Summer Crafts

I really enjoy working on craft projects.

I do seem to be better at helping the kids get their projects going!

Madeline is good at once we get the goods for a project she is typically focused at getting it done, unlike her mother.

And if we have a project for Madeline I try to find something for Ellie to do too.

So we have two projects here. One for Ellie.

Supplies:

One small canvas.

A bag of colorful colored buttons. (we chose one's in the shape of flowers)

Glue (We used tacky glue)

I drew a block letter of her first initial.

Spread the glue around a section at a time.

Then glue on the buttons.

I helped her a little with spatial relationship, filling in some spots with the smaller buttons.

Madeline wanted to make two more boards to go with her original "Sandy Toes" Canvases blogged here.

We found clip art on the internet for a volleyball and a palm tree.

We then took the copies to get them enlarged to the desired size.

She placed it on her light table to trace out the individual shapes.

(You could also trace your projects by placing your paper on a window.)

If you pick something without too much detail it is a little easier.

She used the outline of the whole ball with pink, and placed patterned/colored

pieces for the detail.

Mod podge was the glue of choice.

Then she glued the whole ball to a white canvas.

And finished with a top coat of modge podge over the whole board.

The palm tree was clip art.

She did the island and water free hand.

Here is the finished product.

Inexpensive, cute, and something she did herself with just a few suggestions from mom :)

Quick look!

Here is a quick look at the floor!

I like it!

My wood floor already is less dusty (notice I didn't say less hairy there still is the dog factor!)

In this photo the brown paper is still covering the baseboards, the contrast

makes the floor look better when it is removed.

Still not quite finished waiting to hear from wood store on transition piece.

I will show you completed pictures when it is all done.

We have been enjoying a little summer relaxing by the pool!

Look who else likes the pool...

latest project

My friend Shannon over at Anythingology painted her floor.

It looks awesome.

My carpet is 11 years old.

Plus we have this lovely dog!

He sheds....alot!

And loves to lay on the carpet.

I have been thinking about ripping up my carpet and following in Shannon's footsteps.

My husband was afraid it would be a little echoey because we have

large vaulted ceilings.

But, I decided to go for it! Friday my mom and I ripped up the carpet,

the tack strip, and hauled the carpet and padding out to the garage.

(and yes it is a little echoey)

Yesterday afternoon Shannon and I sanded the concrete.

Here is the view just before we got started.

This is what the kids were doing out back while we sanded!

Us after sanding.

This picture doesn't really show how dusty we were.

The room got so dusty we could barely see.

The shop vac we later discovered had a rip in the bag so the dust

was not being contained well at all.

Here are some pictures after the dust settled.

All entries from that room to the rest of the house were covered in

plastic to try and contain the dust.

It worked for the most part.

If you look on the left of the picture below you can see my dark wood floors

which are gray with dust.

Ben helped me do some cleaning but I have alot more to do today. While

Ellie is at preschool!!

Excited about phase two painting!!

Blogs

Have you heard of a book-azine?

I first heard about Matthew Mead

and his Holiday Book-azine on the

Mary Englebriet blog.

I love Mary Englebriet!

Big Fan!

Wish the Magazine would come back but it looks like that will not happen.

She mentioned this holiday book-azine, and

Mary Englebriet has something featured in it!

It is only sold on-line and I am very tempted to purchase it!

Mary Englebriet also mentioned something else I had never heard of an "e-zine".

Basically it is a magazine on the computer.

Amy Powers has issued an e-zine called Inspired Ideas.

Her blog is called inspire co. and can be found here.

Here is the cover of her fall e-zine. You can look at it page by page here.

The Christmas edition just came out too! You can view it here.

This issue is over 130 pages! It has contributions from other craft bloggers,

and projects for the holidays. The pictures are great! And there

is probably at least one craft idea you will come away with.

A "book-azine" an "e-zine" who knew!

Before and After....The House Has Been Painted!

We got our house painted....it looks so much better!!! We have been in our house nearly 11 years. We bought the house new. People on the street started having their houses re-painted which made us realize how badly ours was in need of painting as well.

