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!!!
I’ve had this lamp for a few years – I have absolutely no idea where it came from! My guy may have got it from a garage sale or something. It works – it provides light, but I’m really not loving the brass anymore. It used to be fine hiding in a corner of the family room, but now, not so great.(Please imagine a lovely stone fireplace in the left side of the photo – someday that black paper and wire mesh will be covered!)
Close up of the details before I get happy with the spray paint.
Now, this marble base I really like.So I got busy with masking tape because that’s all I could find. I taped of every last square millimeter of marble. Then off to the garage to spray paint with my Krylon Oil Rubbed Bronze – took about 3-4 coats from various angles.
While the paint was drying, I tackled the lamp shade. I’d like to get a new one, but for now a good vacuum of the shade worked wonders!
Then I took some natural polished hemp twine and started wrapping it around the edges of the lamp – top and bottom. Hot glue gunned it on every few inches. I used four layers to get my edges covered nicely. No burned fingers for this glue gun expert!!!
Ready to see my “new” lamp?
Oh so much better!!! And don’t you love the marble base? And I even remembered to spray paint the little finial at the very top.
Darn! Should have spray painted the cord!
And here are the detailed parts. No brass is showing through – it just looks that way with the flash.
And finally, a shot with the light on.I love how the edges of the lampshade look so dark when the light is on. Yup, I’m certainly lovin’ the new look of my lamp. And if someday I get tired of the dark base, I’ll go search for a new colour of spray paint!
I found this wooden crate at a thrift store quite a few months ago, and it’s been sitting in my bathtub waiting for me to do something with it. (Yes, the bathtub! You know, the jetted tub that you want to use but don’t have time for. And since I don’t have any closets or shelves anywhere yet, the bathtub seems like a pretty good storage spot!)
First step was painting it inside and out. I was lucky enough to have leftover paint from my laundry room (Grey Evening by Behr).
Now my plan for this crate was to sit in the living room and look pretty, while serving the very important duty of holding our scriptures. So when we all gather in the morning for family scripture study, our books are right there! Brilliant!!!
Since it was going to always be in plain sight, I wanted to put a special message on the side of the crate. I chose our family motto which comes from Mosiah 4:15 “Love one another and serve one another.”
I used the carbon paper method to get the letters on the crate. Print the words you want, put a piece of carbon paper between the crate and your paper and then trace the letters. Then comes the fun part of hand painting the letters. Use a fine tip brush and have a steady hand! Oh, and I lightly sanded first before tracing the letters.
I wanted my message to be visible, but not overpowering, which is why I used a light paint colour. Using a sanding sponge I sanded the rest of the crate, being sure to let wood show through on the edges. Then I went and hid out in the mechanical room and stained the whole thing (garage was too cold and I didn’t want to stink up the house with the delightful smell of stain). I used Minwax Dark Walnut because that’s what I had on hand. I would stain one side and then rub it off – didn’t want it getting too dark.
Recently I did something I’d never done before . . . bought coffee filters! Apparently they’re a pretty handy crafting material. My seven year old thought they were large muffin wrappers! So I played around making flowers today in home school while doing math with her.
And this is what I ended up with . . .
Close up of burlap bow, coffee filter flowers and babies breath.
I glued a strip of burlap all around the crate. I used a glue gun to quickly hold the burlap in place and then craft glue to secure it all over. This burlap has a wide weave so it frays easily and it has too many holes to deal with hot wax! (I know what you’re wondering, and yes, I burned my fingers!)
I made the dark shadows (or antiquing) by rubbing Burnt Umber oil paint in strategic places. It’s one of my favourite ways to distress things.
Lacie’s pretty impressed! (the dog)
This is the backside – with just a cute little strip of burlap all the way around.
This is where it goes, and there’s four of my girls in the background playing “Sorry” (no my two-year can’t actually play “Sorry”, which makes me wonder how she managed to win!).
Just think what the world would be like it everyone lived by this creed. I can’t teach the world, but I can teach my family!
There it sits, doing its job holding our scriptures and quietly sending out a marvellous message. Sure loving my crate!
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!
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!
I found this thing at a thrift store. My best guess would be that it might be used for carrying wine bottles. But since I don’t drink wine, I decided it would make a pretty cute wicker vase.
The first step was to cut off the lid.
(My 13 year old, who doesn’t play with Barbie’s anymore, decided that the little latch part would make a perfect Barbie sized noose. So I tossed it before we got some disturbing Barbie things going on!)
Looks better already!!!
Then I took that bottle of Almond spray paint and went to work – in a well ventilated place of course! That stuff stinks.
I did two coats and then flipped it over and did my third coat to cover the bottom and catch the rest of it at a different angle.
And there it is – an adorable and cheap wicker vase! (love spray paint!) Warning: Do not use with flowers that will require water unless you put a narrow vase inside first.
Add some dollar store berry twigs and there you have it!!!
Now I just have to find a cuter spot for it, but that will come as I unpack those mounds of boxes! Still tons of things to find homes for.
I have found that since I discovered the joys of spray paint, I shop differently now – especially at thrift stores and garage sales. Colour doesn’t matter anymore – it’s the bones that count!!!
