My good friend Patti, recently presented me with a ginormous box of empty CD jewel cases, and asked me if I had any creative ideas for them. I love a repurpose challenge! I took a huge stack home with me and here’s what I came up with.
We now have an awesome and free “stained glass” window in our family room.
I just stuck them to the window with double stick tape. The edges were tricky because these things don’t like to be cut. They’d rather crack, snap and send pieces flying across the room. Watch your eyes! With patience and a little finesse, I managed to cut them down to fill in the gaps.
It’s a fun and looks really cool at night. The best thing is when we get tired of it, it will be super easy to take down.
Here’s a close up of my never-gonna-be-finished Kermit portrait, that had a cameo in the first photo.
For 5 years I’ve been saying I will finish him…some day, and haven’t yet. When I tried to donate him to Goodwill, Der and the boys pitched a fit, so here he sits ever so patiently waiting to be completed…one of these days…maybe.
I freehand cut blue sheets of paper into clouds. Then I cut their centers out. I cut 2 at a time, so there would be twins that we could stack to match.
After cutting tissue paper into thick strips, I gave each boy 1 in every color.
Conrad’s friend, Gavin, was over again and was happy to make one too.
The photo’s pretty self-explanatory, but you outline the cloud with glue and overlap your tissue paper on each previous piece. We made sure to leave plenty of tissue hanging out the bottom of the cloud.
As you can see we used white glue, but glue stick would have been better.
If you look closely at the tops of the clouds, you can see the hanging string we glued to the tops, in-between the paper.
The cloud shape is clearly visible through the tissue paper, so it was easy to see where to put the next layer of glue, in order to attach the twin cloud.
The boys gently tore any tissue poking out of the top. Scissors would have created a cleaner edge, but this way was much faster.
Rainbows are so happy! I love them!
I also love how the different colored paper overlapped creates new colors. It was a makeshift course in color theory for the boys.
Our friends, Lynda and Graham, are off having adventures, on the other side of the world. Before they left, they liquidated everything, with several moving sales.
On our first visit, I saw this wood tool chest and immediately wanted it. I had no idea where I would put it though, so we decided to think on it.
Der and I walked through the house, contemplating where we could put it, and what function it would serve. Finally, my brain clicked and all things fell into order.
We had been looking for the perfect microwave cart. Our microwave had been on top of the fridge which was kind of a pain. Having it so high up made it a challenge to get things in and out of it. This chest would bring the microwave down to a better level, PLUS give us tons of utensil storage, and do it all with style. SOLD!!!
It’s so nice not to have to dig through a pile to get whatever tool I need.
Good, straight forward organization is something that calms my nerves. Disorganization gives me ulcers. True story.
Thanks, Lynda, and Graham, for giving us deals galore on some really great stuff, stuff I didn’t know I was missing, until we brought it home.
We recently finished (mostly) our biggest undertaking in home improvement to date. Over the course of our marriage we have done tons of house painting, light fixture changes, ceiling fan installations, and other small fixer upper kinds of things. This time though, we took out a wall. Albeit a small wall, but a wall just the same.
Before:
Our laundry room/pantry or as Derek likes to call it paundry.
It was cramped and bursting at the seams.
The laundry room shared a wall with an unfinished storage room that has been the easily forgotten abyss, since we moved in. It was only accessible from outside.
The door had gone missing long before we bought this place last year, so it was open to the elements. For those reasons it was a poorly used space. So we decided to knock the wall down and make the laundry room bigger.
If we had known how much work it would actually be, I don’t think we would have been so gung-ho.
Before we tore the wall down, Jeremia asked if we could draw on the wall with sharpies. What a great idea!
Conrad and Ami are still young enough that they don’t care about being photographed in their underpants. They may protest that I posted these once they are older, but for now they don’t mind.
Once the wall was sufficiently graffitied, I declared it to be photo shoot time. Ami and Conrad were all-in, Jeremia took some cajoling.
And then the wall came down.
And Derek drywalled his pants off. He’s a novice, but I think, all things considered, he did a bang-up job.
