Category: IKEA

Pinterest Christmas {2016}: Hanging Kitchen Wreaths.

Welcome back to Pinterest Christmas! This Pinterest Christmas blog series (in its sixth year!) started as a motivation to actually do some of the DIY projects we pinned on Pinterest & a way to share them with friends & family. Over the years other bloggers have joined & we have spent the month of December DIYing & sharing our Christmas projects. Sometimes the posts are tutorials with step-by-step instructions & other times it is simply sharing a completed project! We aren’t doing anything too formal this year, but did want to share a few festive things. You can check out past Pinterest Christmas projects here!

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I know that a lot of catalogs and magazines and blogs show Christmas décor all over the house, not just in the living room with the Christmas tree. I am mixed on whether I will ever have Christmas sheets and bathroom towels, but I have liked the idea of continuing the holiday cheer into the kitchen!

 

{original Pinterest link – Mini Wreaths}

This was the simplest DIY I think I have ever done. Seriously. I don’t even think it’s a true DIY. The hardest part was getting the ribbon to be the same length so that the wreaths were even on the doors. I hung a 3M Command hanger (not sponsored, they are just the best ones!) upside-down on the door (per the inspiration post), cut the ribbon, looped it around the wreath, and tied a knot. I sort of want to hang a wreath on every door we have now…

If you are interested, I used these faux boxwood wreaths from IKEA. {I wanted to use these faux spruce ones that I added to our dining room windows last year but they added some yellow ombre to the needles which I really didn’t like!} These wreaths are really inexpensive but are well-made (even for IKEA) since they don’t shed and have a pretty sturdy metal frame and don’t look too fake!

And here’s one more shot. It is super hard to photograph our kitchen since it is a pretty small space, so that explains why there are just the pantry doors.

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And be sure to check out what Kendra’s up to all December long over on The Gilbertson Family! {Here’s her first Pinterest Christmas post!}

Do you decorate your kitchen (or your doors) for the holidays?

M

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DIY IKEA kitchen hack.

As many of you know from my Christmas post, Santa brought Eloise a kitchen for Christmas. Specifically, an IKEA kitchen. And more specifically, a hacked IKEA kitchen, by yours truly. There has been lots & lots of interest in this hack, so I thought I would share!

To start, here is the original kitchen. It isn’t awful, but it’s a little plain & boring (in my opinion!). We opted to get the top section as well, but you can get just the bottom here if you want something more compact.

DUKTIG Play kitchen IKEA Encourages role play which helps children to develop social skills by imitating grown-ups and inventing their own roles.

{via IKEA DUKTIG Play Kitchen}

For the holiday season, IKEA ran an IKEA Family special where you got both pieces for $79 (normally it is $99) which is a GREAT deal for a play kitchen (considering most are over $100 & some are over $500, what?!).

So, in full disclosure, I am not the first one (& won’t be the last either) to hack this kitchen. I perused this Apartment Therapy post to get some ideas. I wanted to give Eloise a kitchen that was really similar to ours, or what I want our kitchen to look like (a lot of my sake since it will be in our house/living room for years likely!) so I decided to give her a two-color cabinet (white on top & grey on bottom), marble countertop& a white subway tile backsplash. Traditional with a modern twist – pretty much my style, right?

I don’t have really any “during” photos since I didn’t plan on doing a tutorial, but this is what I basically did:

  • assembled the top piece (without the microwave door)
  • assembled the bottom cabinet (without the stove or cabinet doors)
  • primed the top, cabinet, & doors
  • painted the stove & microwave doors (using this silver spray paint)
  • painted the top piece white (using Benjamin Moore Cloud Cover)
  • painted the bottom cabinet (using Benjamin Moore Cinder)
  • replaced all of the handles (using these IKEA TAG ones)
  • added marble contact paper to the countertop
  • added backsplash (I drew grey “grout lines” with Crayola marker on a white foam core poster board)

And for those of you who are more visual, here is a picture:

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Finally, I made Eloise a tiny little oven mitt (using this tutorial as a guide) & appliqued hand towel (this was my first time & doing non-straight edges was tough!) using this Dwell Studio fabric I have had around for years (which I first used to make these IKEA upholstered stools). Santa also brought her these IKEA utensils & veggie basket, & Aunt Anya (Yaya) brought her these adorable green dishes.

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At some point, I hope to “style” her kitchen a little more & add some cute decorations, but honestly, she is at the point where everything is thrown on the floor, & I don’t keep extra décor in my kitchen, so I don’t even really know what to add. A faux plant or flowers maybe? For the sake of the photos, I used the little hooks on the backsplash (there is a little rail there if you can’t tell) to hang her utensils & oven mitt, but in real life, she is still too little to reach those hooks & just pulls really hard on whatever is hung on them, & the hook pops off!

Also, one thing of note: there are removable plastic legs that you can add for height which we left off (for now) since the kitchen is a good height as is (she can barely open the microwave, for reference). But it is nice to know we can add height as she gets bigger.

Does your little have a play kitchen? Did you add any personal touches?

M

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