Monster Truck Bed

I've decided to join the ranks of all those crafty people that comb through thrift stores, buy something for dirt cheap and turn it into something fabulous. If they can do it, we can do it right? And with all the blank spots still left in this house, that's probably the only way they will get filled.

My first big find was this headboard for Tyler. Only $25 for it and the matching footboard!
Tyler and I painted them white (not as smoothly as I had hoped since my little helper really did stick right by me the whole time, much as I tried to sneak out to the garage myself to do the final coats alone) and covered it with a few coats of poly. I had also promised him a "monster truck bed" so I found a truck font online and used it to cut a monster truck out of black vinyl with the Silhouette.

Ta-da! We realized that the mattress frame doesn't have a place to connect the footboard. So we'll have to buy some wood and make side rails at some point. But we're happy with it as is. Tyler was so excited to sleep in it that first night.



Kaitlyn thought it was pretty cool too and of course wanted something added to her own bed. She even took the time to draw up her idea before asking me if I would make it. (though I found that Ty had ripped it apart when I went to take a pic - anyone else notice a super-destructive phase in their 4 year old boys??)
So Tyler and I snuck in there and decorated her bed for her this morning. I love to surprise that girl! We'll see how long it takes her to notice it when she gets home from school.

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Monogram Wall

This one is just for you Julie! :)
She and I saw this idea while we were blog hopping and chatting online months ago. (original idea can be found here) So we've both been collecting wooden letters and frames ever since. And being the more daring and driven one (prodded along by Jules who wanted to see how it turned out before she tackled hers), I got mine on the wall first.

Kaitlyn is going to be so surprised when she gets home and finds all the photos on the wall. I'm not even sure I've mentioned to her that I was going to put anything there.

Ok, the details:
-the square photo is one that I had done on unstretched canvas (when I got the deal on the shoe one - you had to order in pairs) and put it on some MDF just as I did with the shoe canvases
-the white "K" is vinyl from my machine. I couldn't make it as large as I had envisioned it so that may be something I change out later (after a visit to Audrey's!)
-the argyle "K" is just some scrapbook paper that I mod podged onto a wooden letter
-the smallest frames all came from the dollar store and I spray painted them white. The other frames were already in my collection and were already white.
-I traced each frame onto newspaper (being sure to mark where the hook would need to be placed) and taped the newspaper shapes to the wall to help me figure out the layout before I brought out the hammer and nails.

This covers the wall at the foot of Kaitlyn's bed - the only wall in the room that needed any additional decor. Scratch another entire room off my To Do list Baby! WOOHOO :)

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Finishing Touches - Laundry/Mud Room

Time to show off my laundry/mud room! Do you know how happy I am to have 3, count them - THREE rooms entirely done?!

I'm sure you remember the great bench, shoe cubbies and coat hooks my husband installed. But that space above them needed a little dressing up. So I took some photos of our feet (fitting for the mud room, right?) and when I ran across a deal on Artscow I had them printed in sepia on canvas. The deal was for 12x12 unstretched canvas and I decided to pop them off the wall instead of putting them in frames. So I cut a piece of leftover MDF from our closet projects to size (yes I cut it all by myself! I'm getting to be seriously handy with the power tools), painted the edges black, then used spray adhesive to attach the canvas. Lovin' it! (all but that center photo - I couldn't get quite the look I had in mind using the self timer, but it'll do)
Here's the original Before:

And this is how it looks now. Like right now, as in I didn't even straighten up the shoes or put away any of the extra jackets before taking the photo :)
After:

The other side of the room got a few accent pieces too. Above the cupboard I added another one of the room definition quotes (found the printable here) and a bucket I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

And I created a little Laundry Room sign out of scrap wood (painted white then distressed the edges) and vinyl that sits on top of my drying rack. I saw something similar on the HowDoesShe blog and this is my version.

That wall Before:

And After:

The end. :)

Finishing Touches - Kids' Bathroom

I finished it, I finished it! I have been sitting on the photos of most of the decor pieces for this room for weeks and weeks now, waiting for myself to get around to the last little bit so I could share it all at once. Well, today was the day I quit putting it off in favor of other things - go me!

The kids' bathroom was actually one of the easier rooms to pull together. I would just randomly run across things and think "oh that's perfect for ____!"

The first thing we did was replace the towel bar with a wall shelf and hooks. We all know it's a losing battle, trying to get the kids to hang up their towels, let alone hang them up and expect them to look good. In fact, Tyler is too small to even pretend he could hang up his own towel. I heard about the idea for using hooks for kids towels long long ago and have been so happy to finally get some myself. Then I ran across a shelf I fell in love with on the Idea Room blog.

Perfect, no? My husband actually agreed and had no problem re-creating one. Isn't he fabulous? He built this the same time he built my fantastic drying rack and it went on the wall as soon as the paint was dry. (see! told you I'd been waiting and waiting to show you!)


For those of you that are now insanely jealous and wanting one for yourself (I know you're out there because I've already had at least 2 people tell me that next time Sam builds anything he needs to just go ahead an make one for them too! :) ), it's not too complicated. We used a wide board for the back (1x10" I think), then used the length of 1x4 for the top. Added a piece of crown molding under the 1x4
and some rope trim around (smaller detail trim is harder to find than you'd think at Home Depot. This piece came from Michael's.) the bottom to dress it up a bit. And of course added the hooks (these are from Target). Then I filled in the holes and painted it all.
Of course, then I had to figure out what to put on top of the shelf. I ran across this bathroom definition printable (free - you can find one for yourself here) and thought it would be fun. So I had that printed the last time I ordered photo prints, matted it with scrapbook paper and stuck it in a frame.
I added a small floral arrangement and filled a couple of cylinder vases with the shells Kaitlyn collected at the beach last week.

