Hand Painted Wallpaper

I am making some progress on my bathroom painting project. I don't think I ever shared on here that I was repainting and then handpainting a design on the walls.  Well I started about a month ago and I am just taking it bit by bit....I had to start by drawing the design on with a pencil and I have just now found the perfect paintbrush to hand paint with.  As you can see at the very top I started with a thicker brush and it just wasn't doing the trick. I have some other areas that I have worked on but this area has the most progress.  I am hoping to finish up in the next couple of weeks now that I have found a good brush.  Adam said he would add some crown moulding to the top for me to cover up where I got paint on the ceiling so I wouldn't have to paint that as well. Such a good hubby isn't he?  I think I am really going to love it.

Happy Valentine's Day~Card Edition

I am finally finished with Aidan's Valentine's!  I think they turned out so cute. This is where the sign I made on Friday was put to use!  Saturday afternoon I threw on Aidan's Vday Tshirt and we headed outside to snap a few shots of him holding the sign and to make our very own Valentine Picture Cards. We gave some out to family today and even though I think they are a little biased, the reception was wonderful.  The picture turned out so well. 

And here's how we {me} made them:

I bought a pack of foam from Wal Mart. I wish they had had just a pack of red or white or even pink but they were rainbow colored. I chose to use the white and red.  First thing I did was measure the size of the sheet of foam.  I then cut it down to two 4 x 5.5 inch pieces with my craft knife.

{I seriously apologize for the quality of these pics. My camera was dying last night and did not want to focus}

I then cut 25 adorable photos of my sweet Aidan down to the same size. They were already 4 inches tall so I just cut the width down to 5.5 inches.

I then covered one side of the foam in Mod Podge.

And stuck Aidan's picture to it. After that I trimmed any edges with my craft knife.

I did the same with the red foam.

I let them dry for a bit.

While they were drying I started the next step. I bought this Valentine's kit at Wal Mart.

I picked out the hearts to use and used a white paint pen to sign Aidan's name to his cards.

and a black Sharpie for the white hearts.

Then I added the little silver ribbon that came in the kit and some of my own red polka dot ribbon to the hearts.

Then I took Mod Podge and covered the back of the hearts and glued them to the back side of the foam piece.

See?

Then I let those dry for a while.

We added little heart stickers to the bottoms of the big heart and pencils Aidan had picked out that he wanted to give his friends.

And that's how easy that was! Adam asked me how much this little project cost and it was around $20.  For 25 Valentine's? Not bad.

Aidan is so excited to go to school tomorrow and show off his cards.  I think if anyone is proud of my crafty-ness it's him! He's so worth the late hours I stay up making them.   Creating fun things like this for my kids is like a dream come true.  HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! XOXO

I am linking up to the DIY Show Off.  There are some great DIY ideas and other great Vday ideas there to check out!  Use the button in my sidebar to link there too!

Valentine's Day Sign

I have been getting Aidan's Valentine's ready for school on Monday.  Last year I made these really cute Valentine's with Teddy Grahams and loved them. This year I wanted to do something cute but different from last year because most of the same kids are in his class.  I also get nervous now sending in any type of food because so many kids in his class have allergies.  So I came up with another cute idea that I am going to reveal to you on Monday but in the meantime I wanted to show you the cute sign I made today.

Cute Right? And so simple.  This project cost me zilch.  If your like me, you have tons of craft supplies hanging around and if you really put your mind to it, you can come up with ways to put that left over stuff to use. 

I had all these chip board letters left from making diaper cakes for baby showers.  The first thing I did was make sure I had enough letters to make the sign. I knew I had two or three different fonts but that didn't bother me. I thought it added to the whimsy of the sign.  There were some blue letters but that also was no biggie because I could just paint them with white craft paint.

I skipped a few steps in the picture taking process but getting to this point is pretty easy. I had a left over cabinet filler from when we remodeled our kitchen but you can get a piece of wood for super cheap at your local home improvement store.  Most places will cut it down to the size you want. My filler is 1 inch thick, 3 inches tall and almost three feet long.  It was cherry wood colored so I threw some primer on it.  I made sure I had enough room for the entire saying.

Which I did thankfully because I was not in the mood to visit the craft store today.

I painted the primed piece black. 

Another view of the painted filler. {I would just like to give myself a shout out for keeping that back splash so clean!}

I started painting the blue letters with white craft paint.  Julie was here to take pictures. So she did.

More letter painting.

Once everything was dry, I hot glued it all to the wood, added a pink heart and then hot glued another red one with polka dots on top and Hello cute Vday sign!

 I love it! And I can't wait to show you how we used it in Aidan's Valentine's Day cards for his class!  I am thinking I will keep it out for the rest of the month and then store it away for next year! 

In other news...we have made head way on our board and batten.  The top piece is up all the way around the room and we have a ledge!

