DIY Metallic Mirrored End Table

I've been slowly putting together my teen daughters room. She loves metallics and silver and all things glam. I've shared several DIY projects from the room from the wallpaper to the tufted headboard to the painted bench at the end of her bed, but now I'm going to show you the metallic mirrored inlay end table I just made this week. She's been loving all of the mirrored dressers and tables we see but they are a little out of the budget. I finally found a solution and managed to make a similar mirrored table for a fraction of the price {under $20 to be exact!}.  It was an easy DIY project that I completed in a day and you can too! Come check out how I did it!

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Easy DIY Christmas Tree Basket Stand

Growing up my uncle had a Christmas tree farm. One of my favorite childhood memories was going up to the farm to pick out two live Christmas trees every year. While my parents were setting up the trees in their various locations around the house, the kids had an artificial flocked Christmas tree we used to set up in the hallway upstairs. We would surround it with our stuffed animals and it was something we could easily decorate on our own, unlike the 12-foot-tall trees we got for the other parts of the house. I loved that we had a tree that was all our own. 

I can't seem to shake the feeling that it isn't Christmas if I don't have more than one tree decorating the house. I picked up a small artificial tree this past summer at a garage sale for $2 and I decided that it was the perfect tree to work some magic on. I loved the idea of our old flocked Christmas tree, so I did a little DIY flocking. {more on that tomorrow! You aren't going to want to miss that tutorial.} All of the supplies were from the dollar store and it was so fun and easy.

Another recent trend that I'm loving is using baskets as a base. I saw a few Christmas tree collars lining the shelves at the store, but I was pretty sure that I could DIY a basket for a similar look. And I did. I just love how it turned out. Read along for the full tutorial on how to create your own Christmas tree stand basket.

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Backyard S'mores Bar with Free Printable Gourmet S'mores Menu

This post is sponsored by HomeRight. All opinions are 100% my own.

I'm kind of a big fan of S'mores. I like dessert of any kind, but if you can make it with toasted marshmallows and melted chocolate, you have got yourself a winner! With the school year winding down, I am soaking in as much family time as I can before my oldest son heads off to college. Sometimes I have to bribe them with things like dessert, but I am shameless and happy to stoop to that level if it means that we can get the whole family in one place for a few hours.

I created this customized S'mores menu with some family tested recipes that are sure to be hits at your next backyard S'mores bar. We all love the classic S'more, but why not try a S'more with a twist?

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Clean Your Fridge Fast!

I've got a few chores I despise. Cleaning my fridge is probably at the top of that list. I think besides our washing machine, our fridge is the hardest working appliance at our house. Unlike the washing machine though, the fridge is something every family member uses pretty frequently {I need to work on the kids and the laundry situation!}, so it takes a beating.  I think the reason I don't clean our refrigerator very often is because it just takes so long. Or so I thought! I had 15 minutes one day and my HomeRight SteamMachine plugged in and ready, so I thought I'd tackle the fridge to see how clean I really could get it in just a few minutes. It was kind of shocking! The SteamMachine did the hard work and I came behind to wipe up the messes. I'm pretty sure I won't be waiting as long between cleanings anymore because now I know how I can clean my fridge fast. Come see 6 tips on how you can clean your fridge fast!

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Painted Wooden Hanging Plant Stand with Chalkboard

I love a good hanging basket but I have one problem. Every year I kill the ones I buy. They hang up so high that I usually forget to water them because out of sight, out of mind. Also, I'm never quite sure how much sun or shade a plant gets so it's usually trial and error. But I got to thinking, hanging baskets are so pretty and when they hang you kind of miss like 50% of the flowers and plants inside because you just can't see them. So, why not move them down to a plant stand? I saw one of these wooden hanging plant stands at a home last year while I was going to garage sales and I thought it was genius. So come see how I made it my own and now I have this painted wooden hanging plant stand on my front porch to enjoy all 100% of the plant. Now here's hoping I keep it watered so it stays alive!

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How to Detail Your Car at Home

This is a sponsored post written on behalf of HomeRight. All opinions are 100% my own. 

One of the biggest investments that we make is our car. My last car {a mini van I lovingly called Thelma} was 12 years old when I was forced to replace her after a car accident totaled my car. We enter into some pretty long term relationships with our cars, and we want them to last, so we do our best to take care of them. Even if you don't plan on keeping your car until it sputters and dies, it's still nice to hop into a clean car where you don't stick to the seats. As a mom, I spend a lot of time driving kids around and running errands. My car is my second home. I like a clean house, and I like a clean car. I'm going to show you how you can detail your car at home and keep the inside of your car looking new for many years no matter how much use your car gets.