We still have to do the floor and light fixtures, but for now I am perfectly happy with mismatched cement and lights.
Do-it yourself projects always seem to take longer and cost more than you plan, but it’s so lovely when it’s done.
I’m in love with the color we chose for the walls.
If I happen to find a good deal on 2 small vintage chandeliers, I am totally putting them in there!
Not too long ago I was lucky enough score multiple boxes of film slides.
Slides are just cool.
Most are from the 60′s with a few in the 50′s and 70′s.
I really want the red chairs in this one.
The people who took these photos traveled extensively. So far the vast majority of them are of scenery from the places they traveled. Scenery can be hard to date and somewhat boring. For the love of Pete, put someone in the photo, it makes it more interesting. If it weren’t for the date on the slide, I would be clueless as to when many of them were taken.
When there are people in them, I get excited and my mind wanders. I wonder where they are now and if they remember that photo being taken.
I’ve only looked at about 20% of them so far. I like to savor the treasure and drag it out as long as possible.
There are some military photos. There are even a few of men hanging out in bunkers. I imagine their fear about the uncertainty of the future and think about loved ones anxiously awaiting their safe return.
It’s easy to get lost looking at them.
There are over 1,000 slides all together.
I was ecstatic when I found them, because I have been wanting vintage slides ever since I saw this on Craftster
Instantly, I knew that I needed to make my own and set out in search for slides. Finding slides isn’t hard, but finding slides that don’t cost too much can be challenging. Good thing I love the hunt.
I plan on making my own curtain with all of the scenery slides and saving the people slides for a project that’ll be a little more protected from the sun. Now I just have to decide which window to make it for…
When I do finally get around to making it, you all will be the first to know.
Over the past week, I helped them make mobiles, as thank you gifts for their teachers.
I love the expression on Conrad’s face.
Before I could help them make mobiles, I had to learn how to make one myself.
A google search turned up this video from OliARt over at Bigredhat.com. Oli and her brothers do some really cool stuff. You should definitely check these kids out. They are having amazing adventures.
Thanks to adorable Oli I could now show the boys how to make a mobile.
Here’s what we did.
First we soaked wooden dowels over night and slid them in chair slats to make them curve.
After they were dry, the boys got to have their first lesson with a dremel, and they drilled holes.
They got 5 dowels each and drilled a hole 1/4″ away from the edge on 4 dowels and another hole about 4″ in on all 5 of the dowels.
I know they look ticked off, but they’re really very focussed. I assure you they’re having fun. I mean who doesn’t love power tools?!
We used an extra Scrabble game lid to protect the table from the dremel. It was perfect because the drill would go through it, but wasn’t long enough to come in contact with the table.
After the holes were all drilled, I painted the dowels with white spray paint.
Because we were in a bit of a time crunch (can you say procrastination?), I assembled the mobiles. The boys want to make mobiles for their rooms now. When they make those, they’ll do the assembling.
Here’s what I used to assemble them.
I snipped of 2″ bits of wire and created 9 total loops, per mobile, like this:
For each mobile I made 4 loops without a swivel and 5 loops with a swivel, making sure to have the latch end dangle down.
Then I poked them through the drilled holes, careful that they were facing the right direction-meaning I wanted the loops without swivels to be pointing up, on the top of the curve, toward the middle of the dowel, and the loops with swivels to be facing down, on the underside of the cure, at the end of the dowel.
I wrapped the wire around the dowel like so.
They should look like this except this one I forgot to add the swivel on the left loop and had to take it apart to add it.
The top dowel needs something to hang it from so I used a key ring attached to a swivel.
Then I lined them up and connected them.
I hope my instructions aren’t too confusing. If you have question, email me and I will do my best to help.
After I had them all assembled I brought them in the house and hung them from some open shelves we have. I used temporary 3M hooks, which were a brilliant invention by the way.
We did this part inside because the clay needs to dry slowly (so it won’t crack) and with the 100+ temperature outside they would have dried too quickly.
