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Home » How To

How To

Easy Fishtail Braid

September 1, 2018 1 Comment

Easy Fishtail Braid

Okay Okay.. Here I am, vulnerable for all you to see.

I never thought I would be a hair or makeup blogger because that just isn’t my thing and I’ve never been one to know how to even apply makeup or do my hair properly, but over the last few weeks I’ve received a lot of people asking me to do a “How To” blog on an Easy Fishtail Braid. Truth be told, my directions will probably suck as it’s hard to show how to braid over pictures, but it’s so easy. Once you can get the hang of pulling hair from other areas to form fatter braids, it will be super easy for you and you will be able to do it with your eyes closed.

I feel like I need to make a disclaimer because I’m the worst with these kinds of things

1. I like my hair extra “messy” looking and imperfect

2. I suck at giving directions

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, lets go!

Brush you hair well and part your hair on the right or left, but you want to put the part far over.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Second, take two big chunks of hair that you will be starting your braid with

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Now this is the tricky part to explain. Once you have your two pieces of hair, you want to cross them over to create your first fishtail. Once You’ve crossed them over, you want to start to grab hair on the one side to make it thicker. Each time you do a fishtail you want to grab hair with each strand. This doesn’t give you more strands, it just makes your existing strands thicker until you’ve incorporated all the hair.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Once you have all the hair in your fishtail braid you want to tie it off with a clear elastic. Then you can start pulling apart your braids. Not actually, but pulling the two side of the braid apart to make it fatter.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

and then the absolutely last thing I like to do is put bobby pins in the sides to “umph” it up a bit. You can skip this step but my hair is very heavy and straight, so the more volume I can get, the better.

I also like to pull a few pieces around my face as I like a messier look.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

Easy Fishtail Braid Tutorial. How to Braid Your Hair in Under Two Minutes. How TO Get it Extra Big with lots of volume.

and there you have it, an ultra easy fishtail braid that should take you under two minutes!

Let me know how I did in the comments, was this an easy tutorial or are you still in the dark?

Thanks for stopping by as always, it means so much to me!

Jess Name

Filed Under: Hair + Makeup Tagged With: Easy Braid, Fishtail Braid, Hair, Hair Tutorial, How To

DIY Wood Corbels

January 6, 2018 4 Comments

Ever since Joanna Gaines become a someone and launched “Fixer Upper” I’ve been go-go ga-ga over anything architectural, especially the coveted corbels. I’ve wanted a pair for years, but my budget never allowed it. I got a knock off pair of corbels here 18 months ago, for those of you who cannot for the life of you DIY. But I still had a yearning for a real wood pair. I know they won’t be antique. But I’ve had to let go of that want a long time ago. If you’ve checked out the price of antique corbels it will make your head spin.

So, I’m here today to tell you that you CAN make DIY Corbels in the comfort of your own home with a bit of patience. At the bottom of this blog I will link the pattern we used for these corbels. You can try to free hand it – but I highly discourage you against it. Tracing off a pattern will make your life way easier and this process way faster.

These Corbels come in 3 layers. The two outer layers which is made out of 1″ wood, and the middle which is made out of 2″ wood. We used whatever scraps we had left in our garage, so these corbels were completely free, but if you have to buy wood, it will cost you under 10 dollars. Knotty Pine is dirt cheap and you only need two boards. Below is a shop list for those that have none of the items at home.

 

Shop List For DIY Corbels

-1 1x6x6′ Board ( Pine is cheapest )

-1 2x6x5′ Board

-Jigsaw or Bandsaw. We used our Roybi Jigsaw

-Wood Glue or Nail Gun to connect pieces

-Your choice of finish ( Paint, Stain etc )

-Sand Paper ( We used our orbital sander )

 

This is very straight forward, you want to trace your wood out on the stencils you printed. Once you’ve done that, It’s time to cut the wood. You’re basically tracing out the wood with your jigsaw which requires a steady hand. So if you think you aren’t steady, find someone who is.

