Blog - The Latina Next Door

September 23, 2020 By Yami Leave a Comment

DIY Farmhouse Rustic Plate Rack

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Hello everyone! Hope you all are doing well! I am so happy that Fall is finally here and the weather in Georgia has been amazing these past few days. Lows in the 5’s0 and highs in the low 70’s. Perfect weather!

Today I am sharing the latest dupe in my Look for Less Challenge. If you are not familiar with what it is, it is a challenge I host every month on my Youtube channel with a different co-host. It’s an open invite where other creators can join in and add their videos to my playlist so that we all can inspire to create high end items for our home without the cost.

You can check out the playlist for this month here.

My kitchen renovation is pretty much wrapped up and what I am doing now is adding decor pieces to the space. I have a ton of updates coming at you in the next few days sharing everything it took to get it to where it is today. I feel like this kitchen has taken us most of this year.

Anyways, I needed a piece to go on the blank wall behind my new island and since I have been wanting a plate rack (those amazing ones you see in farmhouses like all the time 😍) I thought it was finally the time to make one for myself.

I searched online and found this beauty on Etsy. It’s a made-to-order piece and if you are interested you can definitely check out the shop here. There are some gorgeous items in the shop!!!This piece, even though it was beautiful was out of my price range. At $349 it was more than I wanted to spend.

Don’t get me wrong, handmade items are worth the money. The time and effort it takes to make these things is serious and it should be compensated accordingly, but I am a handy person and I have a handy hubby and I knew we could knock this out for a fraction of the cost.

So off to our garage we went to check our scrap wood stash. We actually had to purchase one board at Home Depot because we didn’t have one long enough for the sides but everything else we had.

Using our inspiration piece as a reference, we took note and began to work.

With our table saw, we began to rip our boards to our desired size.

If you are interested in making one yourself here are the measurements.

We did make a couple of adjustments to the original size and we also removed the lowest shelf where the small pitchers were displayed. I have small kids and I did not see that as a practical way to display my pieces at all. Yikes! I could see the disasters now.

Here are our plans:

One more thing I did was round off the tops of the two sides to give it a soft more “cottagey” look. 😉 I traced a round edge and used my jigsaw for this.

Next, it was time to assemble the shelves. We started with the two inner shelves.

We used wood glue and nails for this and used our nail gun to attach them.

You will need to did this to both shelves. Then, we measured where we wanted them to go.

We measured 12 inches from the top of the bottom shelf to the bottom of the next shelf above. Then, we marked the area and nailed the shelves in from the outside.

The bottom shelf does not need a bottom support and the top is just the back support, no shelf.

After the shelves and supports were nailed in place, then came the dowels. We measured 2 inches above the shelf to get our desired location.

Here is where we messed up* –

We were following the inspiration piece and it had no groove lines in the shelves that we could make out so we assumed that the dowel was enough to hold the plates in place. HOWEVER, this is not the case and we didn’t find this out until AFTER we had finished the piece completely!

It is too late to make a groove now so we will add another dowel to the bottom center of the shelf to basically act a “stop” and function like the groove would have. I will share an update on the rack when that happens… but until then… let’s move on.

I didn’t want the stain to been to dark so I chose this one in the color Early American.

Next, I used Debi Design Diary’s clear wax to seal it. I used a wax brush to apply it. You are supposed to leave it overnight to cure and the next day you buff it with a lint-free cloth. Easy peasy!

Finally, we (and by we I mean, the Latino Engineer did it while I photographed😉) installed the hardware to hang it up.

Besides the fact that I was freaking out that my plates would slip (I had put painters tape on the back of them for this shoot) and that I really didn’t have many blue and white dishes to display, I LOVE IT!

I seriously will be adding those dowels soon and will share how it looks when I do, but for now this is it!

I love the color and the little notches give it that rustic touch. Yet it still feels “cottagey” (there’s that word again🤣 ).

Don’t those curved tops look better? I feel it softens the look.

I need more blue and white plates, gah!

And I am already working on some DIYs for either side of it to fill up even more space on that wall. All in all I am so happy!

So how did we do? I think we did alright! We spent only $12 versus the original price of $349!

Woot woot!!

And even with the minor adjustments I think it’s worth just as much.

