Monthly Archives: March 2014

Yikes! My Purse Looks Like a Trash Basket

I am not a purse person. When it comes to purses, I am not about fashion, but practicality. I rarely buy a new purse and primarily see them as a means to get my junk from one place to another. I am not saying that a great purse won’t catch my eye, it’s just not usually me that carries one. I am all about pockets and compartments and yet I am not really sure why, as it usually only takes a few days before I just shove stuff inside and avoid the compartments altogether. One of the things that I have a total love hate relationship with is gift cards. As a teacher, gift cards are the best gift ever. After teaching for over 20 years, you collect a lot of knick-knacks and nothing is as appreciated as a gift card. The downside of this is that I often have so many that I can’t keep track of the cards and their balances.

I am embarrassed to say that my previous “system” consisted of nothing more than throwing my gift cards in a ziplock . The bag gets very grungy looking and it really doesn’t look that classy when I whip out my bag and search through for the correct card. The worst part is that I am not even consistent with this. I often have additional cards in both of my wallets and the odd one floating about in the bottom of my purse. So, when I saw this idea, I knew it could be the solution I was looking for. Here is what I did:

  1. I cleaned out my purse and found every single gift card I owned ~ 23 at last count!
  2. I wrote down all of the balances that I knew. Some had receipts wrapped around them to show the balances, but I was able to toss them once I wrote the amounts on the backs with a Sharpie.
  3. I found a spot on the back of my cards that did not interfere with the magnetic strip or security codes. I punched a hole in the first card and then used that card as a template to punch the remaining cards in the exact same place, so they would line up nicely.
  4. I then put them in alphabetical order, so I could easily find what I was looking for.
  5. Finally, I slid them onto a key ring. This will allow me to keep them handy without digging through the disgusting ziplock that previously held them.
    Junky purse contents.
    Ziplock bag storage.
    My gift card collection.
    Alphabetized cards.
    Here are the cards hole punched and strung on a key ring in alphabetical order. Love this!!

I just did this, so can’t yet comment on how well it works, but I am 100% certain it will top my previous “system”.

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Happy Spring!

I love the look of the hoarfrost on the trees and am generally accepting of winter temperatures above -5, but aside from that I can honestly say “I’m not a fan.” Unfortunately, we don’t get many of these days. I don’t like being cold and find the short days and extended darkness almost unbearable. It has been a very long winter for everyone, even those who profess to love it. I am so excited to see the slush and melting snow that I might actually join the kids and dance in the mud puddles this spring!

You know you have survived one of the coldest winters ever when it wasn’t uncommon to hear weather reports stating claims that the thermometers were registering temperatures colder than both the North Pole and the surface of Mars. At least once, we were also recognized as being as the coldest place on earth! So….Happy Spring!

Happy SpringI was looking for a cute little spring poem and found this. Isn’t that sweet….a daffodil stem peeking through the brown soil on the first day of spring. Is that some kind of a sick joke? My yard is still waist deep from one side to the other and believe me, there are no daffodils to be seen. I think we are still weeks away from that, but none the less…spring is here.  I took these shots of the kids out in the yard yesterday. Go figure, spring is here and it is finally mild enough for them to play outside. (We actually had so much snow that we let them jump into the drifts from the garage roof.) The temperatures were mild at plus 1, the sun is shining and there is finally hope in the air. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a great angle on these shots as the sun was shining directly in my sight line and I didn’t have much room to manoeuvre from the narrow path (remember, we still have 3 feet of snow in our yards.)

Cheers to sunshine, smiles and warm weather. Have a happy day!

 

Make-up Drawer Make-Over

Yes, I am on a bit of a roll. I got all of our hair accessories organized and moved on to the toothpaste drawer and then my make-up drawer. Despite the fact that we live in a heritage home, we’ve actually been blessed with pretty good storage space (in most areas). Our bathroom has an original built-in cabinet with doors and drawers. We we renovated our bathroom a few years ago, we installed built-in shelves, a medicine cabinet and a vanity that was previously an antique dresser, so we have lots of places to put our things. The down-side of this is that the ample storage also allows you to go way too long before feeling the need to clean and purge. It is long over due and I have been slowly making my way through the bathroom cabinets.  My make-up drawer looks so much better and I just have to share the one little tip that I am so excited about.

