Create-Celebrate-Explore

Rusty and Rosy: Monster Fun

Do your kids love adorable monsters like mine do?  Come over to Rusty and Rosy where we are getting our monster groove on with some Dancing, Reading and Writing with the Boogie Monster.

Thrift Store Shelf Makeover

Over the years I have been adding to Marisol's kitchen set.  We bought her a sweet Kidcraft pink kitchen when she was 2 (so about 3 years ago).  Each year since I've given her new accessories to build on the basic set so she never tires of it.  And she hasn't.  She loves having tea parties for her dolls, and for us, and is often in her bedroom whipping up something fabulous.

For Christmas I had planned on giving her a small rack with some more wooden food items but time got away from me and although I had picked up a fabulous towel holder with shelf above it for only $1.99 at Goodwill, I didn't seem to have enough time to get it sanded and painted.  So today, she got a belated Christmas gift.

This was the towel rail with shelf that I purchased ... fabulous deal for $1.99.

After a lot of sanding, applying a sealer, and three coats of paint, it was looking lovely, but needed a little something extra.  So I painted the towel rail silver to match the silver on her kitchen and then cut pieces of scrapbook paper and attached them to each section of the shelf using mod podge, you can see the subtle pattern in the second photo below.

She was thrilled with the results.   I loved the addition of the tea towel, which although was a little expensive at $5.99 from Marshalls, was just perfect and I couldn't resist giving it to her.

I can't wait to finish decorating her bedroom and share photographs.  It seems to be a long process though.

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Kidzui Blog: A Halloween Craft

I'm so happy to announce that I've joined the blogging team at Kidzui.  I will be regularly providing  craft activities that parents can do with their children (or that children can do on their own).  Subscribe to the Kidzui blog and stay up-to-date with all the fun things they have going on over there.  And if you aren't using the Kidzui Internet Browser when your kids are on-line, check it out and download it because our kids really don't need to be accidentally stumbling onto a site that they should not be seeing.  And, it's FREE!

My first post How to Make a Fun Halloween Activity for Kids went live today and I would love it if you could swing by and say hello and use the tutorial to make this fun activity with your kids this Halloween.

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Babble ... Modern Parents Messy Kids ... VolunteerSpot

Halloween Rock Painting

I am over at Multiples and More today with my monthly Crafting With Kids project.

Today, we are painting rocks for Halloween.

Come by and say hello.

As seen on:

Cool Mom Picks

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A Fall Banner

Today I am over at Multiples and More with my monthly Crafting With Kids project.

This month the kids and I made a fun apple banner in preparation for Fall.

I am also over at the CheapSally blog today talking about the location based app Foursquare and how you can save money where you live.  So come on over and say hello.

 

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Babble ... Today's Mama ... Fun Family Crafts ... My Blessed Life

Bedroom Vase Makeover

When we purchased our house, it came with this vase:

It was sitting above the fireplace in the living room with large ugly blue and white fake flowers in it.  I thought about throwing the entire thing out, but that is against my re-use, re-purpose, re-cycle policy.

So after a lot of sanding and quite a bit of painting, it looks so much nicer.

I mixed up a custom color for this project.  I used a 2oz bottle of Steel Blue (Glidden tester) and added a few drops each of black (patio paint) and Rich Espresso Metallic Paint (patio paint).  I love how the color turned out.  It matches the darker color on our bedding beautifully.

I purchased the gorgeous paper flowers from Pier 1 a couple of weeks ago.  I absolutely loved the color.  The green centers match the green shades on our bedding and the lovely pink tips match my jewelry organizer hanging on the other side of the bed.

We still have a lot of work to do in this room.  Next, I'll be working on a large canvas to hang above the bed. 

A table makeover

As you know I'm participating in a Glidden Testers campaign and am giving my living room a makeover.

I realized though when looking at the tester bottles that these are the same size as the acrylic paint bottles I purchase at craft stores to make over smaller items in my house, so I purchased quite a few little bottles while I was picking up my living room makeover colors so I could start clearing out the garage of all my bargain basement finds.

I purchased this half round pink hall table at Beverly's for $19 quite a while ago.

It looked a little lonely sitting at the top of the stairs all by itself.

But now it doesn't.

I love the painting hanging above the table.  My grandmother painted it for me as a little reminder of home, and my dad carved the frame.   It's a painting of my parents yard and all of the birds and flowers that we see whenever we visit.

