Some of My Favorite (FREE) Dingbat Fonts

You love free stuff, right? Me too. 

I really love free fonts. There are so many great ones out there, and lately I have especially been liking some of the amazing dingbat fonts I have been finding.

I felt the need to share some of my latest and greatest finds. They all come from dafont.com and are free for personal use. 

What do you think? How might you put these lovelies to work?

Origami Treat Cups

I hosted a small book club at my home the other night. I needed to make some treats, but I decided I was not going to the store. I would simply work with what I had at home, which meant popcorn and chocolate chip cookies. But I wasn't sure how I would serve the popcorn. Then I thought of making some quick origami cups.

I used the instructions for folding origami cups here, and I really like the way they turned out. 12x12 double-sided scrapbook paper makes a perfectly sized cup for a serving of popcorn. You can find scrapbook papers in all colors and patterns to match the theme or decor for your party.

A quick, easy, cute solution!

Coffee Table Makeover

Once upon a time, we bought an upholstered coffee table at a damaged furniture clearance center. I think we got a fairly good deal. Honestly, I don't remember how much we paid for it. Maybe fifty? It seemed like a decent piece of furniture. It was sturdy. The drawers worked. We could put our feet on it. You know. 

Then when we got it home I realized the upholstered top had a tear in it. How did I miss that? Oh well. No turning back now. Slowly the fake leather vinyl stuff fell apart until we got to look at this beautiful thing every day:

Lovely, right? It was definitely one of the most embarrassing things in my home. I had been wanting to recover it for ages, but I was a little intimidated. I mean, the bottom had so many screws. What if I undid the wrong ones? I finally decided that if I broke the thing it would certainly be no loss. 

So. Screwdriver. Deep breath.

Here. We. Go.

Takeitapart!

The most difficult/time-consuming part of this whole thing was pulling out the staples that held the old fabric in place. My hands were definitely a bit raw when the whole thing was over. 

Once all the old stuff was off, I just had to staple on my new fabric. [Wait. I should talk about the fabric. I bought this a few weeks ago and then hemmed and hawed and fretted (I cannot think of a more current way to say this) about it forever. I had convinced myself that this fabric was horrible and I needed to get more fabric, but then I decided that I would not waste the fifteen bucks I spent on this fabric, so I just sucked it up and went with it. And I'm glad I did because I actually think it looks pretty sweet. Although I'm still not convinced that a plum velvet or yellow chevron stripe wouldn't be more awesome. If I could find it for cheap. Which I probably couldn't.]

After I had already started to screw the top back on, I decided I wanted to tuft it, which was a bit awkward, but doable. I could have just unscrewed the few screws I had already done, but then where's the challenge in that? I just used the original buttons, and I dig it.

Voila!

I am liking this room a bit more each and every day. You can read about those pillows on the couch here, here, here, and here.

 

New Ways to Follow Along

My guess is you probably don't spend enough time on the internet. Am I right? Are you looking for more ways to spend hours browsing through all of the goodness out there? I thought so...

Well, your wish is granted! Persia Lou is now on facebook and pinterest. :)

I would be so, so, so happy if you liked Persia Lou on facebook and followed along with my pins over at pinterest.

DIY Upholstered Tufted Headboard

We have lived in our current home for nearly two years. When we first moved in, one of the first things I wanted to do was make a headboard for our room. I am pretty sure I even bought the plywood right around the time we moved in.

Well. Nearly two years later: The headboard is done!

And I LOVE it. It makes our room feel so much more grown up and complete. And every time I walk by my bed, I want to sit down and read a book or take a nap. It just looks so inviting.

I made this headboard as part of the Week 3 challenge over at One Month to Win It, which was to use another blogger's tutorial. Unfortunately, I didn't make it through to the finals, but I did get a sweet new headboard! There are tons of great headboard tutorials out there, but I ended up following the incredibly detailed and helpful tutorial from Centsational Girl along with some helpful hints from the tutorial at Green Your Decor.

Materials/Tools I Used:

• piece of plywood
• large piece of 2 inch foam
• batting
• about two yards of upholstery fabric (I got it on clearance for one dollar a yard)
• staple gun
• jig saw
• electric carving knife
• drill
• cover buttons
• embroidery floss
• upholstery needle
• pliers

I really wanted to do a curvy headboard, but doing an intricate shape was intimidating. I loved Centsational Girl's simple shape, so I copied that idea. I only had to make one template for both curved cut-outs. 

After tracing the template on both sides, the hubs cut out the corners using a jig saw. I wish I was cool enough to say I did this myself, but I am a bit chicken when it comes to power tools. I hope to get over that soon.

This is a good time to drill holes for tufting. Just mark where you want your buttons to be and drill away. My buttons are spaced 12 inches apart.

Next, I flipped the plywood onto my foam and traced the cut-outs. I used an electric carving knife to cut the foam, and it cut through it like but-tah. Brilliant.

I stacked the batting, foam, and then plywood. Pull the batting over the plywood and staple it down. Then I did the same with the fabric.

The corners can be a bit tricky. I just pulled and folded until I got a nice sharp corner.

If you did not want to tuft the headboard, at this point you would be done! The tufting was probably the most difficult part of this whole project. The needle I had was really not long enough to go through the board, two inches of foam, batting, and fabric. This little difficulty lead to the discovery of my best tufting tip. If you are having a hard time pushing the needle through the headboard or finding the drilled hole in the board, try grasping the needle with a pair of pliers.

I secured my buttons using washers, which was pretty easy to do and worked very well. Because my headboard was tall enough standing on the ground, I decided not to secure it to the wall even though I initially bought some brackets to do so.

After returning the brackets, the total project cost about 65 dollars. Not too shabby for a king-sized headboard, right?

Did I mention I love it? I really, really do. What are you getting off your to-make list?

  

   

A Few More Squares

So, I'm still behind on the Square a Day in May (what? It's the 18th already?!?), but I'll get there! Here are a few of my latest:

Day 6: Victorian Dream

I like this one a lot. I love lacy crochet because it is pretty and quick and awesome.

Day 7: Purple Passion Heart

Honestly, I was not super excited about this one, but I really like how it turned out. I went with a granny stitch on the outside instead of double crochet.

Day 8: On the Huh

This one was really fun to crochet and watch the pattern develop.

Day 9: Falling Star

This one turned out a bit wonky for me. It needs some serious blocking time.

Day 10: Framed Flower

I like the pattern with this one, but it is a bit denser than I would like...

Well. There you have it. Eight squares behind. Le sigh.

Quick Lampshade Embellishment

I originally bought this black and white lampshade for our guest room. Well, my little bug came along, and the guest room became the nursery! 

Rather than completely redo the room, I stuck with the same basic color scheme (apple green, black, and white) and added some hot pink accents to make it more youthful and fun. 

I took this pretty lampshade from Target,

a couple yards of this pom-pom trim,

and threw them together with some hot glue to make a simple, fun, embellished lampshade that fits perfectly in baby bug's nursery.

OH!

Also.

Week 3 projects are up over on One Month to Win It. You should definitely go vote. Only three projects/contestants will make it through this round, so I am double nervous. 

Keep your fingers crossed for me!