Make-Up Drawer Make-Over:

First, I need to start by saying that I did not go to the dollar store again. I purchased this magnet tape on a previous trip. I had seen this idea before, but I could never really get my head around where I might get a magnet that would fit and work in the space I needed it. Then, it occurred to me. Why not use magnetic tape? I could cut it any size I want and just use additional glue or staples to ensure it is secure. Worked like a charm!

BEFORE: What a mess!
AFTER: Replaced my portable bag with a basket and took out all the stuff that I didn’t use regularly. Added a little box to hold my lipsticks and lotions vertically.
Added magnetic tape to side for tweezers, file and nail clippers.
I secured the magnetic tape with my staple gun.

I love how my “tools” are stuck to the magnet on the inside of the drawer and I no longer have to dig through my make-up to find what I am looking for. The magnetic tape was only a dollar for 24″, so there is still lots left for other projects.  This is an economical and simple storage idea!

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Melted Plastic Necklace

I actually learned this craft when I was in elementary school. They were made by melting clear plastic pill bottles in the oven. I used to make them with my students, but over the years it became too difficult to get the right kind of plastic bottles. A few years ago, I tried making them with clear plastic disposable cups, but they were too big and wide at the top and just didn’t turn out as well. I was in the dollar store earlier this week (Surprise! Surprise!) and spotted clear plastic shot glasses. I immediately thought of this project and it occurred to me that these might work. The package of 30 was only a dollar, so it was clearly worth a try. I was so excited when the project worked, as this was much easier than the olden days when I had to ask everyone I know to save their prescription bottles for me.

Melted Plastic Necklace:

Materials:

  • Dollar Store clear plastic shot glasses (package of 30 for $1)
  • Old Crayons
  • A pencil sharpener or knife to create shavings
  • foil lined cake pan
  • baked marbles (optional)
  • Rotary Tool like a Dremel (optional)

Method:

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
  • Place a small amount of crayon shavings in the bottom of a cup (no more than 3 colours and be careful of the combinations you choose or you’ll end up with a yucky brown)
  • I decided to add baked marbles to a few of mine. Although they look fine, they are a little hidden and didn’t have the impact I had hoped for.
  • Place the cups on a foil lined pan. They won’t really expand, so they can be close together. *However, if you want to poke a hole in it (necklace, key chain, etc.), you will need to work very fast and I would suggest baking one at a time.
  • Cook until melted ~ approximately 1 1/2 minutes. If you aren’t loving the shape, you can actually poke at them a bit to “encourage” them to melt in a slightly different way. The pill bottles used to take longer and probably weren’t very safe to bake because they had quite a toxic smell while baking.  These babies didn’t smell at all and melted really quickly – this is way better than the original.
  • Remove from oven a poke a hole, if desired. I used my new rotary tool to grind the holes after. I picked this up at McMunn and Yates for about $40 and love it! It is like a knock-off Dremel and can do all sorts of things like cut glass, etch, sanding small areas, etc. I just got it, so I am still getting used to it, but can already tell it was a great purchase.

When I was a kid, we poked a hole in the hot plastic, put a string through it and made a necklace. You could also add a ring and make a key chain or do what I did with my students and add a pin to the back to make a nice broach. These really do look beautiful and the ideas are only limited by your imagination.

I tried putting marbles in the middle cup as well as the right cup.
Baked marble inside.
I wrapped a baked glass bead in wire and hot glued it inside.
I hot glued a baked glass bead on the outside lip of this one.

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Upcycled Book Display Rack Update

Well, I survived my marathon schedule for parent teacher conferences last week and even made it through the weekend without getting sick. Usually, I am so exhausted that I end up getting sick right after. I am still tired from the busy week, but managed to spend a bit of time on my new kitchen storage rack. I primed and painted it over the weekend and am hoping to complete the finishing touches early this week, if I’m not too bagged after work.

