We lucked out with some really nice warm weather recently and took full advantage to knock out a to-do list of outdoor chores. The landscaping was cleaned up, trimmed back, and prepped for winter. The entire house was washed. All the outdoor furniture was cleaned and covered until next spring, and I even crossed a few indoor chores off the list before the busyness of the holidays arrive. 

Here are the top tasks you’ll want to complete for your home before the cold weather sets in:

FALL CLEANING CHECKLIST:

– download printable checklist here –

YOU MIGHT NEED:

1. I have this lawnmower cover, this grill cover, this deep sofa cover (currently 20% off), and this outdoor dining table cover (currently 22% off with an additional coupon available).
2. This leaf blower with a rechargeable battery clears all the leaves off my deck and grass clippings off my sidewalks. 
3. This hedge trimmer runs off the same rechargeable battery as the leaf blower, which is super convenient. I have multiple batteries so I can always keep one or two charging while I work.

WINDOW CLEANING TIPS:

This is the method I use, and it works like a charm. 

1. Check to make sure all windows are tightly closed and locked. Mix 1-2 tablespoons dish soap in a bucket of warm water. 
2. Spray the exterior of the window with a hose to wet the surface. Use a mop (I have this one) to scrub the window with the dish soap mixture. This will get all the dirt and grime off the glass. Spray the window again to rinse off the soap.
3. Mix white vinegar with water (around a 1:4 ratio) in a spray bottle. Spray the window with the vinegar solution, and use a squeegee to remove the liquid, wiping the tool on a lint free cloth as needed.

When you tackle the checklist, tag me on Instagram @lizlovegrowswild so we can all keep each other motivated to finish!

As always, I sincerely appreciate you shopping through the links I share, which allows me to make a small commission from your purchase while your purchase price remains the same. When you use my affiliate links, I’m better able to create content for this blog as well as support my family, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting what I do!

STAY CONNECTED:

Our Store: Grow + Gather
Shop my Posts | Shop my Amazon Store
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The post Fall Cleaning Checklist appeared first on Love Grows Wild.

I’ve been making little changes in my home office recently and owe you an update on what I’ve been up to. It all started with finding my dream desk (more on that later), rearranging the entire room, getting rid of a ton of old furniture and things that no longer have a purpose, and adding plenty of really pretty storage. 

With all the rearranging, I ended up with space by a window to create a little seating area and have been working on making my new little reading nook feel extra cozy. Here are 5 elements for creating the perfect Cozy Reading Nook:

THE PERFECT COZY CHAIR

– click any photo to shop –

SIDE TABLE FOR STORAGE

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SOFT LIGHTING

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BLANKET TO CURL UP WITH

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BOOKS TO INSPIRE

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SHOP MY OFFICE

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As always, I sincerely appreciate you shopping through the links I share, which allows me to make a small commission from your purchase while your purchase price remains the same. When you use my affiliate links, I’m better able to create content for this blog as well as support my family, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting what I do!

STAY CONNECTED:

Our Store: Grow + Gather
Shop my Posts | Shop my Amazon Store
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The post How to Create a Cozy Reading Nook appeared first on Love Grows Wild.

THE GROW AND GATHER FALL COLLECTION

I poured so much love into choosing these items for your home and hope you can feel the coziness and warmth throughout the entire collection. I focused on details like natural textures, muted & moody colors, warm metals, and the softest fabrics. Decor that will look just as good year round as it does during this beautiful season.

This year has been chaotic and hard to say the least, and I find myself craving more and more simplicity and comfort in our home. I know so many of you can relate to that same feeling of needing your home to feel like a safe, serene retreat from the outside world, and as we start to prepare for colder weather and the holidays in the not-so-distant future, I wanted to curate a collection of beautiful things to do just that. 

ITEMS SHOWN ABOVE:

husker red foxglove stem bundle | off-white velvet pumpkin | brown pleated pillar candle
antique gold metal tray | beige sweater pumpkin | cable knit pumpkin 
cotton & polyester woven blanket | glass match holder | seagrass tray
rotating wood pedestal tray | black/cream embroidery lumbar pillow

Thanks to your incredible support of our little shop and my big dreams over the years, we’ve been able to grow our inventory of Grow + Gather decor, and I think you’re going to love everything we now have available. 

My Advice:

• scoop up the pumpkins first – they always go fast
• pick out your favorite fall candle scent & grab one of our new match holders or electric lighters to go with
• a cozy new blanket is the perfect extra layer as the temps begin to drop
• a few faux seasonal stems will instantly make your home feel like fall!

