The other day, I was browsing Pinterest for a few minutes (okay, maybe a tad longer than that), & I came across a picture of a window squeegee. What’s so interesting about that? Well, right next to the squeegee, on the carpeted floor, was a pile of fur/fuzz & a caption that promised you could “Use a squeegee to remove pet hair from carpet!”. Since we have a dog (AKA puppyson), I thought this might be worth a look!
Of course, when I clicked the link, it went no where. No directions, no more details.. nothing. Sad day. Did I give up? No siree Bob! Instead, I high tailed it over to our friendly neighborhood Dollar Store, picked up a squeegee, & decided to “test” it on the carpet, & see if there really was something to this claim.
First, I made sure to thoroughly vacuum the carpet. I didn’t want to give this whole squeegee thing undo credit for removing a bunch of dog hair, if I hadn’t even vacuumed yet!
Second, I tried out a few different ways of pushing/pulling the squeegee… for some reason, I apparently thought pushing it was the brilliant thing to do… & then I luckily remembered how to use one of these things on a window, & came to the conclusion it was obviously easier (& you know, more NORMAL) to pull it towards me instead.
After finishing the living room/hallway I vacuumed again, in case there was any loose hair or dust, & also to fluff up the carpet a bit.
Here are a couple pics of what came out of my carpet:
It is a little hard to tell from these images, but there definitely was A LOT of hair in that ball of fuzz…. We have a short hair dog (white & brindle), so he doesn’t shed too badly. Even so, I didn’t realize just how much hair was in the carpet until I tried this neat little trick! However, be careful how hard you scrape with the squeegee, because it did pull up quite a bit of carpet fiber. Our carpets are only a couple of years old, so that could be the reason there was an excess of carpet fibers though.
I wouldn’t do this too often, but every few months I will repeat this process. It took some time to do, but when I was done our carpets looked BRAND NEW.
Lesson #1: Your floors are never as clean as you think they are.
Lesson #2: Just because there is no link to follow on that awesome looking Pinterest picture, doesn’t mean you can’t figure it out yourself!!
If you try this, I would love to know your results!
– Laura
So, One thing to know about me, is that I love trying new things… & I am not afraid to fail. Sure, it can be completely frustrating to spend hours on a project, only to realize it was a total fail… but you never know until you try, right? Right.
Which is why I decided to be adventurous with my Valentine wreath, & instead of making something predictable (you will learn that my love of all things vintage makes me lean towards burlap, lace, old keys, etc far too often), I decided to try a cupcake liner wreath.
Oh, but not just any cupcake liner wreath. A pink & zebra cupcake liner Valentine wreath, to be exact. Go big or go home, I decided.
I first saw cupcake liners used on wreaths via Pinterest, & I really liked the concept. Since I was in Hobby Lobby shopping with my lovely friend (and fellow blogger) Jess, I decided to go with something less traditional. You know those friends who always encourage you to try new things, be more creative, & step out of the box once in awhile? Yep, that’s Jess. Below are the steps on how to make your own cupcake wreath, & a list of items you will need:
Hot glue gun
Styrofoam wreath
2 packs of Cupcake liners (Hobby Lobby has a huge variety!)
Ribbon of your choice (As you see later in this post, I misjudged the exact amount of ribbon, & to be perfectly honest, have NO recollection of how much I even purchased.. blogger fail, I know.)
I chose to add a little more decoration to my wreath, however I love the way they look with just the liners, so just be creative & see what works!
First, I was checking out my cupcake liners, & trying to decide the best way to attach them onto my wreath. The problem I was running into, was that the inside of the liner was white, & I really couldn’t stand that much white showing when I scrunched it up to hot glue onto the wreath… so I turned the cupcake liner on the right inside out, like the picture below:
And then I stick it inside of the cupcake liner on the left. Simple enough, & it actually made the wreath look fuller faster as well. The only problem I ran into, was that I had to put a dot of hot glue in between the liners to make sure they stayed together when I attached them to the wreath. Why was this a problem? Because the liners are so thin that I ended up burning my fingertips quite a few times, just so that I could have the look I wanted…
I used the pink ribbon to wrap around the wreath, that way if there were gaps in the liners, you wouldn’t see the white of the wreath, & also because I assumed the glue would attach better to the ribbon (which, so far, seems to be the case!)
I ran out of ribbon when I had about a 4 in gap left.. but I didn’t let that worry me, I ended up wrapping the rest with the zebra print ribbon, as you will see further in the post. Once I had secured the ends of the pink ribbon with hot glue, I started to add the cupcake liners!! I spaced them just far enough a part so there were no visible gaps, & just kind of “went with it” until I achieved the look I wanted. When attaching the liners with hot glue, you need to hold the liner in place for a few seconds, before releasing, to ensure the glue has cooled & the liners won’t fall off/reposition.
I found these zebra striped flowers at Michael’s for $1, & knew I had to use them somehow.. so I cut of the head of the flower & hot glued it off to the side on the bottom of the wreath, & added a felt heart sticker (also from Michael’s in a pack of 4 for $1). I then made a loop from the zebra print ribbon & attached it to the top of the wreath. Even though I started this project with the intention of using this as a Valentine wreath, in the end I gifted this to a friend for her baby shower. Her nursery theme? Hot pink & zebra print. I know, kind of perfect! I was flattered to visit her after baby was born, & see this on the nursery door 🙂 Definitely worth the time (& burned fingertips).
Thanks for reading,
L.
Vintage Chickadee 