Book Display Rack:

In the first post, I shared how I planned to re-make and repurpose an old book display rack for kitchen storage. I had to cut it down in width in order to make it fit into the space between the fridge and wall. This made for extra work, but I was determined to make this work. After cutting it down and re-building it, I filled the holes and sanded the repairs.

Over the weekend, I got it painted. This was a bit of a process as I didn’t have much energy and opted for two colours. Whenever you use more than one colour, you are essentially doubling the work. First, I had to give it a light sand to scuff up the original finish.  I then primed it and had to let the paint dry thoroughly, as I didn’t want to peel the primer when I taped off my colour lines. I then had to paint my first colour and wait for the paint to dry between coats before moving on to my second colour. One colour would have been much easier, but of course, I had a vision for how I wanted the finished shelf to look. I can’t say that yellow and black were exactly what I had in mind, but I didn’t really want to go with white and the only colour I had on hand that would work was yellow. I am all about trying to use up paint I have on hand, so I decided to go for it. The black chalkboard paint is on the outside edge only. I was thinking I might try to label it in some way…not quite sure yet. If you check out the background, you can see the state of my unfinished basement. This has been on a “to do” list for quite some time, but its not my list!!! Ugh.

The paint is still drying, but my next steps will be to add supports across each shelf. The original supports were plastic covered wires. They worked fine, but I was wanting a bit more of an industrial look. I picked up these pieces of metal strapping for a couple of bucks each and will bend the ends and screw them from the inside. I contemplated distressing the finished cabinet, but have decided to leave it for now and see how I like it. I also need to find a pull handle…not exactly sure what I want yet.

Wire cord that used to hold the books in.
Metal strapping that I plan to use.

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“WELL” Informed: The Billboard Project

A friend shared this link on Facebook and I was intrigued by the caption and just had to check it out. I absolutely love this concept and am fascinated by the creativity and ingenious of the team behind this idea. Water is one of the very few basic needs we really have in this world. These engineers figured out a way to convert air into water ~ amazing!  For most of us, we are immersed in a world of wants and desires and have completely lost sight of our true basic needs. I teach “Wants and Needs” in Kindergarten, so at least once a year, I do a bit of a reality check and remember that we don’t need a new car, flat screen TV, a puppy, a new pair of earrings, etc ~ we want them.

Billboard That Produces Water:

This video not only highlights a brilliant concept that is helping to provide water in Peru, but also forces you to take a moment and reflect on how easy we actually have it. I am almost embarrassed to admit that we have one of those water/ice dispensers on our fridge, and Eden would probably say we need it. We live in such an indulged society ~ makes me a bit sad. Check-out this video. I am not sure what this could mean for other countries in which water shortage is such a huge problem, but perhaps it can help in other areas as well.

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That’s One “Hairy” Mess!

Before shot of the drawer.
Before shot – the mess beneath the baskets!

We have a draw of hair accessories and tools in our bathroom. Of course, the males in the house do comb/brush their hair (at least sometimes), so the state of this drawer rests on Eden and I. When we first moved in, I set up baskets for everything, but over time it has literally become a “toss and go” drawer. You know, open the drawer and throw it in. Our collection of brushes has grown and most go unused, there are ponies that are so old they’ve lost their elasticity and half the time you must re-arrange things for the drawer to even close. Every time I wanted something, I would have to search through every basket to find what I was looking for and in the end would often discover that it was not in a basket at all, but sitting in the bottom of the drawer underneath them. It drives me crazy! Cleaning/organizing this drawer has been on my “to do” list for quite some time, but the drawer closes and this mess is really only known to those that live her, so it always seems to get pushed further down the list. However, on one of my last dollar store trips, I decided that I was going to buckle down and get this drawer organized, so I bought some great little clear plastic organizing trays.

hair accessories drawer

I ended up going back to the store for more containers and didn’t end up using the magnet tape….yet

I love the way the dimensions of these trays allow them to fit perfectly together without any gaps in between. These are much smaller than the large baskets that were in the drawer before and they allow me to separate the various items into their own compartment. Love this!!

Organized At Last!