Once all three pieces are cut out, you can attach them. Some like to use wood glue, but we used wood glue and our nail gun. The nail gun leaves extremely tiny holes that you can either leave as it looks more beat up, or you can fill with wood filler.

Since I have no patience, I started painting right away. A normal human would wait for the wood glue to dry, I don’t. ALTHOUGH, if you only use wood glue, it’s vital you let them dry prior to working on them.

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

Ashley over at Handmade Heaven has an awesome stencil for these DIY Wood Corbels we made. You can find her stencil, here.

White Picket Farmhouse Signature

How To make DIY Corbels in a few hours. Save a ton of money and do it yourself. Stencils and Corbel Pattern Available to Print Off. Do it yourself Corbels, Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Styling, Farmhouse Corbels

 

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: Antiqued Corbels, Corbel Pattern, Corbel Printables, Corbel Stencil, Corbels, Distressed Corbels, DIY, DIY Corbels, Do It Yoursef Corbels, How To, Styled Corbels, Wooden Corbels

The Free Dresser That We Transformed

December 14, 2017 Leave a Comment

This paint was gifted to me by Rustoleum. But the opinions are solely my own.

I’ve been dying to share this little DIY project with you guys. In the name of the game, we’ve been trying to update our home for free. Yep, you heard it, FREE. We found this free dresser from a friend and took it home. We didn’t realize until we got home that the base was so badly chewed by a dog. It was basically unsalvageable. Trust me, we tried.

So, we decided to blindly rip the base off, not knowing if it would fully ruin the piece. I was quite nervous because at that point, I had full painted it. But guess what? It worked and we replaced it with a basic 1X6 for a more modern look.

Here’s how the dresser looked pre-paint. It actually had really nice bones, minus the base that we sanded for over an hour and it just wouldn’t “blend”.

The free dresser that we transformed into a farmhouse tv stand. Media stand, refinished furniture, milk paint

For this job Rust-Oleum gifted me this Milk Paint to use on my project & I’m going to give you a full rundown on what I thought of this specific paint.

I’ve used quite a few different brands of milk paint, so I feel I have a good gauge on what I’m talking about

 

Firstly, what is “Milk Paint?” Milk paint is a nontoxic water-based paint. It can be made from milk and lime, generally with pigments added for color. … Milk Paint is commonly sold in the powder form, which is a combination of casein and lime.

To be quite honest with you, I’m not sure if Rust-Oleum has another agent in their paint, but it didn’t crackle away like all the other brands I’ve used have done. Which made me a bit sad, because I love that look. One of the positives about this paint is it has extremely good coverage. It will cover any surface. This dresser had a gloss on it prior to painting it, and it covered it with ease. I even used it on the handles, and I only had to do two coats.

The directions on the container are super straight forward and you can use the actual container to paint out of & mix in. Super easy peasy and it made literally no mess whatsoever.

Here’s how our dresser turned out after the second coat was completed. I did give it a a little sand and distressed it. I found this paint distresses really easily and it didn’t leave scratch marks  for a more authentic distressed look.

Overall I would give this paint a B. The only reason I give it a B is because I was expecting it to crackle like most other milk paints I’ve used. If it was labelled a chalk paint, I would give it an A+

Our Free Dresser We refinished. Easy DIY With Milk Paint, How to Turn an Ugly piece of furniture into a gorgeous new piece. Refinished furniture, DIY Furniture, Rustoleum Chalk Paint, Milk Paint.

Our Free Dresser We refinished. Easy DIY With Milk Paint, How to Turn an Ugly piece of furniture into a gorgeous new piece. Refinished furniture, DIY Furniture, Rustoleum Chalk Paint, Milk Paint.

Our Free Dresser We refinished. Easy DIY With Milk Paint, How to Turn an Ugly piece of furniture into a gorgeous new piece. Refinished furniture, DIY Furniture, Rustoleum Chalk Paint, Milk Paint.

