 Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Drew here from Lone Fox and I cannot believe back to school is right around the corner. Now I remember when I wasn't on YouTube and I would watch YouTube and people would start posting back-to-school content. I was always like, no, why is back-to-school around the corner? Like, I hated when back-to-school content would come out because it was just meaning I had to go back to school. But I also did want to create a video geared around back-to-school and dorm because I know there are a ton of people out there that are moving into a new dorm space or even have a small space of their own that might not even be a dorm that could definitely use a project like in today's video to spice it up a little bit. I have four projects that I am so excited to share with you guys and one of them is even a full-on headboard and none of these are specifically geared like dorm. This is a dorm decor piece only. It just means that they're primarily renter friendly and they're things that you can easily put on the wall with command hooks or style however you'd like to and not get in trouble for it. So without further ado, let's go ahead and dive on into this video so that you guys can make your dorm rooms that much cuter this year. Jumping into our first project here. This one is actually super cute. We're gonna make a macrame paper towel holder which will essentially allow you to free up space on countertops. So we're gonna start by cutting our strands. You're gonna want two 14 foot strands and two six foot strands. I'll link the cording that I used in the description box below. Super super affordable. And you're gonna start by folding those in half and looping them through a wooden ring, which I'll also link all the supplies for everything below for you guys. I opted to tape my ring down just to make the braiding process a bit easier, but we're gonna separate our strands as shown on the screen here. So we're gonna have a 14 foot on the left and the right and two six foot in the middle. And that's also going to be repeated when we braid the right side as well, but we're gonna start with the left. So for this macrame, it is so simple. We're gonna do a coil. All you have to do is create a letter four like this. Take your right strand over the top and then under those two six foot strands in the middle. And that's all you have to do to pull it up through the loop. Tighten this up to the top and I'll show you guys one more time. And it is just super super repetitive from there. So as you can see, you're going to take your left strand and create this letter four over the middle two, then take your right and go up through the back side just like that. And that's how you finish that off. I feel like it's a lot easier to see me do it, as opposed to me talk about it. So highly suggest just watching that over and over. And it's pretty repetitive, but you're going to want to braid 12 inches of macrame. Once you reach the end, I just went ahead and grabbed all four strands, looped them around each other and tied a knot as close to the macrame as I possibly could. And this is what one side of our macrame is going to look like. Now you're going to repeat the same exact process on the right side as well, just macrame it all the way down until you have the same exact length as the left, and also tie that into a knot as well. I picked up this wooden dowel at Home Depot. I'm going to cut it down to 15 inches in length. And I'm just going to be using literally a Dollar Tree hand saw and this little saw thingy. I don't even know what this is called, like a little box that I'm able to use a saw in. So I wanted to make sure that these were super easy for you guys, and they weren't requiring any power tools. So I used the hand saw so easy. I also sanded down the end just to make sure it was nice and good. Now all you have to do to attach the dowel to it is just tie it off as shown here. So I just had one strand wrapping around at the front side, one around the back, and I tied the knot to be pretty tight, but still loose enough where you can pull the dowel in and out, but it's not going to be falling out all the time. So I just made sure to tie off both those sections on the left and the right side. I also frayed all of the tassels a little bit just to kind of give that boho flair. And that's how I finished off this paper towel holder. Hang it up and enjoy. For this project, I actually used an Ikea cork desk pad, which these are super affordable at Ikea. I used one of these. We're going to be making a cork board, but a cork board that actually doubles as wall art. So I actually got a frame from Ikea as well. I took the mat out of the frame, traced it on our cork, so we can see exactly how much we need. And I'm going to go ahead and paint just a little bit outside of that line. So I have a bit extra, but I'm starting off by applying a coat of an off white paint. And I did do two coats of this to start. So this is where our base is going to be for our pattern that we're going to be doing, which is a really, really cute terrazzo. So here I'm going in with my second coat of paint just to give a nice even surface. I added a couple colors of acrylic that I loved to this palette here. And I am just going to go in with a couple different sizes of paint brushes and create the most random, organic shapes on this background. Just vary the sizes and also make sure that you vary where you're placing them. So you're adding like yellow in different spots and dark brown in different spots. And it's just going to basically create a really cute terrazzo pattern in the end. And if you do need any more reference, just search terrazzo on Pinterest and kind of follow a pattern on there. I then went ahead and cut out the excess cork that I didn't need. And I'm going to be framing this in a picture frame, but we're actually not going to be using the glass on the front side just because we want it to use as a functioning cork board. So I'm taping this down on the backside of the map there. Then we're just going to simply pop this into our frame. And that's how we are going to finish off our little cork board. It turns out so cute, you guys. And I love how you can double this as artwork, but you can also add like to-do lists or photos or personal things to the cork board. And I love this pattern so much. I turned it into a free downloadable wallpaper, which you guys can find on the Lone Fox app. I