Give home accents a facelift with tips from upcycling expert

 After a long winter, spring is finally here – a great excuse to liven up spaces with a fresh twist on ho-hum home accents. From art décor to organization, now is the perfect time for your readers to jumpstart those fun, resourceful DIY projects they’re always pinning but forever putting off.

The Paper & Packaging – How Life Unfolds™ campaign recently teamed up with upcycling aficionado and blogger Dinah Wulf from DIY Inspired to craft five non-intimidating ways to transform living areas using common household items and some paper and packaging magic:

Coffee Filter Paper Flowers

1. Shoebox Lid Wall Art – Use the lid of a shoebox as a paint canvas. Spray the lid with primer and then paint the lid in the color of choice. Use stencils to create unique artwork.
2. Drawer Organization – Cut the bottoms of food boxes so they are approximately two and a half inches high. Wrap each bottom with decorative paper and use them inside drawers for organization. Use different-sized boxes to organize pencils, pens and paper clips.
3. DIY Map Lampshade – Paper maps are great for upcycling home décor accents like lampshades. Cut the map to the desired shape and size, and use decoupage medium to cover the shade.
4. Coffee Filter Paper Flowers – Pinch the center of a coffee filter upwards to create a bunch. One by one, add three more until one full bunch has four coffee filters. Use a child-sized hair band to tie the “stem” together. Cut out flower petals out of old book pages and glue them to the flower, then use a dowel rod to create a sturdy stem.
5. DIY Napkin Rings – Cardboard tubes should never be thrown away! Cut a tube into two-inch-thick pieces. Paint them your favorite color, then glue a shell or a flower on top for spring.

Craft Idea: Sports Pennants Banner

Sportsboy loves baseketball, baseball and soccer.  He plays on teams.  This year, he will actually get to try out for school teams because he is entering 7th grade.  He's excited.

So I bought these 30 professional basketball team pennants (NBA teams) for Sportsboy's room.  However, they didn't come connected.  Of course thanks to Pinterest, I was looking at some pinspirations.  (Follow me on Pinterest). For the finished project, I took pictures with my iPhone because my son was excited the banner looked pretty cool, and I didn't want to take out my camera. 

I decided to connect the pennants together with burlap twine and glue, and a little bit of tape for sturdiness.  Sportsboy helped as well.

Once we were finished, Sportsboy and I took the banner to his room and hung it above the doorway and his closet.  

Looks pretty nice. 

Newly launched, the Patterns section of Craftsy is the fastest growing online marketplace for crafting patterns. Because Craftsy does not charge designers any fees or commissions for listing or selling their patterns, creative indie designers are hurrying to the site to set up their pattern shops. There, well over half a million active Craftsy members browse the thousands upon thousands of patterns of all types, for all crafts. And since the designers aren’t getting charged or having to give Craftsy any commissions, the deals on patterns are amazing! Some are even free. It’s the perfect place to get inspiration and instructions at super low prices.

Resource: Craftsy Block Of The Month

The Craftsy Block of the Month is a completely free, year-long online class instructed by expert quilter, Amy Gibson. There are 12 installments, each one posted on the first day of every month. The first 10 months/installments teach students two new exciting blocks (brand new designs or funky spins on traditional blocks). The last two months are dedicated to finishing the quilt. At the end of the class, students will have full-size and one-of-a-kind quilts. Like all  classes, students can view it whenever it’s convenient for them, and can watch them however many times they’d like. It’s filmed in high-definition, and it’s fully interactive---students can ask questions as they go.