All Things Creative

Giveaway!

2012-02-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, my good friend, Kristin and owner of KidsSweetTees sent me some super cute shirts for my kiddos! We named our oldest after Superman, so she did a super hero theme for my kids' shirts.

They came cutely wrapped and my kids loved them! They insisted on putting them on immediately.
Except for my oldest, that is. He didn't want to wear his shirt and I figured he was a bit old (he's 6) for this kind of shirt. The next morning, though, he popped out of bed and said, "Mom, where's my new shirt? I want to wear it to school."

These shirts are so super cute and the best part is KidsSweetTees is doing a giveaway! One lucky reader will get one short sleeved, white shirt with the personalized design of their choice on it.

Three ways to win:

1. Go to KidsSweetTees and pick out your favorite design. Come back here and leave a comment saying which design you like best.

2. Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment telling me you did.

3. Facebook or tweet about this giveaway and leave a comment telling me you did.

Giveaway ends on Wednesday, February 22 at midnight. I'll post the winner Thursday morning.

*Free shipping to Continental US only.*

Craft Night is Back!

2011-12-31T14:23:00.009-07:00

It's been almost a year since I did a craft night. My last pregnancy and then getting used to having 4 kids has been a fun challenge so I haven't had much time for crafting. The crafting bug came back this Christmas when I made my SIL these super cute countdown blocks.

I've been wanting to decorate for various holidays, but the only one I've ever decorated for is Christmas. This year, that's going to change. So, for craft night, we'll be making Valentine stackers and LOVE/NOEL blocks.

(Original idea found here)

I made my stackers double-sided. They're the same front and back. Double-sided stackers: $7.00; Single-sided stackers: $5.00. *Ribbon/cording may vary.

(Original idea found here)

I also decided to have my LOVE blocks serve double duty for Christmas as well. I LOVE how they turned out! You can choose white or red vinyl. Double-sided (LOVE and NOEL): $9.00; Single-sided (LOVE or NOEL): $6.50. *Scrapbook paper may vary. Available paint will match the vinyl.

Craft night will be Wednesday, Jan. 18th at 7pm at my house. Money is due the week before, Wednesday, Jan. 11th. If you would like to make the craft but can't come that night, I will have the kits available to pick up at my house that night or later.

**Sorry out-of-staters, I do these craft nights as a way to have a fun girls night. I don't currently make or sell these kits outside of craft nights**

Christmas blocks and stockings

2011-12-31T11:14:00.000-07:00

I made my SIL a set of red and green countdown blocks for Christmas this year. I really like how hers look, so I might be making me a new set just like them before next year!

This year, I also decided to tackle making family stockings. When I was a kid, my parents had an entire set of coordinating stockings, one for each family member with our names embroidered on them. I love mine (it has a cute little mouse in a rocking chair on it) and have wanted coordinating stockings for my family. I picked up everything on Black Friday weekend at Joanns but it took me until 2 days before Christmas to actually pull everything out and do it. They turned out great!

I ironed Heat-n-bond to the back of the Christmas tree fabric and using my vinyl cutter, I cut out everyone's names in the fabric and ironed them on the stocking fronts. Then, I appliqued around each letter and the toe on my sewing machine. It took forever, but was worth it in the end. I sewed the fronts and the backs together and then sewed matching bias tape around the edge to hide the seams. I added the faux fur cuff and a little loop to hang them from and was done. My husband took over taking care of the kids and cleaning the house for Christmas so I could sit at my sewing machine and make these beauties last Friday. It took the whole day and part of the night before. I also bought enough of everything to make more for any kids we have in the future. That way, we'll all always match!

Closet shelves!

2011-12-29T11:00:00.002-07:00

"Shelves in the closet? Happy thought indeed." - Name that movie! While the character was a bit skeptical, I'm beyond thrilled!!!

My husband and I have been talking about turning the back wall of our bedroom closet into a wall of shelves since the space was just a clutter spot and we needed more storage. I'd finally talked him into letting me hire someone to do it in January since we'd never actually do it ourselves... Until 2 days ago, anyway! We went to Home Depot on Tuesday and picked up all our supplies, 4 melamine shelves and 8 wall brackets (with 1200lb limit!). After putting the kids in bed, we drilled and screwed until we realized we needed an offset screwdriver for the screws near the support bar. So, my sweet hubby got up early and ran to Lowes to get us one. After that, we cut some extra wood down to support the sides of the shelves and nailed them in last night. Ta-da! I love it! and personally think it makes our closet seem bigger. Maybe that's just the mess being gone?

So, what gave us the ump to get this done? I've been wanting to go through our food storage and I figured, why not do the shelves and I can go through it all as we move it to our bedroom? All of our food that doesn't fit in our pantry in the kitchen has been filling our boys' bedroom closet, so it's nice to give that storage back to them. Plus, with all the shelves in our closet, we actually have more room than we did before. Yippee! I'm in love! And, right now, my loving hubby is installing a new garage light that he gave me for Christmas! Yea for better light in my garage so I can work on stuff out there at night!

Crafty projects

2011-12-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

I've got a ton of craft stuff and I'm not sure what to do with most of it. Right now, it's hanging out in our spare room (mostly) and I'm feeling in a dejunking mood. So, I dug through my stuff and made a few things that I'd been planning on making "one day".

Here's a nativity deco block. I found a nativity silhouette, vectorized it and cut it out as a stencil with my vinyl. I spray painted the block with frosted spray paint a bunch and then peeled it off. It looks great. Tied a ribbon around and done! The block has a hole in the side so you can stuff the block with Christmas lights to make it glow. I gave this lovely away, since the whole point of making something with my craft stash (right now anyway) to get rid of stuff.

I saw this idea for a jewelry dish back in February and went on the hunt for the perfect, cheap square plate. I finally settled for a round one and promptly lost it. I found the square plate at Goodwill a few weeks ago, brought it home and found the round plate. So, I made two, one for me and one to give away. The funny thing is, after finishing them, I decided I liked the round one better. It sits on my lovely nightstand by my bed and I use it almost daily (I love taking naps and you shouldn't wear your jewelry when you sleep, or so I hear :).

Birthday party craftiness

2011-11-30T03:29:00.001-07:00

My youngest boy turned 3 this month and I threw a big, dragon themed party for him.

First a mundane project: I planned on making kool-aid and serving it in my orange cooler with a towel on the floor to catch drips. My friend, Morgan told me about this drip catcher she pinned, so I looked it up and made one. Unfortunately, my cooler decided to start leaking where the spigot screwed into the cooler, so I didn't get to try it out, but it seemed to work before my cooler soaked my counter.
Also, for #3's birthday, he requested a dragon pinata. I followed my mom's instructions, found here and worked on it little by little for most of October (it seemed). My husband and I finished it the night before the party. Since the birthday boy was still awake, I dragged him out of bed before we stuffed it with candy (and made it heavy) for a picture.
It was a big hit and my older boys (whose birthdays are in July and September) are already deciding what kind of pinata they want for their birthdays next year.

The picture below is when my son was starting to open presents at his birthday party, but in the top left corner, you can see another of "my" craft projects. I say "my" because it was my idea, but my husband really did it. We decided to do "pin-the-flame-on-the-dragon", so I had my husband pick a clipart dragon and make it poster size. When I suggested he color the background (so it wasn't white), he decided to do a whole scene, complete with a castle, sun, clouds and a tree. We added a 'shadow' of the flame to show where the kids were supposed to try to stick the flames. I had it printed as a poster at Sam's Club, along with 12 flames on a separate poster. I cut out each flame and then had the whole thing laminated. It was a big hit, though my son was the only one who wanted to get the flame on the shadow. Everyone else picked other spots, as you can see. I see many birthday parties in this game's future.
The party was a hit and enjoyed by all.

Master Bedroom Nightstands, After

2011-11-26T03:00:00.000-07:00

I finished my nightstands about a month ago. So, here's the before again:

I wanted to see if I could get a nice metal look without going to the trouble of silver leafing them first, so I spray painted them with Krylond silver spray paint. After that dried, I painted the surface with black glaze, wiped it off and rubbed it in. In the picture below, the body of the nightstand is glazed, but I haven't done the drawers yet. It's a subtle, but important difference, I think.

Here's a close-up of the drawers pre-glaze and the nightstand post-glaze.
And here's my afters!
We moved them to our bedroom and stuck them in the corner soon after I finished them. I finally emptied our old nightstands and moved them out to the hall (where they still are) and put these lovelies in place a couple weeks ago. I LOVE how they turned out and can't wait to see the rest of our bedroom come together (eventually, we're s-l-o-w around here).

Where have I been?

2011-11-22T02:03:00.004-07:00

I haven't posted in almost 2 months and here's why:

My 4 sweet kiddos take up so much time that I just haven't gotten to the computer much. Have I done projects? Yep, lots of them. I've even taken pictures of most of them. A week ago, I sat down (finally) at the computer and uploaded and resized all my pictures... just before my computer decided it didn't like the internet anymore. No joke, the internet died, but only on my computer. My husband's 2 laptops and our wii were fine, go figure. So, 2 reformats (for some reason the first reformat my husband did, didn't really work) and one week later, my huband is the best and my computer is back to normal (mostly).

So, between life, kids, hubby, and projects my computer time is almost nil right now and I'm really liking it. I will continue to try to post my projects as I finish them, or eventually anyway. I have a lot of stuff I'm hoping to do in the near future and over the next year. I found THE fabric for my living room and I can hardly wait to make the curtains. I'm also working on finishing the 1 billion+ projects I've currently got supplies for but have yet to start/finish. Here's hoping that by next November, I'll be able to say most of that stuff is done! (And maybe even blogged about...)

Furniture freebies and yearly canning progress

2011-09-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a friend. "I'm helping some friends move and they've got some furniture they can't take with them, do you want it?" Like she needed to ask. A little while later, I was home with a solid wood bench and a corner bookcase and no real plans for either.

One day, I hope to refinish the bench. It had previously been used on a covered back porch and that's where it ended up at our house.

After thinking about it a bit, I couldn't find a place for the corner bookcase (also solid wood) in our home, so I listed it on Craigslist and found it a new home a couple days later.

About a week after I picked up the above furniture, a friend of ours called and asked me if I wanted an old coffee table. There's a ton of new home building in our area and he told me that he'd picked up the coffee table at a model home auction for $5 a few years ago. I offered to send my husband over with our van (I've yet to find a piece of furniture I couldn't make fit in our van) and our friend was skeptical, "I don't know that it'll fit. It's a bit big," he said. That was an understatement! It's 4 FEET square. It's huge!... but it fit. Here it is in our living room.

After staring at it and watching my boys play on and around it for a day, we moved it up to our loft. I've been rearranging our loft, since I can't leave well enough alone. I'm thinking of making the coffee table into a play table for the kids. I wanted to see if it would fit and not crowd our play room before working on it. So far, I love it. It's got just enough space under it to store 4 of our 5 kid-sized beanbag chairs and my boys have built train tracks, trios, duplos, marble runs and more on it's surface.

Now, I'm just trying to decide what I want to do with the table - a Mario table, or a car/truck/train table of sorts? Or just leave it be, since I know it's going to get beat up anyway?

I'm slowly working on my fall canning. All my fruit is prepped and I've got a couple of batches of jam/jelly I still need to get done soon. The rest of my fruit is prepped and in my freezer waiting for me to get around to making pie fillings. A couple of really awesome friends of mine came over every day I needed it and helped me prep my fruit. Together, we prepped almost 180 pounds of peaches, apples and pears over 4 days! So far, I've made apple sauce and apple peel jelly (yummy!), bottled peaches, peach jam, peach blackberry jam, peach raspberry jam, peach vanilla syrup and peach jelly, and bottled pears. Oh, and we dried some apples and pears - my husband loves dried fruit. I still have apple and peach pie fillings to make, along with my cherry stuff - cherry pie filling, syrup, jelly and jam. This week, my friend, Morgan is getting bulk fruit and I'll be helping her prep/can it.

New "Nightstands" and an update

2011-09-08T00:19:00.004-07:00

I mentioned here that I recently found new nightstands for our master bedroom. I have been looking for almost a year for matching bombe chests the right size and price for our room. I saw a couple of beautiful silver leafed bombe chests on Little Green Notebook and fell. in. love. I also really liked these nightstands from Little Miss Penny Wenny.

So, here's my before of the nightstands:

The gray one I picked up for $80. I couldn't figure out the huge price difference (original price was $180) at Home Goods. When I got it home, I discovered that the back leg had apparently broken off and been reattached with glue. It's sturdy, but there's a small, visible crack all the way around the leg. I couldn't bring myself to pay $180 for another one, so I originally picked up a square table that was about the same dimensions as the bombe chest and reasoned that I could make that work. After staring at the two of them together for a couple of days, I just didn't like that idea and told my husband I was going to take it back. He was relieved since he didn't like it either but wasn't going to say anything. He's such a sweetheart! Anyway, when I went back 4 days after getting the first one, there were only 3 left in the whole store! (There'd been more than a dozen on Tuesday.) Not sure why, or how I missed it on my first trip, but the pink one above was mis-marked to $150 - the most I was willing to cough up for a nightstand.

So, I'd love to show you my afters, but I seem to be hopping around a lot lately. I've got my 4 drawer dresser half sanded and the leg crack on the gray bombe chest filled and sanded and the original hardware holes filled (I really want 2 knobs per drawer, not 1 on my nightstands). I still have my french provential bench to finish up (haven't touched it since I first blogged about it) and I started cutting the vanity support off the first of my 3 drawer dressers that I finished the drawers for weeks ago. That's just my furniture projects!

I've got my yearly "crazy person" canning next week that I'm getting ready for so all my furniture projects are being put off so I can prep for that. I'm hoping to finish up the nightstands, and a couple other projects by the end of the month though. We'll see how fast I get it all done!

I was featured!

2011-09-01T19:17:00.003-07:00

I was so thrilled this morning when I checked my blog and found a comment from Allison at House of Hepworths that she featured my gradient green dresser! It made my day!

Go check out the linky party. There were tons of really fun stuff this week to go along with my dresser!

Gradient Green Dresser

2011-08-26T20:17:00.011-07:00

Last week, I decided to get the power window fixed on the passenger side of our van. It took forever and was done just in time for me to get my oldest from school. One week to the day, the driver power window decided to fail - and fall down into the door. Monsoon season in Arizona? Yep, I was at the mechanics first thing Tuesday morning. This time, they got done faster and I had time for a trip to Home Goods (nearby-ish) before heading home. I found the perfect nightstands for the master bedroom... at a pretty decent price too!

However, I came home with the feeling that I really needed to get something out of my garage and into my house, especially since I was adding 2 more pieces of furniture to an already full garage. (I think I've got about 10 pieces in my garage counting the new nightstands, plus about 6 more in my house waiting for a remake or resell) So, I pulled out my "new" mid-century retro dressers and tackled the long one. I picked them up on Craigslist a couple of weeks ago. They're Basset furniture and according to the woman I bought them from, at least 52 years old.

Here's the before of the 9 drawer dresser:

The finish on this dresser was so worn that it looked and felt scaly. I had to sand it to the bare wood to get the dresser smooth. So, I sanded with 80, 150 and 220 grit sandpaper and finished that up Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, I moved it into the house and started painting. Most of the white was done by that evening. After 3+ coats of white and 3 coats of the 3 greens, I finished up the top coat with water-based polyurethane on Thursday night. I love it! and so do my boys...

After:
We'll be moving the dresser into the boy's bedroom Saturday night once the finish has cured a bit. I'll be selling the dressers currently in their room since I just don't have the room to keep every dresser that I've bought over the past few months.

Here's the before of the 4 drawer dresser that matches my green gradient dresser. After looking at the paint swatches against my girls room fabric, I discovered that the greens look really good with it and this one will get the same color scheme. I'm hoping to start this one either tomorrow or (more likely) on Monday. When it's done, it'll go into the spare room (future girls room) until we can make space for it in the boys room or at least that's the plan for now. If you haven't noticed, I change my mind a lot!

