House Archives - Yearning to Create

How to Hide the Laundry Room Uglies

This is my laundry room. Have you noticed that laundry rooms have some necessary things in them that are ugly? Like the tap/drain box and the outlet. You definitely need these at an easily accessible location, but they don’t add much charm to the room!

And since we all love doing laundry so much, we want our laundry rooms to be as cute and inviting as possible to lure us in!

So here’s how I hid my laundry room “uglies”. . .

. . . a cute towel bar and towel to cover the electrical outlet. Found the towel bar on our local “Buy and Sell”. I’ve never actually had a towel hanging in the laundry room before, and I use it all the time – how did I not have one before?

To cover the taps I used a long narrow basket that used to sit on my counter and hold the keys. I spray-painted it oil rubbed bronze to match my knobs and chandelier and stuck a fake plant in it. Fits perfectly and hides the lovely red and blue taps!

So much cuter!!!

I think the vintage washer and dryer add to the charm. We got these babies just before our first daughter was born, so they’re over twenty years old now. We’ve only ever had one minor problem with the washer. Yay Kenmore!!!

I love the wall colour {Grey Evening by Behr}. And I love my light!!! See the lines it casts on the walls – feels like water, which seems appropriate for a laundry room.

This is an interior room so there is no window. When I hung the mirror window on the wall it immediately brightened and enlarged the space. See that little brown bag sitting on the mirror ledge? It’s a bag of wild flower seeds that actually came from Green Gables in PEI. When I have a yard, I’ll plant them.

I really love my little laundry room. This is my view as I walk past it many times a day (it’s right beside my bedroom – very convenient!). See those white shelves in front of the washer? They’ll be going up on the wall over the sink someday. I’ve got more plans for this room – including a quote from President Thomas S. Monson about laundry!

Stay tuned (hopefully within the year!).

Here’s the quote from Thomas S. Monson:

“Rather than dwelling on the past, we should make the most of today, of the here and now, doing all we can to provide pleasant memories for the future…If you are still in the process of raising children be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled, will disappear all too soon, and that you will, to your surprise, miss them, profoundly.”

Beaded Curtain Tiebacks

Beads can make beautiful curtain tiebacks. It’s true! Especially if you use beads that have sentimental value to you (like Grandma’s old costume jewelry that you would never wear!)

So I went and chose some very sentimental bracelets from the dollar store. (Actually, I was just looking for colours I liked.)

Now, I thought this was brilliant . . .

. . . I packed up my beading supplies . . .

. . . and divided up the beads, to work on my project in the car! I had two daughters playing in a softball tournament, and I knew there would be some time between games where I could do some crafting (it was either that or Sudoku!).

The center console and my lap made the perfect work station (be sure to sit in the passenger seat so you don’t have a steering wheel to deal with!).

I just tied my string to a starting ring and started beading.

No pattern was the pattern, with a small pearl between each larger bead.

When I was finished with the beads, I simply tied a ring to the other end. I was almost finished the second one, and then the games began again. (This was the tournament where my daughter on the pitchers mound got hit in the eye during the final game – check her out here. And this was six days before her high school graduation!)

I finished the last two at home and aren’t they pretty!

Final step was to attach a little nail or hook to the window casing and tie back the curtains.

So much prettier than just hanging! Now they just hang at night.

This is an alcove off the master bedroom – a little room I really love! Right now it’s purpose is to be my baby’s bedroom – my baby who is two and a half! Someday it will just be my sanctuary!

And there she is – sitting there reading in her lovely little alcove – with the lovely new beaded curtain tiebacks!

Flowered Mirror

I love my flowered mirror!!! It was hanging in the entryway of my last house, but in my new home it’s going to be over the sink in the guest bathroom. I’ll pick some of my favourite colours from it for the towels, wash cloths, rug and other accessories. Now watch, I’m gonna have a line up of people wanting to visit my bathroom!!!

It was very easy to make. First I bought a plain unfinished framed mirror. Or you could find an ugly old mirror from anywhere – and it doesn’t really even need a frame, you could just glue onto the edge of the mirror.