And there you have it! I'm so happy with it, now that it's all pulled together. Well, I was happy with it as soon as it went on the wall too, but even more happy now! It probably needs a couple more things to fill out the shelf, but this will do until the right things find me.

For the other wall, I took these fun shots of my kids up to their necks in bubbles in my jetted tub and had them printed on canvas. Then I used my handy dandy vinyl (and Silhouette) to make a couple of flourishes to finish it off and hung it all over the toilet.

Ready for the final Before/After? Ok then.

Before:
After!

Before:
And After!

Cross another room off the list, baby! Happy Dancing now... :)

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Tatertots and Jello

Finishing Touches - Powder Bath

It's a Friday. A cloudy, windy, dreary Friday. Usually on Fridays I'm either totally motivated to get tons done or I feel like goofing off all day (especially today which marks the start of Spring Break as soon as the half day of school is over) Today I'm neither - just blah. I think the people that say weather affects our moods are on the right track. So here I sit, having at least done my usual Friday morning bathroom scrubbing (thank goodness!), thinking I should be crafting but not feeling it. So what's the next best thing? Sharing one of my projects that did get finished at some point in the recent past when the motivation was flowing.

This is what I whipped up for my powder bathroom, with the help of my new best crafting buddy, my Silhouette.

It's just a piece of scrap wood that I stained. Cut out some vinyl shapes with the Silhouette (the bird comes with the machine, the cherry blossom branches were from the Silhouette online store) and applied them. Drilled a couple holes and added a ribbon. And hung it all from a hook I already had. Total out of pocket? $0! You gotta love those kinds of projects right?!

I do have to admit the idea wasn't totally original. I saw something similar on a blog, somewhere. Didn't save the link or the photo at the time but it stuck with me. So to someone out there - thanks for the inspiration!

Add a little picnic basket I had laying around to stash the toilet paper in and I declare the powder bathroom...

Done! It's the first room in the house that I can cross off the list as fully complete. Happy Dance! :)

One more time with the Before:
and After:

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Kids Art Corner

One of the things I have really been wanting to do with the playroom is create a corner where the kids and make and display their art. In the new house we no longer have a fridge full of magnets, nor do I want drawings Scotch-taped all over my newly painted walls. My daughter can churn out the art in bulk when she gets on a roll and loves nothing better than displaying them them all over the place. So I thought I'd share my solution, which I had Kaitlyn help me sweet-talk my husband into installing last night (usually I wait for the weekends and let him rest after work but these boards have been half-way finished for weeks and I couldn't stand it anymore!). I always get "please explain how you..." comments so I'll save myself the trouble of coming back later and do a quick How To while we're at it. -I bought a 1"x4"x8' board at the hardward store and cut it in half so I had two 4' sections. I asked my awesome husband to use his router on the edges to give it a bit of character. Then I stained it and added about 3 coats of poly. Then they sat in the garage for weeks. We had to buy short (1/2" long) screws so we could attach the clips to the boards. Then the boards were screwed directly into the wall. Easy peasy huh? Oh and I know the other question you will ask is "where did you get the clips?" Well, I tell ya, that was the hardest part. I had seen them used on more than one blog for different projects and had the hardest time myself even figuring out what they were called let alone where to find them. Went down lots of dead ends on this one - even Oriental Trading wasn't much help! (though they do have mini versions sometimes in their scrapbook section). So save yourself the trouble and pay attention - these little babies are called BULLDOG CLIPS and you can order them from Amazon. Costs about $6 for three dozen (so be prepared to see something else with these guys down the road as I still have more than half the box left), and if you add a couple more things to your cart you can get free shipping. As I said before, I had the hubby attach the boards to the wall in the playroom last night. Kaitlyn went right to work finding projects to hang up and assigning the upper board to herself and the lower board to her brother (because just putting things up willy-nilly just won't do!) This morning I grabbed a couple of frames and inserted a couple pieces of artwork and put my handy dandy Silhouette to work cutting out some vinyl lettering. And this, my dears, is the final result: Cross another project off the list baby! :) I have also refinished a bookshelf to hold all the art stuff, but you don't get to see that until I get it looking more like something from a Pottery Barn catalog instead of the cluttered mess it is at the moment. As always - stay tuned! :P This isn't the only small project I've been working on lately...

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It's Here!

My Silhouette machine has arrived! I know I'm gonna love it! I haven't played around with it very much yet, but I did test it out with some vinyl.

I purposely got the kids Tootsie Roll banks for the last couple of holidays so that Kaitlyn would have somewhere to put her allowance. Of course we dressed them up with some of her Hello Kitty paper and vinyl labels. She loves allowance day now, and the act of dividing her money between the three banks - and counting up how much is in her spending bank because she already has it earmarked for a new game for her DS.

I picked up these buckets at Hobby Lobby last year after Easter. It has been my intention all along to dress them up like the ones I saw in the Pottery Barn catalog (I would totally share the link but it was LAST YEAR and they don't have anything like them this year. I did however find some similar here and here), but hadn't asked anyone to cut out the vinyl for me. Now I can do it myself!

Cute huh?! The kids love them already and are excited to see what the Easter Bunny puts in them this year.

And lastly, the requisite No Soliciting sign on the front door. Really it's a must if you live in one of the newer subdivisions - all the salesmen target them first. I've had 2 different Kirby vacuum people in the last month alone. Hope this helps cut down on that kind of thing.

Now, off I go to plot more ways to use my new toy...

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