I chose the 400D paint chip from Home Depot's Behr paint line. The colors are Jungle trail (bottom), Grape Leaves (middle) and Grass Cloth (top). The 4 drawer dresser's top drawer will be Corn Husk Green which is a little lighter than the Grass Cloth.

I've also decided that when I use up all my water-based polyurethane, I'll switch back to polycrylic. I think I like it better.

So, the most amazing this about this dresser makeover? It only took me 2 1/2 days start to finish! It normally takes me weeks if not months to do this kind of extreme makeover, so I'm pretty proud of myself. Now I just have to catch up on my mountain of laundry and dishes...

Linking to:

Balloon Animals

2011-08-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

My 6 year old went to a friend's birthday party this past weekend and another mother there was making balloon animals for the kids. All of my boys love balloons, my oldest in particular. After seeing that mom and asking her about it a bit, I decided it was something I could totally do. So, after the party I went on Amazon and bought a pack of balloons and an air pump. We got our balloons on Tuesday and by Friday night, I'd used all 100. Here's just a few of my earliest attempts. There were tons more all over the house that we hadn't found yet and we were popping them almost as fast as I was making them, but we still had quite the balloon clutter this week!

A rabbit:
A tiger:
A teddy bear:
I got a lot of my designs by watching youtube videos, but I also picked up a book on Amazon with instructions for some beginning shapes. I really enjoyed twisting the balloons and my 6 year old has started trying to twist some of his own. I'll be getting more balloons soon and learning more shapes and hopefully teaching my boys how to do it also.

French Provential Bench

2011-08-20T16:07:00.003-07:00

Monday I decided to pull out my french provential bench and pull it apart to refinish it while my 2nd son was at preschool. My 2 year old helped me by throwing things away.

Here's the before. It was the same dirty green as the rest of that set and this one sported a lovely needle point.

After pulling out all the nails holding the needlepoint on, I started peeling back layers and discovered this gross surprise. Yep, it's disintegrated foam. I'm guessing it got wet (the support straps were really stretched out!) and that's what melded everything together.
So, after putting down a plastic drop cloth to contain the mess, I pulled everything off (including about 300 nails - no joke!) and threw it away. It was put together pretty much the same as my Chinese chippendale faux bamboo chair so I have pictures of that one for reference when I put it back together.

This morning, I pulled the frame out to the garage, sanded down the paint chipped spots and painted it a satin black. Here's where I'm at right now:

Once it's cured nicely, I'll be reupholstering it and I'll hopefully be listing it on Craigslist in a few days! This will be the first piece of furniture that I've redone with the intention of immediately selling it. Wish me luck!

Furniture in progress...

2011-08-14T16:27:00.005-07:00

After finishing my table and chair, I decided that something needed to be done about our garage. It was covered in overspray from everything I've painted in their recently. After taking the time to clean and reorganize everything, I didn't want to do any spray painting in the garage for a while. I switched to the backyard and with monsoon season, I've been racing the rain every day that I want to paint! Ugh! Yesterday, I finally switched back to the garage just so I could finish something!

I finished working on this little kid table for a friend's granddaughter last weekend. Per her (the granddaughter's) instructions, the legs are purple and the top is pink with purple flowers. I finished it a week ago and delivered it but forgot to take an after picture. So, here's the before:
There's a couple of cars stickers on the white part, which I'm pretty sure is just primer - no paint. I removed the stickers, primed it and painted the table lavender. After that I put a vinyl stencil on top (flowers and a cute giraffe 'cause I knew she liked them and I wanted to.) and painted the table top pink. After that was dry, I removed the stencil and sealed the table with a couple coats of polycrylic. I really like how it turned out and I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture before I took it to my friend. When I get an after picture, I'll post it.

My 4 yr old keeps telling me that sometimes little boys like flowers too. He's so jealous of this little kid table I redid. Once I find a place for a kid table in my house (or make one!) and find another table, I'm seeing a Mario/Luigi table in my future. My boys love the Wii!
I've also been working on my two 3-drawer dressers. I'm almost finished with the drawers then I'll need to dig the bodies out of the furniture pile in my garage so I can paint them too.

I also picked up a mid-century retro style dresser set on Craigslist a week ago that I've added to my list of furniture to refinish. Haven't taken a before picture yet, but I'll try to remember before I start on them. I have some fun plans for them that my kids (and I) are excited about! I finally picked my colors for them yesterday, so I might push my french provential dressers to the side and work on my new dressers.

Here's my inspiration photo for my new dressers. I'd seen the gradient dressers that were her inspiration and liked them but hadn't thought to do it on a long dresser. My long one will be shades of green for the boys room and the tall one shades of pinky coral for the girls room.

A Table and Chair

2011-07-20T15:55:00.006-07:00

I finished my round, green, damask table. It looks really nice and I like how it turned out.

Here's a view of the base and you can see the black glazing I did.
I decided to give this table to my sister-in-law who just bought her first house. I hope she likes it!

So, I bought this bamboo chair the day I picked up my garage full of furniture. I decided to work on it the other day and that's when I realized this chair is OLD.

Here's the before:

Here you can see the goat hair (I'm guessing?) cushioning and the handmade nails (they were each unique and very sharp on the end!) that were used to upholster it. Since I've never seen or heard of a piece of furniture upholstered with nails before, I'm guessing this chair predates the use of staples and is over 100 years old. Anyone have any guesses?

The seat bottom was really old burlap and burlap straps woven underneath.
I took pictures as I took it apart (hence the above) and put it back together the same way. I bought some utility fabric to replace the burlap, but since the goat hair and batting was still in good condition and didn't smell, I reused it. The chair is super comfy!

I decided to paint the chair red and upholster it with this Asian fan fabric my mom gave me a few years ago. I seriously love how it turned out!
Here's a close up of the fabric:
This chair is going in my foyer next to my blue bookcase which will soon be black and gold. I can't wait to get started on it!

For kicks, I decided to look up the price for new faux bamboo chairs since they seem to be popular. The most similar to mine I could find currently sales for almost $400! I got mine for $3! I love a good deal. :)

Linking to House of Hepworths and:

Freezer Jam

2011-07-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months, whenever fruit goes on sale, I've bought a ton and stuck it in my freezer. I just didn't have the energy for canning while pregnant. When I tried back in January, it laid me up for 3 days, so I knew I had to wait.

The other day, I was just in the mood, so I pulled out everything and let it thaw all afternoon. After my kids went to bed, I made 7 batches of freezer jam (we were almost out of jam) and put the blackberries and most of the blueberries and strawberries back in the freezer for another day.
I don't have an after picture because it wouldn't be all that thrilling. I wash out 16 oz containers of sour cream and cottage cheese and use those for our freezer jam. They're a good size and free, so they work great. Each batch makes about 5 cups of jam. I made 2 batches of raspberry, 2 batches of marion berry, 1 batch marion/raspberry, 1 batch strawberry/banana/blueberry and 1 batch strawberry kiwi. I was having some fun with those last two batches. Since we now have a TON of jam, I'm hoping to turn the rest of my berries into pancake syrups sometime this summer.

Freezer jam is super easy and yummy. I use the ball freezer jam pectin. They recently changed from the packets to a jar that you measure what you need per recipe. Basically, you take 5 tbsp freezer pectin and add 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Mix that well and add 4 cups of crushed fruit (I stick my fruit in the blender). You can mix and match to your heart's content, as long as you end up with 4 cups of crushed fruit. Stir the fruit with the sugar/pectin for 3 minutes then pour it into containers and let it sit on your counter for 30 minutes. Then stick it in the freezer or fridge. It's good for a year in the freezer. When you want to use it, it goes in your fridge just like normal jam. We like the freezer jam because the colors are brighter and the flavor is more like the fruit and less like sugar than even home canned jams.

A table "remake"

2011-06-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

Remember these little blue side tables? Well, after changing my mind a million times and finding a great new bookcase, I now have to place/purpose for either of them in my home. I did decide something fun to do with them though.

Here's my first attempt (first meaning, I have to redo it):

I cleaned the table and sanded the top smooth and painted it key lime from Rustoleum.
Then, I added a vinyl stencil in a damask pattern, taped off the bottom and painted the top black.
After it dried, I peeled the vinyl stencil off and here's where it went wrong. My paint job stuck beautifully to the blue paint, but that paint wasn't sticking very well to the original brown stain anymore... Sadly, I peeled all the way to the stain in a few places.
I've since sanded the tabletop to the bare wood and repainted the green. I'm going to try the stencil again this week (I hope). I also started the other table and it will be coral. Oh, and the base needs some glaze, don't you think? I can't wait to see how it turns out. My boys told me they want the green table in their room, they like it so much.

The first dresser is DONE!... mostly

2011-06-29T08:00:00.001-07:00

It took me a while to decide on the color and what exactly I wanted to do with the dressers that will be going in my bedroom. Once I decided though, I got it done!

I chose to go with Slate Blue from Rustoleum and then use this idea from Addicted 2 Decorating to add a silvery color to it. I tested all my color options with that technique before deciding on the blue.

Here's my before:
First, I washed the dresser. It was when I did this that I realized they aren't green and what I thought was glaze is in fact dirt and lots of it. Soap and water wasn't enough, so I bought Bix TSP no rinse substitute. It worked great and looking at the before and after side by side just makes me realize how gross it was before.
So, after cleaning everything, I primed the drawers inside and out (every surface was that blue/green color) and painted the insides Rustoleum's Heirloom White. Then, while watching The Prince & Me, I taped everything off.

I painted the drawer fronts slate blue and then dusted them with Krylon's silver spray paint.
Then, I started on the dresser itself. *Furniture painting tip: Always paint the furniture upside down first, then finish the coat with it right side up. That way you won't miss any surfaces.*

My friend, Morgan came over this week and washed the dresser while I primed and painted the insides of each drawer. (Thanks Morgan!) After finishing up the drawers, I had my husband help me move the dresser outside and primed it. I used Rustoleum's x2 primer. Works great and it's pretty inexpensive. Primed upside down, wait 20 minutes, flip, prime right side up, wait 20 minutes, flip, paint slate blue, wait 20 minutes... It took a few hours and several coats, but I finished it up in one day. Wahoo!
Here it is waiting to be flipped for the silver 'dusting' layer.
After the last layer dried, we brought it inside and matched the hardware to the drawers. Each piece of hardware is slightly unique, so we had to try several before finding the one that matched the holes before we could reattach them all. Here's our "finished" beauty (I still need to add drawer liners). I LOVE how it turned out - the perfect shade of silvery blue for our room! This is my favorite remake so far, I think. My husband is excited to finally get his clothes out of a plastic bin soon.

I'm hoping to get started cleaning the rest of the furniture soon. My goal is to refinish all the furniture in my garage by the end of the summer and get it out of my garage and into my house.

Hardware refinishing

2011-06-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

One of the first things I did with my new furniture was take all the hardware off. It'd been painted the same color as the dressers and I needed to get all the paint off. A few months ago, I found this tutorial through a linky party and bookmarked it. I pulled it up and followed the directions. I had to do it twice because I didn't let the hardware soak long enough the first time and still had paint in the deep crevices.

I sprinkled baking soda in the bottom of a water filled large pot and then put all the hardware in. The second time I did it, I fished each piece out of the pot one or two at a time and used the sprayer at my kitchen sink to spray the paint off. No scrubbing or rubbing involved. It was great! So, I went from the green uglies above to these beauties:

I'm not sure you can tell in these pictures, but each handle and decorative piece is just slightly different from each other.

After getting everything cleaned up and organized, my boys helped me lay out all the hardware for the dressers and I spray painted them satin nickel from Rustoleum. I think they turned out looking more pewter than satin nickel. I love how they turned out and they're perfect for the look I'm going for on my dressers.

Starting on the Master Bedroom

2011-06-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

My husband and I decided a few months ago that the next room we would tackle/decorate would be our bedroom. It took me a while to find a color scheme I liked that I could find fabric to coordinate with. I finally found a rug that I loved and went with that. I'm doing a silver-blue, chocolate, tan and cream color scheme for our room. (I actually didn't buy the rug because when I went back to get it the blue I'd remembered wasn't the blue in the rug but I wanted to stick with those colors anyway.)

I decided I wanted a white/off-white 100% cotton quilt for our new bedding. White, so I can change up the accessories without buying a whole new bedspread and 100% cotton because I read a tip that natural bedding allows your skin to breathe while you sleep. I finally found an ivory king-sized quilt that I liked and fit my criteria on overstock. Here it is on our queen bed:

The fabric in the pictures is what I've gotten so far for our room. I wrapped one of our old throw pillows in the fabric and laid it all out to see what I thought of the ivory with the blue. I really like it. As I add more things to our room, I may try bleaching our blanket to a more off-white, less ivory color, but we'll see.

Our first night with our new quilt, we slept with our ceiling fan off because I wanted to see if I would get super hot as usual in our AZ summers. I was pleasantly surprised that I slept great and wasn't over-hot. We love our new quilt and will never buy a synthetic blanket for our bed again.

The bookcase

2011-06-26T21:44:00.002-07:00

Soon after getting my garage full of furniture, I dug out my $5 bookcase, cleaned it up and put it and the lamp in our living room. I then moved a bunch of our fiction books to the living room.

Obviously, I need to rearrange our gallery wall now, but I probably won't do that until I'm ready to repaint and finish filling that wall with frames. I'll also eventually get an extension cord for the lamp. There's actually a plug on the other side of the bookcase, but I wanted the lamp plugged into our half-hot outlet so we can turn it on/off with the light switch. Until then, the cord is stretched as far as it'll go to reach that outlet.

My first hairbow

2011-06-11T19:01:00.002-07:00

Here's the first hairbow I've ever made (sorry about the bad photo). My daughter will be sporting this cutie (along with a super cute dress) at church tomorrow. I've been wanting to make hairbows for a while, but just couldn't get myself to go spend a bunch of money. This one I made for free. After baths tonight, I was thinking about the black dress I have for Daisy for church tomorrow and wanting a bow to go with it. I remembered I had this red, white and black ribbon and some small hair clips I never use, so I put it all together. I sort of followed this tutorial - I just used ribbon instead of felt. I see many more hairbows in my daughter's future!

A Craigslist Story

2011-06-09T19:11:00.008-07:00

My husband has been without a dresser for about 2 1/2 months now. His clothes are in a plastic bin on the floor. So, for the past 3 or so months, I've been searching Craigslist for a dresser to fit this particular wall in our room. I finally found one this past weekend and I sent my hubby to pick it up.

Here's the dresser he brought home. It's solid wood, but when I saw it in person, I was under-impressed with it. I'm probably going to refinish it and resale it because I just don't like it all that much.

Before he left, he told me he hoped that was the last dresser we'd buy for a while. He said I like looking at dressers on Craigslist too much and was afraid I'd find another one I'd want. Oh, how right he was...

I bookmark any listing that I like but don't necessarily need or it's priced too high for me - just so I can drool over them longer. My favorite listing search is 'dressers' so I have quite a few dressers bookmarked. Monday night I was perusing my bookmarks when I saw a 10 piece french provential bedroom set I'd been wanting but we really don't need marked down from $700 to $250! I couldn't pass it up! Especially since I'd actually contacted the owner several weeks before about 2 of the pieces and she'd wanted $250 for just those two. I told my husband right then that I was going to get them the next day - no options. He was game since the price had dropped so much and he knew I'd been watching that listing for so long.

When I got to the lady's house, I found out that it was actually leftovers from an estate sale and everything left in the house was set to be picked up by a local thrift store in a couple of days. I drooled over a couple more pieces of furniture I knew my husband wouldn't be pleased if I brought home, but I also snagged a heavy, solid wood bookcase for our living room, a cute green glass lamp, a bamboo chair and a small magazine holder (for my friend who helped me load it all up and bring it home) all for $12 dollars!

