Pumpkin Spice Frappé Coffee & Crafting Date with a DIY Office Calendar Tutorial

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I told you about my office project earlier this week and how much fun hubby and I are having putting it together. It's been a blast gathering materials and trying to design them in a way that really fits our style and our tiny town home, you can check out how the office turned out here. We love taking on creative projects so I decided I'd make one of our weekend morning's together a little more fun by putting together a coffee and crafting date. I really wanted to set the "coffee house" vibe at home so I decided to take a trip to Walmart and bought the supplies we needed to make pumpkin spice coffee (frappés to be exact)!

I was feeling especially fancy and decided to share a video of our adventure to Walmart too:

A video posted by Lauren Paints (@sunkissed_sweetheart) on Nov 11, 2014 at 8:12am PST

After I got everything I needed, we headed home and set up our craft station, I turned Pandora to an acoustic station, and poured us the most delicious Pumpkin Spice Frappé Coffee thanks to NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer in Pumpkin Spice and NESCAFÉ® Tasters Choice® House Blend, you can find my recipe below. We topped these off with a good dose of whip, just the same as they would at a coffee shop and got to work.

Interested in making a Pumpkin Spice Latte or Frappé at home?
Enjoy a flavorful moment of your own.

Pumpkin Spice Frappé Coffee Recipe  Ingredients:  NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer in Pumpkin Spice  NESCAFÉ® Tasters Choice® House Blend  Ice Cubes  Water  Sugar or Sugar substitute (to taste)  You can make a super yummy frappé at home with just a few simple items and your blender!  Begin by adding the correct amount of Tasters Choice coffee and water (as instructed on package)   and about 3-4 ice cubes into your blender. Blend until it begins to foam a bit. Pour into a glass and sugar and NESTLÉ® COFFEE-MATE® Liquid Coffee Creamer in Pumpkin Spice to taste, garnish with whipped cream! I meant to add a dash of pumpkin spice seasoning over the whip as well but the coffee were so good, I just forgot and started sipping! Want to make a PSL instead? Just switch the coffee out for espresso!

Now that we have your caffeine fix satisfied, let's get to the crafty fun from our coffee date. I absolutely love how my calendar turned out and since it's such an easy project, I hope that some of you will decide to add one of these beauties to your home.

The best part about these calendars is that you can customize them completely. If you only like shades of blue and green, then make it only those colors! If you are trying to make a calendar to help your kids learn the days of the week, this would be a fun and playful way to get them involved in calendar building. Do you need a super girly chore chart for your little princess, make one! There are so many other uses for these boards - from art work to grocery lists, you can write anything on them!

DIY Calendar/Organization Board  For this project, you will need:  A giant hole punch  (scrapbooking supplies aisle)  Magazines (paint swatches work as well)  A large frame with the glass  Scrapbooking Photo Stickers  You may also need*:  White poster board  Scissors (*I was lucky and frame happened to have the stock photo still, I just flipped it over and used the white side as my background for my calendar... if you don't have that option, I suggest using poster board trimmed to the size of your frame instead!) This project is all about getting creative. If you are using magazines, you'll need to find photos that have patterns you love or spaces of just color without words. If you are using paint swatches, just begin hole punching the colors you want to use. Note that you'll need 35 circles total if you are making a calendar, if you want to make a "waterfall" organization board as shown in my office picture - just get to hole punching and count later! I should also mention the downside of using magazines is that they don't cut as easily with the hole punch as the paint swatches do. With that said, I've found that if I hole punch the magazine clipping with one of the stock paper "mail this in to subscribe" post cards as well, it makes the process much easier. You can see the technique I use showcased below. After getting all your dots cut out, arrange them on your background and use small scrapbooking mounting stickers to hold the dots in place. It's easier to line them up if you use something like a ruler or a piece of paper to help make sure your lines are even. You can arrange your dots however your heart desires, for my calendar I did a semi-ombre effect with my dots and love how it turned out... but then I made my "waterfall" organization board and I love it even more. The possibilities are endless with this project! After getting it all organized, place it all together in frame behind the glass, hang your frame, & get to writing!