This cute little tin was a Christmas gift – filled with delicious homemade chocolates. Mmmm, someone knows my weakness (and yes, I ate them all myself – but not all at once!).
My mom grew up in NZ and used the word “tin” all the time. But it doesn’t seem all that common here in North America in the context she used it.
English lesson time here: when I say “tin” I’m referring to the noun, meaning “a pan, box, etc., made of tin” as opposed to the adjective – eg. a tin can. Tin, as we all know, is “a soft, silver-white metallic chemical element”. My guys says that not everybody knows that, but now that I’ve typed it, you all know now!
Anyway, I liked the tin – it’s a nice size and the lid is hinged in the back. I’ve got plenty of things already that are just for Christmas, so I decided to give this little tin a new look so I could use it year round.
Bring on the spray paint!!!
This was after three coats of spray paint. I know it looks like you can still see the red showing through – but it only looks like that in the picture with the flash. In real life it looks like . . .
. . . this – nice and dark. I used Oil Rubbed Bronze Krylon spray paint that I got in Walmart for about $4.64 a can (that’s a pretty accurate estimate!). I used maybe $1.02 worth of spray paint on this.
As you can see, I prettied it up a little with some natural hemp twine.
And now it sits on my dresser, being a cute little catch-all for those things we collect like buttons, pins, pennies, library cards . . . etc.
Love my tin (the box, not the metallic chemical element).
It really is amazing how spray paint can transform anything – how did I not discover it years ago? Stay tuned for some more spray paint projects!
Oh, and you can check out my Forget Not project here.
I have a bathroom scale! Got it for a wedding present almost 22 years ago. It’s getting old, and dirty, and there is a crack across the glass, but hey, it still tells me my weight every time I want to know. It’s been gauging my weight gain with me through seven pregnancies and my weight loss after seven pregnancies. My scales and I have a great relationship.
So one day I was perusing through an old magazine and found this picture . . .. . . of a bathroom scale remodel!!! They did it with fabric and painting and lots of other steps and it sounded really complicated. And honestly, I didn’t really like the finished look, although I’m sure it was lovely back in the 90’s when the magazine was published!
But it got me thinking about a modern day version of a scale update, using some of my favourite things – scrapbook paper and mod podge!!!
So the first step (and the one that took the longest) was to choose some scrapbook paper!!!
This was difficult because we’re in the process of building a new home and I don’t know what colour my bathroom will be yet. So I chose a neutral kinda vintage newsprint type paper that would probably look pretty good with anything. And if it doesn’t, I can redo it!
I should also mention here that I did clean my scales a little before this big makeover!
I cut the paper to fit my scales and then used a scrap-booking corner rounder to make the corners match.
Then I used my exacto knife to carve out the scale part. It easily cut around the grooves.
Don’t worry if you make a mistake like I did. Once it’s all mod podged down, you’ll never notice!
Ooops!
I did a thin layer of mod podge under the paper and let it dry overnight. The dryer the underneath layer, the less likely it is to get bubbles, especially if the paper is pretty thin.
This picture shows the top coat of mod podge. I do it in a cross hatch pattern to make it look like canvas. And I always choose matte finish over gloss.
When this coat dried, I did another coat over top just for extra strength. After all, we are going to be standing on it!
And there are the newly remodeled bathroom scales!!! How fun and easy is that?
My guy really liked this project. He thinks they look SO much better, and they do. Now they need a place of honour in the bathroom – not just hiding away in some corner.
There’s only one problem . . .. . . the extra weight of the paper and mod podge now make the scales weigh about five pounds heavier!!! 😉
I have a plaque on my wall that’s full of advice to married couples, and I love it! I refer to it often. So when my daughter got married, I wanted to give her something similar. Then I had the brilliant idea to put the marriage advice on a wedding photo!!!
My niece JL took the perfect picture for this project. The bride and groom had just come out of the temple doors to greet all the guests who were waiting outside. They had that indescribable just-married-and-so-happy-and-in-love glow, because just moments before they had been married for time and all eternity in the Holy Temple. I remember what complete joy I felt on my wedding day, and it was so so wonderful to know my little girl was feeling that way too.
I took JL’s photo and played around on Picmonkey with it. I did some stuff to the picture – like contrast or something (yeah, helpful I know!!!). I wanted the picture to be clearly visible, but it was the words that I wanted to really stand out. Once I had the picture the way I wanted it, I started adding the text, alternating fonts, sizes and colours, until I was pleased with how it looked. Then I simply ordered the photo and put it in a frame.
Pretty cool how I was able to frame the picture yet still keep the frame in it’s protective cardboard corners eh? I still had to wrap it and give it to them, then they had to transport it, so just ignore the corners!!!
Here’s the complete picture and words so you can clearly see the marriage advice . . .
I love it!!!
Some of the advice, like “Find time to be alone together”, might not seem too relevant now, but in the future, when there are children around and life is crazy busy, we all need to remember that one!!!
And “Hold hands whenever you can” is placed by their clasped hands – how cute is that?
If you look closely, you will notice that the photo is not matted. I actually had to put it on top of the matte rather than under the matte, otherwise some of the picture and words wouldn’t show. I had to print it at a size that they don’t usually make frames for just to get the whole picture. But it all worked out just fine in the end.
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.
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!!!