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How to Clean a Front-Loading Washing Machine

This post is brought to you by HomeRight. All opinions are 100% my own.

I transitioned from a top-loader to a front-loader about seven years ago and I haven't really looked back.  I don't love that the front-loading washing machine comes with some cleaning and maintenance, but I do love that it's high-efficiency and it uses less water, which is a big thing since our family of five does a LOT of laundry! So why do you have to clean a front-loading washing machine? Because over time residue from your laundry detergent clings to the inside of your washer, especially to the rubber door seals. Those seals grow mold and mildew and that build-up can create an odor that can cause your washing machine to smell and that smell can even transfer to your clothes. And that my friends is why you need to clean your front-loading washing machine. But how? Well, I'm sharing how I quickly and easily clean my front-loading washer with zero chemicals and little to no elbow grease.

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Buying High Quality Furniture at a Fraction of the Price: Getting a Deal on As-Is Furniture

I've always been cheap but I tend to gravitate towards really high-priced, high-quality items. Without fail, my favorite pair of shoes at the store will be the most expensive ones and the furniture I like at the store will be the highest priced. And they are always the items not included in any type of sale or promotion. Always. It's like a gift. However, I have found ways to purchase high-quality items at a fraction of the price because a) I'm frugal and b) I love a good deal. Sometimes you have to work for that good deal though. Especially when it comes to buying high-quality furniture pieces. As I age, I've learned that I just don't have time for buying things I don't like anymore, and sometimes it's hard to find exactly what you are looking for at the price that will fit into your budget. Which is why I'm sharing with you how you can buy high-quality furniture at a fraction of the price. It might take a little work, but in the end, it will totally be worth it to get a quality piece you love.

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DIY Personalized Wedding Gift Tray

The invitations have already started arriving in my mailbox for this summer. It's wedding season! I love creating fun easy personalized gifts for the bride and groom. The trick is to make something they are going to actually use too, not just something that will take up space. When I saw this blank tray at my local Goodwill, I knew exactly what I was going to do with it! Come see how I took this boring tray and created a fun personalized wedding gift that the couple is sure to enjoy.

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Polish and Preserve Your Decorative Pumpkins

I call it a healthy sign of adulthood when you have a favorite designer brand of pumpkin. My teenagers would call it "basic". We don't agree on a lot of things. I'm lucky enough to live close to a local farm that sells some amazing decorative pumpkins at a great price. Over the years I've learned a trick or two on how to polish and preserve them so I can get the most out of my pumpkins for the whole season. And by whole season, I mean from September until late November. I love how I'm able to take the muted colors of the various gourds and make them shine all season long. And now I'm sharing my secrets on how to polish and preserve your decorative pumpkins all season long.

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{easy to make} Antler Jewelry Tree Tutorial

{easy to make} Antler Jewelry Tree Tutorial

I have a thing for antlers. They are spread all throughout my house. I love to decorate with them, so when I found a faux antler Christmas tree pick at my local Hobby Lobby, I picked it up. I knew exactly what I wanted to make with it.  I have a lot of small jewelry pieces and sometimes out of sight means out of mind. If I don't have something in front of me, I forget about it. But not now! I can see all my favorite pieces on the DIY faux antler jewelry stand and it's a beautiful art piece too! I'm partnering with HomeRight to share with you how I created this jewelry stand {for under $5!} and how you can too!

I took this faux antler...

and created this DIY faux antler jewelry stand. It's one of my favorite pieces in my master bedroom closet now.  I can't wait to show you how you can make your own too!

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University Themed DIY Cornhole Game

This is a sponsored post by Homeright. All opinions are 100% my own.

This past year has been filled with a lot of excitement for our family. Our oldest son spent the year looking for and applying to universities and after a few visits and lots of prayers, he decided that Baylor University in Waco, Texas felt like home to him. After our visit to the Baylor campus, we did what any Fixer Upper fan would do and we hit the Magnolia Market and Silos {in case you want to go, here are 5 things you need to know before your Magnolia Market visit} and while the store was filled with eye candy, we ended up having the most fun, just hanging out playing cornhole on the lawn. 

