Picture perfect TV - Flat Screen TV Frame

Although this amazing project was completed during my $0 budget month, we did plan for it and purchased all the materials a couple of months ago. The materials cost approximately $35, but if you hunt around or have leftovers from putting up crown molding it could cost your far less.  I will let you decide if this was cheating on the budget, but for this month I spent $0 on the frame. Since the goal was to finish projects and to use the stuff I had, I think I stayed with in my goal :o).

At Christmas, my husband and I decided rather than buying gifts for each other, we would splurge on a TV for our bedroom (42 inches for those of you wondering how it would look on your sized TV). I know there are some of you out there that are gasping and thinking "You should never put a TV in your bedroom!" I respect your opinion but I do like to lay in bed at night and watch TV.  Plus with 2 kids in this house, the moment the TV turns on in the family room, they come running and take control over what we watch. If I don't have to sit through another Hanna Montana again, I would be overjoyed.

When we purchased the TV, I made sure the one we bought had the controls on the front. Although this does not matter with modern day remote controls, I like to be able to turn the TV on and change the channel/volume without having to hunt for a remote control that is always misplaced.

I only agreed to put a TV in our bedroom because I knew that I wanted to frame it so it was less obvious. I didn't want to walk into the room and that be the one thing that you see. So I agreed to get a TV and my husband agreed to make me a Flat Screen TV Frame.

I will admit I did not participate in the making of this; I helped design it but I did no physical labor in its production. This is 100% my husband's beautiful handy work!

Before:

After:

Materials:

• 5 inch Crown MDF molding (enough to surround the outer edge of the TV with some to spare)
• 2x1 inch MDF molding (enough to connect the outer edge of the crown molding to the wall. You need a longer piece than the crown molding)
• Thin trim molding(looks like the opposite of quarter round. Curves in not out)
• Wood glue
• Nails
• Wood filler/ sand paper
• Paint
• Hanging brackets

Method:
We (from here on out we is really my husband :)) hung the TV on the wall with a 'flush mount' bracket. This mount does not swivel or tilt, but this is what we wanted since our bed is directly across from the TV. Once mounted, there was only an inch or two of gap between the TV and the wall.

We cut two hole between the studs in the drywall (one behind the TV and one at the electrical outlet height) and dropped all the cables through. We used a special plate/kit made specifically for this, but it really is not necessary since ours is hidden by a dresser like ours.

We measured the exact width, height and depth of the TV. I would give you my measurements but this will vary for every TV and it won't help you.

We first made the crown molding part of the frame to the exact outer dimensions of the TV.  So the inner part of the crown molding frame covers  but a smidge of the outer lip of the TV. We connected the pieces together with small nails and wood glue.

We placed it over the TV to determine how much of a gap remained between the frame and the wall. We had a 2 inch gap so we used a piece of 2x1 flat trim molding to make the frame fit flush against the wall. Again, we used small nails and wood glue to secure the pieced together.

After the frame was fitting flush against the wall, we noticed we had a slight gap (on the inner part) that you could see between the TV and the frame, so we used a small piece of trim molding on the inner part of the frame to hide it (looks like quarter-round but it is curved in rather than out).

We filled in all the holes with wood fill and used caulking to hide seams. After giving the entire piece a light sand, we painted it the same black paint we used for our kitchen table. Three light coats later and it looked amazing!

In order to allow the heat and sound to come out from behind the TV, my husband removed approximately half of the 2x1 molding on the top and bottom of the frame using a router. You cannot see that the wood has been removed unless you bend down and look at it from underneath, but it does allow the TV to vent (these TVs produce a great deal of heat). I am sure you could drill a few big holes in the top and bottom too and that would allow the heat to come out.

We used picture hanging hardware to secure it to the wall. The hanging brackets were attached to the piece of 1x2. This frame weighs hardly anything since it is made of MDF but if you do this with real wood, be sure to use hangers that can hold the weight.

Here is a breakdown of where each piece of molding was used. You can see it in the above photo too (the inner white piece is the small trim, the light brown is the crown molding and the outer white piece is the 1x2) :

 And here it is, the end result again:

I still have not decided how to decorate around it. We did not center it above the dresser because I wanted to do a collage of pictures to the one side...however, it is far bigger than expected and I might just have to leave the plant for height.


Any suggestions on how to decorate this?

Oh and in case you are wondering, we do have a computer connected to the TV. My husband is an Electrical Engineer so every TV in our house also doubles as a computer monitor.

