’ll be able to make sure we’re closer to exact as we’ve learned a few hard ways how important accurate measurements are. For example, our first cabinet quote was through Home Depot, super fast, great way to get an initial price for cabinets — but we ended up having more space in one area than we actually do (we had guestimates of our measurements when we went to this apt.) — the reality is those couple inches significantly impacted the potential sink size (like 33″ down to 27″) and the corner cabinet solution, i.e. lazy susan or something a bit unconventional. Luckily, with this new company – it sounds like they have some fun solutions to get us space to have a larger sink while being able to best utilize that corner spot.
Now, with the demo and our kitchen footprint pretty open, we have been able to put a few pieces to “mock up” the spacing to get a better idea of our kitchen nook area and what we can fit comfortably in the space while still letting it feel big and open. I even sat and browsed for products while we had the nook set-up and it was perfect – I can’t wait to hang out and blog while B cooks dinner. I was even finally able to decide on a few design pieces. I might even be as far as to having an idea of the backsplash that will go counter to ceiling on either side of the kitchen above the stove and sink area. Here is a look at a few of the potential final picks, a bit of mood board for our kitchen – I’m still trying to find an affordable faucet!
Since I want to incorporate brass/gold – it’s going to be crucial to make sure the shades of everything match up closely. That is why I was excited to find the light fixtures as that look pretty similar in the brass color that they are. Our appliances – as of right now – are white and gold, so as long as the back order doesn’t lead us to cancelling, we’ll be having pops of white and gold! Here’s to making some actual progress towards getting this kitchen done!
the bee life 