Our Free Dresser We refinished. Easy DIY With Milk Paint, How to Turn an Ugly piece of furniture into a gorgeous new piece. Refinished furniture, DIY Furniture, Rustoleum Chalk Paint, Milk Paint.

Our Free Dresser We refinished. Easy DIY With Milk Paint, How to Turn an Ugly piece of furniture into a gorgeous new piece. Refinished furniture, DIY Furniture, Rustoleum Chalk Paint, Milk Paint.

Our Free Dresser We refinished. Easy DIY With Milk Paint, How to Turn an Ugly piece of furniture into a gorgeous new piece. Refinished furniture, DIY Furniture, Rustoleum Chalk Paint, Milk Paint.

 

Hope you guys are having the most amazing week ever & don’t forget to share this on Pinterest

Jess Name

 

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: Decor, DIY, Dresser, Farmhouse, How To, Media Stand, Paint, Refinished Furniture, Rustoelum, TV Stand

How To Paint Laminate & MDF Furniture

October 30, 2017 6 Comments

Hello and happy almost Halloween.

In our home we do not celebrate Halloween. But we do allow the kids to go around the block and grab some candy + normally we have a few family members over and play games or watch a movie. Easy, simple and then the next day we are normally planning our Christmas decorations.

Over the last week I was lucky to be given this dresser from my aunt. It had really pretty bones, but it wasn’t real wood. I’ve painted a few laminate and MDF pieces in the past and so I thought I would write a blog and give you a few pointers when painting over this type of surface. I must admit, it isn’t as easy as painting over wood and there are a few extra steps. But if you can take an extra 3o minutes to do them, you will be left with a piece that will scream at you – in a good way 😉

The below image is screaming to be pinned as I couldn’t find a ton of info on Pinterest about painting over these two types of surfaces.

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

 

Shop List

  1. Paint Brush
  2. Roller
  3. Paint any kind, but I used a all-in-one Primer/Paint from Home Depot. Behr “Snow Fall”
  4. Spray Paint for Knobs / or new knobs
  5. Wax or Varnish for protection ( this is an optional step, but a step I always do )
  6. Sand Paper
  7. Rag to whip down dresser before painting

Alright, so this is going to be a super easy step-by-step tutorial, but sometimes if you aren’t used to refinishing furniture, it’s good to take another read.

Here’s what the dresser looked like in the first place. I took out all the drawers and did a light sand over it. This step cannot be skipped. If you skip it, the paint will have a hard time adhering to the surface & could bubble. It takes off some of the gloss and will  make the actual painting process MUCH easier & faster.

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

The sanding process probably took me all of 15 minutes. I sanded down all the surfaces that would touch paint. Then once I was done, I wiped the entire dresser down with an old rag, so there wouldn’t be particles of dust in the finish.

Next, you want to grab your roller. I picked a large roller because it’s what we had on hand and I wanted this whole project to cost us nothing. If you have a smaller dresser, a smaller roller would be best.

I rolled all surfaces that were flat ( which was most of the dresser )

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

As you can see, the coverage isn’t amazing with the first coat. I did a total of three coats. But the second and third coat go MUCH faster than the first. Also, if you’re not a patient person like myself, remember how much you’re saving in this process.

Second, grab your brush and paint over all the hard to reach places that your roller can’t get to. Once I’ve done this, I like to roll over flat areas again so that there is MINIMAL brush strokes in my project.

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

Here’s what the dresser looked like once the first coat was completely on. Do not be alarmed, once you have the last coat on, it will start looking brand new and stunning.

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

….and the third coat drying.

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

It’s literally that easy. The secret is to sand your piece down prior to painting and a good roller will help too!

Now, a question of what to use for protection. I love love love my clear wax from Old Barn Milk Paint. But if I’m lazy ( and I am often ) I will use this polyurethane from Home Depot. You must only purchase this can as it is literally the only brand/type of varnish that I’ve ever used that has not slightly yellowed the surface of the white paint.

You can either roll it on ( which I prefer ) or you can paint it on. If you use a paint brush, know that if the sunlight hits your piece, you *might* see brush strokes in the surface.