Look what I found with a little googling...a Pottery Barn version available for a crazy/ridiculous price.  I guess I create a Pottery Barn knock off their TV frame Chadwick without even knowing it :)

Source Pottery Barn

I am licking everying in my house - on my $0 budget

I know that title is a little odd but let me explain. My husband came home last night and saw a few of the crafts we were working on and the first thing he said was "Are you licking everything?" I was confused until he reminded me of the Volkswagen commercial, where the man licks the car to claim it as his own. Well, I was labeling things in the house with our initials, and he was pointing out I was doing the same thing.

Since I borrowed my Mom's Cricut, I decided I would monogram things :) . I am hoping and dreaming that one day I can have one of my own. Insert a picture here of me staring off longingly, dreaming of a Cricut or Silhouette :)

I put our initials on picture frames, candles but the best thing I 'licked' was our mailbox. When we moved in, the mailbox was a rusty bass box. I would love a beautiful mailbox but do not want to spend the money on it  because here in Canada (or at least where I live) we have large mailboxes on each street where 20 or 30 homes collect their mail from. So our mailbox is only used for junk mail and occasionally the newspaper (the odd time when the delivery person actually comes up our steps and put it in the mailbox rather than throwing it at the house and leaving a big messy pile of paper).

I took the mailbox down, lightly sanded off the flaking rust spots and spray painted it black.  If you look closely you can see where the rust spots were, but I really don't care so much. This is a million times better!

 I cut our initials out on the Cricut (you could buy stickers at the Dollar store or Michaels to do this too) and after much debate (mostly my husband complaining that I was going to put my initial first...the 's' does look better before the 'k') I gave in and put the initials this way. I guess I will see how often he reads my blog by how long it takes him to comment on this :) Hi honey!

 

 I then hung the mailbox back up and here is how it looks.

 

 I really do like it. Grand total was $0, thanks to my Mom lending me her Cricut and me having the spray paint on hand.

Remember April 1st is the $0 Budget link party. Please remember to stop by and share you ideas.  Thanks for the support the past 17 days with my challenge.

Freezer paper stencil t-shirts - on my $0 budget

{Remember everyone, that April 1st is the $0 Budget link party here. Everyone is welcome to share their ideas no matter how big or small. If you can't make it but would like to participate, please email me the link and image and I can post it for you.}

We are coming to the end of our March Break and I promised my guys I would do a kids craft with them this week. Since I am in the middle of my $0 craft budget month and I worried I was going to run out of ideas, I borrowed my mom's Cricut.

Forgive me but I must digress for one moment...I want one of my own..or a Silhouette. Maybe if I am positive and put it out there the 'Secret' will bring it. Keeping my fingers positively crossed that one day I will have  a cutter of my own to share my ideas with you :)

OK back to my craft. I have always loved the freezer paper transfers and I have a huge roll of freezer paper so I thought we could customize a couple of shirts for them. They each picked a plain shirt from their collection (since I can't buy them a new one -$0 budget remember) and an image they liked. My daughter picked three hearts (I know it is the wrong season for hearts and we should be doing Shamrocks but she is a girly girl) and my son picked three different robots. I tried to convince my son to use a nicer shirt, but he wants to use this one as PJs so it is fine.

Materials:
Freezer paper (Wax paper will not work)
Iron
Fabric Paint
Item to paint

Method:
We cut the images out of freezer paper (shiny side down) on the Cricut. If you don't have a Cricut or a Silhouette, you can draw an image on the paper side of the freezer paper and cut it out with scissors. It really is easy.

With my iron on medium heat, I ironed the shirt flat and once cooled placed the cut freezer paper (shiny side down) where the kids wanted the image to appear. Carefully iron the the freezer paper cut out to the shirt. You can do this with almost any fabric, so the possibilities are endless.

Using fabric paint, we applied a layer of paint and evened it out with a cheap foam brush.

This is what it looks like once the entire area was covered in paint. My son loves to color things to look like rainbows so he decided to use multiple colors for his robots. After he was done I was a little worried because I wasn't sure if the color pattern had a bad association to it, so I googled it and realized it was the Romanian flag, all is good :).  He is now a  new inadvertent fan of Romania

 

We immediately peeled off the freezer paper, being careful not to get any of the excess paint onto the shirt.

Here are the end results. Aren't they so cute!!

 My son desperately wanted to model it so here he is (fresh out of a bath with wet hair).

 

 

I think I might start making these as gifts for the birthday parties my kids attend. Also, wouldn't it be great as a craft at a birthday party?  Buy a pile of shirts at Michaels when they are on sale (and I am not on my $0 budget) and let each child decorate their own.

17 days into the challenge and still going :)

 What do you think? The possibilities are endless!