The colors in these pictures is not great, but those shutters flanking the window above the messy garage used to be a hunter green...

The back of the house had a bunch of cracks that were made worse when they installed the support beam for the covered patio. (I should have got close ups...it was pretty bad.)

AFTER: The new color scheme is a khaki called Stay Awhile (made by Frazee), the white trim is called white shadow also by Frazee.

Table Update....

Here is the table update. We stained the top. We were going for a beachy tanny/grey. Turned out a little more tan but we like it. Then I rubbed the legs a bit and glazed them. I may do another coat, not sure I want it to be so much lighter than the table.

But we are getting ready for 20 teenagers to descend this afternoon....so that will have to wait.

Weekend Projects--upcycled!!

It was a busy weekend! The "big kids" were in "class" all day 8-5 learning to be soccer ref's. Why you may ask? $25 per game ref'd that's why. Can you believe it? That is good money when you are a teenager. Fortunately they both passed the test....in true form Ben got the high score of the class...too funny, his competitiveness transfers to all things...he won some line flags though so that paid off. Games should start sometime in August which will be especially good for Ben ... he is going to need gas money when he starts driving in about a month. Yikes!

So the projects. We did some IKEA investigation...that is always an outing that takes a couple of hours but needed to be done. We didn't buy anything while there....unless you count a little plate of swedish meatballs!! (they are not bad!)

We started revamping this table. We got this table for free years ago along with 4 parsons chairs. We had it inside for a long time but it has slowly been pushed out. The table itself is a bit wobbly, and smaller than I want for outside; I really want to be able to seat 8 comfortably. So my handy MAN took the table apart, we really only salvaged the legs.

We went to Lowe's and bought some birch plywood, it is 8 feet long and we trimmed the width to 3 1/2 feet. He doubled the thickness and built the frame...here is where we are at as of this morning. Now we are trying to figure out the stain/paint combonation we want, and there is still some sanding and smoothing of the edges to be done....but so far I am liking it! I also finished refurbishing these chairs. We already had done the table and four chairs, but then we got the arm chairs and wanted to paint and recover the seats to match the others. The whole table was this honey colored wood....I am not a fan.

So we repainted them white and antiqued them a bit. You can see the table in the background, we refinished the top of the table with a darker stain, with less shine. I recovered the chairs myself with genuine "pleather"! Don't laugh it is economical $10 per yard, so I recovered 6 chairs for $30; and they wipe clean....since this is our everyday eating area and I have a 2, 13, and nearly 16 year old in the house they need to be washable.

So that's it. I also tried two new recipes this weekend which the family called "keepers", I will share those another day as this post has already rambled a bit. Hope you like.

May Gray and a Recipe!

OK I don't know if you know this about "Sunny San Diego" but May is affectionatley known as "May Gray"; June is "June Gloom". This does not always hold true but so far this month we have had alot of gray!! Yuck! (This was taken moments ago...another gray day ahead.) This makes it a little hard to get motivated to get moving (or maybe it is because I was at the gym at 5:30am!)

So I thought I would show you a little update of the patio. We planted some more plants at the end. Two crepe myrtles which when they bloom should look great, some hedge plants, some beach pebbles and stepping stones, Ellie's sandbox (had to find a place for it), an outdoor rug, and my "stick art". We trimmed a tree and I had these big long branches so I anchored them into a large pot with gravel and rocks. I am considering removing the rocks and replacing it with soil, and then planting a plant that can climb up the branches or wrapping little white lights through the branches. It is one of those free projects, haven't decided if I totally like it.

Switching Gears:
I also wanted to share with you a flavored mayonaise. This is great anytime of the year, but basil is in season and many of you may have it in your yard.

Grab about a dozen basil leaves, 3 large cloves garlic and approximately 1 cup of mayo. Blend in your blender/food processor, or you could chop everything by hand....you can add more or less basil, or garlic depending on your taste. We use this on hamburgers and sandwiches. The nice thing is there is a lot of flavor so you don't have to use as much on your sandwich. Let me know if you like it!

(I know this picture doesn't look too good but it is hard to make mayo look good, but trust me this is tasty!)

