10 DIY Projects To Brighten Your Space
Brighten your space while you’re at home! With everyone stuck at home, now is the perfect time to do all those DIY projects you’ve been pinning! Directions are taken DIRECTLY from the website they were found on. Wording will be exact as I didn’t want to miss something important when sharing these fabulous DIY projects with you!
Yarn-Wrapped Painted Jars
Supplies
- Several cleaned jars.
- Yarn or some sort of string
- White spray paint, or any color you choose
- Something to cover your workspace
Directions
Step 1 – Wrap the string around the jar tightly and tie a knot. Now wrap the string around the rest of the jar tightly crisscrossing and overlapping until you like what you see. Then just tie the end to the leftover string where you started and cut off the ends.
Step 2 – Place the jars onto your covered surface upside down and spray paint them evenly with 2-3 coats. Make sure to let them dry for 5-10 minutes in between coats. Once they are fully dried just cut the string in one place and unwrap
Stone Garden Markers
Supplies
- Glass stone
- Premium vinyl
- Cutting machine
Directions
Step 1 – Use the text function on your cutting machine to write out some of the yummy veggies you’re planning to plant in your garden this summer. Make sure to use a font that has some fat and skinny parts. I chose “Vijaya”.
Step 2 – Adjust the spacing of the letters so that they’re all touching.
Step 3 – If you’re using a Silhouette machine, select the whole word and click on the “Weld” button in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen. This will ensure that the whole word will be cut out as one piece.
Step 4 – Using some high-quality vinyl, have your cutter cut out your words for you.
Step 5 – Place each word onto a pretty polished stone.
String Lanterns
This DIY project will literally brighten your space.
Supplies
- Large Balloons
- Sharpie
- Scissors
- Cotton Yarn
- 4 oz. White School Glue
- 1/2 cup Corn Starch
- 1/4 cup Water
- Something to stir with
- Petroleum Jelly
- Clear fast-drying, spray paint
- Container for mixing glue in
- String
Directions
Step 1 – Blow up a balloon. I would suggest only inflating until it is a decent size, but still round. If you get it too full, you’ll end up with an oblong-shaped lantern. I think for the best end result you will want varied sizes.
Step 2 – After the balloon is inflated to your desired size, draw a circle around the knot of the balloon big enough to put whatever light source you would like to use. If you are hanging from Christmas lights or something similar, you will need to fit the light into this hole. If you are just planning to put these into a vase or have no plans to light these up, forgo the sharpie.
Step 3 – Lay down your tarp, and find a way to suspend the balloons with string. You can use a shower curtain rod across chairs, a clothespin line, or a rope between two trees.
Step 4 – Mix the corn starch, glue, and warm water together until the mixture is nice and smooth.
Step 5 – Smear the petroleum jelly all over the balloon, until it is completely coated.
Step 6 – If you have a friend or your fiancé helping you, this will go a lot quicker. One person should feed the yarn into the glue mixture, then hand it off to the other person, who will drape it around the balloon.
Step 7 – Begin wrapping the yarn vertically around the balloon at a comfortable tightness, and then gradually switch to wrapping it horizontally. Tuck your beginning and end pieces under other pieces of yarn.
Step 8 – After allowing the balls to dry for 24 hours, pop the balloons! Chopsticks or something similar can help remove any glue crystals that form between strings.
Step 9 – Spray the ball with the clear, fast-drying spray paint outside.
Step 10 – Now hang your balls either from lights, from fishing wire, or display them in a vase or bowl!
DIY West Elm Morocco Headboard
Supplies
- Target Home Brand star cutout outdoor mat
- Spray paint
- Plywood
Directions
Step 1 – Paint the mats (spray paint works best).
Step 2 – Cut a piece of plywood the size you want your headboard to be. Remember to take the size of the mats into account as well. Two mats side by side make the perfect width for a queen-size bed.
Step 3 – Paint or stain the plywood. If you want the piece to look more like the West Elm version, paint the plywood the same color as the wall so it looks as if there is no backing.
Step 4 – Attach your mats to the plywood. We used a finish nailer.
Step 5 – Trim out the piece to finish things off!
DIY Easy Rope Shelf
Supplies
- Length of wood (my shelf is a meter width but you can cut the wood to any dimensions)
- Rope
- A drill
- 2 large hook screws
Directions
Step 1 – I opted for 8mm rope for my shelf so I drilled four 10mm holes in my piece of wood. the holes need to be bigger than the width of the rope or you’ll struggle to feed it through.
Step 2 – You can leave the wood bare or paint it, I’ve given mine a few coats of basic white emulsion (you can use wood stain or wood gloss/satin paint depending on what finish you want)
Step 3 – Next you’ll need to drill two holes in the wall for the screw hooks (I recommend using wall plugs too) I’ve used the biggest screw hooks I could find as they’ll be taking the weight of the shelf.
Step 4 – I cut my rope into 4 x 1m lengths and fed each length through the holes. tie a knot underneath (as above) the rope is very sturdy so this won’t come undone- give it a hard tug to test!