Conversation Starter Cards on my $0 budget

Before I start I want to let everyone know that due to such positive support, I will be hosting a $0 Budget Party at the end of the month. Since this will be my first party, I would really love it if everyone who has any ideas (no matter how big or small) to remember to stop by and share them.  I will finalize the date soon but I was thinking April 1st. What do you think?

Here my fun $0 family building craft.

Last summer, my daughter and I had a girls day out in New York City. We went shopping and I took her to the American Girl restaurant for a special dinner. We had the most amazing time! If you have ever been, you know they have a box full of cards on the table with questions or conversation starters to ask the other people at your table. My daughter loved this and I really enjoyed giving her answers to questions we would never have thought about. Like "What is your favorite childhood memory?" or "If you were able to give up one chore for the rest of your life, what would it be?"

This past weekend my daughter asked if we could write up some questions and discuss them at the dinner table.  I thought it was an amazing idea. We wrote our own questions and then went on the internet and searched for "conversation starter questions" and found hundreds.

Materials:
Questions
Scrapbook paper
Mod Podge
Small box

Method:
I put all the questions in one Word file and then converted the text into a table with 2 columns. I formatted the rows to fit 8 questions on each page. We selected a font we loved and started printing them on light colored scrapbook paper. In total we had 20 pages or 160 questions.

Since I could not run to the Dollar store to buy a cute little box to store these in (doesn't fit in my budget of $0), I got resourceful. I used a cup a soup box to create a custom sized holder for the 160 questions.

I covered the box with a piece of scrapbook paper she selected and Mod Podge. I punch 2 holes in the top flap and on the body of the box so I could thread a piece of ribbon through. I used a large bead (doesn't match 100% but she loves it) to slip through the bottom loop to keep the lid closed.

We have put this on our lazy susan in the middle of the table so that when we sit down at dinner we can ask each other questions. It really is fun!

A small project but it still falls within my $0 budget.

If anyone would like me to email them the 20 page Word file (so you can print them yourself or change them to best suit your family), please download it here or leave me a comment with your email address and I would be happy to send it to you.

Side note: I have found we have gotten closer as a family since we started this spend free month. We have spent 2 full weeks without going shopping. We play games, talk, do crafts together or simply lay on the couch and watch a movie. The money saved this month will be nice, but the family bonding time is truly priceless!


Thanks everyone!

Stair Basket on my $0 budget - Organizing my life one step at a time

If you are anything like my family, you always have a pile of stuff sitting on your stairs to either go up or go down. I have always wanted to have a basket that sits on my stairs but I am far to cheap to spend $40 on a small wicker step/stair basket. So I came up with this idea yesterday when I was at the grocery store picking up fresh fruits and vegetables. Isn't it great! Look what you can do with a free pasta box, duct tape, left over fabric and Mod Podge. 

Before

 After

Materials:

1 Box with the width and height you want

Fabric to cover

Mod Podge

Duct Tape

Method:
We removed the clear packing tape from the bottom of the box so it could be laid flat.

We measured my stair height (approx. 8 inches) and depth (approx. 12 inches). Using a long metal ruler we drew straight lines on the box to identify where the 'step' piece would be. Do this on both sides of the box..be sure to work on the same end :)

Here is a bit of a tricky part, I only made 3 cuts on each side of the box (see picture below - I made cuts along the bold black lines and I folded along the dotted line) so that I could fold the box  and keep most of the box intact to create the bottom and side of the 'step' part.

Here is where you just have to trust me and work with this as you go. This is hard for me to explain which means it will be even more difficult to understand. But believe me it is easy when you are doing it. The 2 folded pieces come together to create the back of the step, the 2 bottom flaps come up to also cover the back of the step and then there is a long piece on the end of the box that folds up to create the bottom of the 'step' piece. Now that I have lost everyone here is what it looks like after the first 2 steps.

And this is after all the folds and I duct taped the seams to secure it.

 I removed the top flaps of the box because I did not need any extra height. If you box is not high enough, you can use the top flaps for this.

Making the shape of the stair basket, took me about 10 minutes to do. But the next step of covering it with fabric took me almost 2 hours! I didn't have much of this fabric left over from recovering my kitchen chairs so I had to plan wisely. It really wasn't difficult as I used Mod Podge to secure the fabric to the box but the planning took me forever.  I used some left over black vinyl for the bottom of the box so that it wouldn't show any dirt (plus I didn't want to use more of the fabric since I might want to use it on something else later).

So here is the end result from all angles. My carpets look really dirty but they aren't..honestly it is the lighting.

 By the way, someone recommended that I host a $0 craft party at the end of the month so everyone can post their $0 ideas. I have never done a party before...Is anyone interested in participating in this? Please let me know what you think.



Thanks,
Stephanie