ITEMS SHOWN ABOVE: 

brown velvet pumpkins | brown eucalyptus bundle 

And remember that fall doesn’t have to mean orange pumpkins (unless you want it to!) and candy corn (eww). Think of pieces that add a hint of seasonal warmth, but won’t feel out of place as soon as a holiday/season passes. 

ITEMS SHOWN ABOVE: 

cream loop stitch pumpkin | brass/glass scallop edge decorative box | brown resin pear

ITEMS SHOWN ABOVE:

husker red foxglove stem bundle | off-white velvet pumpkin | brown pleated pillar candle
antique gold metal tray | beige sweater pumpkin | cable knit pumpkin 
cotton & polyester woven blanket | glass match holder | seagrass tray
rotating wood pedestal tray | black/cream embroidery lumbar pillow

SHOP THE GROW + GATHER 2023 FALL COLLECTION:

CONNECT WITH US:

• Visit the Grow + Gather website to browse and shop: https://growandgathershop.com
• Subscribe to our newsletter to preview new products + collections
• Follow us on social media for exclusive content: Instagram + Facebook
• Share your purchase on social + tag us so we can see how our products look in your home!

The post Grow and Gather Fall Collection 2023 appeared first on Love Grows Wild.

This wall is somewhat of a focal point since the dining table is centered here, and it needed some kind of definition and interest to draw your eye in. I just hung a large piece of landscape canvas art on the opposite side of the room, so I wanted something different here that was a bit more abstract, but simple and subtle too. 

I did a little online shopping to see if I could find something that would fit my vision, and I came across a stunningly beautiful piece of woven art that was absolutely perfect – but it most definitely did not fit my budget. 

source

I loved the neutral abstract tone on tone design and the beautiful texture of the woven wool. But I was not about to pay $400 for a piece of art that I felt was simple enough I could probably recreate it for a fraction of the cost. 

I went to the craft store and came up with a plan and materials to execute the project. I decided I would find a piece of fabric that I could stretch over a cheap canvas and somehow attach a chunky textured yarn in a sort of zig-zag pattern like my inspiration piece. 

SUPPLIES:

white burlap
canvas panel
yarn – look for one that’s chunky/textured and similar in color to the burlap
thread – also similar in color
needle
scissors
ruler
masking tape
staple gun & staples
picture hanging hardware

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut a piece of burlap several inches longer on all sides than your canvas panel. You’ll need to be able to wrap the burlap around the back of the canvas and attach it to the wood frame. 
2. Decide where you want your design centered on the burlap, and use strips of tape as a guideline so you don’t have to measure spacing for every row of yarn.
3. Before you actually attach the yarn to the burlap, lay out at least a few rows of your design to determine the spacing you want.
   I used a 30 x 40″ canvas and created a zig-zag pattern alternating long and short rows that were 12″ and 8″.

   

4. At the end of each row, secure the yarn in place with needle and thread, tying a knot on the backside of the burlap to secure. Continue the pattern until your woven design is the size you want.
5. Once finished, go back through the rows and add extra stitches sporadically where the yarn may seem loose. This will help keep the yarn secured to the burlap and add some additional texture and interest. 

   

6. Flip the burlap over with the woven design down, and place the canvas panel on top, also face down. Stretch the burlap over the sides of the canvas and secure to the wooden frame with a staple gun. Start with the center of the top, bottom, and sides, then move around the edge of the canvas, evenly stretching the burlap as you go. Neatly fold the corners and trim excess burlap as needed so the canvas will lay flat against the wall. 
7. Add a sawtooth hanger or some kind of picture hanging hardware to the back of the frame, and hang on the wall where desired. 

Project Notes: 

I had plenty of burlap, so I folded it in half and used two layers instead of one. This helped give the finished canvas a softer, smoother surface, and it helped hide the white canvas underneath the burlap. Not a big deal since everything I used is a light color, but if you were using a different color burlap or some other kind of fabric, you may want to have enough for a double layer as well.

Also, when I first started tying the yarn to the burlap, I kept the rows as scrunched together as possible. As I got rolling, I decided I wanted to slowly start spacing the rows out more so the bottom of the design would be more compact than the top. The holes in the burlap make it easy to count out a certain number of spaces between each row, and I started with 10 spaces between the long rows and 10 spaces between the short rows. Once I got about ⅓ of the way through, I started adding 1 extra space with each new row I created. 