Here's my lovely new furniture. The bedroom set came with a 5 drawer dresser, 2 nightstands, 2 3-drawer dressers, a vanity that connects the small dressers, a vanity stool, a bench, and 2 twin beds (headboard, footboard and matching rails). After getting it all home and realizing how heavy duty/sturdy this bedroom furniture is, I'm hoping my husband will let me keep it all (instead of refinishing and reselling some like I first thought).

This tall dresser along with the vanity and small dressers are going to be blue and go in my bedroom. (I'm just starting a "re"do of our bedroom.)

These cute nightstands are going to be pink and white when I'm finished with them.

The bedframes will be white when I'm all done. In the picture below, you can see the headboards sticking up out of the middle. One of the footboards is on the front dresser and the rails are on the ground. In the top left corner, you can see the vanity top that connects the 2 smaller dressers.

The square stool goes with the vanity and will be blue also. I'm not sure what I'll do with the bench yet (maybe white?). Buried in the back (which you can't really see) is my new bookcase.

My lamp got a new drum shade and now lives in my living room.
This bamboo-looking chair will get a paint job (not sure on the color yet) and some new upholstery and live in our office - eventually.
I promised my husband the first piece I'd finish is the tall dresser so he can get his clothes off the floor. I'm excited about my furniture and definitely have a lot of work ahead of me!

Jigsaw bookcase

2011-06-08T21:45:00.002-07:00

Last year when I was working on our playroom/loft, I really wanted to get this fun jigsaw bookcase to hold all my kids books. I just didn't want to spend the money. Now, a year later, I finally broke down and bought it. I still got a decent deal though. Have you ever bought something from Amazon warehouse deals? It's hit and miss, but you can sometimes find good deals on things you're looking for. This one, I got an extra $12 off and it is in perfect condition. My kids love it and I love that it has room to add more books.

Window framing!

2011-06-03T08:00:00.002-07:00

My husband was sweet enough to work on this when all I could do was sit there and tell him how to do it (I was still pregnant :)
He cut a pre-primed mdf board to fit the bottom of the window and added door/window casing around the edge of the window. We picked the same molding that frames all our doors for continuity.After finishing that up, we caulked all the edges and painted the whole thing in Swiss Coffee to match all the molding in our house. It turned out better than I was expecting and I LOVE it! The plan is to do this to all the windows in our house. Now that one is done, I'm hoping to get a window done a month until we're finished - but that's probably wishful thinking. We work much slower than that.

Here's a picture of the edge of the bottom molding. I had my husband cut it at 45 degrees and then straight for the bottom and I love how it looks.

Here's the before we painted and added the window framing and the after:

Our next molding project will be finishing up the crown molding and the mirror in the hall bathroom. I can hardly wait!

Nursery Pendant Light

2011-06-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

We mostly finished up the nursery before Daisy was born, but I'm only now getting around to posting about it.

I picked up a ceiling hook kit at Home Depot for a couple of dollars and had my husband install it. We weren't able to get wiring not intended for the interior of walls to make a long cord for our light, so I've got it plugged into an extension cord. I'm going to be covering the yard "rope" I made to hang the ball with some extra nursery fabric. I have a good friend finishing up the crib bedding and once I get my extra fabric back from her, that'll get done.

Meanwhile, it's a wonderful middle-of-the-night nursing spot. My little girl loves to have this 'night light' on and it gives a nice pale glow to the room. Just enough light for me to see, but dark enough to sleep comfortably. It's great and I'm so glad I took the time to make this light.

PS. I still haven't found a black cushion for my rocking chair, but I will.

Canning Applesauce

2011-06-01T08:00:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, I bought a case of apples through Bountiful Baskets, a food co-op we participate in occasionally. It's been MONTHS since the last time I canned and I've been really missing it. I'm weird, I know.

Anyway, I've tried applesauce before and it didn't turn out. After asking my MIL (a canning expert) for some tips, I tried it again and it turned out great! We got 10 quarts and 2 pints, plus we got to use our food dehydrator for the first time and did 5 trays of dried apples (my husband LOVES dried fruit).

With my little girl only 3 weeks old, we did it over Memorial weekend and my husband did a lot of the work. We really enjoy canning together, so it worked out well. I'm hoping to do a lot of canning this summer and fall, so this is just the beginning. I have about 40 lbs of berries in my freezer waiting for me to turn it into jams, syrups and pie fillings. I can hardly wait!

New couch

2011-05-31T12:10:00.003-07:00

We've had only one couch in our living room for a couple of years now. Now that we're a 6 person family, we don't even remotely fit on it. Since we're also having a bunch of family come visit soon, we thought it was time to get some more seating.

Here's our old couch. I found it 2 years ago for $50 on craigslist and sold it last week to a good friend for the same price. It matches the color scheme in her living room perfectly and she'd been looking for a cheap couch on craigslist for a while. So, it was a win/win!

We went to a local furniture store and picked out this lovely leather sectional.

We love it! Now that we have enough seating for the whole family plus some, our kids don't really use the couch. I guess they've gotten used to the floor. So, now I'm looking for some new accessories for the living room and itching to make curtains for the downstairs. We'll see if that happens any time soon. I'm supposed to be focusing on the upstairs right now.

Helping a friend

2011-05-23T08:36:00.004-07:00

I have a good friend whose daughter wanted a Cinderella birthday cake for her 4th birthday. Since my friend had never decorated a cake before, she came over last week and I helped her put it together. Here's our finished cake. It's not the best but the birthday girl recognized her as Cinderella, and that's the important thing.

Taking a break for a bit...

2011-05-11T21:17:00.002-07:00

Monday, our baby girl joined our family. I'll be taking a break from blogging for a bit while I adjust to 4 kids. I'll be back with the finished nursery and we'll be starting in on our next big project soon too. More on that later. I'm going to go snuggle a cutie...

Latest from Craigslist

2011-04-25T15:26:00.002-07:00

I've been thinking lately that I really need to get a bookcase for the kids books in our loft. We've got them in baskets on top of the expedit bookcase, but the baskets are starting to fall apart. After looking online for new options and deciding I didn't want to spend $100+ on a nice small bookcase, I turned to my favorite place for furniture - Craigslist.

I found a super cute smallish looking bookcase for $15 and the lady was selling 2 side tables for $20. I thought they looked fun and I'm wanting a side table in my bedroom ("re"make to start soon!), so I got it all for $35. The one mistake I made, however, was forgetting to ask for the dimensions of the bookcase before I bought it. I usually do and when I brought home this 3 ft tall, 3 ft wide bookcase, my husband asked, "Isn't this a bit big for the loft?" Yes, yes it is...

Too cute to turn down last minute and too big for my loft, so, I now have a perfectly sized bookcase to hold all our diaper bags, backpacks, church bags and other random stuff that lately has been collecting in the floor of our entryway. I like to change my mind a lot, but at the moment, the plan is to refinish the bookcase, replace the missing shelf and put it in our bedroom for our "re"make. Until then, however, it'll live in our entry.

As for the 2 side tables, I'm still deciding how I'm going to finish one for our bedroom. The other one, though I'm going to have some fun with and see how it turns out. If I really like it, I'll try to find a place for it. Otherwise, it'll end up on Craigslist again - it just won't be blue anymore.

Oh, and I'm still looking for a bookcase for the loft...

Our Gallery Wall

2011-04-16T20:26:00.005-07:00

It only took us a year and half. We had most of these frames when we moved a year and half ago. I felt that we needed a few more frames and bought those soon after we moved (for the most part, they're still empty, too). All I did was stack them in the living room and leave them - for months. Occasionally, the pile of frames would move around the living room to a new inconspicuous spot. Eventually, several months ago, I even filled most of the frames with photos, but when I was done, I just stacked them up again. My original intention was to hang them all on the wall leading up the stairs, so I've been stalling for a while. My husband decided to clean up our living room today and wanted to finally get those stacks of frames off the floor. I suggested our living room wall (I figured that would be easier than the stairs). He went along with it and I LOVE how it turned out! Now, I really want to work on decorating the rest of our living room - and finish filling that wall with frames!

Here's how we did it. First, I laid everything out on the floor how I liked it. I came up with this arrangement (ignore the mirror - it's going somewhere else).

My husband measured where he would need to start and where the bottom would end up while I started cutting out paper 'copies' of all our frames. We realized we'd need a new arrangement, so while he did the top row, I rearranged the floor to something like this:
We liked it and stuck it on the wall. We originally had the top row of frames level and decided that looked funny, so we did some rearranging on the floor and then copied that with our papers to make sure it looked good on the wall. Here's the finished result:
When I made all the paper copies, I wrote what was in the frames on the paper and marked where the nail would need to go for hanging that frame. Here's my hubby filling the dots with nails.
Then we started replacing the papers with the frames.

And here's the finished result:
I really like how it turned out. Now, I want to rearrange some furniture, get a sectional and finish filling the wall with frames. We decided that we'll finish filling the frames and update the photos (they were taken just before our move) at the same time - soon after this little girl comes. I can't believe we put this off for so long. I'm glad my husband was insistent today. I smile each time I go into the living room now.

The Hair-bow Organizer

2011-04-07T16:46:00.002-07:00

I've had many friends tell me that I'll need a way to contain the hair bow explosion after this baby arrives. Trusting their advice, I decided to make a hair bow organizer, much like the one pictured here, largely because it would be next to free. I have a friend who keeps chickens, so I picked up some extra chicken wire from her, cleaned it and spray painted it yellow (to make it almost cute). I also painted a frame (I dumpster dived months ago) the coral/pink color in my fabrics. Then I put it all together. Here's the finished look. I think I'm just going to lean it against the wall on top of the dresser, but I may decide to hang it later. We'll see. I currently have a total of 2 bows, so we'll see if I fill it up any time soon.

Chicken wire is NOT easy to work with. It likes to stay curled up. I had to unroll it and lay a board on top for a few days to get it to lay somewhat flat/less curled. After scrubbing it clean and spray painting it, I tried stapling it to the inside of the frame, but that wasn't working too well. After scraping my hand several times, I pulled all the staples out, wrapped the backing of the frame in the fabric (secured with duck tape) and then wrapped the chicken wire around the board. I had my husband cut the wires close (so I wouldn't cut my hands again...) once I got it folded down flat and used a mallet to hammer the finished product into the frame (it was a tight fit).

Pink-ish Mirror and Finials

2011-04-02T16:11:00.007-07:00

Last summer, I bought an Ikea bedroom set from my next door neighbor. I ended up selling most of the pieces and only kept the toy box and this mirror that I decided to paint coral for the nursery (and later girls room). I figure it'll be a nice spot for any tiny jewelry she might have. I forgot to take a picture of it before I started painting it and Ikea no longer sells this mirror. It's wood and matched the finish of the toy box.

Here's my after with my cute 2 year old modeling in the mirror.
And this is what I got when I told him to smile.

I also finished up the pink curtain rod finials mentioned yesterday. Here's the blurry before:
And the lovely after:
I spray painted the yellow part and then mixed some of my coral craft paint with water (about a 1:1 ratio) and lightly brushed it on. I wanted to keep the clear, translucent look of the original pink. It may not look that good up close, but from a distance it's really pretty and turned out just as I was hoping. And who's going to look that closely at my curtain finials when they're high up on the wall? Since it's paint on plastic, it's not durable, but again, no one will be touching them once they're on the wall (hopefully tonight). A true after won't be for a while since I doubt I'll be sewing the girls room curtains any time soon, but I'll show you when I get there.

Spray Painting Projects

2011-04-01T20:36:00.003-07:00

This morning after dropping my oldest off at school, my younger 2 boys wanted to play outside. It wasn't long before I realized that there was no breeze. That never happens around here, so I decided to take advantage of it and do some spray painting in the back yard.

My nursery rocking chair went from ivory
to heirloom white.
Again, the difference is much more noticeable in person. I'm still looking for a comfy, black cushion for it. I might try dying the cushion I already have black and see how that goes.

I also took a black frame and turned it white for the nursery.

After picking up my son from school, I decided to head to Ross to look for a curtain rod for the girls room. A couple of weeks ago, my 2 younger boys pulled the old curtain and rod off the wall (breaking the rod) and that room is south facing, so it's BRIGHT during the day. It's also the only room my 4 year old can take a nap in (since the 2 year old is in their room sleeping). In other words, he hasn't had a nap in a few weeks and it's starting to show. He doesn't nap every day (he's 4), but 2 or 3 times a week, he could sure use one!

Did you know that you can get 10 ft decorative curtain rods at Ross for less than $20? I picked up this cute white rod with pink flower finials for $13.99 today. I wanted a white rod for the curtains I'll be making (one day...) and the flowers definitely go with the floral fabric I picked out. However, the baby pink isn't me, so it had to go. I spray painted the pink wooden part of the finial yellow this afternoon (pic to come later) and I'm hoping to transform the rest of it to a darker, more coral color to better match the fabric tonight.

I also scrubbed clean a piece of chicken wire I got from a friend and spray painted it yellow for my hair-bow organizer. I just need to paint the frame and put it all together. I'm hoping it turns out like I have it pictured in my head.

Well, enough updating, I'm off to work on some projects...

My Finished Pendant Light

2011-03-31T20:21:00.004-07:00

*Edited to add a better picture of the finished pendant.*
So, almost 1,000 coffee filters and 10+ hours later, I have a lovely pendant light for the nursery.

I bought a small 8" paper lantern and "junior" sized coffee filters to try to make this pendant as small as possible and not too big for the nursery. It ended up being 12 inches in diameter, finished.

So, here's where I got the first night:

View from the bottom.

This is about halfway, believe it or not.

I decided last night that I was just going to finish it already, no matter how late it got. I finished up just before midnight (sorry about the bad lighting).

*Here it is in natural light:
After spending that much time and energy, I decided there is no way I'm putting a hot bulb inside this light. Visions of all the hot glue melting and coffee filters falling off kept me from finishing it for quite a while. Luckily, I was able to find an LED candelabra bulb that I can use instead of CFL or incandescent. Once my husband gets me a nice long cord for the light, we'll get it up and lit in the nursery. I can hardly wait to see the final result!

The Nursery Lamp

2011-03-29T11:40:00.003-07:00

So, I said in my last post that I was going to get this lamp to transform for the nursery. I like to change my mind, though, so I ended up bringing home this white lovely on Friday.

Last night, I got the urge and just ran with it. I scuff sanded the ceramic base so the spray paint would stick better and taped off the cord and light socket.

In between coats of paint, I ironed my fabric and cut it in the shape of my shade. At that point, you're supposed to use spray adhesive to stick the fabric to the shade, but I was feeling lazy and didn't want to deal with the mess that spray adhesive creates. So, I used elmer's stick glue, the kind that goes on purple and dries clear. I figured, if it didn't work, no harm done and I'd get out my spray adhesive. It worked! Saved me a bunch of time, too! Then, I cut the top and bottom edges of the fabric to about a 1/2 inch from the shade and hot glued the edges down.

Here it is in all it's girly glory with our green nursery walls behind it:

And lit...
The base is actually a bright yellow (the same color as the yellow flower in the fabric), but the green wall makes it look greenish. I love how it turned out! I can hardly wait to get our white dresser/buffet moved into the nursery so the lamp has a place to sit up off the floor.

I've also worked on a couple of other things, too, but nothing else is finished. I did make some tissue paper balls, but they turned out a bit small, so I'm going to do them over again. Tonight is my husband's weekly Cub Scout meeting, so I'm hoping to get a bunch done while he's gone.

