A Can of Red Spray Paint

I have had two bar stools in my kitchen since we moved here in December of 1999.    They have worked great, but boy were they worn out and scuffed up.      I took them outside and gave them a good washing and sanded them down really good.

Although they looked 100% better I decided that they just needed a new look.     I grabbed a can of red spray paint and went to town.     A couple of light coats and they look so much better and have new life!   My picture below says "Almost After", because I still had another coat to paint when I took this picture.

I like the little hint of color that this adds to my kitchen and really love that I was able to extend the life of my bar stools.

Looking for Color In My Button Jar

Yesterday was Random Acts of Kindness day.    I had challenged the boys to find ways to perform some random acts of kindness.     As for me, I knew what I was going to do.    I was going to clean off our kitchen table.    It was in terrible shape.    Somehow it had become the dumping ground for everything over the past couple of weeks and I knew that it was driving hubs crazy.      After cleaning it off I started looking for something to put on the table to "decorate" it.  

I found this table runner and a couple of hurricanes and put it on the table.

 

Hmmm....  It needs some candles.

 

It kept standing there thinking that it still needed color.    I walked around the house wondering what I could do to add some color.     I guess I have a touch of spring fever.     I walked through my bedroom and spotted this...

 

My button jar!    Have I ever mentioned that I have a button jar?     Sounds crazy since I don't sew, but I just can't seem to throw away all those extra buttons that come with outfits.      It is amazing the amount of buttons that I have managed to collect in the last 25 years.      Anyway, I grabbed my button jar and decided that they would add just the color that I needed.

 

That button jar has inspired me and I have a few other ideas, but for now I am happy to have this splash of color on my kitchen table AND my hubs was really happy to come home to a table that was clean again.

DIY: Find It

Have you seen these precious Find It game/toys at the book and toy stores?

I am going to admit that I am a sucker for toys that double as an educational experience.     This container contains 47 items hidden in colored pellets.   You have to shake, find, twist and turn to find every item.   It is an awesome toy for riding in the car, a restaurant or in a waiting room.

The problem?   The cost.    I could never justify the price of just one of these.     And I REALLY wanted to have one for each of my sweet nieces.    

So... I decided that I would try to make my own version.

The first thing I did was start scavenging around the house for objects.    As soon as I told the boys what I was doing, they were all in for helping me look.    The picture below is just a partial list of things we found. 

We knew we were going to need a "pellet" substitution so I grabbed some rice from the cabinet and asked the boys to help me color it.    We put 1 1/2 cups of rice each into three separate ziploc bags.    We added food coloring into the bags using red, blue and yellow.      The boys mixed it really well and then we poured it into a cookie sheet.    We baked at 170 degrees for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes.

Leaving our rice to cool.    We began filling our bottles with our objects.      We layered using objects, rice, objects, rice, etc...

 

(Little Guy had just gotten home from Upward Basketball and Big Guy from taking the ACT.  You notice they didn't even take time to change or take off coats.     As soon as they realized I was doing something for our twins, they wanted to help.     Can you tell we are all smitten?)

  

See how cute they look when they are all filled?    

 

Notice we put the girl's initial in each of their bottles.   

We tried to find several things with their initials on it for each of their bottles.

The one picture I didn't take?

The girls playing with their new Find It's!!

Coaster Thanks

Once we made the soap to go in the thank you box for our host homes, we decided it needed something more.    Big Guy and I were walking through Lowe's one day to grab a few things and I decided to grab a few tiles to just see how hard it would be to make coasters.     After making a few samples, we decided we would make them for our host homes.   

We went and bought a bunch more tiles, brought them home and got to work.     First of all, we laid them out and wiped them all down really well with a Clorox wet wipe.     Once they were dry, we picked out the paper we liked.     We decided to go with a black and white theme.   

After we traced our papers to be the of the tiles, the boys applied a thin coat of Mod Podge to the tile.

Then they carefully placed the paper on top of the Mod Podge and then rolled it out so no air bubbles were underneath using our Pampered Chef pastry roller.     It wasn't its intended use, but it works!

Hmmmm.... I wonder how it would look if we painted the edges black?    Let's find out!  

Oooh, pretty!   Well, if that looks good.    I wonder what it would look like if we slightly distressed the edge of the paper.

Still loving it!   But it still seems to be missing something.    What to do?    What to do?    I know!

We coated the entire thing with mod podge again to seal it.    Then we decided we needed to do something to keep it from clinking.    So Little Guy sat down and cut out some felt to go on the back of the tiles.

Do you see that tool Little Guy is using?     Those are Black and Decker Cordless Power Scissors.     I can't profess my love for those babies enough!     If you don't have a pair of those you NEED a pair.     He cut the felt backings for all 48 tiles in 10 minutes.     I will be doing another post about the table squares I made for our dinner and you won't believe what he cut out for me using these.      We bought these for Little Guy for Christmas but I am going to buy me one too.   Love it!    Love it!   Love it!  

Our tiles are finished and hopefully our host homes will see these and know how much we appreciate them!

 

How Do You Say Thanks

How do thank a group of people who are willing to host 8 middle school youth in their homes for an entire weekend?      I know!    That is a tall order.     However, as one of the directors of housing and food for our Disciple Now weekend it is my job to find ways to thank these wonderful host families.

Because my budget for these thank yous is pretty small, I wanted to incorporate it into things we already needed for the weekend.     One of the things we do for our host families is put together a box of paper products (plates, napkins, forks, toilet paper, etc...).     I found this cute soap idea over at The Idea Room and thought it fit really well with our host box.

What do you think?      Didn't it turn out cute?     For a full tutorial on how to make these visit here.

Project Cost:

1 Bottle of Soap  $10.00 (I made 10 bottles.)

Transparency of saying  $3.00 (you get four per transparency)

Ribbon  $1.00 (bought this in the dollar bin)

Ornaments  .50 (bought in after Christmas sales)

Total  $14.50