Next step was to glue Spanish Moss all over the frame – I just used my glue gun. Sorry, I don’t have step-by-step pictures – I made this a few years ago – but the frame covered in moss even looked good! (Just ignore the spot of wax from the glue gun on my moss. I promise you don’t notice it on the mirror, but of course that would be the spot I took a picture of!)

Then I just started gluing my wild flowers on.

I did larger flower arrangements on the bottom of the frame to anchor the mirror. Then I placed the rest of my larger flowers around the frame and used the smaller ones to fill in the gaps.

Taking pictures of mirrors is not easy, especially with the short person around! After looking at this photo, I realized how dirty the mirror was. So I cleaned it – but didn’t retake my pictures!

I think it’s so pretty! I just love all the colours of the flowers together. It would also look great done in a single colour, or a single type of flower in various colours – oh the possibilities!!!

DVD Holder

There’s gotta be a cute way to store DVD’s right? I asked my guy to build these little DVD houses for me, and he did!!! I think they’d look even cuter with little chimneys.

See that pink section – those are our Barbie movies!!!

These looked really cute in our last house. They sat on the ledge around the family room with little pine trees and other cute doodads around them. Now, during our building house/transition time, they just sit on the floor – not looking as cute, but still doing their job.

My baby really likes them this height!!!

She pulls them all off many times each day!!! We put some of her baby books in front of the DVD’s to distract her. Yeah – great plan! But it didn’t work. She just sits there longer, reading books between yanking off more DVD’s.

Thanks Mac – you know, I’d rather be creating than cleaning up your messes – again!!!

How to Decorate with Food Storage

A few weeks ago I had to give a little talk about Family Home Storage (because I’m such an expert!). My information mostly came from the March 2009 Ensign – you can read that by clicking here.

In a nutshell, we are counselled to:

1) Have a three month food supply (and that would include all consumables like toilet paper, shampoo and deodorant – anything you wouldn’t want to be without!).
2) Store drinking water.
3) Establish a financial reserve.
When the first three objectives have been met, then we are counselled to:
4) Gather a supply of long term basic food items that would sustain life (grains, legumes, milk, honey, salt, etc.)

Anyway . . . here are some other uses I’ve found for long term food storage items!

A large vase looks lovely filled with split green peas – nice and springy!

A mason jar looks lovely filled with beans!

Pinto beans to be exact!

Wheat and rice work great for decorating too. I’ve often had fancy jars filled with wheat sitting on a shelf. Have you ever just chewed on grains of wheat? It’s what the pioneers used as gum! And I must say that freshly sprouted wheat is simply delicious and so full of vitamins.

So rather than simply storing your stuff away in a cold dark spot, try decorating with it!

How to Give Old Frames a New Use

I got these picture frames at a garage sale. I really liked the teal colour, but the gold wasn’t working for me. I didn’t know how I could keep the teal and hide the gold, so I decided it was all going to change via spraypaint.

We’ll come back to the frames in a minute – let me show you one of my pet peeves . . .

. . . crumbs from the toaster all over the counter!!!

When I was designing my new kitchen, I planned a nice little cupboard on the counter to house messy things like toasters. Imagine my dismay when the electrician said that he can’t put an electrical outlet in the cupboard – it’s against code to have an outlet in a closed space. And I can appreciate that – I’d rather have my house not burn down. But it means the ugly toaster and crumbs still get to dominate my countertop.

(I love to look at these beautiful kitchens on display in blogworld, but where do they keep things like toasters? Do they hide them away and bring them out when needed? We use our toaster way too much to not keep it on the counter! Oh, wait! Maybe those spectacular kitchens are just set up for photo shoots and don’t usually look that way! Now I feel better!)

So . . . I decided to fix my crumb problem!

I spray painted my frames Oil Rubbed Bronze. And then I chose fabric to go under the glass. I also glued a little square of felt in each corner on the bottom of the frame so it wouldn’t scratch the surface I put it on.

And there we have it . . .

. . . a crumb catcher for the toaster!!!

Once in a while, a stray crumb dares to escape outside it’s boundary, but that’s easy enough to wipe up. I love how it’s kept my counters crumb free in that area.

