Personalized Children's Canvas Name Wall Art

I have said it before and I will say it again...I am not artistic! I cannot paint or draw anything! But I love those personalized canvases that people buy for their kids. I thought "how hard could they be to make?"   Well for a person who cannot draw a flower without my kids asking what it is...painting my kids names on canvas is not easy! So I created a work around; a wonderful skill from my other life as a project manager.

To make the personalized kids wall art, I purchased the blank canvas at the Dollar Store and used my large collection of Sharpie markers to create the design. For those of you who do not have a wide range of sharpie colors, run to Costco, Walmart, Sams Club etc. and get them! They are great for touching up furniture that has been dinged by the kids and even more useful for crafts.  Sorry, I digressed there from the purpose of my post :)

You can paint the entire canvas with dollar store paint if you like but I wanted my daughter's to be white since her room is bubble gum pink. I decided on using black, bright pink and lime green as the main colors.

 I drew an oval where I wanted the name to appear and then using a good metal ruler, I made black lines of various thicknesses. I filled in between the lines with the colors I selected.

Once done, I glued ribbon around the outside of the canvas to hide the staples and then glued ribbon on the back to hang it from.

 

 Total cost $1 since I had everything else on hand. If you look closely it isn't perfect, but it is a million time better than I could have painted and at least $30 cheaper than buying one! So I am happy with it.

I have made these for some of my nieces and nephews too. They are quick, easy and cheap! Three of the main criteria for home made gifts!

What do you think?

 Stephanie

"Nobody puts Baby in the Corner"...Put those cheap Ikea Reeds instead!

Hey everyone. Can you guess what I watched this morning?!? We are stuck indoors after a wonderfully horrible snow storm so I thought I would share an easy decor idea that I absolutely LOVE! 

I had many decorating dilemmas when I moved into our new home. One that especially nagged at me was our dining room. It is a large open concept space that needed something. I didn't know what, but I just knew it did. Have you ever had that? 

I tried moving furniture, adding more pictures, potted plants (small and big), buying and returning so many things that did not work.

I will admit that my husband came up with this solution and I love it! I have to say this since he reads my blog and bugs me when I say I did something that he actually did :) .

We purchased the tall reeds from Ikea for $20 and the planter pot (aluminum) from Costco for (I think) $20 as well. You can do this with a glass vase as well, but I wanted the base to be more substantial. Plus as you know, all our lighting, door handles and vents (after painting them) are all oil rubbed bronze so this base matched perfectly.

We placed the reeds into the bottom of the pot and held them straight up. If you want the reeds to be spread out more, don't keep them tight together on the bottom like I did. We then tightly filled the base with crushed paper. We used paper because we did not want to make the pot too heavy so that we would not be able to move it. If you pack the paper in tight enough, it hold the reeds up great. We them put a little batting on the top to make it fluffy and covered that with moss. Like my kids say "Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy"

The end result gave me the height the room needed, filled an awkward corner and did not cost too much.

 I have to say it again, I love it!

Thank honey..one of the many reasons why I keep you around.

V-alien-tine Card Heart

Last week I posted the Butterfly Heart Valentine cards that my kids are making for the girls in their classes and I promised to post what I was going to do with the boys. So here they are...the boys Valentine Cards. I got the original idea from Family Fun and changed it so it was easier to make and so that each child gets a pencil.

I used the same foam hearts and technique to insert the pencils as I did for the girls. I used shiny monster/alien eye pencils for these one and one piece of green pipecleaner.

I used a sharpie to draw the eyes, nose, mouth and sayings on the inside.  You can write "You are out of this world." or "Happy V-Alien-tine's Day" or "There is space in my heart for you".

 

 Cute huh!

These work out a little cheaper than the girl's version because you are only using 1heart. So approximately $3 per class.

My Love for Chocolate inspired Our Powder Room Transformation

We moved into our 'new' house almost 2 years ago and we were left with some beautiful decor. The house was built 12 years ago but it could have been from the 70s it seemed so out of date! This project has been our biggest to date. Both as far as time and money.

This was our main floor powder room 2 years ago when we bought the house.

Don't you love the blue! It was so nice that it matched the peach and blue tiles on the floor. I failed to take a picture before my husband took a sledge hammer to them...sorry.  Let me walk you through our powder room.  The pedastel sink was so small, my 4 year old could reach the taps! Then do you see the lovely fake plant on the toilet.  Well let me give you one piece of advice when you buy a house...lift stuff like that up! We found a shattered toilet lid that was held together with packing tape. Oh yeah...packing tape. Then we had builder grade lights, and some lovely gold accent pieces.

Well my husband, boy do I love that man, demolished the bathroom and gave me the most beautiful main floor powder room anyone could ask for.

Here is my after:

 The walls look really red in this picture but they are actually Chocolate Brown. I am not 100% sure but I think the color is Benjamin Moore Chocolate Fondue.

We redid the tiles with a two tile size pattern and put a large baseboard on.

 I spray painted the hideous mirror to a beautiful black finish. This is how I made myself feel like I was saving money :) Small things I know. Oh have you seen my spray painted floor vent and door handles? Ugly brass and rusty white to oil rubbed bronze in at almost no cost and in no time at all!