Two Week Deadline and Progress Report

2011-03-25T08:43:00.004-07:00

I decided towards the beginning of this month, that I have until April 9th to get my nursery done. I work better with deadlines and I figure the last month of my pregnancy should be organizing and getting clothes - not decor - for my little girl. I realized yesterday that I only have 2 weeks until my deadline! Here's my ambitious to-do list and what I've gotten done so far:

I wanted the nursery painted a different color and painted the whole thing on Wednesday. I was over the lemon sherbet color it was (way too bright, I thought) and wanted something darker. My husband went for it because I already had the paint leftover from the kitchen. The green in my kitchen matches my green paisley nursery fabric (long story) and we over bought by almost 2 gallons when we were painting it.

Here's the before:

Here's the almost after:

We need to go over the edges one more time and my husband should be doing that today. (I'm done going up and down a step-ladder.) We're also going to be adding a window sill around the window and painting that out before putting anything back into the nursery. Hubby volunteered to do that too. We're hoping it gets done this weekend. Then we'll be installing the new white faux-wood blinds and hanging the nursery curtains back up.

I've been working on the pendant light and I'm getting faster. Still quite a ways to go though. Here's what it looked like as of last night:

This is 650 coffee filters. Any guesses as to how many it'll eventually need? I'm almost out of filters and will be picking up more later today. Hubby again volunteered to do the lighting aspect of this project, so that'll be done after I get all the furniture in the nursery and I know for sure where I want to hang it.

I'm also going to do some tissue paper balls (in black, yellow and dark pink) to hang from the ceiling in another part of the room. We just have to get a few more things done before I can make them.

Here's my fabric for my crib set. I'm not the fastest (or best) sewer, so I need to get started on this soon. I'm planning on making a bumper, crib skirt and 2 crib sheets from this fabric. I have all the supplies, I just need to DO it.

Here's my girly fabrics for the nursery. What looks like pink in the picture below is actually a dark coral color. LOVE it! Everything I make/do with these fabrics will eventually get moved to the "girls" room when #5 comes along. I'm going to be picking up this lamp today. It'll get painted yellow and the shade will be recovered in the floral print below. I got some chicken wire from a friend and I'm planning on making a hairbow organizer like this one with it and the large polka-dot print fabric below. I hope it turns out like in my head! I'll be making curtains for the girls room out of the floral print and the small green polka-dot fabric below. That's not by my deadline, just soon (I hope!).

I also still need to repaint the rocking chair and find a new cushion for it, along with a few other finishing touches. And we need to put everything in the nursery. Hopefully, it'll all get done by my deadline (or at least close to it).

The Buffet is DONE!

2011-03-18T20:43:00.004-07:00

I finally put the finishing touches on my "ugly" buffet. Here it is all finished up and in my bedroom. It was actually moved up to our room during our great furniture move to get the boys in the same room. It's just been sitting in our room empty for the last couple of weeks waiting for me to put in drawer liners.

Here's my lovely drawers. After a lot of thought, I decided that I wasn't up for refinishing another dresser before this baby comes (I'm feeling my 7+ months pregnant). Since this dresser is the same white I'm painting everything else in the nursery (and it fits on the right wall), it's getting moved to the nursery. So, I used the same wrapping paper in the drawers as I did on the side table I finished last week.

And, just as a reminder, here's what this beauty looked like when I first brought her home:

She's come a long way and gone through many transformations (in my head, anyway) before becoming the perfect dresser for my nursery.
In case you're curious, I posted here, here, here and here the different stages I went through to arrive at the lovely piece of furniture above.

Nursery Side Table

2011-03-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for a couple of months for a nice curvy little side table for the nursery. I wanted it to sit next to the rocking chair and have some storage for diapers and wipes. After searching Craigslist for something nice (and not finding "it"), I finally headed to Home Goods and found this little cutie. I was able to get an extra 10% off because of a few dings in the finish, so I was super excited about that.

The inserts in the cabinet door and the drawer front were a different shade of white than the rest of it and once I started painting everything else Heirloom White, I realized it was the wrong shade of white. So, I painted it out to match. I first primed the black/white parts and then sprayed it Heirloom White, but it needed a bit more.

I bought this green damask wrapping paper on clearance at Hobby Lobby last summer to use in my nursery, so I measured and cut it to fit the inset part of the cabinet and drawer. I used double stick tape to secure it on the corners and in the middle.

I also took all the hardware (originally antique brass colored) and spray painted it oil-rubbed bronze. This entire remake probably only took me 1 1/2 to 2 hours tops. It was great!

Before (I'd already taken all the hardware off)

After

All I have left to paint now is the rocking chair. I'm almost done with the furniture for the nursery. I can hardly wait to see everything come together!

Coffee Filter Pendant Light

2011-03-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I saw a really cool pendant light made from a paper lantern and coffee filters. I recently saw it again linked to on another blog and decided a smaller version would look great in the nursery. I bought this 8" paper lantern on Amazon.com and a bunch of "mini" coffee filters at the grocery store. About 4 hours of Pride and Prejudice and 250 coffee filters later, I'm about halfway done, I think. It's looking really cute. I'm just hoping there's enough room at the top to stick a light bulb when I'm done.

Nursery Bench

2011-03-12T21:21:00.003-07:00

I bought this bench a year and a half ago while my husband was on a business trip. You can see that post here. It's the first piece of furniture I'd completely refinished.

I originally painted the bench an ivory color (I had an aversion to white at the time). However, once we moved it to our lemon yellow nursery, it looked awful. I've been planning on repainting it Heirloom White ever since. I finally did a couple of a days ago. It only took about an hour.

Before

After

I know, you can't really tell a difference in the photos, but it looks much better in the nursery now. I'm much happier with it and that's what matters.

Dinosaur curtains finished and hung and boys bedroom so far...

2011-03-07T09:21:00.006-07:00

Last week, I finished up making my boys' new bedroom curtains. My husband and I didn't get around to hanging them until the day before our great furniture move last week. Both panels have 6 inches of stripes at the top and 12 inches of stripes at the bottom. I made the curtains floor to ceiling in length and clipped them to curtain rings. The top of the curtains wouldn't stay up straight so my husband folded the top over and we decided that looked really nice. Here they are hanging in my boys' bedroom along with my 5 yr old who thought I was taking pictures of him.

A few things I've learned with making various lined curtains for my house.

If I don't plan on moving the curtains back and forth, I really like the hidden tabs like on my loft curtains.
I prefer the grommits I put in my nursery curtains over the rings on these curtains. They slide easier on the cafe rod. So, for the rest of our bedroom curtains, I'll be adding grommits to the top.

On Tuesday last week, we had our home teachers* over to help my husband rearrange furniture. Between the 3 of them, they moved 14 pieces of furniture in an hour! Boy, were they fast! The biggest change was combining all 3 of our boys into the biggest bedroom upstairs. Here's what their bedroom looks like so far.

This is the view from the door, looking left. The closet is around the left side, but full of food storage so they don't use it.

This is looking straight in their room on the right side.

So far, it's a little crowded, but we've got some ideas to help with that. I haven't really started decorating yet. I've got plans for some fun dinosaur vinyl stickers on the wall, among other things.

Where things came from: The bunkbeds came from the older boys' bedroom down the hall. The toddler bed came out of the nursery. The tall dresser in the corner has been sitting in the garage since I finished it over a month ago and the double dresser came from the master bedroom. We put the white buffet (I'm almost done with it!) in our bedroom.

*Home teachers are congregational ministers assigned to meet the needs of church members in their own homes.

Kitchen Lighting

2011-02-24T09:35:00.004-07:00

There's a corner in my kitchen that gets no light whatsoever. It happens to be the corner that makes the most sense to put my kitchenaid. So, for Christmas last year, my husband got me an under the cabinet light fixture. We decided that we'd really like 2 of them, so I finally picked up the second one on Monday and he finished installing the lights last night. It makes a HUGE difference!

I took these pictures without a flash so you could get the full effect of a before and after.

Before After

(We will be hiding that cord soon. I was just too excited to get that done before pictures.)

My boys and I are totally making cookies today just to celebrate that we can actually see what we're doing!

Goodwill finds

2011-02-22T13:42:00.004-07:00

Yesterday while running errands I decided to stop in really quick at Goodwill. It'd been a while since I'd gone thrifting but it was on the way to my next errand. I got a parking spot right by the door, which reminded me of what one of my good friend's MIL once told me ("if you get a great parking spot, that means there's a killer deal inside that you are now responsible to find"). I was hoping to find a nightstand or 2 for our master bedroom. Instead I found a couple of new globes for our sconces for $2 each (they're $8 each at HD). I thought that was a pretty good deal. But, then I remembered that I'm looking for a small plate for a project I want to do (didn't find one) and went to the plate section. I did a double take when I saw this:

It's china, 8 place settings of MY china. My jaw may have dropped. It's expired, they don't make it anymore and I've been wanting a few more place settings to use with formal dinners. I asked an employee the price and for $50, it was mine! (One place setting on Replacements.com is $27.99 plus shipping!) It's missing 1 bread plate and 4 tea cups, but otherwise it's a complete 8 place settings. Score!

Some history on my china: My mom started buying this pattern when I was a teenager to compliment her expired china pattern when her sister gave my mom her china (my mom and aunt had the same pattern). Suddenly, she didn't need this half-bought set anymore, so I asked if I could have it and she bought a full 8 place settings and all the serving platters/bowls and things for me.

A year or so ago, I started figuring out how to get more of my pattern so I could get 12 place settings total and I learned some things about my pattern. Originally, it was made in the 70s by a German company called Johann Haviland. The pattern was so popular that in the 90s they had it mass-produced in Thailand and it was sold in grocery stores around the country. My pattern is the knock-off - not worth as much as the original, but still as pretty.

Well, I got my new china home and started cleaning it when I realized that I didn't actually buy my china pattern - I bought the original, German made china! Here's a picture of 2 dessert bowls. The one on the left is my old china (the knock-off) and the right is the new stuff I got yesterday. It's faded from use and washing, but otherwise you can't tell a difference just looking at them. (There's a different stamp on the bottom of each piece and there is a slight difference in weight between the two.)

After washing my new china, I put it all in my china cabinet and prettied things up a bit. Oh, I also now have 2 creamers and 2 sugar bowls.

We'll be eating dinner on my "new" china soon, just because! (And yes, I let my 5, 4 and 2 year olds eat off my china, they're just not allowed to pick up the plates. :)

Another Dresser

2011-02-18T12:06:00.002-07:00

When I decided to use the buffet in our bedroom as a dresser, I knew I'd need another dresser. So, I started looking for one on Craigslist. I had certain criteria: I needed a dresser no bigger than 3 ft tall, 3 ft wide and 18 inches deep, with more than 2 drawers. I wanted a solid wood dresser and I didn't want to pay more than $50 for it. It took about 2 months to find what I wanted, but I did! Isn't it cute?

We picked up this dresser a few weeks ago. It was $45, the exact dimensions mentioned above and a heavy solid pine dresser! The only problem? It's missing the hardware on the bottom drawer. I found a couple of knobs (that originally came on the orange nightstand) to make the drawer usable for now. This dresser is going in my closet, so I don't care about matching hardware right now. I may change my mind about that later on, but for now I need to focus on my nursery projects.

My Productive Weekend

2011-02-12T21:11:00.004-07:00

Thursday, my good friend, Emily came over to help me clean up my house a little in preparation for our busy weekend together.

Friday afternoon, she came back. This time armed with a LOT of fabric to make curtains for her living/dining areas in her home. I have the bigger house, the know-how and the sewing machine, so she came to me. Since we were sewing, I finally got out my boys' bedroom curtain fabric and crib bumper/skirt fabric to work on. Friday, we got everything cut out while my husband watched all 6 of our kids (all age 5 and under!) by himself. He's such a sweetheart! Oh, and I also had Emily and my husband move the buffet/dresser into the dining area on a drop cloth so I could actually paint where it's warm.

This morning, Emily came back again to finish things up. She was able to completely finish 2 of her 4 curtain panels and get the rest pretty much prepped for sewing. (We're hoping to get together again next week to really finish up). I finished up 1 curtain panel and got 3 coats of paint on the buffet and the cabinet doors.

Here's how things look (with my stuff, since Emily took hers home with her tonight). I'll get a better picture of the curtains when I've finished the second panel and gotten them hung. I did 6 inches of stripes at the top and 12 inches at the bottom with the dinosaur fabric in between. I love how it turned out and all of my boys really like it.

Here's my buffet in it's current form. I still need to do one more coat on the front corners and across the front bottom. I was also able to get the cabinet doors mostly painted. The grooves on the doors need another coat or 2 to make things nice and white. I finished up the last 2 drawers earlier this week.

On top of the buffet, you can see the green fabric (freshly ironed!) that will be part crib bumper and crib sheets and a dark green trim cup that has all the missing hinges and screws for the cabinet doors on the buffet. I'd put the hinges in that cup for "safe keeping" a year ago and finally found them! I was not looking forward to trying to find new hinges that matched the current screw holes.

Even the hinges had been painted with latex black and white paint, so my husband will be stripping that off this week so I can spray paint the hinges Oil Rubbed Bronze to match the new hardware. Once my last few touch-ups are done on the buffet, we'll get some help to move all the furniture around and get the boys in their new room! I'm so excited, because then I can start on the nursery!

Chocolate Roses

2011-02-05T14:00:00.001-07:00

My friend, Cassie is doing these super cute chocolate roses for a craft night soon. I won't be able to go, but they just looked so fun, I had to make them! I got 3 dozen made in about an hour and a half. (One bag of Hershey Kisses=36 roses) They were super easy and fun to make. Son #2 already ate one, so I'm down to 35, now. My boys are going to be giving these to their teachers for Valentine's day.

I discovered after making them that I don't have a wide-mouthed vase, so I'm using a pitcher to store them until we get around to giving them out. You can also see all the crafting supplies I picked up this morning with my boys. I've got to do something since I can't be in the garage painting right now. We've been having record lows in Tucson lately and it's driving me nuts! My dressers were supposed to be finished by now, and instead I'm forced to do other things.

China Cabinet

2011-02-04T17:34:00.005-07:00

This isn't much of a before and after, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. We got this china cabinet last summer on Craigslist, along with a matching buffet.
The hutch part of the china cabinet had gold painted diamonds on the glass (you can kinda see that in the picture above). I tried getting it off (I discovered that nail polish remover would get it off, but it was taking forever) when I finally decided to just get new glass for it. I didn't feel like nailing the trim holding the original glass back into the cabinet, so I hot glued the pieces in. Worked like a charm. My 2 year old came over and started hitting the glass while I was finishing up one of the sides. My head was in the hutch and he thought it was a fun game. The glass didn't budge, so I think hot glue was a wonderful, quick solution - and so does my husband. He'd been a little skeptical.

Here it is with the new glass and my china out of their boxes for the first time in 15 years! I haven't gotten around to making it look cute yet. That'll come after I know my boys aren't likely to want to touch/hold anything in the cabinet. I already told my hubby that now that we have the storage space, I'll be on the look out for some nice crystal goblets at the thrift store, too.

Dresser Update

2011-01-31T16:22:00.004-07:00

This past weekend, I was hard at work on the buffet/dresser for my bedroom. I got 3 of the 5 drawers done, 2 coats (1 to go!) on the other 2 drawers and I got the first coat on the body of the dresser (I think it'll take 4 since the coat went on thinner for some reason). I still haven't started painting the cabinet doors. I'm not sure why I'm at different points for everything. You'd think I would have put one coat on everything every time (but then I'd be done, and that's just too easy...).

I haven't worked on it at all today. It's cold outside and it's just one of those days. But here it is, ready for coat #2. You can also see the untouched cabinet doors on the right.

Here you can kind of see how gorgeous the top turned out after 3 coats of poly.

And here's the drawers in their finished/semi finished states.

Once I get everything painted, I'm going to be putting a liner in all the drawer bottoms. I picked up some super cute wrapping paper for that this weekend. I'll be doing the same thing that I did in the Lego table drawer.

