Handmade Gifts For Boys

So I was given an impromptu vacation. This happens sometimes with child care, the family takes a vacation and you are workless until they return. Fortunately I still get paid when they take time off so I still get a little money. Fortunately, this gives me some time to finish up some gift wrapping and getting a few of my little DIY gifts complete so I am excited about that. Not to mention all this one on one time I get with the little one, (she spends most of her time playing with the boy I nanny and rarely has time for mommy.)

Now that my scarves are done, (check my last post for more on that,) I have time to get the boys fort kit done. These clever little things go for anywhere between 30 and 40 bucks. I'm not terribly certain its worth all that so on Black Friday we went out and got just the pieces. I have two nephews so everything is doubled.

I grabbed:

• Two flat sheets. (I got twin sized just because of limited space and I know their families will have old sheets that can also be used. 
• Clothes Pins (You can get a ton for very little money)
• A mini child's flashlight
• Last but not least a book to curl up with in there. (The boys are pretty big on books so we play that up where we can.)

All you really need to do is cut a piece of burlap about double the width and length of the bags the sheets came in. You just want to make sure everything is going to fit inside. Fold over the long sheet of burlap and sew the sides. Turn it right side out and there is your bag. I took another strip of burlap very narrow and pretty long. Putting slits in the top of the burlap bag to weave your 'ribbon' through as a sort of tie.

These are the pieces all pulled together.

This is the final product. I'm going to embelish the front with some paint so it says Fort Kit and tie the top again to make it look a little more polished. I will update as it becomes completed.
I hope the boys like love them and have lots of fun.

If you liked these projects follow me for more great DIY on a budget.
See you soon.

While I Was House Bound

Here in New England our winters get pretty brutal and we are all mostly used to it. It is common to lose power a few times. Well, we got hit early this year and had some down line and bitter temperatures. Regardless we cooked Thanksgiving dinner on the grill, you read that correctly, on the grill. The sides were all done on little propane camp stoves and we warmed the appetizers in ceramic dishes on the wood stove. To top it all off we had frosty cocktails and a little warming brandy to snuggle up to. All in all it was a pretty cozy evening. Even the baby didn't seem to mind since all the attention was on her and not the iPad or the TV. Anyway, since all the crummy weather came through it has been too cold to go outside so I decided to keep myself busy with some inane project. I cant really work on my furniture indoors and we are still working on the offer for the new house so I needed a relatively short project.

Crochet! Time consuming while still being productive. Well after about 45 minutes and two inches into a blanket I needed something a little more..... fun. Arm knitting seems to be the new fun thing so I figured if I do well I have holiday gifts and if I mess it up I have dog blankets. Win, win!

I am pleased to announce.... It worked beautifully and they look nice rather than like a child knotted a bunch of strings together. (I have a habit of busting out some epic pintrest fails from time to time.)

 I will warn you, as I quickly found out, one pull on one of the chains and you will never get it back in the right place so try not to let little hands grab at them. The cuff with the button was just a quick single crochet stitch with a double crochet at the end to make the hole. This thing works great for hiding the seam where the ends are stitched together. These took about 15 to 20 minutes each and together they used about 2 and a half skeins of super bulky and bulky yarn. Make sure you get the fluffy stuff to fill in the holes a little.

Any of my projects you would like to know more about feel free to message me or leave a comment. I don't mind doing tutorials if you need one. I'll be back soon with some more projects as the Christmas gifts start coming together. Thanks guys!

Food For Tiny Fingers

It's official, my daughter is 1 year old! 

We celebrated her birthday over the weekend followed by my husbands party and it went very well. This morning my husband asks me, as he is making her bottle, "Aren't we supposed to be weaning her off of these soon?" Crap, he's right. That means more finger food, relatively scheduled meals, make ahead breakfasts. (I am out of the house by 6am and home with the other little one but 7am so breakfast is already a pain.) Then I start wondering where am I going to put all these meals and tiny tupper ware containers. Well, I think I've got it.

So There are several things I pick up for my lil munchkin to eat. 
Cut up green beans, peas, carrots, broccoli chunks, any frozen or canned veggies really. Throw some in a cup and microwave or grab a small pot and toss in your veggies. Storage is simply your pantry or canned goods cabinet and they take seconds to make. Pair them with some fruit or pretzels.

I will hard boil some extra eggs and throw them back in the fridge for a pre-made breakfast or an afternoon snack.

Cook an extra chicken breast or meatballs when you make dinner. Bonus: split it with the kids and make some quesadillas for lunch or a salad and you got your lunch too with little work.

I am a big fan of chunks of block cheese with some fruit and crackers or cheerios. All very easy things to put together.

With all these little finger foods filling up the fridge and pantry I decided to throw together some Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker and up-cycled some old formula containers to use as storage.

After you pull off the label you can spray paint it with plastic paint. Then I decorated it with some washi tape. The one on the left I use for storing crafts like beads, pom poms, washi tape rolls, etc.

