DIY To Be Continued Project List

There are many things I wanted to accomplish this summer before school started back. I did not accomplish all of them but some of them are finished and many of them are only 1/2 finished. I was inspired by Allison@House of Hepworths with her DIY unfinished project list to create my own.

Projects to Finish BEFORE Christmas

#1: Finish Painting Kitchen/ Trim:

I began painting the kitchen back in June when we redid our kitchen cabinets. (You haven't seen that yet).  With such a large open floor plan it is very difficult to find a place to stop one paint color and begin another. With that in mind I made the crazy decision to paint the living room, dining room and entry way the same gray as the kitchen walls. I also decided to put up chair rail like in the living room and paint the bottom half and trim white.

I got it all finished except two spots on the wall, the kitchen window trim and all the doors (there are 4 regular doors and 1 set of bifold to paint). The yellow color in the bottom of the picture is the color the entire house was painted before we purchased it. Painting the white/gray combo covered the last remaining yellow anywhere. I'm not a huge fan of yellow but when you aren't sure if it is yellow, tan or just yuck, that's a problem.

This is the spot next to the garage door in the little bump out section with the trash can closet door as well.

This is the spot by the kitchen window. The left side is the refridgerator door, so it isn't majorly noticeable. Just to crazy people like me and those who help in the kitchen during parties.

#2: Kitchen Backsplash Stencil:

I found this great stencil where someone had created it and used it in their office makeoever. This FREE printable stencil is from Jones Design Company.  She calls is 'painted wallpaper'.  I printed out the stencil and traced it onto cardboard to be more sturdy. I then began tracing it onto the backsplash (wall under the cabinets).  I only got around 1/3 of it traced on. I need to purchase some white opalescent paint so I can hand paint it on. I'd like to have this project finished before Eryn's 4th birthday party on October 16th.

#3: Hang 2 Shelves & Decorate Them:

I have 3 identical shelves that we originally purchased from Lowes in 2004 for Emma's nursery at our old house. We have since moved, had a 2nd child, redecorated Emma's room twice (getting ready for a third already) and decided to use these shelves in the living room.

#4: Hang Mirror Above 1st Shelf:


In the picture above there is a missing mirror. It is a quatrefoil design. I cannot find it on their website so it may be a store only type of item or it could be discontinued. It was $19.99 at the store.

#5: Hang 3 Pictures:

I have 3 picture frames I purchased at one of the local outlet stores on a great sale of $11 each back in December. As you can tell, it is almost a year later. They sat in our bedroom linen closet until I took them out this week and started playing around with where to put them. Haven't decided still 100% where all 3 will go but I do know where 1 is going for sure. I plan to hang them this week or next (before the birthday party)

#6: Put pictures in Existing Pictures:

I have the 3 frames I already mentioned plus a few more around the house that still do not have pictures in them. I need to upload the pictures to Picnik and then get them printed.

I'm sure I have more projects to tackle that I have been ignoring and didn't think of for this post. If I think or find more, I'll keep you updated. In the meantime, how is your DIY list? Is it huge? I know I'm not the only one with such a list.

It's Been a While and a FALL Plate Craft

While I haven't posted much on the blog since July... alright, not at all. You caught me! I have been doing things around our house. In fact, we have totally refinished our kitchen cabinets. More on that later.

For now, I wanted to share a fall plate craft idea I stole borrowed from Michael's Craft Stores. I was there this weekend, with coupon in hand for their Labor Day sale and snagged this great orange fall plate for only $0.99! Yup! The other supplies I used were:

a letter "G" for our last name: $2.29
orange glitter glue $0.99
Basic Grey paper (had at home)
scrapbook adhesive (had on hand at home)

So... for a total cost of $4.27+ tax I had a custom fall plate for my fall mantle.

Here are the steps.

Step 1: buy materials :o)

Step 2: trace and cut paper to fit inside plate and adhere with your favorite adhesive.

Step 3: using the glitter glue, cover the letter in glitter glue and smear around with finger for semi-even coverage.

Step 4: using glitter glue, make dots as a border around paper about every 1/4 inch.

Step 5: when dry, adhere letter to center of plate ( I used dots so my letter would be even more 3 dimensional)

Step 6: put on plate hanger or stand and enjoy!

