Painted Bulletin Board

Just like all summers this one has gone fast. I enjoyed our summer but I am now ready to get back into blogging and projects. I did a few projects over the summer but mostly I worked on my etsy shop and enjoyed my kids. My youngest started kindergarten and we are on week two and I am still waiting for it to get easier. It is going to get easier, right!?! She is doing way better than expected, she is my baby and I had nightmares I was going to be shoving a sobbing girl onto the bus. But she loves it, and has no compaints. Who is this girl? The mommas girl I had to peel off of me at preschool last year. One good thing is she loves the bus, so she gets to start and end her day with a favorite. But after rushing all morning getting the kids on the bus I return to a quiet still house and I hate it. It will get easier, right? I can't believe I still want to cry after putting all three on the bus every morning, I miss them so. I need to find my own routine again. It has been so long since I have had all day to myself. I guess this is MY new adventure too.

Getting back to projects will be a good start. Here is one of the projects I worked on over summer. I found this bulletin board at a garage sale for 75 cents, but of course it needed some sprucing up.



First I painted the frame with some leftover white paint.

Then I taped off a design with painters tape. I saw this design on Pinterest but couldn't find an original link. I love the diamond pattern and mostly eyeballed the lines. I did use a ruler some to try to keep the spaces relatively equal.

And after a little more white paint I ended up with this!

I love how it turned out and it was such a simple project. It is the perfect addition to my newly organized office (I will share that soon). The love sign was super easy to make too. I used my silhouette to cut out the love and the circle. I painted a piece of watercolor paper as the background with some orange, pink and yellow water colors.

The "S" is for my last name and the guy on the tractor is my Dad. He is loving his new (old) tractor he got just to pull the kids in a wagon.

I made some heart garland with pages from a book I got at Goodwill. I used a Martha Stewart heart punch and sewed them together. I have this garland for sale in my etsy shop. My girls are so cooperative for photo shoots. I miss them while they are at school I will have to find some other willing children to be models for my banners.

I love having this bulletin board in my office to display some of my favorite things and hopefully keep me organized. Not an easy task with all the school stuff that comes home and my plans for my day job:)

I know some of you have been back at school for a while but I hope everyone is adjusting to the busy year well. I need to adjust to my alone time and come up with my own schedule. I never expected this to be so hard. Alright I am done complaining!

Have a wonderful day!



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Kids Craft Cart

I am so proud of myself because I did not let summer break sneak up on me this year. I have a plan to keep the kids and me from going crazy. I put together (and laminated) chore charts, reading charts and homework charts. Yep, 4 days in and the kids are already fighting me (ok, just my son is). I am not giving up though. I am determined to make these work and get him to work a little more around the house. Somewhere along the line he got the idea he is an honored guest, how did that happen?

Part of getting ready for summer was putting together this craft cart. My girls love to draw and paint and now all their supplies are easy to see and grab. The cart is located right next to our kitchen table, so it is very convenient.

My Mom had a stash (and by stash, I mean several boxes) of mason jars in her basement and it was so fun going through them. She had all different sizes and styles. They were perfect for markers and paint brushes. The buckets are from the Target dollar section, except the double blue one was from a garage sale.

I got the cart from a garage sale last summer. It has been perfect to use as a drink cart outside for entertaining, but for now it work great for craft supplies.

I use the bottom shelf for paint, paper and coloring books.

The print is a free printable from Craftaholics Anonymous. I got the frame from Ikea and painted the mat with Magenta craft paint.

So far this cart has gotten lots of use, don't you just love when something works out like you plan?
How did you get ready for summer? Do you have reading schedules and homework plans? I usually go strong at the beginning of the summer and it fizzles out toward the end. We will see, the kids really like checking off the boxes on the charts so far. And the promise of the prize box is keeping them motivated. I really need to put that box together soon.

Hope you are all having a great start to your summer vacation!




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Painted Basket

I always have a running list in my head (or on my phone) of things I am looking for at garage sales or thrift stores. A basket for under my couch table has been on my list for a LONG time. My table is only about 12 inches deep so I have had a hard time finding a basket that was big enough but not too wide.
Well, I finally found one and for the price I wanted to pay, $6.00.

I didn't love the color of the stripes but I knew a little paint could fix that.

I pulled out my plain white craft paint and painted away.

I did my best to get in between the pieces but I was not too concerned about it being perfect.

It is not a perfect paint job but I knew it was going on the floor and didn't have to be perfect.

It works perfect for storing extra pillows and blankets.

It is just what I needed to fill the space under the table. And my outdoor pillows fit just right in the basket when not in use.

This week is our first week of summer and I am determined to be more organized with chores and some school work. Plus we all have to get used to being together all. the. time. Which always takes some patience and time. Hope you are getting off to a great start this summer. I am looking forward to lazy days ahead, I still can't believe it is summer. It feels like a long weekend still.

Have a great day!