Drying Times –

I left an hour between each coat of paint and Behr is an extremely fast drying paint. The varnish needs about 12 hours to “cure” before you put anything on your dresser, but it will be dry to touch in an hour.

and that’s it folks! Easy Peasy and this project cost us NOTHING. Someday we will be changing out the knobs, but we were out of spray paint and didn’t want to cough up the money for new knobs right now, so I had these cute librarian knobs in storage so I put them on.

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

How to Paint over Laminate and MDF Furniture . Super easy tips to make your painting job easy and flawless . Dresser revamp, refinished furniture , refinished furniture

 

 

signature

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: DIY, How To, laminate, mdf, new dresser, Paint, refinished dresser, Refinished Furniture, tutorial

DIY | Faux Metal Coffee Table

July 20, 2016 2 Comments

The last couple of weeks and months have been a whirlwind of orders, endless emails, decision making and stress. We finally decided yesterday morning that we will be closing our Rugged Rooster business indefinitely.

If you’re new to our blog, we’ve built rustic furniture from scratch for three years now. We’ve been blessed to have had amazing clients and built over 1700 pieces but there has to come a time in life when you need to say no to stress. We’ve been so incredibly blessed to stay home with our kids, even if it had us working 10 – 14 hour days with the rare day off.

One of our customers asked if we would be putting up tutorials of our pieces, so you can start to build them, and the answer is YES. So I’m here today to post a  how to build a faux metal coffee table.

Since we do not have the resources to make the drawings and edited versions I’ll be sending you over to Ana White. It’s a super easy, straight forward project. The only thing I would recommend, if you would like to do a really good sand on your table top, is leave a slight 1/2″ overhang on all sides. It also makes it way easier to paint the base & stain the top.

Build A Faux Metal Coffee Table In A Few Hours, Save hundreds of dollars and learn this easy DIY method, Little tools needed for this modern coffee table

Build A Faux Metal Coffee Table In A Few Hours, Save hundreds of dollars and learn this easy DIY method, Little tools needed for this modern coffee table

We sanded down the top, and then took a chain to beat it up, see method here. We then took Sunbleached Oak, by Minwax and applied one light coat to the top. You want to let it sink in for about 5 minutes. Wipe off in one continuous direction until no  stain comes off when you wipe. We let our pieces sit for about 3-5 hours ( depending on the humidity in the air ) and then we apply two coats of matte polyurethane.

Build A Faux Metal Coffee Table In A Few Hours, Save hundreds of dollars and learn this easy DIY method, Little tools needed for this modern coffee table

For the base we purchased a fine tip paint brush and a can of matte black paint. You can also spray paint the base as well, but you need to make sure you completely wrap the top before doing so. I love the look of the black paint as it goes on a bit thicker than spray paint so it looks like true metal.

Build A Faux Metal Coffee Table In A Few Hours, Save hundreds of dollars and learn this easy DIY method, Little tools needed for this modern coffee table

You can also plane all your boards down so that it has a more seamless look, but we wanted the top to look a bit more rustic as it has a very modern base.

Head on over to AnaWhite to check out her take on this fun Faux Metal Coffee Table. We made our version before Ana came out with hers ( replicating a Restoration Hardware coffee table ), but since it’s practically the same, you do the same steps.

Ana does an amazing job, as per usual, but she uses skinny 1×3 planks instead of the thicker 2×8 planks that we use. Keep in mind when buying wood from a store, it is always less than the marked dimension. So 2×8’s are 1.5″ x 7 1/4″. So you need to keep that in mind when you are building you base.

I hope you liked this tutorial on how to make a faux metal coffee table. If you have any additional questions, pop a question below and I would love to answer. We’ve built over 30 of these coffee tables for our clients and so we can tell you what will and wont work.

Have an absolutely fantastic week!

jessicasarasignature

Build This Easy Faux Metal Coffee Table In Under 4 hours & Under 75 Dollars, Modern Rustic Coffee Table, Easy DIY, Ana White DIY.

