SUMMER PORCH DIY & DECORATE WITH ME | Styling Thrifted Home Decor & Porch Decorating Ideas!

Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel and welcome to a new video. Welcome to my front porch. Today we are going to be giving this space a little bit of love. We're going to be styling thrifted items, cleaning the porch, also getting creative. I'm going to be sharing a DIY wreath with you all. I hope you enjoy this video and it gives you inspiration and a burst of creativity. Let's jump right in. The first thing I'm going to share is a DIY wreath. I have been wanting to get crafty lately thanks to today's video sponsor Craftsy. I've been getting loads of inspiration and I would love to share them with you. Craftsy is your online resource for all things creative. They offer more than 2,000 classes in over 20 different categories like crocheting, knitting, painting, photography, cake decorating, so much more. The classes are broken down into easy to follow lessons that are led by really friendly instructors who share their creative wisdom and they do it in step-by-step demonstration, which is what I love. I've really been enjoying the cake decorating. It's something that I would love to explore more, so I have been watching so many different classes on different styles of cake decorating. The instructional videos are filled with so many expert tips and tricks. I also would love to take classes on painting, specifically watercolor painting, so that's something that I would love to do in the future. It's such a wonderful community. Craftsy also connects you with fellow makers and DIYers where you can ask questions and share ideas. It's such a great community. The first 1,000 of you to click the link in the video description will get a full year of the premium membership to Craftsy for only $1.49. Thank you again to Craftsy for sponsoring today's video. So starting off with the wreath, I went to Dollar Tree to get all of my supplies. I wanted to keep this project really low cost and I wanted to get creative and not have to worry about spending a ton of money, so I headed to Dollar Tree and I found these beautiful simple brass springs and then I also picked a few different floral stems. Now when it comes to Dollar Tree florals, I am a little bit picky. I tend to stay away from the satin kind of more fake looking ones and I tend to go for more of the plasticky ones. I know you're thinking, well how can flowers be plastic? But there's something about the way these ones look. They look more realistic, so I picked a couple different ones. Really sticking with the wildflower theme, I just feel like it's very organic looking, it's beautiful, it's so simple. So I chose a few of those different ones and then I also chose a succulent because you're gonna see where as we build the wreath, when you make this style of wreath, you do want to have some sort of a focal point and again instead of choosing a satin flower, I thought this would really just complete the look of having the succulent there. So that is exactly what I did. I found a cute little potted one and that is what we are going to use to make our wreath. So let me turn the camera around now and show you how to create this really simple but quite beautiful wreath for your front door. Started out by having all of my supplies and then I just kind of figured out what style I wanted to do or what shape I wanted for this wreath. So I just kind of played around just to get an idea of the direction that I wanted the greenery and the flowers as well. So that's like my first tip is place your florals kind of before you glue them or use floral tape however you make your wreaths just so that you have an idea of what you want. Then I went ahead and I actually removed each stem and I do this because a you get more out of one stem because you're able to place it in different places versus keeping it all together. The second reason is the bottom of this just looks so cheap and fake. So if I can eliminate it, I do. So that's exactly what I did and then once I cut each branch off, I started with the greenery. So whatever your backdrop is for your wreath, your main filler, that is what I start with and then I just go around the entire ring just adding this beautiful greenery in one direction and then you'll see I kind of turn it to finish it off on the other side. So to finish the wreath off on this side, I just turn the greenery in the opposite direction just so that it looks more polished and finished, covers up any of the branch sticking out and then I just went in and I filled in all of the bare spots, any kind of branch that needs to be covered and I just went through and did that kind of fluffed it up and filled it all in. I did reserve a few of the stems just in case once I completed the wreath if I saw anything that needed to be filled in, I could go ahead and add that. So kept those to the side and then I went in with my second floral. So like your pop of color, this is the stage that I add these florals and I just went ahead kind of found a shape that I liked and just went and glued these onto the wreath. And then the last step is your final piece that kind of pulls the whole thing together. So I used one succulent and you can kind of see the shape of this wreath. It's like a half circle. So keeping that to one side, I added that and then I just went back in and added any of those leftover filler pieces where I felt like it needed a little bit more. I also end up finding one more of those purple stems that happened to fall while I was making the wreath. So I do go ahead and add that to that one blank spot that I'm sure there it is that you can see on the screen. And then I decided that I wanted to use these leaves from the purple flowers, but I didn't love the white flocking on it. So all I did was run it under warm water, use some paper towel to really just pull off any of that flocking. And then I went ahead and added those. So I try and use everything that I can. So I was happy that I was able to use them and it just finishes it off, gives it a little bit more texture. And I think this turned out so beautiful, so simple, and really just inspired me. And I'm so happy I was able to do some crafting today. I went on the back and just added some glue to behind the wreath just to make sure everything was nice and secure. Now here is my front porch and it's bare, it's plain. We are going to go ahead and we are going to clean this area. So I'm just using a hose. I actually did some power washing a couple months ago once the snow was all melted. So it didn't need a power wash, but just going ahead and giving it a really good clean with the hose. And then I did go ahead and just sweep off all of the water and any debris. Taking the time to clean the windows. I'm just using some window cleaner and I'm going to clean the front window and also the two sides before we go ahead and hang our new beautiful but simple wreath. I found these faux wood planters at Walmart. They were a pretty good price and I love the size of them, the color of them. I think they're just different than your standard black planter. I added in a couple of really inexpensive palms. I love the way palms look on my front porch in the summer. It just reminds me of being somewhere warm and tropical. I would like to add some wood chips or something to the planters just to kind of fill them in a little bit more, but for now I just have them in there and then I'm just putting our furniture back on the porch. The chairs are actually a, I got them off Facebook marketplace a couple of years ago. They were so inexpensive and they're fading so beautifully. I originally thought I would paint them black, but I think for one more year I'm going to enjoy the light wood color and then we just have again a table we've had for years. I'm repurposing it and this really I hope inspires you to just use what you have. Sometimes you don't have to go out and buy new stuff. You can make what you have work if you add a couple little things. So just adding some thrifted items. Everything you see here is thrifted. The sign I thrifted a few weeks ago, the candles, I also thrifted the flameless candles and that pitcher I actually did the baking soda paint technique on a few years ago. So everything is really inexpensive. I'm going to go back to that area in just a second, but for now I'm just styling over here in the corner beside my swing, which by the way, the swing is from Wayfair. We bought that a few years ago. It's probably one of my favorite things ever and it was originally a raw wood color and I just painted it black, adding a few thrifted lanterns here with some flameless candles that are also thrifted and some inexpensive grocery potted flowers in a Walmart planter going in with some very inexpensive Amazon pillow covers, keeping things very neutral. There actually is a design on the other side. I just flipped it around. I'm also going back to this table. I added some dried baby's breath to that pitcher, a flameless candle on a thrifted tray. And then I'm repurposing this pot from the succulent on the wreath. I just added a simple citronella candle. I love how this turned out so simple. I love thrifting items and then styling them in a way that just works. I think you can mix and match and be creative and do so many different things with items from the thrift store. Also love this corner with these beautiful purple flowers and just love the simplicity of the porch. I'm finishing it off. I have one of these planters. I've had this for years. I think it might originally be from the dollar tree. I have another one of those grocery store potted flowers, added that and then finish it off with our front door mat. And I was very happy. I love how this turned out. I hope you enjoyed coming along with me as we gave my porch a little bit of a makeover. It feels so pretty and refreshed out here. I can't wait to enjoy summer nights with my family. I hope that this gave you a little bit of inspiration today, a burst of creativity. I am so grateful that you chose to spend this time with me and I can't wait to see you all in my next video. Bye everyone!