Hanging Flower Pot Update

Remember when I posted how to make the hanging pots a couple of weeks ago? Well, I know the finished product did not look like much. Thought you might like to see the change in just two weeks!!
Hope you all had a Happy Mother's Day!

Hanging Flower Baskets

Every year a make my hanging baskets for the front porch. Usually I try to get them assembled in March but I was a little behind this year. I made two for my front porch on Monday, this is what it looks like as of this morning. I know it does not look like much yet, but give it a month or so and it will become a big flower ball. If you are interested in making one of these see the process below... This is what you will need.

A wire hanging basket

A bag of green moss (not spaghnum moss)

Some potting soil of your choice.

4-5 six packs of flowers

(Your choice choose what is best for your location, my location gets morning sun so I stick to impatients and lobelia, but I have used begonias, pansies, dusty miller you can use your imagination.)

1 topper plant

I usually pick one plant to go in the center on top this year I am using vinca minor, it has a purple flower and will trail down. I also like to use fuschia (but I could only find upright version this year, I like the trailing version so it will hang down.)

You can always use more plants so it looks more finished from the get go, I go with a little less and let it fill in, it is a little cheaper that way too.

I made two baskets so I have a few more packs then I mentioned above.

My helper...put the bag of moss in a bucket and soak with water.

Line the bottom of your basket with the first layer of moss.

Put a few plants in evenly spaced. I usually put the rootball in the center and gentley push the plant to the outside of the basket thru the rungs.
Put another layer of moss along the edge. Layer in some soil and add more plants.
My helper didn't really want to get dirty.
Keep lining the sides of the basket, working your way up, with more plants on dirt.

Place additional plants on top. I also put a layer of the moss all over the top dirt you see pictured here to help trap in moisture. (I did not get a picture of that but you know what I mean.)

Then hang it up. Once it is hung water thoroughly. (Hanging first is helpful, because if you water first it gets pretty heavy.)

I like these hanging baskets because the flowers will protrude from all areas of the basket. These plants do need to be watered daily as it is exposed to air more than a pot, and also feed regularly. Mine usually last about 6 months!!

Chalkboard

I haven't posted anything for awhile. We were so busy before the company came with the ski trip, and then getting the yard and house ready. Then we had my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and their two boys for a week which was alot of fun and included trips to the park, the tidepools, easter brunch, legoland...fun fun.

My big kids returned to school after two weeks off for spring break and back to the busy daily schedule...afterschool activities including academic league, swim team, track, volleyball try-outs, dentist appointments, doctors appointments...you busy moms know the drill. Anyway with the busy schedule I am always looking for something for my little one to do while I am trying to get dinner on the table (besides watch tv) and I like to have her nearby. She likes the leapfrog magnetic alphabet toy found here. It is great for learning the letters and sounds. We have done colors, markers, water color paints, play dough (a little messy at dinner time), but then my husband helped me build this.
I had a chalkboard in the kitchen area but it was too high for Ellie to work on and it was not adhered well to the wall so it didn't work out too well. I got the idea from Joys Hope to build a bigger one, she has directions posted here. I was a little lazy and only did 3 coats of paint which seems to have worked just fine.
The chair really isn't needed but it does give her more area to chalk and she likes it!!

Lighting..

I found two of these light fixtures for the patio at the Habit for Humanity Store. We hung one just to see how it looks...and we like it. I think it may need to be a little lower but I am excited about the overall look. I probably would not have chosen this on my own, but my friend Shannon gave me some gentle encouragement plus the guy at the store took an additional $50 off each of them!!
We are going to update the table with a new tabletop....one of the many things on the to-do list.

Two Project - Ideas

I have two websites I am looking at alot for project ideas one is lilblueboo, she has a great project idea go here for the tutorial. You could tweek this anyway, change colors, words etc. I definitely want to do this project. Over at Joy's Hope blog she made this sign that says Shine. Again this could be changed up anyway, you could do a name, initial, a picture.... I want to try this too probably in one of the girl's rooms. See below for the link to this tutorial.


Very cute, very creative! one word canvas tutorial