Don’t Throw Out Your Dried Up Markers! Turn Them Into Watercolors.

How to Make Little Drawers Out of Tissue Boxes

I recently shared a way to use Kleenex boxes to decorate your home. For that project, I cut the box up to make a photo mat and a decorative votive candle (decoration only).

Decorative Paper Clips

Office life doesn’t have to be boring. With a few simple steps, you can spruce up any document.

To get started, get some large paper clips.

Make sure that you put your embellishments on the top of the paper clip away from the inside clip that comes down onto the paper. Otherwise, your embellishment will be in the way.

For this ribbon design, just cut a piece of thin ribbon and fold it in half.

Place the folded area inside the paper clip and pull the end through it.

You can glue chipboard letters on….

..which can make a fun filing system.

You can also glue buttons together,

and then sandwich your paper clip between your buttons with hot glue to make a button clip.

This can make a cute money clip,

or clip for your business cards.

This is an easy way to stand out (any salespeople out there?) or just add a little color to your office.

Have fun!

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Just Add Paint

This is a story about a little can of paint that saved an old owl’s life.

Normally, I would look right past this old 70’s owl light switch plate, but lucky for him, he was my grandma’s so I gave him another look.

I wanted to see how this little guy would look with a hot pink update. All I needed was some primer and spray paint. In the end, I realized I needed a Sharpie marker too.

First, I painted him with primer so his surface wouldn’t be so slick and the paint would stick better.

After that dried, I sprayed him with hot pink spray paint.

Then I realized I painted over his eyes so I used a purple Sharpie to give him eyes.

I purposefully made both of his eyes facing the bed because I thought it would be cute to tell my daughter that the owl was saying, “Owl be watching you while you sleep.” But then I decided that was a little creepy.

So don’t forget the power of paint the next time you see something that you don’t think is attractive. You just might start looking at things in a whole new way.

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New Use for Honey Jar (Hand Scrub Holder)

When I came across this honey jar, I immediately had images of visiting a local bee farm, filling it with raw, organic honey, and enjoying it at breakfast. Then I remembered I rarely eat honey, breakfast is usually served in the car, and I’m scared of bees and would never visit their farm.

But the little jar was so cute.

My Aunt Ginny was telling me about a homemade hand scrub she’s been using and I thought this jar would be perfect for that.

There are many different recipes for hand scrubs but I wanted to use what I had on hand. It doesn’t matter exactly what you use as long as you have the two main components: an exfoliant and a moisturizer.

I used salt and olive oil. You can use brown or regular sugar as your exfoliant. Coconut oil would work but it changes consistency depending on the temperature of the room which is why olive oil is nice. Just use what you have on hand.

Mix the ingredients together in your container. I used half salt and half oil. You’ll notice that the oil rises to the top and all the granules are at the bottom. This honey jar is so great because the little dipper stick is always right there to stir it before using. Otherwise, you’ll want to have a stirrer nearby at all times to stir before each use. Just put about a tablespoon in your hand, massage for a minute and rinse. The olive oil may feel a little greasy afterwards so rinse well. I still usually follow with a little lotion.

Place it on your sink for easy access and use everyday.

I didn’t notice until posting this picture that I put the honey jar next to a Burt’s Bees lotion. It must be fate. 🙂

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Turn a sweater into pillows

I rarely buy clothes without trying them on first, but of course the one time I do, I end up with this beauty.

I’m not sure what the problem was. It is a sweater. How hard is that to try on? Whatever the reason, I bought it. When I got home and put it on, I was instantly transported onto the set of The Golden Girls.
The show=awesome. The clothes=even more awesome.

I wanted to do something with it (other than wear it!) because I liked the pattern and the colors. I love the look of sweater pillows and I thought this actually might make cute throw pillows.

Let’s see.

For this button pillow, I cut part of the sweater into two rectangles and sewed them together with the bright sides facing inward. I left one side open and turned the pillow right side out (so my seams were hidden) and stuffed it with pillow filling. I folded my open side down twice and sewed it to the sweater, creating a folded section. I sewed three buttons along the fold for decoration.

For the following sweater, I used a throw pillow that I already had as my base. I placed the corner of the pillow up into the cuff (the white corner was the cuff) and used a button to hide the ends that I had to mush together.