The Simple Pleasures of a Child

Who would have thought with all the gadgets and toys a child could want that something as simple as a band-aid would make a child happy. Using coupons, we are able to get cute character band-aids very reasonably priced and sometimes free. This makes our two little girls extremely happy!

We were helping my mother move and Eryn (the little one) fell walking on the sidewalk and skinned her knee. No it wasn't life threatening and didn't even cause her to cry. When we got home she told me she had a boo boo and needed a band-aid to fix it. I told her I'd get her a Barbie band-aid and life was grand. She then danced around the house singing that she had a Barbie band-aid and look at her.

Isn't the life of a 3 year old grand? I LOVE that character Band-aids are something that can cause my children joy.

Adventures in Dying... An Ikea Klippan Loveseat VS. ME

We purchased an IKEA Klippan loveseat with no cover on Craigslist last month. I did not or was not able to see the legs in the original Craigslist post so I was more than a little shocked to see hideous wooden legs put on the sleek, modern sofa. As you can imagine, they were removed.

Ikea is over an hour and 1/2 away from us so it took us two weeks to head to my favorite store (in competition with Target).  I unknowingly, thought I could purchase Klippan metal legs at the store and an extra cover. My idea was to buy an off-white cover (for $19) and dye it gray.  I had seen a dye job to die for at IKEA Hackers and knew I could do it.

I was unable to find metal legs at IKEA for the sofa but we did purchase these bookcase legs that are super similar in size, form and color so we thought... for $10 sure... we'll try it.

I realized after pulling the wooden legs off that the original owners put them on because one place where the metal legs screw in was crooked. They took a new screw and screwed in the wooden legs just to the outside of the original leg position.

We unscrewed the extra screws and I fixed the crooked spot by inserting a screwdriver inside it and pulling in the right direction. DUH! Super easy!

 

The couch was also a very old version. The date on the bottom said 1999.  We had to cut off a white gauzy cover to put the slip cover on but no worries.. It turned out fine! The kitten even got into the DIY spirit.

The wooden legs made the couch too high and therefore oddly uncomfortable. It wasn't until we put these legs on and the couch sat lower that we realized that was the problem the whole time. 

Next came the dye job. I found on the RIT website where you can dye items in your washer. We purchased 2 Royal Blue and 1 Sunshine Orange liquid dyes to mix together to get a blue/gray. We pre-washed the off-white cover and then mixed our colors together. 

You can actually pick out over 500 colors at the Color Formula Guide .

We picked out #193 and followed the directions. 

 

The directions state to only leave it in the dye for 30 minutes max and use super hot water. You are also to add 1 cup of salt into the tub. I stopped the washer at 30 minutes and then rinsed a second time.

 

After round 1 it came out WAY too blue!

I'm not sure the orange did anything at all. I re-read the directions for machine washing and the only thing I can think of that went wrong is that we have an HE front loader so it uses less water. 

We purchased a black RIT dye and poured the entire bottle in the load and tried to darken it thinking any gray/black would be better than denim blue.

It didn't do anything. When I have time I will use two bottles of black and hope it darkens it. For now, we have a denim blue couch. We go back to IKEA on Saturday to purchase the Klippan 4 seater in black and a few extra off-white covers for me to dye.  With my daughter's birthday party on Sunday I will be purchasing a pink cover for the 2 seater.

New living room/ kitchen makeover pictures to follow. Next time I try to color match and dye a cover I will use 1/2 of the recipe and use a large Rubbermaid container and boiling water instead of our washer. It was a super easy method but lack of extra water darkened the color drastically.

Let there be light.... without rust

We have had the same outdoor lights since we moved in over 5 years ago.They are also original to the house which was built in 1994 of 1995 (we're not sure).  That means the lights are way too old to still look good. Plus I just didn't like the design and the fact that over 50% of the houses in our development still had them as well.

I picked out a great light two pack at Lowe's for only $31. We purchased 2 packs and got to work.

Problem #1: the hanging bracket pushed the light too far out that it was not flush.

Problem #2: because we have brick the electrical boxes were hung sideways which gave us no room to adjust the adjustable screws to bring the light closer to the brick.