I also had my hubby move the nursery dresser into the garage so I can start on that. It's been living in our foyer since we moved in over a year ago. Please ignore all the stuff piled on and around it. Our foyer has been quite the dumping ground lately...

Here it is taken apart in my garage. First things first, it needs some work. At least one drawer needs a new bottom. One side of one drawer needs to be fixed. I need to replace a drawer slide and the top has some serious water damage and needs to be sanded down/fixed. After that, I can clean it, paint it and put in drawer liners.

If the weather improves soon (it's been cold and cloudy today, boo!), I'm hoping to at least finish the buffet and get started on the nursery dresser by the end of the week. Next week, I'm sewing! (or at least that's the plan right now...)

Staining the top

2011-01-28T08:00:00.002-07:00

I woke up this morning having had the strangest dream. I was invited to go to this crafting-type conference and decided to take my buffet to show off. The only problem - it wasn't finished. I was scrambling around at the conference trying to find the right tools/materials to get it finished in time. So, I decided to spend the day working on that buffet when I woke up. I'm not finished, but I'm getting closer and I'm LOVING it!

Here's the before. The summer of 2009, I discovered Craigslist and scored a nice couch for $50. I was hooked. Soon after, I found this ugly piece and for $60 it was mine. My husband thought I was crazy for getting it and told me so several times. It doesn't look as bad in the picture as it was in real life. Lets just say the paint job was horrible and leave it at that.

Last year, I finally started stripping it down and that's as far as it got. I changed my mind (totally normal and expected according to my husband) about where I wanted to put/use it and so it just sat in the garage collecting dust.

Last weekend, my husband decided he'd help me out and finish stripping the top down so we could re-stain the top. This morning, after getting #1 to school, I busted out the power sander and sanded off the rest. After hand sanding the scalloped edge, it looked pretty good and I started getting excited.

At this point, I'd pretty much used up my energy, so I didn't get back to it until this afternoon. I put on my lovely mask that makes it possible for me to keep doing these fun things while pregnant and added a dark walnut stain to the top.

Here it is soaking it up:
And this is after I got the stain all rubbed in. Doesn't it look great?!?! It has to dry for 4 hours, then I get to start putting the poly on. After that, I'll be painting the rest. It's going in my bedroom and I can't wait to see what it looks like!

Organizing Toys

2011-01-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

Our boys got a lot of Trios and Duplos for Christmas this year. I had hoped that the buckets that came with the sets would be enough to contain everything, old and new, but I was overly optimistic. So, Monday, I headed to Walmart and picked up a couple of clear plastic bins for the toys. When we got home, I cut TRIO and DUPLO labels out for each bin and #2 helped me stick them on. He ran off with his new Trio bucket before I could get a picture.

The best thing? These two bins stacked fit perfectly inside our expedit bookcase in the loft! Walmart also carries a bin twice this size. I bought one a few weeks ago to store all my craft night excess supplies and it fits perfectly too. I'm starting to think I should maybe get a few more...

Cherry Pie Filling and Syrup, YUM!

2011-01-26T12:50:00.002-07:00

Last week a friend of mine came over to help me can my last 30lb bucket of cherries from my freezer. The first one became bottled cherries back in November. These cherries became pie filling, yum! We got 24 pints and 2 quarts of pie filling out of the cherries. Most canning recipes say to can your pie filling in quarts because it takes 1 quart to fill an 8 or 9 inch pie plate. I don't usually make pies with my pie filling though. I use it to make fruit crisps and one 8x8 pan takes 1 pint, so I can my pie fillings in pints. I did 2 quarts this time around for pies this Thanksgiving.

This time around, we also saved all the cherry juice from the cherries thawing out and made pancake syrup with it. We got 5 batches of syrup, 12 pints and 5 quarts (I ran out of regular mouth lids). My husband makes pancakes for breakfast every Saturday morning (a family tradition his sister told me about and I insisted my husband do it too), so we go through a LOT of syrup at our house. We tried our new, pink syrup this past weekend and it was a hit! Good thing, too, since we've got so much of it.

Here's everything cooling on my toweled counter.

Wonderful Wednesday Craft Night

2011-01-21T12:50:00.002-07:00

We are *finally* getting to another craft night! So...

You're invited to Wonderful Wednesday Craft Night!

Who: Anyone local. If we don't know you personally, you'll have to prove you're a real person before we'll give you my address. :)
Where: My house
When: Wednesday, February 16th
from 7pm 'til whenever

*Please bring a snack food to share.*

We will be doing the following crafts:
Growth Chart
Chalkboard Menu Board
"I am a Child of God" Board
Birthday Cards and Card Organizer
and
Flower Pot Pens

Just click on the names to see more information about and prices for each of the projects. Click here to download/print the order form. All orders and money need to be in by Saturday, February 5th so Morgan and I can get everything ready for craft night. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us and we'll do our best to help you out. We hope to see you there!

*If you would like to request a craft for us to do at a future craft night, contact me or Morgan and we'll see what we can do. We're really excited about this craft night and are already brainstorming crafts/ideas for future ones later this year. With my baby coming in April/May, we're shooting for our next craft night to be in July sometime.

Growth Chart

2011-01-21T12:49:00.001-07:00

We will be doing the much anticipated growth charts. They will be 6 feet in length. There are several options for these charts, making the price determined by the options you pick. Because the boards are so long, they will be pre-painted or polyurethaned depending on your choice of wood or MDF. The basic kit will include the inch markings and the numbers 0-6 in vinyl. You can choose the basic kit in high quality pine wood with a polyurethane protective coat or the MDF board basic kit which includes your choice of paint color: white, light blue, light pink, or light green. We also have a "Watch Me Grow!" embellishment for your board, if you want. You can choose your flower color separate from the words.

Pictured here are two samples that we made. The right one is the wood option with the basic kit. It is made to be flush with the floor. The left one has the "Watch Me Grow!" embellishment and is meant to be hung 1 foot off the floor. We will be selling these samples at craft night, if you like one and don't want to make it yourself. The wood yardstick version is $50.00 and the white MDF with pink lettering is $42.50. Please let us know in an email (allthingscreativeaz@gmail.com) if you are interested in purchasing one of these sample. First come, first serve.

The following are the various font options for numbers and any embellishments you would like on your growth chart.

Flower Pot Pens

2011-01-21T12:48:00.001-07:00

We'll be making flower pot pens for craft night. This will include a clay pot, filler and 6 pens with flowers. Flowers will vary from those pictured below.

These are a great fun item to have on display while keeping pens close. My boys LOVE getting to use my flower pens.

Birthday Cards and Calendar

2011-01-21T12:47:00.001-07:00

If you have a New Years resolution to not forget anyone's birthday this year, this will help. We will have birthday cards in sets of 15. Each set will come with the cardstock, scrapbook paper (cut to size), envelopes and one 12 x 12 sheet of vinyl embellishments in your choice of color. You can choose from the 3 vinyl options below, or order 3 sets and get all 3. Cardstock colors and scrapbook paper will vary, but we will try our best to coordinate your chosen vinyl color with the cardstock and scrapbook paper. Available vinyl colors are black, white, beige, chocolate, lt. brown, lt. gray, dark gray, blue, green, bright pink and red. You may want to bring your own paper cutter and corner punches and such (if you have them) since we only have a couple.

Here is a sample set of 15 cards.

To help with organizing these cards, so you don't forget anyone's birthday, we will also have super cute birthday card organizer kits. Each month has it's own large envelope to store your birthday cards according to birthdays, along with a place to write each person's birthday on the outside. Months will be laser printed in the font pictured below.

Menu Boards

2011-01-21T12:46:00.004-07:00

Here's another requested craft, the menu board.

Again, there's a few different options for the menu board. *All boards are 12" wide and 22" tall.* Below are the 4 different font options. The MDF boards will be 1/2" to 3/4" thick for mounting on a wall. Or you can choose the backer board option, super thin for mounting on your pantry door (or another door). The days of the week are cut out of the chalkboard vinyl so you see the color of your board underneath. You can have white vinyl (if you want to paint your board dark) instead of the cut out days of the week. We will have white and antique white paint available that night. If you want a different color, please bring it with you. This kit will come with a chalkboard marker for writing on the the chalkboard vinyl.

"I am a Child of God" Boards

2011-01-21T12:45:00.002-07:00

We'll be making "I am a Child of God" boards. Perfect for a little kid's room! You can choose to do either a 3 1/2 ft board or a 2 1/2 ft board. There are 4 font options to choose from in a variety of vinyl color options. Paint colors we will have available that night are white and off white. If you would like to use a different color, please bring it with you. Available vinyl colors are black, white, beige, chocolate, lt. brown, lt. gray, dark gray, blue, green, bright pink and red.

New Dresser

2011-01-18T11:44:00.004-07:00

Part of my To Do List includes finding some new furniture. So, I hit up Craigslist. The first thing I was hoping to find is a new dresser for my boys. They currently are using this dresser we bought at Walmart before I learned about the joys of Craigslist. I considered getting the matching tall dresser, but I'm kind of over the blue. They only way I could convince my husband to replace the blue dresser though (we just got it 2 years ago) was if I could find a dresser we could keep stained... and Craigslist delivered!

I found this cute antique dresser a little over a week ago. The lady had it professionally stripped to the bare wood and stained it herself, but never got around to putting any poly on it. She just wanted it out of her garage. The only problem was it was an hour away from where I live. However, I had a doctor's appointment near there a week after she listed it, so I promised myself I'd go look at it if it was still listed then. After getting hubby's approval, I emailed her and was able to bring it home this past Friday! She told me that she bought it almost 40 years ago, used at the Salvation Army for her then 2 year-old daughter. It was originally white, but a few years ago decided to get rid of the paint. The dresser reminds me of the antique furniture that my best friend's house is filled with. She and her husband inherited a LOT of furniture from grandparents and I just drool over it all whenever I go to visit.

Here it is Saturday in my garage, just before I started putting the poly on. She also had the original hardware, but it wasn't installed when I picked up the dresser.

My husband decided that I needed to change the color of the hardware. I agreed.

So, Monday after taking my kids to the Zoo, we ran around until I found this Rub N' Buff stuff I've read about in blogland. I found it at Michaels in the acrylic paint area. It's a tiny tube, but it goes a LONG way.

After rubbing this stuff on, they looked great, but it rubs right off, so I sprayed a clear coat on top to protect the finish. I figure, if it starts coming off, I'll do something else with them. I love how they turned out though!

And here's my dresser, fully assembled in the garage. I can't believe the difference a couple of coats of poly made to this dresser!

It'll probably be stuck in the garage until I can empty my craft room and get it moved to it's new home in our boys new bedroom.

We have another double dresser that is a very similar stain to our new dresser. It'll get moved into our boys bedroom and the blue one will go on Craigslist once their room is finished. I've been working on picking paint colors for their room lately - so fun!

In other furniture news, my husband decided to work on stripping the buffet (pictured here) we've stored in our garage for the past 2 years almost. I'm hoping to paint and stain it soon!

Ice Cream Brownie Cake

2011-01-11T19:14:00.003-07:00

Sunday on the way home from church, I had a great idea. "Let's make an ice cream cake." My husband and I discussed all the different ways we could possibly do that. We decided on a top layer of brownie followed by a layer of vanilla ice cream. After lunch, I got started.

I made a brownie mix and baked it in a 9" spring form pan.

After that baked, cooled and then froze in the freezer, I made some vanilla ice cream. We got an ice cream maker attachment for our KitchenAid for Christmas and homemade ice cream has become a new favorite hobby. The brownie mix I used had a packet of fudge topping, so I "swirled" it in the ice cream at the last minute. It kind of chunked up, but it's still very yummy!

Here's the ice cream right after I added it to the bowl.After adding the fudge topping, I poured/scraped out the soft ice cream on top of our brownies. It perfectly filled our spring form pan. I covered it in aluminum foil and sort of smoothed out the top with my hands, then stuck it in the freezer.

A few hours later, we pulled it out of the freezer and turned it upside down onto a frozen marble slab we've had sitting in our freezer for a month. (I was going to kneed some candy with it in December, but decided against doing that particular candy. Maybe next year.) Unfortunately, the brownie stuck to the bottom of the pan and my husband had to use a plastic spatula to pry it off. We flipped it over onto the ice cream part and it still looked pretty good.

This was a fun dessert to make and we gobbled it down. I want to try another ice cream cake with several layers of ice cream next. Right after Christmas I made this super yummy peanut butter ice cream, so I think I'll do a chocolate, peanut butter and vanilla layered cake. Yum!

My parents sent me a couple of boxes of recipe books a little over a year ago. Amongst the group was this ice cream recipe book. That's where I'm getting all my ice cream recipes. So far, we've tried Raspberry Sour Cream Ice Cream, Orange Chocolate Sherbet, Peanut Butter Ice Cream, Eggnog Ice Cream (recipe found online), Banana Marshmallow Ice Cream and now Vanilla. Pink Peppermint Ice Cream and Orange Yogurt Ice Cream are next on the list of ice creams to try.

Hall Bath with decor

2011-01-06T09:59:00.004-07:00

I'm almost done with our hall bath! I've been making slow and steady progress this week and I hope to finish everything up this weekend.

I've been purchasing decor items for our safari themed bathroom for over a year now. One of the oddish things I picked up is this giraffe kick-line (that's what it looks like to me anyway...). I originally thought I'd use it to hang our boys' hooded towels, but it's just plaster and wouldn't hold. I decided it would look cute "hanging" little picture frames from it instead. I found some safari animal silhouettes and cut them out in vinyl. The picture frames I found at Walmart for $1.50 each. I threw the backs away and hot glued the glass in the frames. The silhouettes are on the inside of the frame. Before hanging the kick-line and frames in the bathroom, I made them a bit more waterproof by putting a coat of clear acrylic varnish. The frames are actually attached to the wall so they're a little more secure.

The next thing I did was install a wallpaper border just above the chair rail in the bathroom. I bought the border when I got the shower curtain (2 1/2 years ago!), but I wasn't sure I wanted to use it. The colors are just a bit different from the curtain to the border. After thinking about it for a few days, though, my husband and I just felt the room needed a bit more. It was really easy to install. It came pre-pasted and we just followed the directions on the back.

I've been working on painting a pegboard to hang the kids' towels at their height by the tub, but it's not finished yet. I'm hoping to get it finished today and installed tomorrow. Last night, I hung the hand towel holders (one at kid height and one at adult height) and hung some canvases I bought at Target a year or so ago.

Sorry about the lighting, there's no natural light in the bathroom and I took the below pictures last night at 10pm.

There's still a few more things that need to get done before it's finished. My new miter saw came this morning (yea!) so we'll be cutting crown molding tonight. I need to finish and install the pegboard, frame out the mirror, get matching hand towels, buy and install a towel rod and TP holder and get new bath mats (our current ones used to be brown, but now look more purple). Oh, and install the crown molding. I'm so excited that the first thing on my list is almost done!

I've also been working on cleaning up my craft room (slowly, but surely) and I hope to get that done in the next few days too.

My 2011 To Do List

2011-01-02T18:00:00.004-07:00

My personal resolution this year is to be consistent. No more starting a project and taking a month (or longer) to finish what should only take me a few hours or days at most. With our baby (our first girl!) coming mid-Spring this year, I'm focusing my To Do list on what needs to be done before her arrival. I love lists and my initial list was much longer. I pared it down to "just" the basics, which is still quite a long list.

First, we need to get the crown molding up in our hall bath and decorate the bathroom. I'm hoping to finish that in the next couple of weeks. I'll be getting my own miter saw sometime this week!

My craft room needs to be organized and boxed up (for the moment) so that #3 can move out of the nursery and make room for #4. My craft room is the largest bedroom in the house (outside of the master) and is the only one that'll fit all three boys.

