Door Décor: Buckle Up, Cowboy!

I decided to challenge myself the other weekend. I thought the front door of W's new apartment looked rather bare, so I took it upon myself to make a door hanger that was manly (his stipulation). And... let's just say the front door is still bare, but the Texas pride shelf in the apartment has a new addition! Eh, I tried. :P

I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking this one up all on my own (aka I didn't find it on Pinterest, although I'm sure it's on there somewhere!). First off, I gathered a slew of belts in Texan colors - red, white, and blue - and a sturdy wooden frame (which was 99 cents!).

The belts were a steal - the gray tags were even discounted at half off!

Total cost for belts: $10.81 (the pink tag was 15% off)

I tested out my idea in the thrift store, so I knew I was coming home with the right amount of belts for what I wanted. After snipping off all the tags, I settled down to work.

I began by wrapping my first belt around the frame and securing it tightly on the back. I played around with the idea of having the belt buckles show but opted for a cleaner look by hiding them.

After wrapping and spacing both of my white belts, I moved to the reds.

To keep the extra lengths from flapping, I slipped a rubber band on each belt and fed the extra bit through until it was smooth and taut. Did this require me to unbuckle/rebuckle each belt? Yes, yes it did. Hindsight is 20/20. I could have trimmed and/or glued the leftover pieces, but I wasn't convinced that these belts' journeys would end as part of a door display, so I left them fully intact, just in case.

I purposefully aligned the buckles on the side opposite the blue in order to balance out the extra weight that came with wrapping two additional belts (three, if you count the star) around one end of the frame.

I linked the two blue belts together to form a single long one, then wrapped it around the left side three times, buckling and banding it in the back. The star was a bit trickier, and I ended up just knotting my final white belt into a rough star-like shape. I think it hints enough at the real thing. :P

I tied a length of suede cord to each top corner, and voilà! There you have it! A manly Texan door hanger shelf adornment for my, well, manly Texan. ;)

QR Coasters

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of visiting my boyfriend's bachelor pad for the first time. Among other things, there was a notable lack of coasters for his freshly-purchased (and newly constructed with the help of yours truly) IKEA coffee table. Since W is well-aware of my crafty tendencies, he made an offhand comment that I could "make some crafty ones." I tucked that little statement away, mulled it over, and came up with an idea that manifested itself as these:

But let me start from the beginning. As you might be aware, one of my favorite crafting pastimes is cross-stitching (proof, more proof, even more proof). While cross stitch isn't always the most manliest of things (I'm thinking of the samplers of yore), I'd already experienced success with cross-stitching QR code magnets for friends' Facebook pages in the past, which made me think that such an approach would work for coasters as well.

I followed similar steps to those outlined in the blog post above, using a free QR code generator (like this one) to turn my web addresses into QR codes, which then function as ready-made cross stitching templates, thanks to the beauty of pixelation. What web addresses did I use, you ask? Well, I knew I wanted to create a set of four coasters, and I knew I didn't want to cross stitch the same pattern four times. So, I decided to do a series. For the sake of consistency, I elected to use Wikipedia sites for the basis of all my codes, varying the content to reflect my boyfriend's interests. Since I'm dating a Texan, the first one had to be the Alamo, with Hank Williams coming in as a close second. :P Since I also happen to be dating a former seminary boy, G.K. Chesterton has made it into quite a few of our conversations, and therefore into the coaster series. And since the best presents include inside jokes, the last one was for Yorkies. ;)

I also wanted to deviate some from the typical black-and-white QR color scheme, and since W is a proud Aggie, I settled on using Texas A&M colors (which are technically maroon and white, but I mixed in the black) for my coasters.

I varied the color-mixing across the codes, experimenting with different layouts. I grew more confident in my integration skills as I went along, but I'm not going to lie and say I didn't have to go back and rework a few places where I had gotten off-track. ;)

After completing the stitching, my next step was turning these bad boys into coasters. I had originally purchased cork squares from Michaels to use, but I wasn't sure how to make them work. Then I stumbled on these babies at Target. Their little rimmed edges seemed perfect for my project, especially since I wasn't sure how to keep the edges of my Aida cloth from unraveling. I had already picked up a bottle of spray adhesive at Michaels, so I was prepped and ready to go!

I made a template (using junk mail!) to aid in trimming out my codes to fit inside the coaster rims. Once all four codes were trimmed out, I attached each code to its coaster using my spray adhesive. Tip: You should cover your surfaces with newspaper before using spray adhesive indoors because of the overspray (this stuff is hard to get off your hands, so I can't imagine what it would be like on counters/tables).  I then weighted the coasters with cans overnight to ensure smooth bonding.

While they came out like I had imagined, I wasn't thrilled - despite my best intentions, my coasters still looked a little rough around the edges, literally:

Then inspiration struck - I remembered that I had leftover black/white baker's twine from my birthday party last year, which would be perfect for edging the Aida cloth! I located it in my craft drawers and set to work. Using craft glue (with toothpicks as applicators), I rimmed the edges of my fabric with the baker's twine, with awesome results.

So. Much. Better. It didn't take me long to trim out all four coasters and, after allowing them time to dry again, bundle them together to take with me on my next trip down to L-ville. It was so much fun giving them to W, since he was not only impressed by their appearance, but also had a blast discovering what each one was as he scanned the code with his phone. Definite win for this girlfriend. :)