I was a little skeptical if this project would be a success or a fail, but it honestly turned out better than I expected. I love the yarn I chose with little flecks of black and brown throughout, and also that the piece adds character and interest to the space, but doesn’t compete with any of the other elements. And I saved so much money making it vs. buying the high-end artwork I originally found!

Here’s the cost breakdown:

$8.98 – 1.5 yards burlap
$17.99 – 30″ x 40″ canvas panel
$8.99 – yarn

Everything else I had. That’s a grand total of $35.96 for a piece of art that originally would have cost $400 to purchase – it’s also backordered till February!

SHOP THIS SPACE:

I don’t do nearly as many big diy projects here as I used to – with age comes a better appreciation for time vs money. But I would love to hear your thoughts on if you would like to see more decorating projects like this!

As always, I sincerely appreciate you shopping through the links I share, which allows me to make a small commission from your purchase while your purchase price remains the same. When you use my affiliate links, I’m better able to create content for this blog as well as support my family, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting what I do!

STAY CONNECTED:

Our Store: Grow + Gather
Shop my Posts | Shop my Amazon Store
Join our Community | Follow on Instagram 
Follow on Pinterest | Follow on Facebook

The post Tone on Tone Woven Wall Art DIY appeared first on Love Grows Wild.

The first thing on my list was a large piece of canvas art to fill the wall space above our leather sofa. I explained here why I decided to take down the top part of our board and batten trim that prevented me from hanging anything on the wall without a large gap. Now I can hang the art flush against the wall, which sounds like such a small detail, but it really makes such a difference in the overall look. 

With such a large space to fill, my next challenge was to find an affordable way to get a large scale piece of art that I didn’t have to completely diy. There are many ways you could go about this, but I wanted to find a solution that was high quality, efficient, and within my budget.

In this post, I’ll go over exactly how I created this beautiful landscape canvas art, including where you can find really affordable (even free!) art and ways you can print, frame, or create a canvas!

There are thousands of resources out there for buying beautiful, affordable artwork and even some that are considered public domain – a.k.a. free for you to use. Any piece of creative work that is not protected by copyright law is considered “public domain”. This means that no individual creator or artist owns the piece, and it is free for anyone to use. 

Here are a few places to look for public domain art for your home:

• National Gallery of Art
• The Met Collection
• The Public Domain Review
• Art Institute of Chicago
• J Paul Getty Museum
• Biodiversity Heritage Library

There are thousands and in some cases millions of pieces of free art on the websites above, which can be overwhelming to say the least. This is why I typically utilize shops that do all the hard work of narrowing down the options for you. Even though there is a small fee attached to the artwork purchased through these shops, I feel like it is well worth the price to have a curated collection of options to choose from in a matter of minutes rather than spending hours or even days paging through way too many choices and getting frustrated. 

Here are a few shops I like to buy from digital art from:

• Collection Prints
  • I got this landscape art print for my living room here
• North Prints
• Olive and Oak Prints
• Seven Hills Vintage Art
• Juniper Print Shop
• Vintage Supply
• Blue Jay Vintage Art
• Splendus

Once you purchase a piece of digital art, you are able to have it printed and framed or turned into a canvas.

Here are a few places to print digital art:

• Shutterfly
• Artifact Uprising
• Walgreens
• Mpix
• Printique

Here are a few places you can have a canvas created:

• Canvas Discount
• CanvasPop
• CanvasChamp
• Canvas HQ 
• Shutterfly
• Walgreens

I went with Canvas Discount for this one in our living room, and you can see below how affordable it was for such a massive canvas – $98 shipping included for a 3 ft x 4 ft canvas. 

tip: Most of these places almost always have some kind of sale or discount code available, so take that into consideration when shopping around for prices. For example, the canvas I bought says it originally would have been $409 before tax, and I only paid $98 total. 

One last tip:

When it comes time to replace your old TV, I highly recommend considering investing in a Frame TV so you can display digital art prints like these instead of a big black blank screen. They sell the prettiest frames to go around the TV so it legitimately looks like a beautiful piece of art hung on the wall!

____

Read more about decorating your home with art on a budget here.

SHOP VINTAGE DIGITAL ART

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As always, I sincerely appreciate you shopping through the links I share, which allows me to make a small commission from your purchase while your purchase price remains the same. When you use my affiliate links, I’m better able to create content for this blog as well as support my family, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting what I do!

STAY CONNECTED:

Our Store: Grow + Gather
Shop my Posts | Shop my Amazon Store
Join our Community | Follow on Instagram 
Follow on Pinterest | Follow on Facebook

The post Easy Ways to Create Large Scale Wall Art on a Budget appeared first on Love Grows Wild.