This actually wasn’t much work, but took a while because I tested every elastic, checked the little ends of all the bobby pins and purged anything that was either garbage or not being used. Feels so good! My husband wasn’t that impressed and predicted it wouldn’t last the day, but it has been three, so I already proved him wrong! Here is the finished drawer.hair accessories drawer
hair accessories drawer

It sometimes amazes me when you do what seems like a minor job around the house and yet it just makes you feel like a weight has been lifted. Organized just feels good!!

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Birthday Cake Montage

After sharing a picture of those hideous cupcakes from Shay’s bowling party, I thought I would try to redeem myself by posting some of my better attempts at cake and cupcake decorating. This was fun to put together as it took me on a trip down memory lane. I have posted a few of the details for some of the party themes I have done and will eventually get to them all.  Below is a list of the themes I have done over the years. If I have already posted them, the links have  been added if you are interested.

Party Themes:

  • Jungle Party (for a 1 year old boy)
  • Train Party (2 year old boy)
  • Disney Cars and Spiderman were Shay’s 3rd and 4th birthdays (Both were lame in my opinion. I wasn’t well one year and we were in the middle of moving when his 4th birthday came along – I bought the cakes and the themes were “loose” at best ~ Sorry Shay!!)
  • Pirate Party (5 year old boy)
  • Star Wars (6 year old boy)
  • Bowling Party (7 year old boy)
  • Winnipeg Jets Hockey Party (8 year old boy)
  • Lamb Cake – this wasn’t really a theme, but Eden used to cry like a baby lamb, so we had a lamb cake for her first birthday.
  • Butterfly Theme (2 year old girl)
  • Snowman Birthday (3 year old girl)
  • Princess Party (4/5 year old girl – Eden was so into princesses we did the theme not once, but twice.)
  • Spring Theme Party (6 year old girl)
  • Hawaiian Theme (7 year old girl)
  • Sleepover Party (8/9 year old girl – again, did this twice)
  • Disco Party (10 year old girl)
  • Eden didn’t want a theme for her 11th party – I think the end of this era is just around the corner.  So sad.
  • Snowflake/Winter Party (12 year old girl)

I also thought I would include the link for the basics of planning a birthday party.

Cakes From Parties Past:

If you would like to view this as a slide show, just click an image and it will not only enlarge it, but take you to the slide show option.

Spring Party
Spring Party
Hula Girl Cake
Flip Flop Cake
Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes
Winnipeg Jets Cake
Disco Cake
Snowflake Cupcakes
Sleepover Party Cake
Sleepover “Bunny Slippers” Cake
Eden’s Snowman Cake
Winter Party Cake
Lightsaber Cake
Star Wars Cake
Star Fighter Cupcake
Butterfly Cake
Lion Cake – This was for Shay’s 1st birthday and Eden was 2 1/2. She thought it looked so good she took a handful of cake before I was even able to snap a picture….memories!!
Lamb Cake
Train Cake
Princess Cake
Princess Party Castle Cake
Pirate Hat Cake
Pirate Ship Cake
Pirate Ship Cake – Front View

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Super Easy Glow Bowling Party

This turned out to be the easiest party ever!  The bowling alley provided the food and drinks.  I just had to bring the cupcakes and loot.  Instead of a loot bag, I made all the guests a personalized glow in the dark birthday bowling t-shirt and handed out silly bands and glow sticks that they could wear around their wrists and necks as they bowled.  This was simple and the kids loved their shirts and had a blast.  The best part was it was over and done within a few hours and my house was not trashed in the process!  It isn’t gender specific, so we have done similar parties for both kids.

Bowling Invitations:

For the invitation, I made circles on my word processing program (PAGES on my Mac) and filled them with black. I then typed the information inside one circle and the “announcement” in another using white font. I was able to fit four circles on each page (two invitations). I printed them out on white card stock and then cut-out the black circles with my circle cutting set from Creative Memories.