Using small zipper bags and mini storage you can set these up for where ever you need them. For instance one will have small bags of cheerios, (instead of bulky boxes in the pantry.) pretzles, fruit snacks, snack pouches, really anything. 

For the refigerator snacks like fruits and veggies I have small storage boxes,

The white one you see here houses small tea boxes, instant coffee and all those rogue k-cups and kool-aid packets that make such clutter in your cabinets.

One of these little guys can slide out of one side of your fridge and all your toddler to-go bags remain contained in one place.

Last thing I am trying to do more of is making foods ahead, as I mentioned cooking a little extra the night before so you are all set for lunches and snacks the next day but I also like to load up the freezer. (Depending on space you can use those containers above to hold bags of freezer food.)

I like to make french toast sticks, mini pancakes, mini muffins etc. Its a good project for a lazy Sunday when I have an extra pair of hands for the baby. You can make up a ton of them in the time it would take to make a regular breakfast and on those busy mornings you toss 'em in the oven or microwave and the kids are happy. Not to mention all that breakfast stuff will make your house smell all yummy!

A new one I want to try is yogurt bites. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and use an icing bag (or a ziplock with a hole cut in the corner.) and make dots on the paper. Freeze them and pop them into a bag for a cool summer snack.

Anyway, off I go to start cooking then off to work so my husband can clean the kitchen. ;) 

What time saving tricks do you guys have?

Jewelry Box DIY

So last week I posted the beginning stages of the jewelry box refinish project I was working on. This was sort of a trial run to see how well I did with this to determine weather or not I should attempt refinishing some old furniture. Well, despite the few touch ups I will have to do when this rainy fall is all done, it turned out beautifully. Keep in mind I have not put the poly-urethane coat on yet so it still looks a bit dry but....

 Before:

   

 Ugh, just a bit too pink for me.

After:

I also relined the drawers,

So all in all it took about two days simply because I ran out of free time and cost me about 12 bucks. Less if you already have sandpaper and or stain.
The procedure: It was really as simple as it looks. I sanded off the varnish and as much of the previous stain as possible. Then I used about three coats of ebony wood stain, took fifteen minutes. I "carefully" ripped out the pink felt lining and simply wrapped it in some contact shelving paper. Same with the cabinet walls and the stained glass front. Super glue the pieces and put them back in place. Use a small screw driver to tuck the edges back in.
Used some plastic spray paint to change the color of the carousel in the top of the cabinet. 

Screw everything back together and tada!

I am in the process of house hunting for the next couple weeks so I'm not sure when I will have time for more projects at the moment but my daughter's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks so I guess it will have to be decorations and making goody bags. 

Mmmm, more coffee needed, off I go. Until next time.

Rainy Day Projects

I love rainy days and fall in New England certainly provides plenty of those. While they are the perfect time to catch up on a book or snuggle in some PJs. unfortunately, if your like me, I rarely sit still for long and I'm soon looking for something to keep my hands busy.

Today, for instance, I got some work done on my jewelry box. Years ago my step Father got me a jewelry box, as I had asked for one. This was something left behind in an apartment he was clearing out. It was a wooden stand up with drawers. The drawers and cabinet were lined with a rose pink felt and the cabinet door had a cheesy stained glass flower. While this is perfect for a little kid or little old ladies, it's not really my taste.

 


I saw a potential in this piece though. In a previous post I had mentioned I was starting work and a couple of other projects, an armoire and a china hutch. Well, since I haven't done any woodworking in a very long time I decided the jewelry box would be the perfect practice run since I didn't care about the box anyway.
(The other two pieces were handed down to me by my mother but they were so damaged from several generations of children she just gave me a good luck and let me know how that works out for ya.)

After two days of sanding and deconstruction I got all the finish and stain off, next I will use an ebony stain on it but as I said it's rainy so I will have to wait a couple days. Since stain was put on hold for a bit I decided to move forward with planning. (I'm a wing it kinda girl.) I didn't like the pink felt so I started prying it all out of the drawers and the cabinet. Each piece of felt was wrapped around a cardboard piece. Felt would have been the preferred material but I didn't have any. Instead I used some contact paper I had left over from redoing our gross back splash and wrapped each piece of liner. It started out a little wrinkly because it's paper wrapped around fabric but it accomplished what I needed it to.

Especially when I have refilled the drawers you will not see much more of the liners.

The cabinet had a mirror in the back that I considered removing but washed it and it cleaned up very nicely. Hopefully the rain will hold off a little tomorrow so I can get the first layer of stain on it.

In the cabinet there is a rotating hook that is a crappy plastic and painted metallic gold. That has already been removed and will be spray painted a matte black with Krylon plastic spray paint. That stuff is awesome, I used it to paint some old baby formula containers and turned them into craft storage containers.

So when the jewelry box is finished I will post photos of the finished product and how I did it.

Also, if you have any questions on any projects I do or would like to know how I did anything I post on here feel free to comment and I can write another post with photos on that particular project.

See you again soon.