Categories
craft things to do

Project Height Chart

well i’m well on my way to finishing 33 blog posts by the time i turn 33…ok not so much, i’m going to have to step up my game…

2/33

so i really don’t like wasting and that goes for a lot of things, food, money, stuff…i also don’t want to ever have hoarder status though so if i can’t upcycle something, pass it along, or sell it, i donate it. of course i always try to figure out if there is something i can do with an item before just getting rid of it because i would hate to have to buy something else in the future and kick myself because i could have just used x.

of course this drives the husband crazy because he wants to get rid of stuff faster than a zit on your nose. i am learning though and along with not being wasteful i do want to keep life simple as well and sometimes that means getting rid of stuff. more on that in the next post!

anyway, here’s an upcycle that i did in about an hour! simple, cheap and awesome!

i had this sign that we used to use when we would go to bridal bazaars. it wasn’t cheap but we used it for years and got our money’s worth out of it. then we changed our business name and just like that this sign became garbage.

it sat around in the closet for a few years and jared said i had to get rid of it. so thanks to pinterest and having a child, i finally thought of what i should do with this cumbersome item!

yellow/goldenrod is one of my favorite upcycle colors right now! we actually blew through a whole can with projects so i did need to buy a new can for this, but i’m sure i’ll use it all eventually 🙂

i have terrible handwriting so i used my dad’s stencils to paint the numbers and…

voila! done. just like that. i did this whole project after the baby went down for the night and hung it up in the play room. i used it on her first birthday and we’ll have this for years! from garbage to a keepsake!

do you have anything you’ve wanted to do something with but can’t think of an idea?

Categories
craft nest things to do

project nursery

well, baby kate is here! we welcomed her into the world on saturday and we are thrilled! she is so cute and parenthood is just as amazing and exhausting as everyone says. i’m so glad it finally happened for us and we pray for our friends who want the same thing to be blessed with their very own babies.

we had a really fun time working on her nursery over the months before she came. i really didn’t want to spend a whole lot of money on the nursery and wanted to make it as personal as possible. we also didn’t want to make it too girly since we were sure she’d get plenty of girly clothes!!

so we started with my old furniture from growing up! this antique dresser, the bureau that matches my old crib and a toy box my dad made me!

ditched the old knobs

used gray and white chalk paint since  we didn’t know the gender before we started and figured these were great colors to go with either!

yep, painted indoors…

then my friend dez and i worked on putting everything together! she is so good at design, check out their personal blog to see their fun projects!!

we used a bunch of scrap fabric i had lying around

and here’s the final product!!

items for decoration from here and there. found the bunny bookends at a flea market but they were too expensive for my taste, but jared surprised me for mother’s day with them 🙂 good husband!

lamp from ikea

new knobs from world market

found the rocker/glider for $40 and then had someone recover it for me. much better than buying a brand new one with an ugly cover! and i sewed the pillows…something i can do with sewing!

mobile made by my talented dad

dad also made the valence and then we covered it

the blanket was from ikea which gave us the idea for the woodland animal theme.

dez and i spent some time on this wall and she finished the kate sign for me!

found this cute greeting card at trader joe’s and put it to good use since it worked with the theme!

my dad drew this tree and people put their prints and signed it at my showers. we have it hanging over the changing table and i get to be reminded of all the people who love little kate every time i change her.

rug made by my talented friend timmery.

these cute knobs also from world market

the whole thing!

and now all my old things are hers for a new generation 🙂

Categories
craft play things to do

Upcycling #1 and Pranks

two things we’ve had a lot of fun with lately are upcycling (because i don’t like wasting) and harmless pranks! i have some fun step by step upcycling posts to share later, but for now i have some small finished projects that i did to redo a wall in our living room.

my grandma gave me a whole box of old cameras, lenses and filters etc. i had them sitting in a box for the longest time not knowing what to do with them. we did a little redecorating and wanted to do movie/camera/film sort of theme. so this is what i did with some of the lenses and filters:

and a few flashes – i wish i didn’t have to use so much glue but i couldn’t figure out how to keep them in there. they are also in an old crayon box i picked up from an antique store 🙂

and this one is a bit more personal. my grandparents had all of their 8mm home movies in a box stored away for decades. i can’t remember why i had them, but we finally digitized them and ended up with all the boxes which i couldn’t throw away. they are just so cool looking! so i made a little collage of them. the fun part about them is that we’ll be able to show our kids what our grandparents had to do in order to see their home movies!

and we also put a little montage of outdated maps together. these are all cities we’ve been to:

now for the prank. it all started when we were watching gentlemen broncos with our friends over at zelo photography. they made a time capsule and blew on a friendship stone…well it’s kind of a weird movie and you just have to watch it. aaaaanyway…so since we live about 2 miles away from each other we talked about giving each other keys so we can watch each others’ houses when we’re out of town.

so this is how they gave us our key:

we were laughing so hard, especially when we opened it and found the key on top of the friendship stone 🙂

so, we had to come up with something just as good for giving them our key. my grandma also gives me things that aren’t so useful sometimes, like these ‘old’ cameras from the 90’s. i did save them just in case and then when we were at a flea market, i thought of it!!

a camera with antlers! random i know, but i think it turned out pretty cool.

and her’s the finished product and we put the key in the film slot 🙂
and, since they happened to be out of town when we finished it, we thought it would be fun to play a little prank and sprinkle their place with army men. unfortunately i couldn’t find any army men so cowboys and indians it was 🙂

i think it fits in really well on their entry table!

oh and these picture frames below were empty so we filled them too.

now i’m really in the pranking mood, and trying to think of who and what will be next!