Water Bottle Flowers and Window Makeover

I bought this little window frame for $6 on my big garage sale trip 2 months ago. I forgot to take a pic of it before I started priming it, but it was this dingly old red color.

I have been wanting to hang a window frame above Iris’ play kitchen in the playroom forEVER and I was so thrilled when I found this! Another project I have wanted to try was this recycling water bottles into flowers!!! There is a tutorial there, but for some reason Mod Podge just didnt do the job well this time. I ended up using it just since I already got it everywhere, but I hot glued all the fabric down. Im sure it was due to the texture of the fabric I was using.

Anyway, here it is!

I put some tissue paper in the bottom tray, and threw in a few pieces of Easter grass with flowers on it. The can on the left was just a soup can I wrapped with scrapbook paper.

I hot glued those colorful craft sticks I told you about, and used them as the stems. The white beads around the center was leftover from a project a couple of years ago. The pink middle is just fabric wrapped around the water bottle lid. And in case you havent looked at that tutorial yet, I cut the top portion of a water bottle off, made 5 slits in it all the way up to the lid, and curled the petals out. After gluing on the facric, I cut the petals to be more rounded. But definitely go look at the tutorial.

Pretty cool huh?? Here it hangs above Iris’ little kitchen area. I think Im going to create something that will allow her to hang her artwork from the top.

Puppets and Easter Egg Tea Cups

Remember around Easter time, I told you to save those Easter Eggs?! Well I hope you did! I found this blog a few months ago, and this idea is just brilliant. I actually made ours right after Easter, but I just realized I forgot to take pictures and post them. So here are ours! I used buttons for the cup stands, and odds and ends for decorations. Iris plays with these all the time, though I try to just keep them as decorations because the bottoms keep coming off! Grrrr!

Remember our new puppet theater? What good is a puppet theater without puppets!! Well, really, we use it as a bookstore more than anything, but Ive been wanting to make puppets for awhile now. While I figure out how to do the more difficult ones, I made some for Iris today that took all of 10 minutes.

For these three, I had the little wooden cut outs from Michaels, just in my craft room. And I bought those decorative craft sticks on clearance for about $1 at Hobby Lobby ages ago. I actually thought they were real wood, and I was going to turn them into bangle bracelets (have you SEEN those?! Oh man, theyre amazing!) but these are more like super thick cardboard. I just glued them on. Easy Peasy.

I had forgotten that I had wooden spoons in one of my craft boxes until Iris dug them out. She wanted a little princess, so we made one!

And just for giggles, we made a pink fish out of a toilet paper roll, 2 pieces of felt, 2 googly eyes and ribbon for the tail. We got a kick out of it.

I also made her a telescope out of a paper towel roll, but Ill have to take pics of it later. She ran off with it and stashed it, so no tellin’ where it is now!

PS, is anyone else ready for fall?!?!

Mod Podged Shoes!

I have this black pair of heels that I never wear because I have another pair that I LOVE and they dont look faded like these. But Im glad I kept these, because I gave them a little makeover.

There are tutorials all over the internet, so if you want t make these, I would just google it because I do not have a good method for you to follow… It was quite a mess!  I was so covered in glue that I couldnt even take a picture during the process. After I took the 20 clothes pins off, here is the result!

Fabric look familiar? Yes. I used it here. I now match Iris’ tea table and curtains. Im hip like that.

I still need to cut the small flaps of fabric at the toe, using a box cutter, but I just got excited to show you all!

What do you think?! I loooove them!!!

Diaper Box Car!

I am never short of diaper boxes around here, so I have started finding uses for them instead of throwing them in the recycling bin. Iris keeps saying she wishes she had a car to get her from one room to the other- why her feet no longer do the job alone, I dont know. But today, we made her a car, and she is happily cruising from room to room, or house to house as she says.

I had a little bit of pink-ish paint left over from something else, and I dont even remember what it was, but it covered this diaper box well, and she loved it. Then I took a paper plate and used a brad pin to go through the middle. I spraypainted 4 styrofoam cirles left over from her Candy Land birthday party, and put brads in the middle of those too. On the opposide side, where the brads popped through, I secured them by putting packaging tape over them, so no one gets poked.

I had to cut the flaps from the top of the diaper box, but I spray painted them and used them for the rear view mirrors that I hot glued on the side (hard to see in this pic) and taped for extra support. I also used a piece for the license plate here on the back. We covered the sides with butterfly and lady bug stickers. And we Mod Podged strawberry scrapbook paper on the front and back as the lights. Of course this was HER creation!

I hot glued this really pretty thick ribbon I had left over from another project to strap over her shoulders. I originally glued it evenly in the back, but it fell off her shoulders, so I re-glued the ribbon closer together in the back. There’s those rearview mirrors!!

Here she is picking out what toys she is going to take with her on her car ride!

And she’s off!

That was a fun morning project. Let’s hope Baby doesnt destroy it. Its not exactly insured. Hehe!

Mod Podged Theater Revamp!

A few weeks ago, I told you all that I went garage saling and came home with a TRUNK full of goodies that I planned on fixing up. This little theater needed some help, but they gave it to me for FREE. I knew I could fix it up!

Iris and I havent really played “puppet show” or “theater” yet; though I do plan on learning to make some fun puppets in the near future. But she loves to pretend she is at a bookstore or a restaurant or a bakery or a hair salon… So I wanted to make something that would be appropriate for any place she wanted to pretend to be.

The challenge was that this project needed to be done for free with things only found around the house. And I was out of a lot of supplies I planned on using so I improvised. Here is the final product!

