Crafty Crafter

Anyone with young kids or a messy husband needs a mud mat.   This one cost me about $8 because I bought so many rocks to glue on to this project.   I'm sure you could get away with less, but I wanted to completely cover it.  

They sell all this stuff at the Dollar Tree.   I bought 6 bags of rocks and the black plastic mat.  I have a lifetime supply of glue sticks so I didn't have to buy those.  This is pretty basic...just glue the rocks on to the mat and layer as high as you wish to go.  I enjoyed making this and it looks really nice at my door.  You could leave it outside also.  

I've been meaning to put this growth chart on here too.   We made this a few weeks ago.  I believe it cost us $11.  The wood is already cut to size so all you need to do is stain it and then stencil in your numbers.   I live in Clovis, so there were no stencils around here to buy.  I made my own instead. I went into WORD and found a font I liked...then made it as big as I could get.   I'm thinking it was like 96 point font.  I printed it on card stock and used an exacto - knife to cut them out.  Then we used a black sharpie instead of paint.  Easy! I LOVE this and it looks really nice in the house.  I plan to keep this forever and hopefully measure some grandchildren with it one day! 

TIP:  We started our measuring at 1/2 foot so that it can hang on the wall and not have to touch the floor.  

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Dollar Tree Love

I made a new centerpiece for my dining room table this morning.  These 3 cost me $9, they look like they are from a really nice store.  They are not.   Can you say Dollar Tree.

They sell glass vases, glass candlestick holders and hot glue sticks.   They also sell fun Christmas sprinkles that I ended up putting in my middle vase.  This is about the easiest craft I've done EVER.  It involved no brain power and just a few dabs of hot glue.  I'd give you a tutorial....but I doubt you need it.  ;)  

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Radio Flyer Shelf

I found this wagon this summer for $18 and thought I'd use it as a photo prop from time to time, but since I don't do that nearly as often as I used to, it was just taking up space in the garage.

At one point we considered making it into a bench, but neither of us were ever motivated enough to actually go pick out some fabric or put in the brain power that it would take to cut the wood and all that goes along with it.

I was on pinterest one day and saw a red homemade pallet shelf and it hit me to actually use a wagon as the shelf.   Who doesn't like an old heavy rusty shelf?? ;)

Adam took all the handles and wheels off (took about 5 minutes). We still have pallet wood laying around from all our other projects so we sanded one piece and cut it to size.  We put some stain on it and then Adam  screwed in the shelves from the side.

It already has two hole evenly spaced (from the wheels) so mounting it to the wall is a breeze.  We suggest getting at least one of the screws  into a stud since the wagon is pretty solid.  

Probably a 1 hour project.   I have it in my office, but could you imagine how cute it would be in a little boys nursery??  LOVE

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Organization Mode

Are you tired of hearing about Pinterest yet?  How about from this point on when I share something crafty, you can just assume I was inspired in some way shape or form from Pinterest and then I won't over use that word.

We had an abundance of pallet wood left over from the headboard we made for Ronan (my son).  The excess was burning a hole in my creative outlet so it was back to work this weeked to craft something new.

This is what we came up with.   It's the lat / long coordinates to the places we've lived together.  The list will get longer by probably 5 or so more boards (if I'm lucky), so we left a few empty ones on here and wrote down the stain color for when we have to add more to it.

We sanded and stained the pallet wood and affixed them together with some galvanized steel rope.  We used a stencil (from Target) to paint the numbers on.   We used a flat black acrylic paint (from the craft section).

I have this hanging in my dining room.  I used to have a chalkboard menu up, but I like this better.

This project took care of a good portion of that left over wood, but I wanted to do my own project for my laundry room.   I have an over abundance of lost socks that I just leave in my dryer hoping that it will find its soul mate at some point, but it usually takes several loads to find it, and sometimes they get lost again in sheets and my husbands pant legs.

This was just something fun to hang above the dryer to put all those missing socks on so they can stay in one place.   I added some mason jars, for money, buttons and other nick knacks that I find in my children's clothes.

So that just about took care of the wood.  I think the rest went into the fire pit stash.

I was on an organization kick this week though, so the fun didn't stop there.  I have little to no counter space and every time I go to the grocery store I have loads of fruit sitting on my counter taking up the majority of the space.  I got some planter baskets from LOWES and Adam hung them all the wall for me.   VIOLA! More counter space!