After I empty the room, I'll be painting the walls some shade of green (at #1's request) and the ceiling a shade of blue. We'll also be replacing the baseboards (I'm a Southern girl and 2 inch baseboards just don't cut it in my book). We'll add crown molding, frame out the window and add a window sill. We'll also replace the current cheap mini-blinds with nice faux-wood blinds. I also need to make curtains and find a tall dresser I can paint blue to match the boys current double dresser.

We'll move the boys into their new bedroom and that will empty the 2 bedrooms they currently occupy. One will become the new craft room/guest room; the other will still be the nursery.

Once the nursery's empty, I'll replace those baseboards and add crown molding, window framing and new blinds in there. We'll also be painting the ceiling the same yellow as the walls and adding a green accent wall. I need to refinish all the nursery furniture in white (bench, rocking chair, dresser) and find a side table to refinish as well. I'm hoping for a french provincial style side table/nightstand. We also need to get a white crib (I got rid of our old crib when #3 went to a toddler bed) and make coordinating crib bedding (bumper, sheets and crib skirt).

The future nursery dresser is currently sitting in our entryway. If I can finish everything listed above before #4 makes her appearance, I'd also like to make a bench to fill that space in our entry.

After baby girl arrives, I'll be focusing on the master suite. I want to add shelves to the back wall of our walk-in closet, paint the bathroom and bedroom and get/refinish some new furniture.

Crafting with the Stars

2011-01-01T13:55:00.002-07:00

On a whim, I decided to audition for Crafting with the Stars at Sew Dang Cute. I entered my son's Lego table I finished in time for Christmas. You can go check out everyone else's entries and enter your own here. Sounds like it's going to be fun!

My Aunt's Watermelon Painting

2010-12-31T14:48:00.003-07:00

My aunt is a very talented crafter. Through her influence, I learned to hand quilt, finished a couple of latch-hook rugs, made several pairs of Indian bead earrings, etc. I get some of my craftiness from her, I think.

Three years ago, while visiting my aunt, she gave myself and each of my siblings a painting she had done. I was the lucky one to get her watermelon painting. I've been storing it for the last 3 years so my kids wouldn't ruin it. During Thanksgiving, one of Micheal's Black Friday deals was custom framing for almost 70% off. I took my aunt's painting and had it framed. I finally got to pick it up today and hung it up as soon as I got home. Doesn't it look wonderful?

I love this painting and I love my aunt. Now I get to see it and think of her every time I go into my dining room.

The Beadboard is DONE!

2010-12-27T22:31:00.003-07:00

A few days ago, I realized that my husband's sister and her husband were coming to visit and would need a bathroom to use. Our boys have been using ours for the past month (it's getting really old though...), but I didn't want guests to have to come through our bedroom just to brush their teeth or whatever. So, it was time to stop procrastinating and finish something already!

I added the chair rail just before Christmas. Today, my hubby took our boys to the park while I caulked everything. We painted it this afternoon and again this evening. Here's what it looks like so far:

I saw on a blog recently a tip to tape off where you want to caulk above chair rails so you get a nice crisp line. I did it and it worked beautifully! The first coat of white we put on this afternoon was Eggshell Cream (Behr paint from HD) that I colored matched months ago to Rustoleum's Heirloom white since I want to paint some furniture (all our nursery stuff) that color. It didn't quite match the Swiss coffee trim color throughout our house, so while that coat dried, we ran to HD and got a gallon of the right shade of white and added that after the kids went to bed. We'll put the back of the toilet on tomorrow before my SIL arrives and I'll start decorating. We haven't added the crown molding yet. We borrowed a miter saw, but it doesn't have a high enough fence (it's the flat metal part you push what your cutting against) to easily cut crown molding, so I'm trying to talk my hubby into letting me get this miter saw in the near future. Talk of crown molding throughout our house is helping him feel like it's a worthwhile purchase... Either way, we'll be adding the crown molding after the New Year. Here's a good tip for painting beadboard that we discovered while doing it. Use 2 inch foam brushes. They are just the right width for the flat parts of the beadboard and the sharp, triangle end is perfect for running down the grooves of the "bead" part. We ended up painting everything using those brushes and it really went fast and looks great.

I'll post more "finished" pictures after I get the shower curtain and a few other things up. I'm getting so excited!

My Son's Lego Table

2010-12-26T18:31:00.004-07:00

Several years ago, I had a friend give me this little end table. I'd always planned on stripping it and re-staining it. Several months ago though, I decided it would make the perfect lego table for my 4 and 5 year olds. In June, I picked up the lego base plates ($5 each) and I finally started working on it a month ago. I got it sanded a primed and let it sit in my garage for almost a month. Two days before Christmas I decided I needed to get it finished since it was supposed to be my 5 year-olds "big" gift this year. I'm glad to say, I got it done!

Here it is before:

And here is the after:

I picked up the knobs at Home Depot months ago. I primed with gray primer and then added 2 coats of red on top (I sort of ran out of time for painting...). I like the gray primer showing just a smidge through the red. I used epoxy glue to attach the base plates and my husband's college textbooks to "clamp" the plates down while the glue set. I also mod podged some cute scrapbook paper to the inside of the drawer. I used the hard coat stuff and it said to do 5 layers. I think I only did 4. It has a nice hard coating now. It looks even better in person (I think).

Here it is Christmas morning being used by all my boys. I think it's a hit!

This experience has shown me that you can refinish a piece of furniture in a very short amount of time. Next time though, I want to give myself a little more time...

I used a lot of things I already had on hand, so including the base plates and other materials I had to buy for this project, I think the cost of this table came to about $30. Not bad for something my kids will use for years.

Superhero Capes

2010-12-22T08:43:00.004-07:00

Thanks to my good friend, Morgan, I was able to check something off my to-do list yesterday. My boys' superhero capes. My husband and I designed the appliques with the boys' initials and Morgan and I cut them out on my vinyl cutter a week or so ago. Yesterday, Morgan came over and we got started. We made ourselves a cape pattern, ironed the appliques down and then satin stitched around the edges. We added double-folded bais tape for the edge and sewed velcro to the extra "collar" part of the bais tape. They were pretty easy to do. Morgan made one for her son, too. Of course, since she's a sewer, her's looks much better than my 3. The important thing is that they love them.

In the picture above, my youngest ran off to show Dad, who'd just gotten home.

I had my boys put them on for pictures then told them that the capes were mine until Christmas. They're pretty excited for Christmas morning. I have a feeling these capes will go on in the morning and they'll do everything in them all day. It's nice to actually finish something. Thanks again, Morgan!

One "finished" project!

2010-12-13T22:02:00.002-07:00

So, tonight, I patched the holes from our first attempt at installing our lovely new gate and we (mostly my hubby) installed the gate at the stud. I wanted to install the gate at the edge of the carpet, but that was too close to the corner with no stud. The wall mounting thingies kept punching through the drywall instead of grabbing onto it, so we had to move it 3 inches to the stud so the kids can't rip the gate out of the wall when they try to get into our computer room.

Here's my hubby installing the last piece and then tightening the bolts after we got the gate up. Isn't it cute? I mean, for a gate, anyway...

Please ignore the mess of our office/library. It's the first room that will be tackled once I'm finished with my projects upstairs. It's still months away, but I've got some great plans in store. Until then, this room is just an embarrassing, unorganized mess.

I still need to sand the spots I repaired and probably spackle again and sand again and then paint over them. I have a spot upstairs that needs to be painted too (same color), so I'm hoping that with 2 things, I'll actually get both of them done. Hopefully, I'll finish that up tomorrow and then we can finish up the bathroom. We'll see.

Current Projects Update

2010-12-13T17:22:00.004-07:00

I seem to be really good about starting projects, and equally good at getting my husband to abandon projects for other things... We still haven't added the chair rail and crown molding to the bathroom upstairs. I still haven't painted my son's lego table, partly because I get lazy and partly because all the molding for the bathroom is laying across the table in the garage. We might be working on that tonight (the bathroom, not the table).

Meanwhile, we also started installing a gate to our library to keep little ones out. It didn't work out, so now I need to repair the wall and move the gate back a few inches to the stud. Another unfinished project under my belt.

I have (thankfully) been able to finish something though. Every year, since I was little, my family made Christmas candies to give away. We've continued the tradition in our family, though this is the first year my husband really grasped what I meant when I said we gave candy to all our teachers (7 kids and several teachers each adds up to a TON of chocolates!). This year, we added our boys' preschool and kindergarten teachers to our regular list.

Here's a picture of my half bucket of raspberry oreo truffles. Yum! We also made triple chocolate marbled fudge, peanut butter balls, caramel for pecan turtles and white peppermint bark.

It's amazing how far this candy goes (and how I forget that every year). This is only half our oreo truffles, the rest have been bagged in my cute origami gift bags (pictured below) and we started handing them out yesterday. All the candy took me about a week to make.

This morning, I headed over to my good friend, Morgan's and went through her fabric for my superhero capes. Since her son and one of my boy's initial is the same, she decided to make one too. After we picked fabrics, she came over to my house and we set to work. I bought just a small amount of Heat n Bond and a couple of yards of Wonder Under. We cut out squares in the various fabrics then ironed the Wonder Under/Heat n Bond to the back sides. Using my Cricut cutting mats, I cut each of the designs on my vinyl cutter. (I don't have a Cricut, I just use the mats for cutting paper and fabrics on my vinyl cutter.) I'm really glad that only one square had the Heat n Bond. It did not work very well with my cutter. So, I'll use Wonder Under from now on. They're the same price per yard at Joanns.

Here's my finished T, P, and C. The green P on the other side of the table is Morgan's. My husband designed the C shield and I did the T and P designs in my vinyl cutting program.

Now, I just need to prewash our cape fabric, iron everything down and sew up the edges! It'll probably take me a whole day (I'm slow), but I'm hoping to get it done by this weekend.

Tonight, hubby and I are going to work on a couple of our unfinished projects. Hopefully, we'll finally get the bathroom done this week. Our boys have been without their bathtub for 3 weeks now and my 2 year old does NOT like taking showers.

Bathroom Beadboard

2010-11-27T22:03:00.004-07:00

Last night and tonight my husband and I installed the beadboard in our hall bath upstairs. Here's a couple of pictures as of last night.

We finished up the beadboard and saved the toughest (I thought) for last since we had to cut around the edge of the vanity. We measured twice and cut once and it worked beautifully! My only gripe is that the walls aren't square (not even close) so we had to cut extra off the top or bottom of each piece to make it fit right.

Monday, we'll probably install the chair rail and get started on the crown molding. I'm hoping that we'll be done by next weekend - caulk, paint and all. Our 2 year old got his first shower today since the only bathtub in our house is out of commission until everything's caulked and painted.

I've also been working on Son #1's Lego table. It's primed and has one coat of red paint. No pictures yet. I just need a few more coats and then glaze. Latex paint takes 21 days to fully cure, so I've got to get the table done by next weekend to have the paint cured by Christmas. I'm planning on adding the base plates just before Christmas so I don't have to hide the table for too long. My plan is to work on the table during the day and the bathroom after the kids go to bed at night.

Cellphone "Decor"

2010-11-27T17:49:00.004-07:00

My husband and I finally got new cellphones today. Ours both broke on the same day, in the same way back in August. We tend to get the exact same phone each time we get new ones. This time, there wasn't a whole lot of choice in color. It was black, or black. So, I decided to dress mine up a bit to be able to tell our phones apart.

I put "yorokobi" on the back of my phone. It's Japanese for "joy". And added a little flower to the front. Now, we'll always know whose is whose and if I ever get tired of what I've got, I can change it!

Christmas Decorating

2010-11-26T11:57:00.006-07:00

It's been a family tradition since I was little to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.

My boys helped decorate the tree. I had to give them a "rule" that each branch only gets one ornament. They were putting 3 or 4 ornaments on the same little branch. This might be our last year with this particular tree, though. It's 6 years old now, and some of the branches are falling apart. Son #3 pulled a branch tip off this morning and came crying to me about it.

Last February, I was at the D.I. (thrift store) in town and found an entire Christmas village for $15! I've always loved my sister-in-law's village, so I snatched it right up. I love it on top of our TV armoire.

Last year, I made this ornament wreath. I think I originally got the idea from the Thrifty Decor Chick, but I saw it on several blogs during the Christmas season. Ours never made it up on our door last year. My husband picked up a wreath hanger when he was out Black Friday shopping this morning.

I collect nativities. The first one I got is the tiny one on the far left in the picture below. My best friend, Kristin gave it to me the Christmas before I left on my mission. I first set it up in Japan and I've added to my collection a little here and there over the years. I'm not really liking the big brownish white one in the middle though, so it might be finding a new home this year. Do you think I should spray paint it and see if I like it better or just get rid of it? I'm thinking white, cream or oil-rubbed bronze spray paint might make me like the set better, but I'm not sure...

I have more Christmas decor to set up, but that's as far as my energy got me this morning. I'm trying to save up some energy so we can work on finishing our kids' bathroom today and tomorrow.

Bottling Cherries

2010-11-24T15:00:00.005-07:00

After putting the boys to bed last Saturday, my husband and I got to work on our cherries. In September, I bought 60 pounds of cherries. They came prepitted (expected) and frozen (unexpected, we'd heard they'd be fresh). The frozen worked in our favor though since I'd bought way more fruit than my energy level could realistically can in a couple of days. So, 2 30# buckets have been taking up a LOT of a space in our deep freeze.

I pulled one bucket out last Thursday so they could thaw in time for canning on Saturday night. I was tired from working on our bathroom during the week and hanging out with friends Saturday afternoon, but my hubby and I make a great canning team and we were able to knock out the whole bucket pretty quick. Aren't they lovely?

We got 10 quarts of cherries bottled and I pulled the last batch out of the canner around midnight, so it only took about 3 1/2 hours to do! I also realized partway through draining all the cherries that we can save the cherry juice and make cherry pancake syrup (we eat a LOT of pancakes in this house). We'll save all our juice from our next bucket (cherry pie filling is the plan) and make the syrup after we're all finished. We're all looking forward to yummy cherry cobblers and just eating the cherries from the jar.

Hall Bath Progress

2010-11-20T08:32:00.005-07:00

We've been making steady progress on our bathroom this week. I finished painting the second coat on Tuesday. Wednesday, I installed a new toilet handle and new seat on our toilet.

Before:
After:

I originally bought a couple of less expensive toilet handles (they're in the plumbing aisle at Lowes and Home Depot), but after I installed them they wouldn't sit level and instead one end would hit the toilet lid! Thankfully, they were super quick and easy to install and uninstall. I headed to Lowes and picked up the above beauty for $18. Who knew a toilet handle could be so expensive?

The toilet seat has a built in toddler seat that magnetically holds inside the lid. It was love at first sight and came home with me. I absolutely love it and am almost looking forward to potty training #3 now. I'll get another one for our powder room downstairs sometime, though the master bath will not have a potty seat built in.

Replacing the toilet seat was the absolute grossest re-do thing I've done so far in a bathroom. You wouldn't believe the nastiness under the hingest of that old seat!... Well, maybe you would, especially if you have boys. I think I'll be following a friend's advice and cleaning the seat off the toilet once a month or so from now on. We'll also be replacing all our toilet seats soon.

When I picked up our toilet seat and my first attempt at toilet handles, I also grabbed new light fixtures for the bathroom. So, Thursday and Friday, my husband installed a light each night. We replaced a strip light like this one and a plain white mushroom light. Despite going from a 4 bulb fixture to a 3 bulb fixture, this new one is SO much brighter. Maybe because the light is focused down? Our new ceiling light takes 2 bulbs and replaced a 1 bulb light so overall our bathroom is very bright now.

After my husband finished installing the ceiling mount light, I think we might return it and get a white one instead. I left the molding around our attic entrance and all the vent covers white on the ceiling. The dark light fixture looks a tad bit out of place, don't you think?