We had a blast on our "coffee date", we even laughed our butts off while trying to hang the picture because these stinkin' frames would NOT stay on the wall. We ended up buying some sticky wall hangers to help keep them up but the whole ordeal made for a really good belly laugh... It actually all reminded me of when I first met my husband: The belly laughs, crafting, and coffee dates just like when we were kids and first started dating. The day was perfect and I'm so thankful to have a spouse like mine. Want to have a coffee and crafting date of your own? Use my recipe and tutorial and surprise your sweetie with a fun date today!

How to Create a Custom 404 Error Page - Lauren Paints | a beautiful life Blogger Tutorial Series

No one wants to find an error page, on any website,

but it happens on occasion.

Whenever a reader finds a link that no longer exists,
your blog most likely sends them to a typical error page that looks similar to this:

With a custom 404 error page, you can add several features on the 404 error pages that make them more user-friendly and interactive. You can customize the page by giving the reader the option to contact you, to go to the home page, and more.

 I decided I wanted to spice things up so I'm changing how my error page looks. I figured I'd write up a simple tutorial to help my fellow blogger friends out if they want to do the same.

Follow the steps below to make your own custom 404 error page!

Let's get this party started:


1. Go to Your Blogger profile, click "Settings" on the side bar,
then "Search Preferences".

2. Scroll to find "Custom Page Not Found"

under "Errors and Redirection".

3. In another window, create a new post 

and use the HTML editor to create the HTML for the error page { do not publish at any point. }

You can just type in something funny and format it as you please,

custom design a graphic, the possibilities here are endless!

Get creative and make it your own.

Now click the HTML tab in the corner and Select all + Copy!

I custom designed a graphic in photoshop, uploaded it onto photobucket,  then used image mapping to make the links clickable.

{That's a whole different tutorial that I'll be posting soon.}

 

4. Paste the code into the "Custom Page Not Found" box and save.

5. Now test out your link and make sure it works:

Just type "YourSite".com/404 into your address bar.

Click here to check out my error page in action.

Super Simple + Inexpensive DIY Gallery Wall {Thrifty Finds}

Although my gallery wall isn't complete,

I decided I just HAD to share my progress thus far.

 {I think it may always be a work in progress}

This was a super easy project,

that ANYONE can do.

I got a little thrifty with my wall,

I went poppin' tags and even found one gorgeous frame in the trash...

but you could also use brand spankin' new frames.

I was aiming for a very eclectic look and totally think I achieved what I wanted.

 I bought the silver pieces for an older project in another room that I've grown tired of

 and spray painted them long before taking pictures. 

The canvas prints were super simple to make,

I just placed a doily partially over the canvas and spray painted them.

{The before picture of some of the frames, mirrors, etc.

and included the prices I paid at the thrift store

so you get an idea of how cheap making a wall like this really can be!}

The process is pretty self-explanatory but just in case:

I went to home depot and chose two bright, fun, cheery colors

and thought bright blue and sunshine yellow were gorgeous colors,

plus they match the beachy vibe I try to carry through our house.

I then laid down newspaper, spray painted some of the pieces I thought needed color

and let them sit out for a few hours before bringing them in and hanging them up.

That's it. You are ready to hang your beauties up!

I'm thinking in the near future I'll add

some of my art, an initial, more pictures of family,

and maybe some other fun thrifty finds.

This wall is our stairwell wall so it's HUGE.. We have lots of space to be filled!

There are so many ways to lay out the frames, mirrors, etc.
So my advice to you is have fun, do inventive things, get creative.

The silver mirror-backed candlestick holders that look pretty elegant in my pictures

were ol'-school southwestern decor and pretty hideous,

hubby thought I was crazy until he saw the final product.

So while you are shopping for your wall be imaginative,

some of the ugliest finds can be made gorgeous with just a can of paint.