I happened to mention to Aidan that if he decided to go to Baylor, I would make him a cornhole game for his graduation party, since cornhole seems to have not hit it's popularity out in our parts of the world just yet.

So a few weeks before his party, my husband and I got started on making a DIY cornhole game board for his graduation party complete with university logo and handmade university colored bean bags. I've got a few tips for you if you want to make your own cornhole game as well.

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Painting Your Stairway the Easy Way

disclaimer: this post is brought to you by HomeRight. All opinions are 100% my own. 

Paint is one of my favorite ways to transform a room. It doesn't cost a lot of money but it makes a huge impact in a space. That said, painting is not my favorite thing to do. It takes time and some prep work, neither of which I like, but after it's done, the results are long-lasting and I'm always glad I did it. That's not to say that I'm not always looking for an easier way to do it and I think that HomeRight has figured it out for me. Especially when I tackled the stairway in my home recently. I was having panic attacks thinking about our two dogs running through trays of wet paint tracking cute little doggie paws all over our carpet. Not to worry, there was not a single paint tray involved and far less back and forth because of this, the greatest painting invention ever. 

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5 Common Grilling Mistakes to Avoid on Your Charcoal BBQ

Summer is grilling season, and we all dust off the grill and get ready to fire it up to take advantage of those glorious warm days to have a backyard BBQ. Gas grills are certainly convenient but there is something that will never take the place of cooking over charcoal in my opinion. There really is more to a good backyard BBQ than just the ability to buy some steaks and light the grill. I'm sharing 5 common grilling mistakes people make when they cook on their charcoal BBQ's. Don't get caught making these mistakes!

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Tips and Tricks to Help You Organize Your Cleaning Supplies

This post is written by me on behalf of HomeRight. All opinions are 100% my own. I wouldn't tell you about something I didn't love.
I have a confession to make. I'm a closet hoarder. If I can close a door or a drawer, I'm happy to let the clutter build. I try to clean and organize but in no time things are a mess again. I read something not too long ago that said if you keep cleaning and organizing the same spaces then that's not your problem. The problem is that you have too much stuff. This was my light bulb moment and I started thinking about the areas I have cleaned and organized and those spaces that I have had major purges in, I've noticed have continued to stay clean; places like my desk and my master closet. So I have started the purge and I started in my cleaning closet. I had cleaning supplies scattered through four different areas of my home and now I have them in one location and I'm sharing with you how I organized my cleaning supplies. I'm letting you in on what worked for me and maybe it will work for you too!

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Blog Anniversary Celebration with a Giveaway of a Few of My Favorite Things! Valued at $1500!

This month marks 7 years of blogging. Holy cow! What started out as a hobby for me has turned into a full time job and I am loving it! I had no idea when I started Holy Craft in January of 2010 that a blog could even become more than just a little web diary. If you've never heard the story of how this blog came to be, let me give you a little back story. In 2005, I was expecting our third child. I started a personal blog as a sort of photo album to share pictures of my kids and give a snapshot of our life to our friends and family. Most of them lived thousands of miles away and the blog became a fun way for me to share life. As my kids started to get older, I was able to start exploring some of my passion for creating again. Those creations started creeping up into my personal blog in 2009. Blogging was relatively new then and I joined in on a link party. I realized I had a lot of personal information and family pictures on our blog and directing people to it probably wasn't the smartest move. So I did what any grown-up does and asked my friends on Facebook if they would read a blog if I started one. A few people said yes and I started asking for suggestions on a blog name. Holy Craft was born. The name came from a fun play on words but I also thought it encompassed what I wanted in a blog. The blending of my holy, spiritual side with crafts and creating. There have been a lot of ups and downs in there, but today is for celebrating! I'm giving away some amazing prizes and doing it in a fun way I think you guys are going to really enjoy. Since it's my blog and a celebration of my work anniversary, I wanted to celebrate by giving away my favorite things! Any guesses what they are?!! I'm going to explode, I'm so excited!!!

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True Board and Batten a tutorial on installing on textured walls

Inside: DIY board and batten wall

About 15 years ago, a good friend of mine had her third baby.  I went over to her house to bring a meal and found that while her husband was home from work for the week to help his family adjust to the new wee one, he had installed board and batten in his entire downstairs hallway. I must confess, I remember drooling and gushing over the new wall treatment far more than I did over the new baby. I was sold! I wanted a board and batten in every corner of my home and I wanted it yesterday. 

