DIY #2

Ok, this almost didn't make the cut because it's definitely not creative and was only done by sheer necessity. When we arrived on moving day (we had not seen the house in person, only pictures online), the 3rd bedroom looked like this:

What is that on the walls/peeling off the walls, you ask? Why, it's butcher paper, of course! Someone thought it would be a good idea to glue butcher paper to the walls and call it wall paper. I know we live in the NW, but this is taking recycling a bit too far! Come to find out, this was done on an episode of trading spaces (this makes me question my devotion to HGTV!), and the homeowner thought it was neat.

So, I spent the better part of 2 days doing this... And Greg spent the better part of 2 days sanding, texturing and painting so that it would look like this...
Much better. We didn't want to have to paint above the chair rail (which will be painted white at some point) so we chose a color that coordinated with the existing yellow. The paint color is Belgium Sweet, and we are happy with the way it turned out.

DIY #1

We have cable...for the first time...ever. I. LOVE. HGTV. (Fine Print: Which may or may not have contributed to my getting seriously behind on blogging.) So now that the excitement of of being able to watch any home makeover/improvement show any time I want (did I mention that we have a DVR, too?!) has worn off a bit, I feel like it's time to finally pay attention to my creative side once again. :) Here are some of the first projects we did after moving to our new house:

Now that I have a "dedicated" scrap area (the open closet of the 3rd bedroom, which is also the office), I needed a table for said area. We took the above INGO dining table from Ikea...

Spray painted the legs black and stained the top to seal it...

And viola! a beautiful, new craft table that is functional and looks great!

Greg also made me some shelves for the inside of the closet (on both sides...see them in the picture of the table?). He made molding to hold them up (and so it would look pretty) - this was way beyond the call of duty but I am so glad he thought of it! Thank you Greg!

I LOVE the way the shelves look!

Coming soon...

I have been TERRIBLE with this blog...but I have a lot of creative stuff to post...so stay tuned!

3 New Layouts

Here are the three scrapbook pages I have done in the last couple of weeks. It's so fun to be motivated to scrap again!

Heart Books

These are the little valentine books that I came up with for the kids. They didn't end up being as embellished as I had originally planned...but I think for 2 and 4 year olds they were just right.

I used some pictures from last year because I had a whole bunch of duplicates. If I had planned a little further in advance, I could have used recent pictures. But they didn't seem to notice!

Each book has 6 pictures and 6 little notes about what I love about them. Both of their favorite pages are the silly ones where they are wearing diapers on their heads. :)

Painting Project

This started out as a painting with circles project...it turned into different things for each of the kids. I love their creativity!
Maren


Joel

Valentines

I came up with this simple idea for Joel to make Valentines for his friends in preschool (they will deliver them to each other in class tomorrow - cute!).

Joel folded the paper, put a heart brad in each corner for the girls - and I put in a silver heart eyelet for the boys - and wrote his name on all of them. He also filled the little baggies and stapled the tag on. He is excited to give them to his friends (hopefully he will be well enough to go to school tomorrow...)

Noodle Activity

I found this great idea on Make & Takes (link on the left) for dying your own noodles for crafts. You just put your pasta in a big bag, add a couple of drops of food coloring, and a tablespoon of rubbing alcohol. Mix it all around the let them dry on paper-towel-lined baking sheets. Fun!

Joel loves to help!

I picked noodles with holes in them so the kids could use them for stringing to make necklaces. Maren ended up just gluing them on paper, so for that I could have used any kind of pasta.

I made a lot, so there is tons left over for other days!

On a roll...

I finally finished the last 7 months of the year for Chrsitina's calendar. AND I have been scrapbooking!

Day 7...

Day 6...

Crispy crusted red snapper

Day 5...

Carolyn joined us for a Chicken Piccata dinner

"I'm a little teapot"

Ahhhhh...