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Spring decorating DIYs: 3 ways to spruce up your home for spring

With winter gone and your sweaters and jackets packed away, why not spruce up the inside of your home while you're at it?
/ Source: TODAY

Now that winter's gone and your sweaters and jackets are packed away, why not spruce up the inside of your home while you're at it?

TODAY Tastemaker and founder of Style Me Pretty is ready to help you make it happen. As part of TODAY's "Design Your Life" series, Abby's sharing the three DIYs she's using to freshen up her home for spring and summer. Happy DIY'ing!

Marble and gold vases

Samantha Okazaki / TODAY

Supplies

  • Vase
  • Contact paper
  • Gold leaf
  • Gold leaf adhesive
  • Gold leaf sealant
  • Mod Podge
  • 2 paint brushes: one larger, one smaller
  • Scissors
  • Ruler
  • Painters tape
  • X-ACTO knife

Instructions

  1. Tape off the area of the vase you want to gold leaf.
  2. Apply gold leaf adhesive to vase with adhesive. Let sit for 15 minutes until the adhesive feels tacky/sticky to the touch.
  3. Apply your gold leaf by laying the leaf on top of the adhesive and gently pressing down with your fingertip. Use a dry, soft paintbrush to brush off the excess gold leaf. Continue adding gold leaf until all holes are filled. Finish by painting on your sealant.
  4. Measure the area on the vase that your contact paper will cover. You need both the height and the circumference of the vase. Cut your contact paper to match, adding about 2 centimeters on each end to ensure complete coverage.
  5. Trim any excess contact paper with your X-ACTO knife.

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Blooming pillow

Samantha Okazaki / TODAY

Supplies:

  • Plain throw pillowcase
  • Strips of 1-2-inch wide fabric (or a large piece of fabric - see note in steps)
  • Hot glue gun
  • Scissors

Instructions:

  1. If you haven't already, prepare your fabric by tearing the fabric in 2" strips. Most fabric tears fairly easily however if needed, you can use scissors for this part. We like the tear because of the raw edge that it creates.
  2. Create the center of the flower by gluing the fabric in a bunch right in the center of the pillow. Don't worry too much about the shape here, any shape will do.
  3. Begin gluing and adhering fabric in an outward swirl, keeping your glue placement and fabric close to the row before. If you run out of fabric, simply glue the next piece to the one that has run out and continue gluing.
  4. As you reach the outer most circle, take care to glue the fabric such that the dried glue isn't showing - we did this by folding the base of the fabric toward the center of the rose.
  5. Remove any long lose strings or glue residue.

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Nautical rope lamp

Samantha Okazaki / TODAY

Supplies:

  • Hot glue gun
  • 3/8-inch rope or smaller (we used 30 feet for a 24" cylindrical lamp - $.38 a foot))
  • Lamp
  • Scissors
  • *Sealant

Instructions:

  1. Starting at the back of the lamp, glue the beginning of the rope to the bottom most point on the lamp.
  2. Continue gluing and wrapping, taking care to hold the rope together until the glue sets, about 5 seconds. We like to lay the glue so that it is halfway on the back glass and halfway on the rope beneath.
  3. As you reach the end, determine where you would like to stop the rope. If you don't continue up the top of the lamp base, you can just end your rope at the same point on the back where you began. If you wind it around the top portion of the lamp, you might need to trim the edge of the rope to tuck neatly inside the swirl. *Note: You can use scraps of leftover rope to fill in any gaps that might have occurred.
  4. Optional step: You can use a glue based sealant to seal your lamp. This will help prevent fraying.