will leave links to download it below. Project number three is the headboard. And I love this project. I picked up four three-quarter inch dowels from Home Depot. And I'm going to go ahead and cut two of them in half. We're going to want 18 inch sections. We're going to need three of them. So I cut two dowels down. It looks super aggressive, guys, but I swear to you, it's very, very simple. I cut them using the Dollar Tree saw again and just sanded them to make sure they were nice and smooth. Now I'm going to be using the 36 inch sections that I did not cut on the top and bottom. And on the left and right, I'm going to use those 18 inch sections and just one center support as well. I'm going to use some wood glue to go ahead and glue these together. And I'm really only using the glue just to kind of hold my structure together while we then go through and drill and screw it together after. So I let this dry for about an hour. And then I got a tiny little drill bit and I'm going to go through and drill some pilot holes. This is why I like the wood glue because it holds everything together while you drill. And then once I have that done, I'm just going to use some simple wood screws to screw this all together. So using a drill, just going to screw those in. You can also totally use a screwdriver if you don't have a drill on hand. And for the fabric, I picked up some faux leather material from Joanne's fabric. And I ended up opting just for a yard and a half, which was a perfect amount. And I had this really big yard stick ruler thingy. So I just literally made my strips as wide as it, which was two inches wide, but you're going to want to create a ton of strips of leather and just make sure that you cut them nice and straight. I think that's the most tedious part, but if you get them nice and straight, they look incredible. So now we essentially need to set up our weaving. So what I'm going to be doing is on the back side of the frame, I'm using a staple gun and I'm going to be stapling the leather pieces right side up because we're going to flip them around and kind of like transfer them over to the front side, which will create a really clean finish. So I'm stapling these all the way down my entire side there. You're going to want to flip the pieces under like this and then you're going to want to staple them to the opposite sides. This is the backside that's showing and I did about an eighth of an inch gap in between each leather strip there, which will just make the weaving process a bit easier and I think it looks really nice in the end. So next, what we're going to want to do once all of our vertical strips are done, we're going to want to add all of our horizontal strips. So doing the same exact thing on the backside. Once that is all set up, we can start weaving. So I'm flipping this over and this is what your piece should essentially look like. You're going to want to pull all of your strands to the right and start weaving and the weaving process is very simple. You're just going to go over and under every other strand and then as you start your next one, you're going to do the opposite of how you started. So if I went over to start with the first strand, then I'm going to go under to start with the second strand. That's going to give you that really nice woven look and this is another repetitive process. So it just took me like maybe three or four minutes to do all of it. But keep in mind that the smaller the strips, the tighter the weave could be or the larger the strips, the wider the weave can be. And of course, you guys probably guessed it, we're going to flip it over one last time, staple off our remaining leather strips, cut them away and you can just easily command strip this to your wall. It is so lightweight. And guys, the final clips, I literally used a cardboard box because I had no twin mattress. So please don't judge. I wanted to share with you how light this headboard is. Literally my pinky can hold it super light. So you can easily add this on the wall with command hooks or however you want to attach it to your dorm wall. I absolutely love the outcome of this project and it's also super functional. So I started off by cutting a piece of wood down to 11 by 20. And then I also grabbed this pack from the dollar store of like just wooden pieces. And I'm literally using like the wooden pieces that it came with. And I'm going to glue them to create this little box shape. Of course, you can also create this maybe out of cardboard or whatever you have on hand. But these were just super convenient and they're also pretty sturdy. So I glued them together to create this like half box shape or an incompleted box. We're going to be gluing this on to the bottom right side of our pine board. And that's going to act as like a little holder for notebooks or papers or whatever you want. And then I also glued a can on the top left side which is going to be perfect for pencils. I chopped up a wooden dowel to three inch sections which are going to be glued on the left side kind of to act as tape holders. And then I also added a couple of clothespins to the top right which are perfect to like add Polaroids or you know, little to-do lists or whatever you want to add up there. And then once you have everything glued down and everything's in its placement, I went in with a coat of matte clamshell spray paint. I love this color so much but it does require multiple coats. It's such a transparent spray paint for some reason but it's such a pretty soft gray color. Just let this dry, lean it against the wall and style it up. So I hope this video gave you some inspiration for back to school or for your own dorm room. I really, really love the outcome of all four projects but I think my favorite has to probably be the headboard just because we created a super inexpensive and also very lightweight woven leather headboard which totally elevates your dorm room for sure. And make sure guys to give this video a big thumbs up if you did enjoy and leave a comment down below. I would love to know which project you loved the most and also if you have any advice for anybody that's going into the school year this year, definitely leave it in the comment section below as well. I'm sure we would all love to hear it. So without further ado, I will let you all go. Have an amazing rest of your day and an amazing start to the school year if you are going to school and I'll catch you guys in my next one. Bye.