Getting crafty in the Big House.

We had our first house guests! My parents were our first to come and stay this weekend and it was so nice to have a couple extra hands to help out and enjoy our new space. I wish I could say we had the guest bedrooms and bathrooms in our home, perfectly prepped and stocked with beautiful bath products and freshly pressed sheets. I did manage to round up a few travel sized shampoos and asked them to bring their own pillows and blankets! Just keeping it real folks. Hopefully those days will come soon when we will be able to put together beautiful rooms for family and friends. While my dad helped Nathan with some handy projects, my mom helped as my crafting and baking assistant.

Our first crafty project takes a little bit of foraging, paint, paint brushes, polyurethane, paper towel roll and a glue gun. We took a basket and headed out to the yard to hunt for acorns! It wasn't much of a hunt because there are a ton of these little ankle rolling babies in the front yard/driveway. We also gathered a few pinecones. I love finding new uses for things that take just a little effort to get and are FREE! We painted each bottom part of the acorn using our favorite coordinating acrylic paint colors. Nathan and I have a very simple color palette planned for our home but love bringing in color with accessories so we decided to go bold with these paint choices. So wild, I know! Once you paint the bottoms and let them dry completely use a paper towel roll to cut small rings to make the rounded form of our napkin rings. We then hot glued the acorns around to fit and set to cool. Spray with a thin layer of polyurethane to give a nice pearly finish.

As for the pinecones, I decided to paint just a few scales here and there to make simple name place cards. There you have it, a cute set of napkin rings and name place card holders. These rang in at $0. We had all of the leftover supplies from previous projects.

 TIP: look for acrylic paints on sale at your local craft stores for as low as 25 cents a bottle. I've collected dozens of colors this way to use for assorted things from DIY wedding details to Christmas gifts.