Finishing up some projects and starting new ones

We've been working on various projects around here lately. We finished up our swing set (for the most part) on Saturday. That felt great!

My boys painted the canvases I prepped a while ago, but for some reason I didn't get around to hanging them up until today. Here they are in our upstairs hallway. My baby seemed to know which one he did (the one in the middle). He said something that sounded like, "I did this one" when I was taking him to his room for a nap today. He's 15 months. Blueberries were on sale last week, so I had a couple of friends over and we made 3 batches of Blueberry Lime Jam (recipe found in this cookbook).

Last night, I fell asleep thinking about all the projects and things I need to get done. I decided to pick an area in my house and just work on it until it feels "done," or as done as I feel like getting it. I picked the kitchen and spent a good half hour or more thinking about my apron situation. I originally planned on using a pegboard to hand my aprons. The flowery red/black now all black one found in this post. After spray painting it, I found out it wouldn't fit in the space available! I'm still trying to find a new home for that one. Inspiration struck last night and I decided I would make a shelf with hooks.

I was at Home Depot the other day, pricing out tiles for a craft night I have coming up. I ended up wandering into the lumber section on accident and they had a TON of nice pre-cut wood for 51 cents a piece. I grabbed a bunch of 1x12 for some shelves I've been planning on doing in my kitchen soon and then because it was so cheap, I grabbed a few other nice boards with no real plans for them yet. My 1x4 board became my shelf today!

This only took me about 20 minutes. I used a handsaw to cut the back and the shelf part. Then, because I got a jigsaw for Christmas and haven't gotten to use it yet, I cut my own corbels for the shelf. Can I just say how much FUN it was to use a jigsaw? I never knew power tools could be so fun! Loved it and will definitely be doing something with it again soon. I scrounged around and found some nails, then glued and nailed the whole thing together. It's too cold today to spray paint, but I'll be doing that soon. I'm also going to be getting some nice little hooks at Lowe's soon for my shelf, too. I plan on doing a word in block letters for the top of the shelf soon and I'll take pictures and post them when I get that done.