We bought our new Kohler pedestal sink on clearance for $200 and the Price Pfister faucet for $65! I guess someone custom ordered them from Home Depot and then returned them. I was giddy when we left Home Depot. My husband still to this day does not know why I love the sink and toilet so much.

Oh and that is one of my refilled Bath and Body Works soaps. See my tutorial here.  
Aren't they pretty?!?

 Here is one last look :)

We are so proud!

Valentine's Day Butterfly Cards

I was on a mission this year to find a way to make our own Valentine cards for my daughter's class without spending as much as buying the name brand box of cards.

I found this idea on Family Fun and adapted it so it was easier and in my opinion far cuter.

I went to the Dollar store and found all the materials I needed for a few dollars.

Materials:
Foam hearts (or cut paper into hearts)
Pencils
Pipe cleaners
Glitter glue or other accessories (stickers, sparkle, gem stones etc.)
Scissors

Method:
Place the two hearts to the bottom overlap.

Fold the two end over and cut two slits that are approximately 1/4 inch long. Make sure you go through all layers.

Slip the pencil through the slit. I used glitter pencils that are so cute!

Wrap one pipe cleaner around the top.

Have you child decorate the butterfly. My daughter decided to decorate these with glitter glue.

When dry, flip over and write with a ball point pen your message. I wrote "You make my heart flutter" since I made a butterfly out of hearts.

My daughter is making these for all the girls in her class all by herself and loving it!

I will post what we make for the boys soon.

Make your own Tooth Fairy Pillow

The Tooth Fairy has had a busy month in our house. My daughter who is absolutely terrified of needles- I mean bolt out of the doctor's office terrified- managed to pull out her two front teeth that weren't even that loose. How can you be terrified of needles but continue to pull out a tooth that is bleeding so badly? A mystery to me!

I decided when her first tooth was loose, that I would sew her a tooth fairy pillow. We had to make it easy for the tooth fairy to get to the tooth in the middle of the night without waking her!

I used some left over fleece I had from my custom blankets. I love fleece because if doesn't fray so I could just sew it together without having to worry about sewing inside out first.

I made a really basic tooth shape by folding a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper in  half. I then cut out 2 of the exact same shape in the fleece.

Using scrap fabric, I cut a small pocket and pocket flap and sewed them onto the back side of the pillow.I used a decorative stitch to attach the pocket on.

I then sewed the two pieces of the tooth pillow together using the same stitch I used for the pocket. I sewed this with the wrong sides of the fabric together and sewed just a 1/4 inch from the edge. Like I said, fleece doesn't fray so there is no need to sew it inside out and flip it.  I left a small opening to allow me to stuff the pillow with pillow batting. I then just sewed over the opening.

I was going to leave it like this, with one side with the pillow and the other plain, but my daughter wanted a face on the pillow. So using fabric paint, we drew on some eyes and a mouth.

 Voila!

 Grand total $0 and probably 10 minutes of work.

Cute and the Tooth Fairy loves it!!!

Custom desk/office supplies - Extremely easy and cheap gift idea

Have you seen on other blogs where people covering mouse pads with fabric to create a custom look? It is a great idea for gifts for teachers and in my case my mother. I decided to take the covered mouse pad one step further and created an entire office set, including mouse pad, pen holder, clips and large magnet board. I covered each of these with a fabric (from Ikea) that matched her office.  I purchased the frame at a thrift store for $3, the fabric at Ikea for next to nothing and all the other items at the Dollar store. Grand total for the entire gift set was probably $10!!! Sorry, I don't have a photo off all of these together but here are the office items I created for my trial run. 

I won't give you step by step photo instructions because it is super easy...plus I didn't take pictures while I was making them :).

Pen/Pencil holder
If you are using a light fabric and dark holder, you can do a quick coat of white spray paint to prevent the dark from showing through.

I placed the holder on the fabric and lightly traced with pencil the shape of the holder. I rolled the holder along the fabric to get the shape of the entire thing. I then cut the fabric approximately 1/2 an inch bigger then the pencil line. Be sure the seam or overlap of fabric is to the BACK of the holder.

Paint the entire outside of the holder with ModgePodge and stick the fabric to it. Use more ModgePodge to seal the seam/overlap.  I then painted approximately 1/2 into the holder and folded the fabric over. Do the same for the bottom. Once everything is 'stuck down', put a layer of ModgePodge over the entire thing.  

If you like, cover the bottom seams with a piece of felt. 
Mouse Pad

If necessary you can give this a coat of spray paint.

Roughly trace the shape of the mouse pad onto the fabric and give yourself an extra 1 inch to fold over.

Paint ModgePodge over the entire top of the mouse pad. Push down to remove all the bubbles in the fabric to make it smooth. Flip over and paint the back edge with ModgePodge and stick down.

I found it best not to give the top of the mouse pad a layer of ModgePodge. It got too slick and my mouse didn't work properly. Also, I don't recommend putting felt on the bottom of this because the mouse pad doesn't stick well enough to the surface. 
Paper clips
Using scrap fabric, cut small strips the size of the flat part of the metal. Put a layer of ModgePodge on the clip and stick on the fabric. Can't be easier!

I will try to get a picture of everything soon.