Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts

Sunday, April 30, 2017

DIY Earring Frame

My Sister in law that I talked about here made the cutest earring holder and I wanted to duplicate it. I love earrings and wear a lot of them. I though this would help with one of my new years goals to be more organized. 


First I purchased this white frame from Ikea. It is normally $25 but I got it on sale one week for $20. 
Then I spray painted it silver. Part of the reason it took me so long to make this was I hadn't decided what color did I really want it? Black? Red? Silver? I ended up going with silver and I love it. 


Then I purchased radiator covers from Lowes. Now they had a cuter one for more money but I am super cheap so I chose this one for $10. It wasn't quite wide enough to fit so we had to cut it and wire it to make it work. Which you can kind of see in the picture below. Once all the earrings and stuff is added though you can't really tell at all.








See in the end I hung the feather over where we cut it and made it work. In the end I love it, and now I have lots of room for all my dangley earrings. 



Sunday, December 7, 2014

DIY Christmas Picture Ornaments

Every year we give our kids a new ornament to represent a memory form the year. Sometimes its from a place we visited or can be from a fad they are into. For example this year my girls love Frozen. The problem is the demand and cost of frozen ornaments is ridiculous. I decided to make my own.
I started with buying this little wood rectangles from my local hobby store. They came with 4 to a pack. You can paint this if you want just make sure they dry all the way before moving on to the modge podge part of it.

Then I printed out the pictures  I waned on picture paper from my printer. Then I modge podged them on.


The wood  was so soft I just used a screw driver to punch a whole in them and string them. My girls loved them! They were so excited to hand them on the tree. The other nice thing is that there was plenty of room to put their names, the date and a little story on the back.

Friday, August 29, 2014

Make Your Own Bread Crumbs

Ever wonder what to do with the ends of the bread. Or have your kids left the bag wide open and the bread started getting hard? You should make your own bread crumbs with it. I love how expensive bread crumbs are. Really? It crumbs! From bread!
Its really pretty easy. I leave the bread out on a plate to dry out for a day or 2. Then I crunch it up to fit in my magic bullet and I pulse it. Then I add some Italian seasoning, shake it up and store it in a mason jar. Done, see not hard at all!

Next I need to make some of my own meatballs and freeze them. Tweet me your favorite meatball recipes.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Year of Firsts- Vaseline Head


I was having a rough "mom" day recently when I decided I needed a nap so I could wake up refreshed and a happier mommy. Although while I was resting this little girl decided she needed to bathe in the Vaseline. I mean the entire Costco size tub all over her! Her Legs were coated (and drawn on), her entire dress was coated as if made of Vaseline, her arms, neck, face and last but not least her entire head of hair. Now I have had kids get some Vaseline in their hair before but not like this. Not an entire mask of it. So I called my hair dresser mom friend, asked Facebook for advice and googled it. Here is what I found based on top ideas and suggestions.
 
This was OK, but not the best. Baby oil helped but wasn't thorough enough for my liking.


This (and Peanut Butter) is what I have used for gum in the hair issues. It also helped some, but wasn't a winner of all what I tried.


Corn starch was my #1 favorite. I went through a whole box. I sprinkled it throughout her hair let it soak some up then squeezed tons out. I did that 2-3 times. Then washed it with dish soap. Dish soap is meant to help cut and fight grease. I did that twice before washing it.
.
My hairstylist mom friend recommended a clarifying shampoo as well. This also helped out when I was washing in between all the different household products I found.
In the end I must have washed her hair a dozen times, because she laid there for almost an hour. Even then her hair was still pretty greasy over the next 2-3 days till after a few mores wear and washed it finally came clean.
Queen of Chaos Year of Firsts

Monday, July 14, 2014

Making Your Own Crayons

One of my easy go to gifts for holidays or kids birthdays is a coloring book or printed coloring pages with homemade crayons. It's a great way to get rid of some of those nasty, old, broken and sad looking crayons you have laying around.
Step 1: Break up pieces of crayons into muffin cups. If you have bakeware in cool shapes you could do it straight in them, but I don't so this is how I do it.


Step 2:Put them in the oven on the lowest setting.
Step 3: When they are liquidey then pull them out.

Step 4: Then I pour the muffin cup carefully into the shaped container. These are ice cube trays I picked up at Ikea for a dollar. I have used jello jigglier molds as well, but they don't pop out as easy, but are great for seasonal gifts.

Step 5: Let them cool down.

 Step 6: Then just pop them out and voila! cool crayons!

Friday, February 28, 2014

The Decor Queen

From this point forward I am going to call my sister in law The Decor Queen. Every time I go to her house I'm in awe of her eye for design and decoration. This is something I am not good at all!!!! I need to just hire her to help me with my house. Look at this cute wall she put together. 


I love it! I don't think I would have ever thought of that. 

Her and I both love to hang our kids artwork. I'm more of a fridge and tape it on the wall person. She actually has cute ways to display them. Which way do you love?



She also lets each kid have a tupperware for all their pictures under their bed. If you have little artists like we do, you know how fast you can get overwhelmed with artwork. I like to scan and save some pictures digitally to help save on space.

She also always has cute displays like this for pictures. 


This one isn't finished yet, but I had to share her work in progress. I'm excited to see the end result. 


What do you think? Is it just me or is she amazing? 

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

A Pokemon Valentines

My son loves Pokemon. Unfortunately it's not exactly the most accessible thing on the market. Last year he wanted Pokémon Valentines to hand out at his schools Valentines party. He didn't believe me that they don't sell them at the store. So we had to result in making some. So I searched the ever so handy Pinterest for idea's. This is what my son decided to make.
 