 To do this I started by sanding down the pink table.  Next I applied a primer, then painted a coat of Blue-Grey Slate (Glidden tester), and then a coat of Deepest Aqua (Glidden tester), leaving each coat to dry before moving onto the next.  Once it was dry I used a brass wire brush to give the table a slightly weathered look, so you could see a little of the grey showing through.  Then I applied a couple of coats of protective finish.

Tip:  I used a small roller for the final coat of Deepest Aqua on the top and also on the section underneath where the plant is sitting.  This eliminated seeing any brush strokes on these two sections.

Part 1: Living Room Makeover

As you know, we recently purchased a home and relocated back to San Diego.  The garage is still full of boxes, but we are gradually unpacking and giving the house a little makeover and upgrading a few areas as we go along.

This is how our living room looks today.

As you can see we haven't hung any pictures on the walls just yet.  One thing that has bothered me since we moved in is the salmon wall (around the fireplace).  Our house is very bright, there are a lot of windows and lots of light.  For some reason, this one wall, makes this room seem so very dark.  

I love the colors in the artwork that Marisol and I made and would love to bring more of those colors into this room. 

So, I'm testing out new colors on the wall with thanks to Glidden and as part of their room makeover challenge.   I put some swatches up on the wall and emailed a photo to my husband.

He immediately asked me to remove the blue ones.  Flynn will be a tad disappointed, he was hoping for a blue room.  Unlike Marisol who wanted me to paint rainbows.   I don't think she will be getting that request, although you never know.  So after we decided that the middle color was too pale especially with the beige wall next to it and the white ceiling, we settled on these.

I think the yellow will make the room seem so much brighter.  Although I'm reserving the right to change my mind, as often as I wish, and I most likely will.  Love the Glidden Testers.  They make it so much easier to see how the color will actually look on the wall.  I may have purchased about 12 of these to do a few other smaller projects in the room too.

I'm picturing some vibrant artwork hanging on the wall and some lovely little things in bright colors on the mantel.   

I've been getting lots and lots of inspiration from Pinterest. 

Want to see how easy it is to decorate your room?  You can do it virtually on glidden.com and they have a fabulous color matching system and lots of photographs for inspiration. 

Let's just say there will be much more making over of this room than just painting the walls.  I have a few fun things in store too which I will share along the way.

Want to give the testers a try, visit gliddentesters.com to get a $2 off coupon.

Disclosure: This project has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Glidden Testers/Paint Collective Bias #cbias

X-TREME Bird Feeders

I was recently asked to host an Elmer's X-TREME craft party at my house.   My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to build bird houses using wood, and after I accepted my mission, I was advised that a mystery product also needed to be used, and I could choose glitter or buttons.

Pre-party I attempted to build a bird house for the first time out of popsicle sticks and an hour later still not being finished I realized that this plan had disaster written all over it.  Afterall, I had invited 4 and 5 year old children over.   Short attention spans coupled with fiddly work was not going to be a good mix for them.  So a quick revision of my plan and a quick 30 minute project later and this is what I came up with instead:

So once our plan was in place, Marisol and I hit the ground running for craft supplies and food for our party.

THE FOOD:

Sticking with the orange, white and blue theme of Elmer's, I had a blast coming up with food for the party:

• Peach Parfaits: 1 large tub of vanilla yogurt mixed with 1 tub of cool whip, alternate in a cup with peaches and top with granola.
• Jelly Oranges: Cook jelly according to the package directions.  Slice an orange in half and remove inside.  Fill with the jelly liquid.  Refrigerate until set.  Take a sharp knife and slice through the center again.
• Cupcakes:  Mini chocolate cupcakes with orange and blue icing piped on.
• Blueberry muffins
• Sandwiches: Cheese (cut with cookie cutters) for the kids, and roast beef, cheese and mango chutney for the adults.
• Jars filled with clementines, goldfish, Sun Chips, and blueberries (I put re-useable ice-cubes under the blueberries to keep them cold).
• Beverages: Orange juice, mango juice and a pitcher of iced water with orange slices, and mimosa's for the mums.

THE CRAFT PROJECT:

After lunch and playing outside, we settled indoors to do the craft project.  Hubby extended our new dining room table and we placed a plastic tablecloth down to protect it, hung the bird feeder that I had made from the light and then lined up lots of little gift boxes for all of the children containing all of the supplies they would need to make their project.