Let’s just start at the top. I used my all time favorite product- Mod Podge to glue different shapes of scrapbook paper on the top. I didnt want it to say “theater” anymore, since we would be using it for different things. Then I hot glued clothes pins along the yellow wood strip so that the kids could put different props there. On the left, I hung a star from a string. And I put a gemstone in the middle of the star, just for a little extra bling-bling. The “Welcome” sign was a piece of wood from Hobby Lobby that I had laying around. I spray painted it blue and wrote “Welcome” across it. Its just clipped on there, so it can be removed. I had scrap fabric, and I think it worked well as the new curtain pieces!

On either side, I hot glued more clothes pins, and hung little plastic buckets I got ages ago at the Dollar store. there are little plastic hooks along the back, so I put elastic hair bands in there and glued them in place. Then just hung them up! I put chalk and magnets in each bucket.

Its a little hard to tell in this pic, but I glued little magnetic strips along the yellow strip and put fun magents on there. The background that used to show that creepy clown was painted green, and I hung a chalkboard over it. I REEEEALLY wanted the entire bottom portion to be painted with chalkboard paint but I was out of it. I had already made this chalkboard awhile ago, and it wasnt being used, so I decided to use it here! Then I cut a square out of a rag, glued a piece of velcro on the back and put another piece of velcro on the green backing. Voila! A rag to wipe the chalkboard! Brilliant, I know. Now we can write whatever we want!

Iris wanted to sell a book to her brother. Oh! When I asked her how much her book was, she said, “20 months.” I just happened to have 20 months in my pocket. Silly girl….

Legend loves it too! He gets to eat chalk! YUMM!! (Disclaimer: I took the chalk away. Calm down.)

I think it turned out fabulous! They just love it!!!!

Mod Podge bench from a garage sale!

Saturday, I went garage saling with my friend Kimberly. I kind of had a few ideas of what I was looking for, plus 3 things I absolutely HAD to find! I found all the things I HAD to have, plus way more! The trunk was FULL of fun stuff, so stay tuned to see how I fix up all our fun treasures.

One thing I found was a white bench for $3. The stickers didnt want to come off, and I didnt care for the white, but I knew I could fix it up.

I spray painted it green and then Mod Podged the seat and the arm rests. It was super easy! Its going in the play room that Im redoing, and these are the colors I think I like best- red, orange, green and turquoise. (But I didnt use turquoise here.)

We stinking love it!!!

Thrift Store Vase

Nathan and I went to my FAVORITE Goodwill last weekend. We dont go too often because its kind of far away, but I found so many great things I cant wait to fix up! This vase was $4. Its huge, super old, and too amazing to leave on a store shelf. The sticks were from my overgrown crape myrtle in the backyard. I just spraypainted them gold. And Iused tissue paper to wind around the sticks at the bottom to hold them in place. It took all of 7 minutes to make. I love it!

 

Stash Box

Iris is a stasher.

She LOOOOVES containers. Purses. Bags. Tupperwear. Boxes. Bowls. Anything that holds anything. ANYthing.

She LOOOOVES small toys.

She takes small toys, stashes them in containers, which she stashes in bigger containers, and then hides them. She has done it for as long as I can remember and its one of the cutest things she does. When she loses something, she will tell me she stashed it and cant find it. I have started taking pics of the things she stashes and Im going to put it in a little photo album before she grows up and stops doing it. Or starts doing it in a different way, like stashing boys’ phone numbers in her school binder. AAAAH! Slow down!!!!

I found this litte gray box when she was a baby and I meant to throw it away, but she found it, colored the top with a crayon and keeps her little hair ties and clippies in it. It is one of her favorite stash boxes, and occassionally she switches hair ties out for other little items- her treasure for the day.

Yesterdays treasures were, lets see… mini books, hair ties, a Melissa and Doug candle and a spoon. Id love to understand her reasoning behind the things she puts together. And let me tell you, she has a method. If I go and mess with it, she knows…

She came up to me with this box last night and said, “This is my treasure. Dont open it. Its very magic.” So I asked if I could turn it into a REAL trasure box! She was delighted.

My goal was to make this thing OOZE girliness. I just might have succeeded. She loves it!!!

Its already been put to great use this morning!

All I did was mod podge polka dot scrapbook paper to the top and front. And I hot glued a bunch of gems and scrap ribbon all over it. It doesnt match. And we dont care.

Winter clothes into summer clothes

This is pretty simple. I am NOT much of a sewer. Not that I CANT sew, its just that stupid bobbin gets me everytime.

For the winter, I bought Legend about 6 shirts that LOOKED like another shirt was underneath it. like this.

Now, of course, spring is here, and he doesnt need long sleeves. But all of these shirts still fit! So instead of buying new ones (well, ok, I bought a couple because little boy clothes are so stinkin’ cute!!!) I just cut the “shirt” fabric underneath them all. And now he has this!

By the way, Iris is into turning small spaces into her “house” or her “room”. My bedroom is usually her house and our side tables are her ovens. This tupperwear box is now her room. She put stickers on the side, and put her favorite blanket and stuffed animal in there. Knock knock! Legend wants in!

For the kids’ bathroom

The kids’ bathroom is ALMOST done. I moved all of their bath soaps/toys/bubbles, toothbrushes, toothpaste, brushes, bows, etc up there, and I just need to hang a shower curtain and towel racks. Iris and Legend have always used my bathroom downstairs, but I decided that ALL the kids need to use the same bathroom. Plus, this one is upstairs with all of their bedrooms, and I think it will work better. And now, my big garden tub is free for just me.

I found this at a thrift store last week for $4.

It was dity and stained and white. But it had a great design and I knew we could use it somewhere. I decided to paint it, put a word on it using wooden letters and stick it in their bathroom. Ta da!