The other day Ava was complaining about her dress up clothes.  She let me know that it was hard to play dress up because everything was wadded up in the dress up basket and she couldn't find her necklaces and earrings and play shoes.  She had a good argument so I told her I'd work on it.   I had a few tension rods from my photography studio stash, but none of them would fit in the tiny little area that we stored her dress up clothes.  Then......pure mom genius struck.  I had saved a baby gate for when we have little visitors over.  I dug it out and IT FIT!  So...it's not the most attractive thing to look at, but it keeps her dress up clothes off the floor and up where she can see them.

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DIY Kid Headboard (Pallet Creation)

Pinterest.com has changed my life (seriously).  I spend way to much time getting googly eyed over all the creative ideas on it.   Pinning isn't enough for me either.   I've taken it to a much bigger level (go big or go home).

Every closet has been cleaned out, meal planning is in full swing, a new craft area is in the works, each cabinet has been rearranged, the garage got an overhaul, the good will got several trunk fulls, and my house seems to stay cleaner. I'm a happy wife and mother at this particular juncture.  THANK YOU to whomever invented this amazing website.  If your reading this and you have no idea what pinterest is.....it's time to go find out!    

I've seen SO many pallet creations and it's my new obsession (lets just be honest).  We went out pallet shopping the other day and happen to stumble upon the AAFES store manager here at Cannon AFB while we were stalking the back parking lot of the BX.   We asked and he said we could take a few. SCORE. We loaded them on top of my husbands FJ Cruiser and off we went. 

He has a "work" trip this week, that he swears isn't a vacation, but the itinerary sure made me think other wise.   Something about mountain climbing and time spent in a wind tunnel.  Hmm..

Anyway, I convinced him to "help" (do it for me) with the headboard this past weekend since I'd be stuck here in Clovis with the wind and dust that is forever blowing in.  

We started with two semi decent pallets and a cute little helper:

The first pallet came apart really easily with not too much blood or sweat, but the second pallet proved a bit harder. We hired the jigsaw on the second pallet and cut the boards off (losing a few inches).  

Some pallets have solid pieces of wood as the main frame but these had parts cut out where the fork lift picks them up.   

Next we laid out the general pattern of light/dark wood: 

We don't have a nail gun, so we just used small finishing nails to affix the pieces together. 

This project took about 2.5 hours and we were pleased with our final results: 

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Excitement

I've come across the word..."Mom-tographer" and have decided that this is what I am.  I am a mom, yet the camera calls my name each morning to go out and see what I can capture.  Momtographer,  I like it!

Yesterday was a half day for Ava.   The entire school lets out at 12:30 and she is getting off the bus at 1:00.  I don't really care for Wednesdays.   I like my house quiet and as soon as my two kiddies get together WWII breaks out.   Ronan is desperate for a playmate since he's hung out with me all morning and Ava is desperate for alone time since she dealt with people all morning.  Can you see my problem?  I will let you imagine the scenarios that go on.  Lots of patience is needed.  

The two of them were playing nicely together for about 3 seconds and I managed to snap a few images.  One in particular that will be going on my wall. 

I love this shot for so many reasons.   

1.)  He is actually looking at the camera.

2.)  I managed to get my shutter speed right (with Ava it can be at 8 and I still get a clean shot of her, but with Ronan it's in the hundreds for sure or you just get a blur).

3. )   I love the movement and the colors coming off the balloons scattered all over her floor.  

4.)  etc, etc, etc

I've promised myself that I will use my down time from the photography business to make all these cool crafts from Pinterest.  

This is a strand of Christmas lights with scrap fabric tied around it.  This took me about 3 hours from start to finish.  You have to cut all those little pieces to the right size and then spend the time to tie each individual scrap to the strand. It's so gorgeous though .    I have this laying across Ava's book shelf and falling over each side.   It's so calming and nice to sit in there at night with just the glow from this.   The fabric blocks most of the light, so it's really more of a glow.  The possibility is endless with this.   Christmas at my house will have one of these.  

This is a scrap tutu.   Made with the same fabric as the light strand.    It's the same process though...just doesn't take nearly as long.  Ava had a crappy tutu from the Dollar Tree that I took the elastic out of and tied this fabric too.  

I'm making a head board this weekend for Ronan out of wood from a pallet (that I haven't found yet).  His bed is so empty without something there. More on that when I actually complete it.  

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