So, let me know what you think! And don’t forget to pin and share with your friends!

I will see you in the next one. Until then, adios!

September 8, 2020 By Yami 4 Comments

Amazing Dollar Tree Fall Decor

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Hello friends! The weather has been slowly changing here in Georgia. And while the days are still hot, the evening climate has gotten quite comfortable. And because of this, I have been inspired to start creating for Fall.

There are several DIY’s I wish to share, however for this post, I will be sharing how to make this cute pumpkin “grateful” sign inspired by one I saw at Kirklands.

This was super inexpensive since I had everything on hand with the exception of the wood square sign that I had just purchased at Dollar Tree.

For this you will need a square sign, pumpkin form and a leather strap to start.

The first thing you need to do is sand the glitter from the words on both the sign and pumpkin form.

You can paint these any colors you want to suit your decor. I used Nantucket Blue for the pumpkin and Vintage white acrylic paint for the square sign.

Next, cut a rectangle out of your leather strap.

With some scissors cut off all 4 corners as shown.

Then, with a wood burning tool. I used this one… make stitch marks along the border. And then write whatever word you choose for the front of the leather piece. I kept the word the same as my inspiration piece.

Next, I hot glued the leather piece to the pumpkin.

Afterwards, I used some gold thumb tacks from Dollar Tree, cut off about half of the pin to make it shorter, added some hot glue to the tip and attached it to the leather strap and pumpkin. I used a small hammer and covered the pin with a towel so that whenever I hammered it down, it did not damage the gold finish.

***RELATED:* *DIY Blue & White Wreath***

As for the square plaque. I added some horizontal lines and used a combination of colors to add paint onto it. I used a spatula to scrape the paint across the “planks” in an attempt to give it an old painted barn wood effect.

The pumpkin will go in the center so you don’t need much detail there. To attach the pumpkin, I used hot glue as well. And that was it!

I am loving that Nantucket blue. It goes so well with my previous DIY raffia pumpkins as well.

The rest of the items you see here are more new DIY’s.

That tray is an updated version of my last Dollar Tree raised tray. When I shared it last year many people couldn’t find the legs I had used for it, so this time I used items from Hobby Lobby that are found all year long.

The bowl below is a brand new Dollar Tree DIY and you won’t believe what it’s made out of!

All of these DIYs can already be found on my Youtube Channel if you’re impatient like me.

Let me know what you think of these and I will see you back here soon!

Don’t forget to pin and share with your friends.

Until next time… adios!

September 1, 2020 By Yami Leave a Comment

7 High End Dollar Tree Fall DIYs

Hey there friends! I hope you all are having a wonderful start to your September. I have been thinking about the Fall DIY’s that I wish to share with you all for this season and I thought it would be fun to share some of my previous DIY’s that I have made in case you haven’t seen one or two.

Some of these are either a favorite of mine or a popular DIY among readers. These are all Dollar Tree DIY’s, but you might not have thought so at first glance. I really tried to make these so much more than just a DIY so I hope you enjoy.

As always you can find all of the tutorials for the following Fall DIY’s in this compilation video on my Youtube channel.

Succulent Dollar Tree Pumpkins

These were made out of Dollar Tree foam pumpkins and succulents. I painted them neutral colors and added moss. You can find the full tutorial here.

2. Dollar Tree Buffalo Check Tree

While you can use this tray anytime of year, the color combination is perfect for Fall. In this tutorial I share how to paint Buffalo Check backwards on glass. You can find the tutorial here.

3. Dollar Tree Fall Houses

These were one of my favorite of all time and I actually have 4 different DIYs with these houses, both for Fall and Christmas. They really are so versatile. You can find the tutorial here.

4. Dollar Tree Blue & White Pumpkin Candleholder

This one was made from another foam pumpkin. I love blue & white together and I decided to create a “faux” ceramic pumpkin that I could add a candle too and I was really happy with the result. Great thing about this is you can make the pattern any color you want to match your decor! Full tutorial (along with 3 other versions) here.

5. Farm Fresh Pumpkin Sign

This farm fresh sign was one of three sweet little signs I made in one video. It is made of a wooden pumpkin form from Dollar Tree. I created a stand out of it and stenciled the front. Full tutorial here.