I know they aren't the cutest most Pinterest worthy Valentines in the world, but my son loved them. I could have made them all my self and made them cuter, even and so on, however,  I believe in the importance of involving my son on his own Valentines. They were his to hand out, why should I do all the work? Besides it was a fun to have some bonding time just him and me, cutting, writing and taping them together.

We started out by both tracing some of my drinking glasses on white and red construction paper. My son cut them all out, Then I would cut the red ones in half. While he glued the red paper on the white, I wrote the "I 'Chews' you Valentine" on them. When we he went to bed I drew the black line and circle across the middle. When he woke up the next morning he was so surprised and kept telling me how much he loved them and kept hugging me. Then he taped the bubble gum to them. He was so happy and excited to hand them out. That's all that really matters right? That he was happy. The fun time together was a bonus too.

On top of that every year his school on most holidays do some kind of a PTA fundraiser where you can purchase a candy, flower or something and have it delivered to his class with a little note. Every year I send him a note with a Pokémon joke on it. Yup, I'm that cool of a mom!

Here was the past 2 years with a few I have saved up for the future. If you don't get it, than you may just not be a huge Pokémon fan like we are ;)
  
          -Charmander is red, Squirtle is blue, if you were a Pokémon, I would choose you.
          -Just like Bulbasaur, you will always be my number 1!
          -What does one Geodude say to the other Geodude? "You Rock Dude!"
          -What's Pikachu's favorite Valentines treat? Shocktarts
          -Like Jesse and James, we make the perfect team.
          -You're more legendary than a Zapados!
           


Now on to this year, know what he wants? More Pokemon valentines! Here are a few I have come across I think we could do, many aren't that different from last year. Which one do you like best?

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Christmas Day

We had a wonderful Christmas and I wanted to share a few of the highlights.
 
 
 The best part of the whole day was seeing my brothers face on Skype. My brother is serving a mission for the LDS church in El Salvador. He is my partner in crime, and I miss him. I am counting down till he comes home. I got to see his handsome face and have a few laughs with him. We got to talk to him for a little over 2 hours. Every time we talk to him (which is Mother's Day and Christmas) I bring a pineapple and we put it in the back round or hold it. Sometimes we stick it behind people heads like bunny ears, and all sorts of goofiness.
 
 
 I also made my niece and nephews presents this year. I made shirts for them. My nephew is always quoting movies so I made him this one.
 
 
 
First I went to Dafont.com and downloaded the Movie Film strip font. Search for film and it should come up. Then I printed it on iron paper that I purchased at Hobby Lobby with my 40% off coupon.
 
My niece is a big Harry Potter fan so I made her these 2 things. The shirt I just googled the image I wanted and printed it on the same iron on paper.
 
 
 
Then over the year I tried to collect as many skeleton keys as I could when I cam across them. Then I bought some cheap butterfly ornaments and tore them apart and glued the wings to the keys. I think they came out super cute. I like the sparkly silver one in the bottom right corner the best.
 
 
 
They look cute in her room, we just need to make a few more.
 
For me the best part of Christmas is spending time with our loved ones. We are always so busy with others we don't actually sit around and enjoy Christmas Day gifts till the next day. We usually have scones or aebelskivers for breakfast on Christmas morning. We always watch one of the movies we get, this year it was Phineas and Ferb meets Marvel. Then we head over to grandma's. We play games, chat, enjoy company and then eat our tamale dinner.

 We even watched Despicable Me 2 while waiting for everyone to arrive at Grandma's. It was a fun relaxing day with lots of loved one's.  Although my kids got more goodies then they need and I just had to highlight one. My girls got the 2 princess's from Frozen. It was perfect cause not only had we watched it Christmas Eve, but my girls are starting to play together. They love to play the sisters and I love to sit and watch them play together. It was a wonderful Christmas, and I look forward to next year, where we are planning to change things up a bit. Which will be fun to blog about.
 

Monday, December 30, 2013

Toilet Bowl Hard Water Stains Fix

A while back I posted about my gross toilet. When we bought our house it had just sat for a few months giving the upstairs bathrooms toilets hard water stains. I tried everything. I tried, CLR, Lime Away, white vinegar and baking soda, bleach and good ol' weekly elbow grease. My friend Tawny from Tawny's Tid Bits talk to a janitor at her work and suggested something acidic. I almost went to a local janitorial supply store to request just that, until I solved the problem with no out of pocket cost.
One very late night at book club apparently everyone but me knew how to fix the problem. The solution is to just use a pumice stone or really fine sandpaper. I grabbed some sandpaper out of my garage, and voila problem solved. I couldn't believe after fighting this for over a year it only took a few minutes to fix. More surprising was it didn't cost me any extra out of pocket cost.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Mother's Day Bookmark Printable

One thing I do in my spare time is volunteer my time to work with the 8 and 9 year old girls in my neighborhood. The LDS church has a program for 8-11 year old girls called Activity Days. Twice a month I get to work with these amazing young ladies. Last time we decided to do something for Mother's Day. What could I do that would be easy, nearly free or ridiculously cheap and fun? We ended up making bookmarks.

The bookmark I made is meant to list 10 reason's why you love your mom on one side, and then do an acronym of the word "MOTHER" on the other. Then we tied a ribbon on the top and voila a great homemade gift. I would recommend laminating them first to help preserve the sweet memento.
 
 
The bookmark itself is nothing fancy, but what your kids can do with it is what makes it special!