Solution: After fighting with one of the lights by the front door for an hour I called my brother. He can jerry-rig almost anything. So... he used part of the bracket from the old light and put a screw in one way and the two mounting screws in the other way. We used nuts to hold the screw in the right place and rigid so the light had something to hold on to.

Final Product: After an hour or more we had two of the four lights up. We purchased more nuts and screws at Lowes to fully secure the remaining two lights (which are still not up because I am rapidly and frantically trying to finish the kitchen)

4th of July Jello Dessert

Jello recently had an advertisement where you could get a flag Jello mold for only $3 and they would send it to you before Memorial Day. My step-dad's birthday is also right around memorial day as is our anniversary. We had Lou's birthday celebration on Memorial Day Monday and I made the Jello flag mold dessert. The recipe was found on the mold but if you didn't get a chance to get the mold here is the recipe. You can use this in any silicone mold or put this in a regular glass dish and use any colors of Jello you desire.

You will need:
1 qt (4 cups) boiling water, divided
2 pkg (3 oz. each) Jell-O Berry Blue Flavor Gelatin
2 pkg (3 oz. each) Jell-O Gelatin, any flavor red
3 cup cold water, divided
1 pkg (3 oz.) Jell-O Lemon Flavor Gelatin
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

To make it:

Add 1 1/2 cups boiling water to blue gelatin mix in medium bowl; stir 2 min. until completely dissolved. Repeat in separate bowl with red gelatin. Stir 1 1/2 cups cold water into gelatin in each bowl.

Spray 10 cup flag mold (or 9x11 silicon dish) with cooking spray; place on baking sheet. Pour red gelatin into mold. Refrigerate 45 min. until set but not firm. Meanwhile, refrigerate blue gelatin 45 min. After 20 min., dissolve lemon gelatin in boiling water in separate bowl.  Refrigerate 25 min. or until slightly thickened.

Whisk cool whip into lemon gelatin; spread over red gelatin layer in mold. Refrigerate 10 min. or until set but not firm. Cover with blue gelatin. Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm. Unmold. Use fresh fruit and additional cool whip to decorate mold to resemble a flag.


*Here is where I went wrong. I used the canned whip cream to decorate the top and since it is all natural it melted shortly after I took my pictures. What you see is pretty now but 5 minutes later at my mom's house and it ran all over the plate I had decorated it on. I used the canned cream because I thought it would be easier and quicker to pipe the stripes. Next time I will use Cool Whip and put it in a bag and pipe it on or spread it on with a knife. Sometimes it doesn't pay to take short cuts.

This dessert is really good and was gone in a blink!

Ikea Kura Hack: Our New Apple Tower

My 3 year old is obsessed with apples. She has a pair of 12 month Carter's pajamas that she still wears around the house even though they are skin tight because she must have her "apple jammies".  When we found apple fabric a Joann's a few months ago we had to get some. I had originally decided to make her a jumper with it so she might retire those jamies but alas I ran out of time and just hadn't done it.

In the search for a new couch she was sitting on my lap while I browsed Ikea's website and saw a Kura loft bed. She was instantly in love with the bed but alas I wasn't in love with the $199 price tag. I searched on Craigslist and found one that was an hour away from our house and only $50.  The kicker? We had to take it apart.  After an hour and a half taking it apart we went home. It took me all evening to completely put it back together but it is now the perfect apple tower!

What  I ended up doing was covering all the blue/white panels with fabric.

1. Before sliding panels lay the panel on top of fabric and cut fabric leaving 1/2 to an inch of fabric overhand.

2. Put double sided tape (any kind) on the side of the panel you do not wish covered. We put the tape on the white side so the blue panel was completely covered.

3. After the entire panel is covered, slide into place and continue assembling the bed as directed.

I had a little help from the princess who wanted to "measure" to make sure it all fit.

Note: I stopped each time a panel was to be slid into place to wrap the panel in fabric and then continue. We still have some fabric left so we aren't sure if a small curtain for the bottom is to be made or if we'll just make her an extra pillow for on top of the bed.

This can easily be undone if you take the bed apart and switch out with different fabric.

For now, the apple princess can use her apple tower any way she pleases. It took us a day to teach her how to go up and down the ladder and now she's a pro.