6. Raffia Pumpkins

These raffia pumpkins are a favorite among my subscribers and one of mine as well. While the wrapping of raffia could get a little tedious, the end result is so worth it! Full tutorial here.

7. Pumpkin Topiaries

These were so fun to make and I was so pleased how they turned out. Everything I used was Dollar Tree and I hope to use these this year since it goes with my current color scheme.

Full tutorial here.

And those are some of the best high end Dollar Tree DIYs from the past!

I am curious to know which one of these is your favorite! Let me know below.

Thanks for stopping by and I will see you in the next one! Until then… adios!

August 19, 2020 By Yami 7 Comments

Blue & White Fall Wreath

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Hey everyone! Hope you are doing great. Digital learning has started and I can already tell you we cannot wait until we start going back to school. My kids miss their teachers and their teachers miss them.

We just want things back the way they used to be! 😭

Okay, so enough about that… let’s talk about something we can change…. our decor.

I already have apple cinnamon all over the house (it’s my favorite holiday scent… so much so it’s all I burn straight through the New Year) so naturally I have to start thinking about my fall decor and I am going to change it a little bit from last year’s color scheme.

This year I am incorporating blue no matter what anyone says! LOL!

And since the Look for Less Challenge was up for August, I though I would do a Fall DIY.

I originally saw this gorgeous wreath on Kirkland’s website.

It is gorgeous and while $65 is pretty normal for wreaths these days, I still wasn’t going to put that kinda money into a wreath for the Fall season, especially when I have a ton of supplies left over from last year that I never got to use.

The only items I purchased were:

a grapevine wreath form from Hobby Lobby
ribbon
pumpkin picks from Dollar Tree

Everything else, I already had…

First, I started by painting some pumpkins picks I already had and the new ones from Dollar Tree. I wanted to keep it as close to the original wreath so I painted 3 white and 3 in Nantucket Blue Chalk Paint.

Next, I used some of Folkart’s brushed bronze metallic paint for the pumpkin stems.

I set those to dry and started painting some berries. The original wreath had a couple of different berries on it and I happened to have a couple of different berries from Dollar Tree as well.

I painted the ones below in French Blue acrylic paint (it complemented the pumpkins perfectly).

While everything dried, I started gathering all of my leftover greenery pieces from previous projects and began cutting them down to smaller pieces. I wanted to use light and muted greenery to keep with the Fall theme and I wanted soft textures like lamb’s ear and eucalyptus. I think those go very well with Fall.

Next, I began to assemble the wreath, making sure to cover up as much as possible on the wreath form. I didn’t have a ton of greenery so I had to make sure I covered everything well. And, I even found some potpourri (that no longer smelled) and added it in a few sparse areas.

You need to really get crafty sometimes, LOL!

RELATED: July’s Look for Less

I made sure to add the pumpkins in the same areas as the originals. And even though the berries weren’t exactly the same they still worked out great.

In order to keep them in place, I would hot glue the end of the pick that I inserted into the wreath and then I would hot glue the other end to the wreath as well (that way it wouldn’t hang all over the place).

The pinecones I had were a little heavy so I had to make sure I added enough hot glue to keep them secure.

Finally, it was time for the bow.

I planned on using a burlap ribbon I had to make my wreath look closer to the original, but it was not wired and it wouldn’t keep it’s shape. So I used another ribbon I had that had a gorgeous blue stripe that went well with the color scheme.

I am not the best bow maker, but I do share the steps for this one in my Youtube tutorial (it’s easier to explain when speaking).

The last step was to adhere it to the wreath form and that was it!

Perfect for the front door!

I’m not gonna lie, I like my bow better. That stripe!

Here is a side by side of the wreaths. Not too shabby I think, plus for only $8 out of pocket, it’s a pretty good deal!

So instead of going out and buying a brand new wreath this year, check out what you have that you can reuse, repurpose and repaint. You can change up your color scheme this year with what you already have on hand!

Plus, your wallet will thank you… and I love the sound of that!

Let me know what you think of this Look for Less!

Also, don’t forget to check out the video tutorial on my channel if you would rather follow via video, plus there are so many other submissions each month, you are bound to find a Look for Less you love!

As always, feel free to share with a friend and I will see you in the next one!

Until then…. adios!