I am linking this to the DIY Show Off! You can also link to her site by clicking the button in my sidebar!

Getting My Laundry Room Organized

We have so much "stuff" around here I am starting to loose it.  I am constantly throwing things away to try to clean out cabinets and for some reason it seems the "stuff" is never ending.  You all remember when we gave our laundry room a little make over?  Well I had been meaning to buy some rubbermaid containers to get more organized in there and a few weeks ago, I finally got around to it.  I bought the containers for $6 each {includes the lid} at Wal Mart (I've been loving that place lately which is weird for me) and the chalkboard paint I already had at home.  I thought it would be a great idea to paint chalk board paint on the front so that the containers would be labeled, but when I need to switch things out, I can just erase and write what's new.  Here are some pics and a VERY quick tutorial.  It's just that easy!

This is what my containers looked like to start.

I used painters tape to tape off a 3x4 area paint area. 

I used a brush I had hanging around the house and applied 2 coats of chalkboard paint to each container.

Voila! Instant interchangeable labels!  They took maybe 20 minutes to dry.  Project start to finish maybe an hour.

Self explainatory.

I have more re usuable grocery bags than I know what to do with. And I always forget my Ikea bag when I go shopping there so hopefully this will help me remember it.

We are always painting something {case in point, chalkboard labels} so I decided to keep some paint supplies indoors rather than in the shed. This way, when I decide to paint at 3 am, I don't have to go outside!



Hope this gives you a little inspiration to get organized too!  TGIF!!!

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I am linking up to the DIY Showoff!  Check out the DIY Showoff blog but clicking the button in my sidebar!

Laundry Room Make Over

Adam and I have been hard at work giving our laundry room a little make over.  When we moved in to our house, our washer and dryer were in the kitchen.  About a year later, we moved them in to the third bedroom because it shared a wall with the kitchen and it was easy to swap the water that way.  We had a small screened in porch that wasn't getting much use so I thought that we could frame it in and create a new laundry room.  It would be great for extra storage and of course I wouldn't have to look at the washer and dryer in my guest room.  

Waaaaaay Before.  Screened in Porch.

When we first re did the laundry room we painted it a super neutral color and just hung some really inexpensive shelves from Ikea.  All of my junk could be seen and it drove me crazy!   I bought some cheapo window treatments from Bed, Bath and Beyond.   Over time, I grew to hate the room.

Before The Second Time:

Our laundry room is also the room we walk through to access our back door so I wanted it to be more pleasing to the eye.   When we have cook outs everyone walks through this area and it was so ugly I was embarrassed.

So, about three weeks ago, Adam and I decided we thought we could give the room a little make over on a serious budget.  The first things on our list, remove all that horrid Ikea shelving and replace it with cabinets we had left over from when we re did our kitchen.  I thought it would be fun to paint them a barn red and rub black stain over the red.  They turned out great!  We decided to paint the walls grey thinking that the color would make the red really stand out. I am so happy with the way the color turned out.

The Start of the After:

You can see some of the grey in the back ground.

They aren't this bright but my camera was acting crazy tonight.   We are waiting on a stock Lowe's laminate countertop to come in to go underneath the cabinet and above the washer and dryer.

We didn't want to spend the time or the money to install tile in the laundry room so we used the 12x12 Peel and Stick tiles that you can cut with a razor knife to fit your area.  Also, looks so much better!!!

We wanted a bench so that we could store our shoes and sit down to put them on. I didn't have much space so I decided to use the Lack Shelf from Ikea and I saw on a blog somewhere (I didn't save the address silly me) someone use Ikea cabinet legs on the bottom to support it. They used 6 legs. We only used 4.  One on each end and two in the center. We attached our shelf to the wall. 

 Aidan modeling the new bench.

 The AFTER (for now).  Those are also Ikea shelves above the bench. 

 In this picture you can see the peel and stick tile.

 The bench holds a ton of shoes and is definetely deep enough so that it is comfortable to sit on. 

Here's the list of things we still need to do:
Order blinds for the windows.  My girlfriend Natalie turned me on the these custom roman blinds at JCPenny.  You measure your window and they send you the blind and all for super cheap! Mine are less than $40 a window!!

Hang up the deer hooks that I bought for our coats on the brick wall opposite the bench.  I bought them at World Market/Cost Plus for $7 each.  I had a coupon so they ended up being super cheap.  Aren't they cute?

Buy a runner for in front of the washer and dryer.  The concrete floor underneath the tile makes it pretty cold in there. I just want something to keep my toes warm while I'm folding laundry.  This is the runner I want. It's Fieldcrest Luxury from Target.

Pick up the counter top from Lowe's and have Adam install it over the washer and dryer. 

So we still have a little while to go but it is looking so much better!!!

We are loving the new laundry room!