DIY Covered Light Switch Plate

This is a really (and I mean really!) easy DIY to pretty up your boring old white light switch plate.

What you'll need:

A very small piece of fabric
Scissors
Light switch plate
Mod Podge
Paint brush (I used a 3/4" brush)

Step 1: Measure and cut out your fabric to cover the switch plate. Leave about 1/2", or a little more, hanging off the sides.


Step 2: Spread a layer of Mod Podge on the front of your plate, then place and center your piece of fabric over the glue.


Step 3: Turn the plate over an spread some glue around the edges of the plate. Fold over the excess fabric. You may need to add some more glue to make sure it sticks. Make sure your corners are nicely tucked! Wait 10-15 minutes for the glue to dry a bit.

Don't try to be all pretty on the back, I obviously wasn't too worried about it :)

Step 4: Flip the plate back over. Cut a slit in the fabric where your light switch is supposed to poke through. I just cut a slit from top to bottom of the rectangle, then made small snips up to each of the corners.


Step 5: Flip the plate over to the back. Place some glue around the hole you just made and fold the little bit of fabric back, just like you did the edges of the plate in Step 3.

Step 6: Flip it back over to the front! (Are you tired of flipping yet?). Paint a layer of Mod Podge over your fabric. Let dry for 15-20 minutes.

Step 7: Guess what? Flip your plate back over and paint a layer of Mod Podge over the bit of fabric that you'd folded over the edges. Let dry.

Step 8: Forget to poke holes in the fabric for your screws. Or not. Please don't forget to poke holes in your fabric for your light switch screws! I just poked a hole in the fabric after it was dry (with some sharp scissors!), and it worked fine.


And now, you're done! It really is super easy and barely takes any time (besides the drying part!).

Re-Post: Favorite little table

I wanted to go back and find this old post from 2 years ago, because I still love my little table :) And I probably have tons of new readers (um, I hope?). Enjoy!



This weekend we were cleaning and Chris was re-arranging some furniture in the living room. I have this hideous pink $10 table the was from Ikea and it's been sitting in the living room covered with magazines. Yuck. I had it in my old room back at home when my color theme was grey, white and pink. So Chris says, why don't we re-paint it or something? So all day I was trying to think of the best way to cover the table: paint? wallpaper? contact paper? wrapping paper? I finally got annoyed searching online for a few hours and decided the best and quickest way would be to get some mod podge and cute wrapping paper. I grabbed my mom and we hit up Michaels and Target. And $10 bucks later...voila!

Before:

After:

On Crafty-ness: Easy V-day Cards

Valentine's Day is all fine and dandy I guess, I've never been that into it. These days (hah, I sound old) I think of it more as a time to love your family and friends, not just your significant other!

So my work just moved a few doors down from a scrapbooking store (yikes!), and I wandered in there the other day. Right smack when you walk in was a huge display of Valentine's Day inspired items. Aka, the cutest papers you have ever seen. So right then and there I decided I wanted to make Valentines for not just Chris, but other people in my life that I love. So I went around and picked up various papers here and there.

I was making these tonight, took a few pictures, and decided I'd do a little blog tutorial. So hopefully I inspire a few of you to make some cute, cheap and easy cards :)

Supplies:
-A variety of cardstock. I picked up plain white, rose and chocolate.
-Some cute scrapbooking paper, valentine-ish.
-Scissors! Regular old scissors work fine. Bonus if you happen to have any funky ones.
-A good black pen. Other colors if you want, but black is my go-to. Silver pens are great to have as well (awesome for dark colored paper!).
-Some type of scrapbooking adhesive (see picture below). I like the rollers, but the little sticky square are fine too :) Notice I am very technical with my terms.
-Paper cutter. Not mandatory, but nice (and very handy) to have.
**Other ideas: this could be a very long list, but, any fabric, felt, stickers, vellum, etc. If you have it laying around and it'll work for v-day cards, go for it.

Step 1:
Take a sheet of cardstock (mine were 12"x12") and cut into quarters. These will be the "base" of your cards, if you will. Repeat for as many as you plan on making.

Note: I didn't only use the plain cardstock as the "base" of my cards, I used some patterned ones, too :)

Step 2:
Cut and semi-assemble (don't glue yet) your other "pretty" papers (and/or fabric!) with your squares. I mainly just cut squares and rectangles...kept it easy. If you happen to have more time, this is where you can get creative by cutting different shapes, layering, etc.

Once you kind of have an idea of some various designs, start laying them out like I have below. Again, you don't need to glue anything down yet.

Step 3:
Now that your designs are all laid out, you can use any of the special scissors you have to make any paper edges pretty. This is optional of course.

Step 4:
Finish your assembling and glue, glue, glue!

Step 5:
Now that everything is all adhered together, you can add stickers, stamps, and write your little love notes. And that's all, folks!

I realize that most of this is really simple, but I just wanted to show you guys that is IS actually easy. Especially making a bunch at once, plus it's cheaper than buying your standard $3, $4 cards :) Plus, who doesn't love a cute handmade card?

PS, it took me about an hour to do 10 cards.

Tonight is...

Tonight is Pillsbury Simply chocolate chip cookies. Image via here.

Tonight is homemade lattes. Image via here.

Tonight is making valentine's day cards. Image via here.

Tonight is watching How I Met Your Mother.

...and Heroes :)

Tonight is a good Monday night, how is/was yours?