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Baskets with Wheels

Spring, if that is what you want to call it, is so unpredictable. The other day is was warm in the 50's and sunny then yesterday was stormy, windy and cold and now today is supposed to be 76 degrees. I really have to check the weather everyday just to see how to dress. I am hoping warm weather is close but I think it will be a few weeks yet. Patience. Good weather for working inside I guess, so I have been busy.

My middle daughter has the smallest bedroom and finding storage for all her precious collections is not easy. She has a bed, dresser and nightstand in her room and that is all that will fit. We added some book ledges since she had no room for a bookshelf. And the ledges are working out awesome. She loves keeping her books in her room. Her closet is a good size so I imagine we will need to put more organization in there so we can get rid of her dresser and get her a desk someday. But for now I am trying to be creative. Last week I popped into the Goodwill and found two cute baskets in excellent shape. I knew I wanted to put them under her bed for more storage but was worried about her being able to easily access them without damaging them. Then it dawned on me "casters"!  So I snatched them up.

The baskets were $5 each and in great shape.

I bought light duty casters at Menards for a little less than $5 for 4.

I pulled out my trusty hot glue gun and it worked great.

Because the basket is not level on the bottom I added lots of extra glue to hopefully hold it in place.

They fit perfectly under her bed and are easy to pull in and out. Her bed is raised pretty high off the ground. It is half of a bunk bed so it is adjustable and her heat register is under her bed so we thought it would help having the bed higher to let the air escape.

It is the prefect place to store some precious stuffed animals and keep things off the floor.

So as long as I can keep the kids from going for "rides" in the baskets they should hold up well. I have specifically NOT told my son about his sisters new baskets. That may be too tempting for him.

So have you found any good treasures thrifting lately? Garage sale season is here and I have yet to make it to any. Maybe this weekend, I need to start scouting for neighborhood sales.

Have a Wonderful Day!




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Kids Command Center

I love all the command centers I see on Pinterest but I just didn't know if I needed one and didn't know where to put it. Well then every day my son was coming home from school asking what we had planned for the day. And my daughter needed help understanding the concept of days and weeks. She needed to be able to count the days before an activity or just the weekend. So I decided they at least needed a calendar. But of course I can't just add a calendar, that would be too easy!

So I found my wall. The only problem, it has a pocket door and I could not put any nails in the wall for fear of scratching the door. So here is before. The wall is right by our back door and mudroom.

Enter the Command products. 

I used the picture hanging strips for some clip boards and cell phone holder to hold the pens. I got my clipboards from the dollar store.

The cell phone holder actually has a hole in the bottom so I added paper to the cup to cover the hole.

I came up with a plan for my wall and measured it out. I used a level to connect the dots and draw a straight line. I then taped it off and used chalkboard paint. I have a very textured wall so chalk doesn't work well but chalk markers have worked really well to label areas on the wall. 

This new wall is far more functional than I could have even imagined! I love the pretty at the top, since they can't reach anything high it was fun to fill with pretty ( I hung the flags with push pins). And the kids love having the calendar to refer to when they want to know our plans. It is just their calendar so it doesn't have any of my stuff on it. I got the dry erase calendar from Staples, it is a Martha Stewart self adhesive calendar. 

I found these quotes at The Handmade Home.  I printed them out on card stock and hung them with washi tape. They are perfect and they have lots of choices to pick from so I could easily change them out later.

Each child has their own color for activities and they have been crossing off the days as they are done. They each have their own clipboard for spelling lists and reading programs and behavior charts. The two older kids have two or three reading programs they are involved in for school and it has been so helpful to have everything in one place since it all has to be recorded on a daily basis. This has been a life saver for me. No more taping lists to the inside of EVERY cabinet door or misplacing them on the counter that seems to swallow papers. It is so easy to grab a spelling list to work with kids or for my daughter to put her own stickers on her reading chart. Who knew that little task would make her so proud.

Do you have a family command center? What do you have in yours? Has it made your life easier too?


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Paint Chip Organization

I have a quick organizing post for you today. I don't have any of those fancy paint fan decks, I never thought I really needed one and I didn't want to spend the money on one. So every time I went to the paint store looking for colors I would grab 2 or 10 paint chips. And of course the kids wanted a few also.  I don't know about you but when I go to the paint store colors I love don't look as good once I bring them home. So I have learned grab lots of colors so when I get home I have choices.

Well I have accumulated a lot of paint chips over the years, and I just keep adding them to this folder.

Well the other day I decided to make my own fan decks. So I went out and bought some binder rings. My kids use these a lot to hold their flash cards together, so I figured they would work for this too.

They work perfect holding all the paint chips of the same brand together. My daughter helped me punch holes in the bottom corners of the paint chips and then I organized them by number.

Now I have perfectly organized paint chips, no more folder! I think I will hang them on a few nails in basement.

So do you have those fancy paint decks or are you like me with a folder? This is a super fast super easy organizing project. It always feels good to get some organizing done.

Have a wonderful day!


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