(Someday my kitchen will be finished – there will be subway tile covering all these primed walls, and the switch plates will be on, and crown molding, etc. And then I will post a picture of my finished kitchen – and it will have toasters and knives and cutting boards on the counter, because . . . we live in this kitchen!)

And this is how I decorate cookies for my kids . . .

. . . I take them to Storyhour and let them do it themselves! They love to create too! (I did the one with the green eyes on the top plate!)

So, what did I do with the other frame?

It got a piece of burlap under the glass and sits on an end table in the living room. It makes a nice anchor for table displays.

As I snapped the photo, my two-year-old popped into it, pointing at the picture and excitedly saying . . .

“It’s you, Mommy! It’s you!”

And as she pointed to the youngest girl in the picture saying “It’s me!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she wasn’t actually in the picture – she hadn’t blessed our family with her arrival yet.

Love it!!!

(And the candlesticks came from the same garage sale! When are you having another one Mary?)

Edited much later to add:

Look!!! The kitchen did eventually get finished! And the toaster looks great still sitting there with its crumb catcher under it!

Hooks

I have a beadboard shelf that I love, but I thought I’d be able to do a little more with it if it had some hooks on it. So I was looking for oil rubbed bronze hooks at Walmart – and I found some! But they were $2 more each than the exact same hook with the bright brass finish.

So what did I do?

I bought the cheaper brass hooks for $1.97 each and took them home to doctor them up a little with my newest favourite thing – spray paint (which I didn’t need to buy since I already had plenty of at home!).

My guy taught me this little trick for spray painting the tops of screws – just poke them in cardboard so they stand up nicely.

Couple coats later, and I’m now the proud owner of the more expensive hooks, at the less expensive price!!! And I know it’s only $4 I saved, but it makes me feel good! And there’s a lot you can buy at the dollar store for that much!!!

I screwed them on and now I can do so much more with my shelf – like hang things from it!

It’s a fun little place to decorate for the seasons!

Lovin’ it, lovin’ it!!!

Front Porch

I love to decorate the front porch into the house!!! I don’t have much room here at our rental home, but my new home will have a nice big covered front porch just waiting to be decorated for the seasons – clap, clap, clap!!!

Obviously this was our winter decorating. I’ve always loved lit trees and finally got some for a great price (I was watching the flyers forever!). I love the lights in this picture but the next one is more clear.

This looked even better after I added a long piece of evergreen greenery (from the dollar store). It was all intertwined around the bases of everything and hid the ugly bottoms and cords. And it looked even better when it had a light dusting of real snow on it!!! The little red snowman scarf tied around my watchdog added a little colour to our bleary winter days. The snowman was made by me and my Lee at my friend’s craft classes. On the back side of it is a scarecrow for autumn decorating. Another piece has the Easter bunny on one side and a Valentine lady. Keep reading to see what the third piece looks like . . .

Last Saturday it was definitely time for winter to leave and spring to arrive. But, again, most of my stuff is packed, so what could I decorate with? My friend Shirley brought me this adorable orange sign a few weeks ago – it really speaks my language – she knows me well!!!

And I love the Simple Life board because Simplify is my theme word! On the back side of this board is our nation’s flag so I switch to that for all the holidays. Don’t fret – I’ll put the Easter Bunny board up soon! My animals came out of hibernation and my baby is enthralled with the cocker spaniel – she squeals and points at it every time we go in or out! It needed some greenery but it’s too soon for real plants, so, I went into the garage to survey the mound of boxes. I spotted one on the top at the back of the garage that looked promising. So I climbed onto the freezer, over the treadmill, onto the piano and was able to reach this box that was indeed filled with fake flowers!!! Bingo!!! Pulled out the tulips and whatever the blue things are, and voila – it’ll do for now!!! But then my problem was, how do I make them stand there. So I scrounged around and found a waterbottle that had a destroyed lid by the end of basketball season – but I didn’t need a lid now, did I? So I stuffed in the flowers, filled it with water so they wouldn’t die (haha – for weight so it wouldn’t blow over!) and wedged it between the wall and my watchdogs hinder. And so far the wind has not blown it over!!!

So spring has arrived in two places now – the calendar and my front porch!!!

“If you’re not selling chocolate . . . get the heck off my porch!”