Well, yesterday turned into 15 years later. My husband is the handyman in our family and I am what I like to call the visionary. I make the plan, he executes the plan. And by a plan, I mean, he does all the math and hard stuff and I just tell him what I think will be pretty.

Plans and Concerns

In the past 15 years, I have asked my husband to construct a board and batten wall no less than 398 times. I honestly didn't care where it was in the home, I just simply wanted it. One day, a few weeks ago, on one of our morning walks I brought up my desire for board and batten again. We discussed the where, why and how, and I realized that this was further in the conversation that I had gotten in past years.  My husband explained his apprehensions (he's a perfectionist, I am not) and I realized that he wanted to feel like he knew what he was doing before he took on a large project. Outlets and switches were intimidating and while he's a handy guy, finish work isn't always his specialty.

We talked about the walls. Easy spaces that had more wall and less obstacle and decided to give DIY board and batten a try in our kid's bathroom. We started researching DIY blog posts and I sent him links to tutorials that I found. One afternoon he came back to me and said you know, all those tutorials you sent to me are just batten. There is no board for them.  We have textured walls. You don't want to just slap up boards and then have the texturing underneath them, do you? 

I did not. That seemed sloppy to me. If I was finally going to get the board and batten wall that I wanted, I wanted a TRUE board and batten wall. And so my friends, this little spring refresh is a tutorial for those of you out there who have textured walls and want to install true board and batten and not just batten.

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Shrimp Hobo Foil Dinner Recipe

One of my most vivid memories as a kid was going to sleep away camp. For the first time ever, I made a meal in foil and cooked it over the campfire. I was so proud of that meal. Pretty sure it was the first thing in my life I had ever cooked. Fast forward now and I've made plenty of meals now, but my favorites are the ones that can be made in one dish, either over the fire in a foil packet or in a sheet pan. This shrimp hobo foil dinner is not only easy to make, it's the perfect summer meal for camping or for an easy clean up backyard BBQ meal. Come get the recipe and put it on your summer list!

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Clean Your Gas Range and Oven Without Chemicals

I don't know of many people that decide to just clean their oven on a regular basis. Heck, to be honest, I haven't cleaned mine since we moved in 8 years ago. I actually bought a huge bottle of this toxic oven cleaner, sprayed it inside and let it sit overnight before I could get in there to do any cleaning. {to be honest, the oven cleaner is better suited as a furniture stripper!} That's probably why I haven't cleaned the range since then. No one has time for a multiple day cleaning project. No one.

But alas, I was pulling my Costco sized lasagna out of the oven and that thing went rogue on me and I spilled the whole thing all over the oven door and inside the racks. I wasn't done cooking the lasagna yet so that stuff got baked on. Awesome. Nothing like a huge spill to encourage you to clean your oven, so the next day I went to work. To be honest, I wasn't sure I could clean my gas range with just steam but dang it if I wasn't impressed. Not a single chemical was used and in under an hour, top to bottom, every nook and cranny was clean. Don't take my word on it, come find out how you can clean your gas range and oven without any chemicals.

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How To Stain Stamped Concrete: You Can Do It Yourself!

There are some DIY projects that just seem so overwhelming that you just want to hire it out. Staining a worn-out stamped concrete driveway was one of those projects. My dear friend and old neighbor and I met up one day for a super spontaneous lunch. Over lunch we were catching up and she asked me what I was working on. I told her about a project with my favorite paint sprayer and she told me that the lack of a paint sprayer was what was holding her back from this DIY project she wanted to do. Really, it was almost more of an excuse because this project was going to take some time and seemed like something that should be left for the pros. But for some reason, that afternoon, we put our heads together and decided to try to tackle this concrete project together because what could go wrong? There is something about getting two women together that makes you think that you can conquer the world...or at least a big DIY project. 

The stamped concrete driveway leading up to her beautiful waterfront home had seen better days. At one point it had been stained but now it was looking pale and worn down. The stain seemed to have all come off. The project had been on her to-do list, but it seemed so overwhelming, so it kept getting pushed back.

We decided to tackle it together and I can't believe what a difference it made! What seemed like a job for a professional, was done by two women coming together to tackle a DIY project that really wasn't that difficult. It was kind of one of those, where do I start projects, which is why I'm sharing with you the how to, so that you can stain concrete like a pro!

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