I ran to Home Depot last night and got all our molding and stuff for the bathroom. Isn't it pretty? I'm getting so excited to finish up our bathroom!
I read somewhere that you should put your beadboard/molding stuff in the room you'll be installing it and let it acclimate for a week before installing it. I can't remember where I read it or when, but it makes sense to me. So, we'll be canning cherries today and I'll be working on Christmas presents next week. Next weekend, though is bathroom finish weekend (I hope)!

Motivation

2010-11-16T15:43:00.004-07:00

A little over a year ago, we bought our house and I promptly slapped paint samples in every room of the house to see if I liked the color and then bought all the paint. The plan was to get the house completely painted before we ever moved in. We got close. We still had all three bathrooms and 2 bedrooms to paint when we moved in at the beginning of December last year. I finished up another bedroom that month, thanks to a good friend coming and helping me and I painted our downstairs powder room in January. That was the last painting I've done. So, we've lived with green spots on the wall of our hall bath for the last year. Here's the closest thing I could get to a "before" shot. It's from before we closed on the house, so you don't see the green spot that lived on that wall for a year.

Two days ago, I just decided, "I'm going to paint the bathroom tomorrow." It didn't matter that I'm pregnant, exhausted, sick and have a pile of laundry taller than my 5 year old in every bedroom, I got the urge and ran with it.

I got the bathroom clean, gutted and taped for painting when I ran out of energy yesterday morning. So, I spent the afternoon being lazy and getting nothing done so I'd have energy after the kids went to bed to put on the first coat. I talked my husband into removing the old vanity light fixture and got to work. It only took me about an hour and twenty minutes to paint all the walls and the ceiling. After one coat of paint:

This is (obviously) the shower. I didn't bother painting all the corners at the ceiling because we're going to install crown molding. You can't tell from this picture, but the paint only goes to about 3 feet from the ground. We're going to put in beadboard once I'm finished painting. I've got to do another coat tonight. I went to Home Depot this morning and picked up new light fixtures, a new toilet seat (with a built in toddler seat!) and a new toilet tank lever. I'm hoping that we'll be done painting and get everything installed and the bathroom decorated by Thanksgiving weekend, but it really depends on how long my motivation for this project lasts.

I told my husband last night that I want to paint our bathroom the second weekend in December. I'm tired of the yellow spots on the wall...

Son #3's birthday cake

2010-11-16T15:30:00.005-07:00

Every year, I try to throw my boys a birthday party, complete with a birthday cake I decorated. I haven't been very good this past year, but I decided to make #3 a birthday cake for his 2nd birthday.

He picked a blue train. I bought black glitter gel stuff because Micheals was out of the plain black frosting and I thought he'd want a car cake (black for the wheels), so I used it to outline the train and for the smoke instead.

Here's my boy's first look at his birthday cake. I think he's pleased.

I'm not a big fan of cake, so if I'm going to go through the effort of decorating one, I put a filling in. My son wanted a chocolate cake, so I filled the middle with homemade raspberry jam. I was lazy and instead of measuring out the shortening for the frosting, I just used all butter - bad idea. My frosting didn't turn out great at all (for decorating, it tasted fine), so I will never take that "shortcut" again. I'm not sure if that was the problem, or if it's just been a while since I've made decorator frosting but I will always follow the recipe exactly from now on.

Dilly Beans

2010-11-01T16:23:00.004-07:00

When we were in Washington a few weeks ago with my in-laws, we tried Dilly Beans (pickled grean beans) and LOVED them. I would eat them until I gave myself a tummy ache, over and over again. They were so good! I was really excited when I found out that we could get a whole case of fresh green beans from Bountiful Baskets this past weekend. I asked my husband what he thought of helping me make dilly beans on Saturday (he said yes) and then called my mother-in-law to get her recipe. They were SO easy! This was the first vegetable I've ever canned (you have to pickle any veggie you can in a water bath or steam canner and I don't have a pressure canner yet.) and it was much easier and less messy than fruit. And I must say, my hubby and I make a pretty good canning team!

I put in a movie and popped the ends off the whole case of green beans while my husband drove all over town cleaning all the grocery stores out of fresh dill. Then it was just stuff everything in, pour the brine on top and process. The clean up was much nicer than fruit canning too. I didn't have to deal with sugary stickiness everywhere. We ended up with 28 quart jars of dilly beans. Aren't they pretty?

We have to let them pickle for a few weeks before we can open our first jar. We're planning on pulling a jar out for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited!

Christmas Ornaments

2010-10-30T20:37:00.004-07:00

My friend, Morgan is doing a fun Christmas ornament exchange in December. I thought long and hard about what to make for the exchange. I wanted to do these fun wood and vinyl ornaments since they would cost the least amount of money ($0), but since energy is at a premium around here for me, I decided on less time consuming but more expensive ornaments. These are still fairly inexpensive per ornament, I just had to buy the stuff to make them. My 4-year-old helped me make a few the other day, so they’re also pretty easy.

The fake snow was the most expensive part (I used a 40% off coupon at Michaels). We don’t do glass ornaments in our house, the balls are plastic. I just grabbed a bunch of mini-ornament packs that fit inside the ball and I hung a Santa from the cap. I also got some mini-Christmas trees, but I haven’t figured out how to easily have those hang from the cap, so I’ll probably take them back and get more Santas.

I’m getting into a Christmas mood early this year. I don’t even know yet how many ornaments I need for the exchange. It’s fun to make stuff though, especially when they don’t take much time at all. I just couldn’t resist.

Update

2010-10-22T09:06:00.005-07:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long! My oldest son had Fall break from school so we went to Washington state for a week and a half to visit my husband's family. We've been home for almost a week, but I caught a cold right at the end and I haven't gotten over it yet. Along with my cold, I'm expecting baby #4 in the Spring, so I've been sick with that and the valley fever hasn't gone away. My midwife told me to expect to have valley fever for a good 6 months (it can go away sooner, but she's not expecting it). Everything combined makes me very tired right now. Tomorrow, my husband will be helping me with a project that I've had on the back burner since we bought the house. It shouldn't take long and I'll try to post about it and a few other things I need to start working (when I get the energy) soon.

Craft Night and Crafts

2010-10-05T15:23:00.004-07:00

I was talking to my mother the other day and she told me that she'd been watching for a post about how my craft night the other day went. That reminded me that I've been really bad about blogging lately. I'm still sick, although I can feel the end of the valley fever in sight. I'm hoping another week or two will be the end and I can come back strong and finish a few things around here (like the laundry...).

Craft night went really well. I spent a good chunk of the day cleaning up my downstairs for the evening, so I had no energy to do anything but sit and chat that night. Since that's half the point of my craft nights, I didn't feel bad at all. We had a good turnout and everyone had fun (as far as I could tell). Morgan and I are already brainstorming ideas for our next craft night at the end of January - after all the holidays. We'll get more details after my health returns and when it gets a bit closer to the New Year.

So, I didn't get anything made that night. A couple nights later, my husband and I were at a loss for what to do and all my craft projects from our church craft night at the beginning of September were sitting unfinished in the living room. I convinced him to help me put together the candy corn topiary kit I'd bought and hadn't done. I'm proud to say that with my husband's help, we had this baby finished in 40 minutes! Super cute, huh? I'm thinking of doing two more at different heights and maybe a set of Christmas tree topiaries, too. You can also see the Spooky board we had available for my craft night last week.

Since it was General Conference weekend and I hadn't (and still haven't) hauled my craft table back upstairs to the craft room, I sat down during Saturday's sessions and finished the rest of my kits from early September. Here's my Christmas Stackers. I couldn't leave well enough alone though. I called my friend who'd cut all the vinyl for this project and got the name of the font, so I could make mine double sided. :) Obviously, you can't see that in the picture, but it will look great from both sides on display at Christmas this year!

Last, but not least, I finished up the Christmas Advent calendar. It's made from a mini-muffin tin, cool, huh? I dry-brushed black paint on the edges of the paper since I don't have an ink pad for that. The instructions said to tie some ribbon through the pre-drilled holes that don't exist, so my husband will be digging out a drill bit that goes through metal before Christmas and fixing that. Plus, I think I'm going to spray paint the pan white to be a little more Christmasy and a little less kitcheny.

Please excuse the horrible background. I bought the vinyl tablecloth for craft night so I wouldn't get paint on my dining table and I haven't put it away yet. Plus, you can see the fun water-coloring my boys were doing while I crafted on Saturday.

I'm hoping by Thanksgiving to have a few things crossed off my To-Do list, but I have to feel better before I can start anything new. It drives me CRAZY sometimes!

Fall Canning

2010-09-22T09:25:00.003-07:00

This year I'm not doing as much canning as I would like. Being sick and needing to rest is really taking up most of my time right now. However, I'm crazy and I bought bulk fruit anyway. I just won't be getting anymore for a while.

My friend, Morgan and her sister-in-law came over on Monday and we bottled peaches. We had another friend show up in the evening and we all made peach pie filling, too. All told, we got almost 50 quarts of peaches and 17 pints of peach pie filling done Monday, but we were up and working on them until 1am! We got started really late due to some unforeseen setbacks.
My husband helped me wash, label and put away our share of peaches last night. Storing them above our cabinets is a great way for us to see and remember to use them and it's a nice kitcheny decoration (I think).We'll be working on our 3 cases of pears later today. Hopefully, we'll get done before 1am this time!The one fruit I'm willing to break my "I'm done canning this year" decision for is raspberries. We LOVED the raspberry jam I made last year and we've been out for several months. They just went on sale today, so I'll be picking up a ton and making jam tomorrow. I'll probably do freezer jam because it's quick, easy and makes the smallest mess.

Morgan and I also went out and started picking up all our supplies for Craft Night next week. Son #2 fell asleep in Morgan's van on the way home from Joann's. Isn't he cute?

Under the Weather

2010-09-15T21:36:00.005-07:00

I wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten my blog. I recently (4 weeks ago) came down with valley fever and will have it for at least a few more weeks. That combined with a couple of other exhausting things around here has zapped my energy - including my crafting energy. My husband commented tonight that it's odd that I haven't made anything in a while. I also spent a week and a half doing a LARGE vinyl order for a friend of a friend. I'm thinking and designing in my head several upcoming projects, I just haven't had the energy to start any of them.

So, with that in mind, I thought I'd share some of my upcoming projects with you. My next big-ish project is our upstairs hall bathroom. We'll be painting it, adding crown-molding and beadboard around the room. I'll also (finally!) get to decorate it with all these cute safari themed things I've been collecting for the last year (seriously). We'll also change out light fixtures, paint and add hardware to the vanity. Plus, I'll be framing in the mirror above the sink. I'm also hoping to paint the master bathroom and an accent wall in our nursery before the end of the year. I'm hoping to also get my boys' bedroom curtains made and the furniture refinished in the nursery.

I hope I get my energy back soon, because my plan is to have all that finished plus all my homemade Christmas presents for my boys done by the end of the year. I'll be adding a list on my sidebar detailing the above to track my progress.

The Loft

2010-08-27T07:57:00.008-07:00

Here's what my loft looks like now that I'm done*.

Well, first I'll show you what it looked like back in March before I started all my changes. These pictures are a bit embarrassing because I didn't clean up beforehand. When you come up the stairs and look left, these are pictures from left to right around the room. Basically, we spent almost no time in this room and it was our catch-all junk room before the transformation.
I started with the blue lovesac above and picked out the colors for our loft from that. I ended up deciding against keeping it and we sold it on Craigslist a while ago. But that's where I got my color inspiration from. I decided to do blue, red, green, orange and yellow (which is our wall color) in our loft. Our loft is 16 feet square, so I think it handles the large variety of color really well. I also wanted it to multitask as much as possible since the room is so big. I think I succeeded.

Now the After. These pictures are taken from the same spot as the above Befores.

Sorry about the bad lighting I wanted to take the pictures with everything in its place so I took them at night. During the day, toys and books reign supreme in here.

Our Pediatrician's office has baskets of books in every examine room and in the waiting area. I loved the idea; so I took the baskets I used to store on our changing table and use them on our coffee table to store the books. The boys love that they can see the titles without dumping them out and they are pretty good about putting them away now too, which I love.

I spray painted the orange lampshade on the lamp above to help it coordinate with the loft even more. You can also see 3 of our 5 bean bag chairs. I picked them up in our loft colors from Walmart.com. It makes for great around the room seating.

Son #1 comes home from school and does his homework on this kid-sized Harry Potter table (below) that I bought in 2001 at Big Lots. It's one of my best impulse buys ever.

You can also see our expedit bookcase behind the table. Our older kid toys hang out in it. The baby toys are in the coffee table across the room. We'll see how long the organization last, but at least all the toys go back in the bins at the end of the day. We also have some larger toys that sit on top of (but still in reach of my older boys) or next to the bookcase .

I thought the area above our window looked a bit funny since I hung the curtains high with the angled/vaulted ceiling, so I filled in the space with the first line of one of my boys' favorite Primary/Children's Songs. I think it makes the window look more finished.

I put the art easel in the corner of the room. The tray for the chalk/markers faces the wall to keep them "out of sight, out of mind" for my youngest boy. We also have an art apron for each of my boys to wear while using the easel. Eventually, I want to get/make a hook rack to hang the aprons on the wall next to the easel. I just haven't done it yet. You can also see our toy box under the window. It makes a great window seat for checking things out outside.

And here's the front view sans pillows of the couch. You can read more about our couch here.

This room took me a long time (almost 6 months!). I made or remade most of the things in the room and it feels great! I love how the loft turned out and I love that my family uses the room now. We usually spend a large chunk of the day in there.

*I still need to paint the buffet and I'll be making the endtable next to the couch into a lego table for my boys (for Christmas). But I'm taking a break from this room and I'm going to work on something else for a while.

Mini Couch Pillows

2010-08-27T07:52:00.002-07:00

I made a couple of couch pillows for our loft yesterday. They turned out a bit small...

I didn't want to make everyone move so I could get a picture, so you get a picture of my husband reading to my boys this morning. And, I was too lazy to move the laundry. Oh, well.

My boys love them and they are perfect sized for the boys to use for back support and such. Son #3 spent a LOT of time this morning snuggled up with one of them. I plan on getting (instead of making) another one or two solid colored pillows for the couch. I used an old pillow for the stuffing. Worked great!

Keeping Time

2010-08-26T12:25:00.008-07:00

I saw this super cute (I think) idea of a wall of clocks and saved the picture for inspiration. I can't remember where the picture came from (sorry!) so if you know, leave a comment and I'll give credit.
I thought a wall of clocks sounded like a really fun idea for our loft. My husband took some convincing, but I was successful! Then, I had to find a clock that I liked that I could afford to buy several of... Have you looked at the price of clocks? A nice one can run you $20 and times 6 to 9? I just couldn't afford that! I'd given up and was just going to make my own. I figured out that the least expensive way to get clockworks was to buy the cheap clocks at Walmart/Target and take the clock part out. When I went to pick up my son's school supplies, I wandered through the clock section of Walmart just to get an idea for what types of clock hands I could find and I found the perfect clocks and they were only $5! I didn't get them. Partly because I'd already started collecting supplies (like clock faces) for my clocks and partly because I wasn't sure what my husband would say if I brought all the clocks home all at once. And I wanted 9, but had decided I would just do 6 because clocks are pricey but now I wanted 9 again. I went back the next day after telling my hubby the great news. :) I actually had to order a few online to get all the colors in the quantity I wanted.

So, here's my wall of clocks!

I wanted to do locations around the world that had some significance with our family. Many of our siblings and myself and my husband all served missions for our church and we served all over the world. My sister also did a school year abroad in high school and one of my brothers currently lives in China, so I did those too for more around the world variety (3 of my brothers served in South America and I didn't want the locations that concentrated.) Currently, we have where we live up on the wall too, but I want to get another clock for the loft with the local time. (I seriously love clocks!) My husband's youngest brother is planning on serving a mission soon and we'll be replacing Tucson with his mission when the time comes. That way we can tell our boys, this is where your uncle is right now and this is the time! Fun, fun!