Starting from the bottom, working their way up, they each put clay on the ends until they balanced. This was a fun physics lesson for them. They had to add and subtract clay depending on how the dowel balanced.
After they had them balanced, they took one piece of clay off at a time, rolled them into nice ball shapes and put them back on.
Then, with two largish leaves, they pressed the balls flat, creating leaf impressions.
We let them hang overnight to dry.
After they dried, I checked each piece of clay to make sure they were still secure to the dowels. For the ones that weren’t, I glued them in place.
Then it was time to paint.
I mixed up a rainbows worth of colors and taped the dowels around the clay, with painters tape.
I pulled them out of the pool to paint, hence the lack of shirts and willy-nilly hair.
Each color of paint had it’s own paintbrush, so the colors wouldn’t get mixed.
It was so hot outside, the paint dried almost instantly.
I think they turned out great. They were definitely a big hit with their teachers.
Due to my old broken book fetish, and general love of all things paper, I have accumulated quite the collection of paper. As you all know I have made beads, bowls, jewelry, creatures, and more with my abundant paper supply. I am always on the lookout for what else I can make with my medium of choice. Recently I came upon someone with handmade stickers made using vintage maps. I got to thinking how I could make my own.
Here’s what I used:
Cute, fun, or interesting paper
Full sheet sticker labels-These can be pricey. I luckily had some leftover from fundraising projects we did years ago.
Die punches- These can also be spendy. To save fundage on these I waited until they went on sale at Michael’s for 50% off.
A glue stick *Edit* I have discovered that rubber cement is much more reliable. With the glue stick there is a 50/50 chance it will give out. No matter what glue you use, it is imperative to peel the sticker away from the backing slowly and carefully.
First, I cut the sticker paper to size with my chosen paper.
Next, I thoroughly coated the back of my paper with glue, being careful to cover the entire thing.
Then, I slowly smoothed the glued side of the paper onto the label, pressing firmly.
Finally, I punched out my shape.
Voila! A one of a kind, super cute sticker was born!
And then I kept going…
and going…
and going.
I was unstoppable.
These are going to go on the summer craft list for the boys. I know we have some chewed up Dr. Suess books, courtesy of a certain rotten dog named Bug, that would lend themselves nicely to fun stickers for the boys.
If you like the stickers, but don’t want to fuss with making them, check out my Etsy shop and buy some for yourself. Each sticker is guaranteed to be a one of a kind. They would be great for letter seals, scrapbooking or just adding cuteness to any old thing.
AND, because I love you, I will be giving away 30 stickers to a random commenter. So leave a comment and you could be 30 stickers richer by the end of the week! Don’t be shy, you know you want them!
You have until midnight Wednesday, May 9th to enter. I will use a random number generator to choose the winner and announce it on Thursday.
Good luck and “may the odds be ever in your favor”.
Shout out to the “Hunger Games” for being a good read and super quotable.
** Update 5/9/12
I’ve decided to extend the timeline for the sticker giveaway. You now have until midnight, May 14th to enter. This will allow late readers time to enter. I’ll announce the wiener (snort, snort) Tuesday the 15th. Don’t think that you can’t enter to win just because we know each other. So far I know at least 50% of my readers on some level. Some of you are old friends from school, some are cancer world friends, some are family-don’t let that stop you. The winner will be chosen at random. Oh and don’t worry, commenting doesn’t sign you up for mailing lists or any other such nonsense. And free stuff is always awesome, soooo enter, enter, enter!
They sit right outside my kitchen window. I loved them already, but when I googled them to see what they were called, I fell deeper.
We used to call Benny “Moonie”, Der always called him “Moonman” and I sometimes called him “Mooniebird”. Truthfully he had a ton of nicknames, but this one stuck because his head was perfectly round and reminded Der of the moon.
Now whenever I stand at the kitchen sink and see these beauties, I will think of our beautiful Mr. Moon.
I cannot tell you how tempting it was to paint only the front. Somehow I kept myself in check and made us paint the whole thing. It was tedious. Painting is fun for the first five minutes and then I want to be done. As long as you don’t inspect too closely it looks great!
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