The gift boxes contained:

• 50 popsicle sticks
• 1 large popsicle stick (tongue depresser)
• 1 bag of bird seed
• 1 tub of outdoor paint
• 2 long pieces of hemp cord to hang their bird feeder
• 1 Elmer's X-TREME glue
• 2 glitter glue sticks

To make the bird feeder:

• Line up 12 popsicle sticks.  Glue 2 sticks across them.  Turn it over.
• Do a second row of popsicle sticks going in the opposite direction to strengthen the base (I actually did this at the end because it was a last minute decision, but doing it at the beginning will give it more support as you build).
• Alternate popsicle sticks around the frame once.
• Glue down to the tongue depresser.
• Continue alternating popsicle sticks around the outside until you have 6 rows, gluing each popsicle stick down as you go.  Set aside to dry.
• Let the kids paint their bird feeder, and set aside to dry.
• Parents: using a hot glue gun, attach the hemp cord to the underside of the bird feeder.
• Thread the cord underneath the top round of popsicle sticks (as shown above) and again, glue using a hot glue gun.

All of our little friends took their bird feeders home to paint them and fill with seed.  Marisol and Flynn finished theirs after the party but they are yet to be hung outside.  First I need to track down that outdoor varnish.  Let the unpacking of more boxes proceed ....

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Detroit Mommies

Disclosure: This project has been compensated as part of a craft recipe project using Elmer's #collectivebias #xtremeschoolglue #gluenglitter

Jewelry Organizer (and a giveaway)

UPDATE PART 2:  My Jewelry Organizer won the Elmer's Spring Creation Contest.  I'm absolutely thrilled.  Aside from receiving a visa gift card for winning, I also had the privilege of drawing 3 more winners from the comments via random.org to each receive an Elmer's DIY kit.  The winners were: April, Barbara (VinoLuci), and Bestie.

UPDATED:  This giveaway has closed.  The winners as drawn by random.org are wendyp, JulieB and Miranda Taylor.  You will all be receiving emails from me shortly.

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Remember when I made the jewelry organizer for Marisol's bedroom?  Well, recently I received an email from Elmer's reminding me about it being that time of the year for spring cleaning, organizing and make overs and they wanted to challenge me to create something either on my own or using their Spring Creation Guide as part of an Elmer's Spring Creation Contest.   The only stipulation being that I had to use their newly improved Glue-All.

I'm always up for a good challenge, especially when it comes to crafting and decorating so I happily accepted and set to work making this:

Cause, mama didn't have a pretty jewelry organizer, and instead her jewelry looked a little like this:

Yes, I'm hiding my head in shame.  Terrible isn't it. 

In my head I knew how I wanted to organize it, but it was a matter of finding the right supplies.   I briefly considered picking up a few drawer organizers that I had seen at my local craft store and sticking them together, but the thought of spending over $20 per organizer was not going to be a cost effective way to tackle this so I decided to hit up my local antique mall to see what I could find.  Tucked away in a corner, I found this fabulous type set tray for only $15.

But it obviously needed a lot of work.  First order of business was to break out that Glue-All and set to work making repairs to the cracks and sections that needed to be stuck down again.

Next up was to cut a piece of wood using my X-Acto knife to the length of the tray to attach to the top with Glue-All, I also re-inforced it with a couple of nails. 

Now we are onto the fun part.  I wanted to keep with the antique feel of this type set tray so thought I would try my hand at creating a cracked finish.  I've never done this before, but it was actually much easier than I thought, albeit a little time consuming.

Step 1: Apply a sealer to the wood.  Set aside to dry.

Step 2: Apply your first color - I used walnut.  Again, let it dry.

Step 3: Apply the crackle.  Don't dry completely, but allow it to dry enough that it becomes tacky.

Step 4: Apply a second color of paint - I used coral.  Within minutes you will see the cracks starting to appear.  By the time the paint is dry, it looks fabulous.

Step 5:  Apply a varnish.

The final step is to attach hooks and whatever else you want to hang your jewelery.  I opted for a  few different items: hooks, eye screws and some decorative rings.

 

And now you have a beautiful space to hang all of your jewelry.

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And now I have something for you too.  A GIVEAWAY!

3 winners will each receive an Elmer's Spring DIY Kit containing:

• Elmer’s Glue-All
• CraftBond Tacky Glue
• CraftBond Extra Strength Glue Stick
• Elmer’s Multipurpose Spray Adhesive
• X-ACTO Gripster Knife

 Just answer this question to enter:

What needs a Spring makeover in your home?

Leave your comment below and please ensure that I have a way of contacting you if you are one of the three winners.

This giveaway is open to all residents of the United States over the age of 18 and expires on Thursday May 12, 2011 at 10pm PST.

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Disclosure: I recieved an Elmer's Spring DIY kit and compensation to purchase other products needed for this project.