We also decided that it would be neat for the kids to see on a map where everyone served missions and/or lived. The boys love the map and Son #2 is constantly asking me "which country is that one?" Son #1 and #2 were telling me where they were going to go on their missions yesterday as I was putting up all the vinyl.

I added to the right side of each clock the difference in time from here to there. That way we can tell if it's afternoon, morning or even the next day whenever we want to. I also added the specific names of the missions under each clock. I picked up the map from Amazon. It had the best colors for our room. The coolest thing is all but one of our clock locations is on the map! Including where we live. The frame came from Walmart and we hung it at kid eye level.

I love how my wall turned out. It covers our tall wall nicely and looks great. Plus, the colors in the clocks and map coordinate really well with our loft. The only down side is with 9 cheap clocks all together, they are pretty loud. I don't mind that much (my kids are louder!) but my husband said he feels sorry for anyone wanting to sleep in our loft!

Stay tuned, tomorrow I'll show my finished loft! Well, finished so far anyway... :)

The Stockings Were Hung board

2010-08-26T07:38:00.006-07:00

Morgan and I decided to add one more craft to our Wonderful Wednesday Craft Night coming up next month.

This is a "The Stockings Were Hung..." board. Here's the one Morgan put together to show everyone. There are a lot of options for this craft.

There are 4 different font options for this board. I couldn't decide which font I like best. You can choose between white, red and beige vinyl for your board. The paint colors we will have available are green (the one pictured in the Family What Matters Most board), red (pictured above) and white. If you want a different paint color, please bring your own.

Because we added this later, there is a separate order form just for this project. If you want the order form for this project, please let us know. Don't forget orders and money need to be in to Morgan or me by September 17th so we can get everything ready! See you on the 29th!

I finished the BINS!

2010-08-25T07:32:00.004-07:00

Okay, so I actually finished the bins for our loft a couple of weeks ago, but as I've mentioned before - I'm slow, apparently with blogging, not just doing. So, here's a few pictures.

I measured the space of the cubby holes in my expedit bookcase and the leksvik coffee table and decided to make the bins just smaller than the space just to make sure the bins actually fit the space when I was done with them. I cut each bin out like a plus sign in the outer fabric and the inner lining. I ironed craft fuse on the outer fabric to help it hold it's shape.

Above is a picture of the outer fabric laid out. I'd already sewn the handles on for this one.

After finishing a couple, I realized that the craft fuse wasn't strong enough to hold the bottom of the bins flat when there are toys in it. So, I brainstormed for a couple of weeks. I was showing a good friend my progress in my loft one day and mentioned my problem and a possible solution I'd come up with and she suggested velcro (thanks Cassie!). What a genius!

To make the bottom sturdy enough to hold toys, I went to HD and had them cut some backer board to the size of my bins' bottoms. I then made a pocket with velcro attached (pictured below) the size of the bottom of each of my bins and sewed velcro into the bottom of the bins. Once I slid the backer board in the pocket and inserted them in the bins, the bottoms are completely sturdy! My boys have an easier time getting the bins back on the shelves because the bottoms are just the right size. With the pockets velcroed to the bottom of the bins, I don't have to worry about my boys pulling the bottoms out and using them as toys/weapons, so that's nice too!

Above is the backer board slid into one of the pockets I made.

And here they are in their new homes! Our loft/toy room stays so picked up and much cleaner now that all the toys are in bins. With each bin filled, I still have a couple completely empty too, so there's room to grow.

Please ignore the wild pile of books. I came up with a great solution to that and the books don't look like that anymore.

I had to give myself some motivation to finish the bins. My friend, Morgan was going shopping one night and invited me to come along. I decided that if I finished the bins before we left, I could buy some new picture frames so I can finally hang up all our family pictures. It worked! I sewed all day long and finished just in time to go shopping! Once I get the frames how I like them, I'll show you that too.

I also rearranged our loft (again) when I finished the bins. When I suggested moving things around again in the loft, my husband thought I was nuts and didn't want to help. Once I got started though, he took pity on me and helped. Our loft looks much better in the new arrangement and it opened up a lot of space for everything in the loft.

I have a couple more projects (it never ends...) to finish up in the loft and then I'll show the whole room off. I can hardly wait to see it all done!

Here's some tips and tricks and what I'd do differently if I'm ever crazy enough to do this again. First, I would have bought/used fusible fleece instead of craft fuse. It's much thicker, so it would hold the shape of the bins even better. I would also buy less fabric (I way over bought and still have almost 5 yards of the liner left. I ended up using most of my extra outer fabric for the pockets on the bins' bottoms).

Second, with the first half of the bins I made, I did each one individually. It took forever! I still had 7 1/2 bins to finish the day I went shopping, so I did those assembly line (do the same step to all of them before moving to the next step) and it saved TONS of time.

So, here's what I did. I ironed the craft fuse to the sides and bottom of each bin (with the backer board, I would skip ironing it to the bottom) and then sewed up the sides. I didn't add craft fuse to the liner, so I just sewed up the sides of those. Next, I inserted the liner into the outer fabric and pinned it around the top edge. I basted the two layers together. I made some bias tape from the lining fabric with my bias tape maker and sewed that around the top edge to give it a finished look. It was easiest to wait until this point to sew the handles on. I added a handle to both sides, partly because both the bookcase and the coffee table are open on both sides and also to help with getting the bins on the shelves. After adding the handles (which I sewed on with a big "X" in a square) I added the velcro in the bottom and slid my finished pocket in on top. The velcro doesn't line up exactly, but I used 2 inch wide velcro ('cause I bought a ton years ago for a project I never did) so it lines up enough to stick. I eyeballed the location for each of the handles, but measured for the velcro. The best thing about this project is that it actually turned out like I had pictured in my head!

Mirror, Mirror

2010-08-06T07:13:00.005-07:00

About 2 months ago, I bought these two mirrors at a yard sale. I got both, plus an iron wall hanging for $7, I think. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the mirrors when I found them, so I'm not sure why it's taken me 2 months to do this.

Here's a before of the mirrors in all their golden glory.

I spray painted them with Krylon Satin Black and then to kind of copy the Run-n-Buff I've seen lately in blogland, I dry brushed some silver metallic craft paint over the frames to bring out the texture. I LOVE how they turned out.

(you can click on the picture to enlarge it and see a little better the silver detailing)

Here they are in my now complete powder room downstairs. I got the lighthouse clock from a friend for $5. I was helping her clean things out and saw this clock, still in it's packaging that she'd gotten as a wedding gift 7 years ago! I thought it would look great in my lighthouse themed bathroom and I really like it!

The small painting you see over the toilet is another Thomas Kinkade lighthouse print. I bought it on clearance at Joann's and picked up a frame too (they were 40% off!). It complements my larger Thomas Kinkade lighthouse next to it nicely.

I'm so excited to finally have a complete room! I'm getting close in my loft/play room. Those bins are taking FOREVER - and I'm slow. Hopefully, I finish those up this weekend and can turn my attention to my clock wall. It's gonna be great!

Wonderful Wednesday Craft Night

2010-07-29T15:57:00.006-07:00

Morgan and I are doing another Craft Night, so...

You're invited to Wonderful Wednesday Craft Night!

Who: Anyone local. If we don't know you personally, you'll have to prove you're a real person before we'll give you my address. :)
Where: My house
When: Wednesday, September 29th
from 7pm 'til whenever

Please bring a snack food to share.

We will be doing the following crafts:
Family Home Evening boards
Family, What Matters Most boards
Spooky boards
Homemade Air Freshener
12 inch Tiles and
The Stockings Were Hung boards

Just click on the names to see more information about and prices for each of the projects. Email me (allthingscreativeaz(at)gmail(dot)com) and I'll send you the order form. All orders and money need to be in by September 17th so Morgan and I can get everything ready for craft night. We hope to see you there!

Vinyl Signs

2010-07-29T15:24:00.007-07:00

We are also going to be doing a couple different vinyl signs.

The first is "Family, What Matters Most." The vinyl pictured is beige/black. Other vinyl colors available are red, brown, light gray, dark gray and white. Paint colors we will have available are black, chocolate brown, antique white and the green pictured below. If you would like another paint color, please bring it that night.

We will also be doing this "Spooky" board with 2 options. You can choose to do the board double sided (it will look the same on both sides) or only one sided to hang on a wall. Your board will look just like the one pictured; orange paint with a black glaze and black and white vinyl.

12 inch Tiles

2010-07-29T14:05:00.008-07:00

We will also be doing some 12 inch tiles. These are great on a side table or on the kitchen counter! I love them. We will have 5 options:

Available vinyl colors are red, blue, black, chocolate brown, beige, light gray, dark gray and white. We will pick tiles that will look good with the vinyl color choice.

Homemade Air Freshener

2010-07-29T13:57:00.005-07:00

We will be doing homemade air freshener for Craft Night. I previously posted about it here.

Ingredients

After it's made.

Once it's cooled in the fridge.

Numbers

2010-07-24T20:25:00.008-07:00

I was at the Dollar Tree the other day looking for something and I saw these "canvas" coloring things. They are 8 in. square and I grabbed 6 of them thinking I could use them for something. A few days later, I went back and grabbed 4 more for this project.

I picked all Lightning McQueen ones just in case my boys ended up using them instead of me (it was that or Disney Princesses). Here they all are waiting for my first step:

Next, I picked out my scrapbook paper. I bought a stack at Joann's a few months ago and these all came from it. I also laid them out so I could see the order and know what numbers go with which colors.
Because you could see Lightning McQueen through some of my papers, I painted two quick coats of white paint over the black stuff. I didn't cover it completely, just enough to not notice through my paper.
Next, I painted the sides with burnt umber craft paint. It took 3 coats for good coverage and I sealed it with an acrylic varnish. Here they are all drying.

I cut my 12x12 scrapbook paper down to 8 inches and used my Cricut cutting mats to cut out my numbers on my vinyl cutter. If you use an actual vinyl cutter (not a craft cutter, like the Cricut) I recommend cutting each number twice to really get it cut all the way through. I liked that better than increasing the cutting pressure.

Here's all my papers laid out and ready for mod podge last night.
I mod podged scrapbook paper down and just used stick glue to glue the numbers to the page. If I had it to do over again, I would just have used mod podge the whole way. Also, I learned after my first one to use very little mod podge and rub it down quickly so the paper wouldn't soak up the glue and get all wrinkly.
Here they are drying earlier today.

I borrowed a laser level from a friend (thanks Morgan!) to hang them tonight. Sorry about the poor lighting, I was just too excited and wanted to post this. They don't take up as much space as I wanted, but I still really like them. Not bad for $10, right?

I know I said that my next Loft project would be the toy bins and I'm working on them. I've gotten 4 finished and I only have 10 more to go. What with Kindergarten starting and all this week, I took a break from sewing. I'm hoping to get them finished early next week. Until then, here's a sneak peak at my first bin and Son #3.

Flower Pens

2010-07-24T11:08:00.002-07:00

With my oldest in Kindergarten and my youngest taking a nap, my second son is bored. So, Thursday, we pulled out some silk Gerber daisies I bought at Hobby Lobby last fall and turned them into flower pens.

I looked up a few tutorials online (I googled it) and didn't like what I found. All the tutorials said to use the stem of the flower, but my flowers had all fallen off the stems! So, I stuck some floral wire where the stem was supposed to be, twisted it around the end and hot glued it in place.

My son helped by passing the tape around the pen while I stretched and stuck it in place. When we got to the end of the pen, I hot glued the flower tip to the end of the pen and wrapped that up too. We then wrapped the floral tape back down the pen to secure the flower completely.

Here's Son #2 proudly showing off our accomplishment:

I still have one yellow and two orange Gerber daisies that I think I'll turn into pens sometime too. When I get a desk in my craft room (I have one now! Yippee!) I'll get a small flower pot/vase to stick them in on my desk.

Monogramming

2010-07-22T11:30:00.003-07:00

My oldest started Kindergarten yesterday. I spent the day before picking up all his school supplies for the year. I wanted to label everything for my son so that he wouldn't get his mixed up with someone else's. I also didn't want to put his name on it all (stranger danger!), so I decided on a monogram. I designed one that I liked in my vinyl design program and cut out a few, some to use on hard objects and some to use as stencils on all his fabric stuff (pencil case, lunch box and backpack). I think it turned out pretty cute.

I chose white for his waterbottle and lunchbox thermos because I only have white and black vinyl with a permanent adhesive. Most of my colors are the non-permanent adhesive (ie. won't damage your wall when it'd removed) kind. I used an odd color in my regular vinyl for the stencils. It bled a little on the pencil case and the vinyl didn't stick all that well to the fabrics, but enough for me to be careful about painting it. I couldn't find non-3D fabric paint at Walmart, so I just used my regular acrylic craft paint. Craft paint doesn't tend to wash out of my clothes, so I figured it was permanent enough. Unpictured is the lunchbox thermos and my son's backpack. It all turned out cute and my son knows what's his!

Vinyl Decor

2010-07-14T18:38:00.003-07:00

I've been working on a few different things lately. Here's some of my vinyl projects.

I found the wood for this SPOOKY sign in the cut bin at Home Depot a few weeks ago and had to buy for 51 cents. After thinking about the size for a while, I decided on SPOOKY for this board. I made this particular sign for a good friend last October, but I added the spiderweb to it to fill the board a bit better.

(Sorry about the funky green background, I promise my wall is a MUCH better green in person!)

I spray painted the board orange with the leftover paint from my nightstand/end table and then glazed it with my black glaze. I really like how it turned out. I'm considering doing the vinyl on both sides so I can display it both ways in my home. We'll see.

My best friend (we've known each other since we were 13) is having her first baby this month. I wanted to make her something and she asked for a vinyl monogram and some letters to make these cute blocks. I offered to make the blocks for her and she loved that idea. It was a fun little project. I hand painted the bunny, dandelion and dragonfly (in case you didn't know what they were) on four sides of each block to match her nursery bedding. After I sealed the paint with a clear acrylic varnish, I added the vinyl. They turned out pretty good, I think, especially for free-handing it all.

I did these Be-blocks based on this talented lady's tutorial. I tried cutting out each letter and adding them individually like she did, but it was driving me nuts (I'm a little too much of a perfectionist at times), so I started over. I designed each side on my computer then cut it out. I really like how it turned out the second time around, although I think the words could be a bit bigger for the size blocks I used. My friend, Morgan suggested the colors and I loved how it turned out. They look even better in person.

After watching the Sunday morning session of General Conference this past April, I sat down at my computer and designed this sign. This is the message I came away with that morning. I absolutely love this sign and I hope to eventually get around to hanging it up in my living room.

So, that's what I've been working on for the past little while. I (as always) have a ton of stuff in the works. I'm hoping to finish a few more things soon.

Giant Game Pieces

2010-07-01T13:17:00.007-07:00

We had Craft Night last night and it was a big success! We all had lots of fun chatting and crafting together. It was fun, but a lot of work and I'm grateful I can once again focus on things in my own home. Last night, I was able to mostly finish my PLAY ROOM giant scrabble tiles for our loft upstairs. My boys helped me finish and hang them today:I painted them two each orange, red, green and blue to match the colors of our loft (our walls are yellow). After applying the vinyl scrabble letters, I attached sawtooth hangers to the back with nails and epoxy glue so they won't fall out ever.

In the right corner of the above picture, you can also see the giant dominos I made and hung next to the window. They're perfect for the space and might be a future Craft Night project. They measure 2in x 6in x 12in and I used black vinyl for the dots and the line.

I love the way both of these projects turned out for our play room and look forward to seeing the (hopefully) next finished project - bins for our toys!