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: Ana White, Build, built, coffee table, DIY, faux metal coffee table, How To, tutorial, Wood, woodworker

Super Easy Farmhouse Shutters

May 14, 2016 Leave a Comment

Want to learn how to make super easy farmhouse shutters? This project is super effortless and easy. Anyone can do them. If you have been a following my blog, you know I love imperfect and uneven decor. I love to mix it with modern pieces to create the coziest home decor. I made these shutters about six months ago but the place I made them for they didn’t quite work. I recently stumbled upon these amazing pink chairs, see the redo here, and they have made me revaluate my room. I love color. But when there are too many colors fighting for attention I go a bit crazy. I love blues and greys and I had quite a bit in my living room. The existing shutters were a dark grey-blue and although I adored them.. they totally clashed with my pink chairs! Something needed to change, and then I remembered I had these old shutters. Cue in a big smiley heart.

Super easy farmhouse Shutters, Farmhouse shutters

[Read more…] about Super Easy Farmhouse Shutters

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: Country, DIY, Farmhouse, How To, Living Room, Shutters

How to Make A Magnolia Wreath – Fixer Upper Style

April 8, 2016 Leave a Comment

I’ve wanted a magnolia wreath for so long. It all started over a year ago when I saw Fixer Upper’s Signature Magnolia Wreath. But the price tag was just too high. That darn exchange rate I tell yah! Every time I saw it plastered all over pinterest and google It made me want it even more. My heart hurt. Like, pained every time I scrolled past. Okay… so maybe not hurt, but I had to have major willpower, guys!  MESOTHELIOMA LAW FIRM, DONATE CAR TO CHARITY CALIFORNIA, DONATE CAR FOR TAX CREDIT, DONATE CARS IN MA, Magnolia Wreath, Magnolia, HGTV, Magnolia Wreath, Joanna Gaines, Magnolia Wreath, DIY Wreath
[Read more…] about How to Make A Magnolia Wreath – Fixer Upper Style

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: DIY, DIY Magnolia Wreath, Dollar Store, Fixer Upper, HGTV, How To, Magnolia Homes, Magnolia Wreath, Walmart

DIY | Turn Anything Into Barnwood

April 5, 2016 14 Comments

Ever since receiving my Fat Paint in the mail a few weeks ago, the wheels have been turning. It’s not secret that I love barnwood, but it’s hard to find. When we build our furniture it is all out of new pine as we don’t have access to barnwood, so the vintage/farmhouse look is hard to achieve.  I grew very tired of this sofa table. It just seemed so harsh to me. I love light colors and soft touches. As I was scrolling last night I came across Bless’er House. She turned her ugly black sofa table into barnwood – and the light bulbs went off! I knew I had to try it! Barnwood, DIY BarnWood, Make barnwood, Buy barnwood, Easy barnwood, Find barnwood on vancouver island, buy barnwood vancouver

[Read more…] about DIY | Turn Anything Into Barnwood

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: Barn Wood, barnwood, barnwood furniture, Chalk Paint, Dark Wax, DIY, Fat Paint, How To, painted Furntiture, The Fat Paint Company, Transformation

Chemical Free Dyed Easter Eggs

March 28, 2016 Leave a Comment

Just popping on for a quick sec to post this awesome tutorial my boys & I completed today. It was easy, not too messy and the end results are so pretty!

[Read more…] about Chemical Free Dyed Easter Eggs

Filed Under: diy Tagged With: Chemical Free, Craft, DIY, Easter, Easter Eggs, Homeschooling, How To, Kids

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Hi! I'm Jessica Sara Morris. Lifestyle Blogger, Interior Designer and Mama to Four. Occasionally spontaneous but mostly a hermit who lives in stretchy pants.

Hey, I'm Jess!
Lifestyle Blogger, Interior Designer and Mama to Four. Occasionally spontaneous but mostly a hermit who lives in stretchy pants.

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