I stacked the circles and then used a brad to hold them together. The brad also allowed the top circle to slide up to open the invitation and reveal all of the details. For the pins, I oriented my page so that it was landscaped and then printed the word STRIKE vertically down the page. When I figured out the size and font I wanted, I simply copied and pasted it 2 more times, so that I was able to print 3 per page. I printed this on white card stock as well. I made a bowling pin tracer and carefully set it over the word so that it would sit towards the left side of the pin. I then traced and cut-out each of the pins by hand. Finally, I added some narrow red masking tape for stripes and attached the bowling ball. They were cute and easy to make. Here are the PDF’s to give you a better idea of how I did it. (You’ll notice the PDF is for Shay’s birthday and the photos below are from Eden’s….I did used the same idea for both of their parties.)
INVITATION PDF
PIN PDF

IMG_3030 IMG_3031

Cupcakes:

I can’t say I’m very proud of these babies, but the good news is that we all get better with practise. These simple cupcakes had poorly made fondant bowling pins. Can you believe the horrible job I did on the red stripe? The bowling balls were Whoppers with 3 “finger” holes punched in each. Nothing special, but the kids didn’t care.bowling cupcakes

Personalized Birthday Bowling Shirts:

Screen shot 2014-03-13 at 10.06.11 AM

I found free bowling clip art on line and used the images to create personalized shirts for each of the kids. The top right corner on the front of the shirt had a small bowling logo with their name printed below. Shay’s also had “The Birthday Boy!” under his name. If you click on the image to enlarge it, you’ll also see the pop he spilled down his front!Screen shot 2014-03-13 at 10.08.18 AM

 

On the back of each t-shirt was a large bowling picture with the date printed below. Of course, the shirts were white and glowed in the dark. The boys were thrilled with their glow sticks and shirts and it made for an easy party.  The shirts were made using t-shirt transfer sheets. I bought them at Michael’s using the 40% off coupon. You need to read the directions carefully as some instructions require you to print your document in “mirror” image. On my Mac, you do this once you press print and then select “layout” and “flip horizontally”.

reversed image
Screen shot 2014-03-13 at 10.08.47 AM

Happy party planning!

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Collapsible Wardrobe Repurposed as a Spray Paint Tent

spray paint tentI do quite a bit of painting and over the last year or so, I’ve started to do more spray painting for smaller projects. The idea of spray painting seems so easy…you know point and spray. However, anyone who has spray painted can tell you that it takes patience and a bit of practise to master the technique. I am not always great at taking my time. I like to do a very good job, but am always strapped for time and you can’t rush spray painting. It is much quicker to spray paint, but trying to get it done in one quick thick coat rarely works well. Believe me, I have messed up enough projects to know that very light thin coats work and a heavy spray finger may mean you only need one coat, but it also often results in ghastly drips. I am still learning the art of spray painting, but one thing that has really helped is having my own spray tent.

I used to worry about “off” spray, dust in the paint, wind, etc. It seemed like there was never a perfect location for painting. I was concerned about painting inside and have spray dust land on the walls, floors or other objects not meant to be painted. Outdoor painting also posed problems such as bugs and dust landing in the freshly painted surface. When I saw this idea for creating a spray tent, I put it down on my “garage sale list”. (Yes, it’s true, I have a garage sale shopping list….a list of items that I am on the look out for). So, I placed “collapsible wardrobe” on my list and was lucky enough to find one that was in poor shape and only cost me $3.  I rigged up the top and base to stabilize it and hung it from the rafters in my unfinished basement. It provides the perfect tent for spray painting. I simply set my projects inside and spray through the open front flap. This contains the paint perfectly and protects my projects from dust and bugs. Of course, it is not that big and therefore I am somewhat limited in the size of projects I can use it for, but if they fit, the spray tent works wonderfully.

Here are some shots of my spray tent. It is in a bit of an awkward spot in my basement, so I didn’t have much room to take my photos, but you get the general idea. Mine has a zipper across the top and a second one down the right side. When I bought it, it didn’t open right up for painting because there wasn’t a zipper across the bottom. Easy enough….I just used a craft knife and made a cut straight across the bottom. You can see that the cardboard base has seen better days and I will need to replace it with a lightweight board. I have oodles of scrap wood and can probably cut something that I already have to fit in the base in lieu of the less sturdy cardboard that currently sits there. Love this!!

Tent is suspended from my basement rafters.

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