Step 5 – Tie the two other ends into a knot and hang them over the two screws to finish! the nice thing about rope shelving is that you can easily adjust the height or level the shelf by adjusting the two top knots.
Floating Bookshelves
This is an adorable way to brighten your space. You can create shelves based on genre, or color or book size, or author…really, it’s up to you. The other way this brightens your space is it can eliminate the need for bookshelves, therefore resulting in less furniture.
Supplies
- Hardbound book with dust jacket, approximately 6″x9″
- 2 L-brackets, 4″x4″
- #10 x 1-1/4″ flat head screws
- #10 x 1-1/4″ plastic anchors
- Level
- Drill with 1/4″ drill bit
- Hammer
- Pencil
- Hobby knife
Directions
Step 1 – Place one 4″x4″ L-bracket on the wall where you would like the bookshelf. Use a level to ensure it is perfectly vertical, and make a pencil mark in the top and bottom holes. (Note: This shelf is for a standard 6″x9″ book; for larger books, use a 6″x6″ L-bracket instead.)
Step 2 – Measure 4-1/2″ to the right of the two pencil marks and make two more marks. Use a ruler and a level to help. This is where the second L-bracket will go.
Step 3 – Using a 1/4″ drill bit, drill holes at the four pencil marks.
Step 4 – Hammer drywall anchors into the holes. (Note: Instead of using drywall anchors, look for studs on the wall and attach the L-brackets with wood screws alone.)
Step 5 – Position the holes in the L-brackets on top of the anchors and screw in flathead screws to secure the brackets.
Step 6 – Remove the dust jacket from the book. With a ruler and hobby knife, cut two 2″ slits in the dust jacket fold where the back cover meets the back flap. The slits should be about an inch from the top and bottom edges of the dust jacket.
Step 7 – Slide the two slits of the dust cover into the two L-brackets.
Step 8 – Rest the book on the two L-brackets with the spine facing you. Lift the book’s front cover and pages, and fold the back flap of the dust jacket over the inside back cover.
Step 9 – Put the front cover and pages back down, and wrap the dust jacket over the rest of the book. Now when you look underneath the book, the dust jacket has covered the L-brackets so it looks like the book is floating. Stack books on top of this shelf, being sure not to exceed the weight limits of the drywall anchors.
Mosaic CD Mirror
Supplies
- Glue
- Mirror
- Scissor
- Old CD’s
Instructions
Step 1 – Get some cheap mirror (or picture frame)
Step 2 – Paint it any color you want and cut your cd’s in too little pieces.
Start gluing them onto the frame, in any pattern you want.
Step 3 – And hang it on your wall!
Curtain Headboard With Lights
Supplies
- Curtain
- Curtain rod
- String lights
Instructions
Step 1 – Hang a curtain rod draped at headboard height, behind the bed
Step 2 – Hang sheer curtains or fabric
Step 3 – Add some white holiday lights behind the fabric and across the rod
Bottle Cap Chime
This will truly brighten your space. With the multitude of colors that the miscellaneous bottle caps brings, it’ll create a fun, colorful, trinket.
Supplies
- Bottle caps
- Awl
- Small hammer
- Pliers
- Jump rings
- Vintage Colander
Instructions
Step 1 – Punch a hole in two edges of each cap
Step 2 – Use the pliers and jump rings to attach the caps into long chains. Thicker rings worked a little better, as the caps have a tendency to slip off smaller ones.
Step 3 – You can use a vintage colander, tin, or pretty much any old thing as a topper. I found this Hills Brothers coffee tin from an antique vendor and punched holes along the sides and top to attach to my bottle cap
Glittered Jars
Glitter will brighten your space like no other. For that matter, there is no better way to brighten your space than to add glitter to it.
Supplies
- Jar
- Glitter
- Paintbrush
- Newspaper- Sheet of paper
- Gloss topcoat
- Container for glue
- Glue: Elmers/Modge Podge
- Optional: Spray paint
Instructions
Step 1 – Spray paint a base coat in your choice of color. This is optional, you can just do it on plain glass.
Step 2 – Lay a sheet of paper under your jar on the newspaper to catch the spill off the glitter.
Step 3 – Pour some glue into a 4oz mason jar as shown above. It’s easy to use the brush and dip to apply the glue this way.
Step 4 – Grab your brush and paint an even coat of glue on the entire jar. Make sure you get into the crevices of the lettering. Light handed even brush strokes work best. It’s okay to be semi-thick, just not too thick so it’s dripping.
Step 5 – Next pour your glitter on the mason jar. Pour back and forth. For fine glitter, dump a bit heavier to have a nice even coverage.
Step 6 – After you’ve covered the entire jar with glitter, tap the jar on your glitter catch paper a couple times to let some loose excess fall off. Let it dry for at least an hour or two then lightly brush the jar with a paintbrush or any brush. Do this lightly so you don’t take chunks of glitter off with the brush.
What DIY projects have you done to brighten your space while you’ve been quarantined? Will you be trying any of these suggestions to brighten your space? Let us know in the comments!
Featured Image Credit: https://diyprojects.com/diy-crafts-for-adults/