I was able to wrap around the sweater and sew it along the other seam. Since I was sewing the seam on the outside, I decided to do a scrunched look.

With the scraps I had left, I made borders along white pillow cases that I had.

I was able to use up almost all of the sweater!

So before you go buy living room or porch pillows, take a look in your closet first!

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Turn Toys into bathroom décor

Do these baskets of toys look familiar?

It seems like this accumulation of toys is inevitable if you have kids but just seeing these baskets of random pieces and parts makes me crazy.

I wanted to come up with a way to give some of these toys one last run before going from the toy bin to the trash bin.

If your kids have their own bathroom, this is a fun little way to  doll it up. (pun intended, I guess.)

Here is my kids’ bathroom before.

Not very exciting.

I just rummaged through their toy baskets for soft, cute toys. Most of them already had hooks.

For the ones that didn’t, I just sewed a loop on the back of the toy with needle and thread.

Then I just hung them through the shower curtain hooks like this..

..and it brought their bathroom to life.

It feels a little toy story-ish in there now, like the dolls are going to start talking to me, but it’s fun.

So, if you’re feeling too sentimental to throw anything away just yet, try giving it a new use for a little while.

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Three Unexpected Ways to Use Doilies

When I think of doilies, I usually think of Valentine’s Day. Although, sometimes I think of the Frasier episode where Marty called Frasier and Niles a couple of delicate doilies. Either way, they usually don’t make me think of home décor.

I wanted to stretch my mind for a minute and see if I could come up with a few ways to use doilies around the house. They are really cheap and great for making anything feminine and fun.

The first project was really easy. This worked for me because we have a room with dark paint so the white doily stood out. All I did was line up my doilies a little lower than mid-way down the wall to create a border. I just used double-sided tape.

If you love the look and know you want to keep it a long time, you can glue the doily down and seal it with a clear gloss or even Mod-Podge. If you want to be able to change the look again soon, just tape them up.

The second experiment was to create a ceiling border by cutting the doilies in half so they would line up against the ceiling and wall edge for this look.

Finally, I wanted to try to use the doilies on a piece of furniture that was just sitting in our garage, rotting. Here is the table before, yucky and water-stained.

I cleaned it and painted two coats of primer on it.

Since doilies are so girly, I figured this would need to be a table to go in our daughter’s room. Therefore, I went with the obligatory hot pink color.

I was going to paint the whole table hot pink, but after painting the top, I actually like the two-toned look.

I stopped there and then painted the legs and rest of table with two coats of white paint.

I played around with the doilies on the table and glued them down with Mod Podge (can you tell I love that stuff?)

Then I painted a layer of Mod Podge over the entire top to seal it all down.

Shortly after taking this picture, my daughter colored on every one of the doilies on this table. They must have looked like targets or some sort of coloring activity. But thanks to the good old Mod Podge topcoat, the pencil came right off!

This project was a lot of fun. I’d love to hear any other ways you all have used doilies. I’m a little fascinated with them now 🙂

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Candy bag woobie

Babies just love sounds, especially if they are the ones making them. This is such a fun, easy way to make a woobie that is also entertaining. The crinkling sound this makes could keep your baby occupied for hours. Well, okay minutes, but every second counts when it comes to keeping a baby content.

If you developed a sweet tooth like I did after having kids, you probably have empty candy bags at your disposal. Just be careful that the bag doesn’t have any sugar or residue in it. Hard candy bags are best becuase then there was no contact with food in the bag at all.

Anyway, what you will need is the candy bag and two sections of fabric that are a little larger than your bag. If you want you can add some ribbon tags that stick out for more entertainment.

Next, put your sections of fabric together with the right sides of the fabric facing towards each other. Basically, you are going to sew this up inside out.

If you are doing ribbon tags fold them in half and pin them inside your fabric strips (with the folded part tucked inside and pin in place. Do this all the way around, placing ribbon tags every so often along the way. Then place your plastic bag over the top of your project and pin it onto the top. This is going to look SO strange and you’ll wonder how this will ever turn out right, but trust me.

Sew all along the project  (about 3/4 inch from edge) and leave a 3 inch opening.

Now start working the fabric through the hole to turn the project right side out. Just squish it on through little by little. This process isn’t pretty. Once you get it right side out, a ruler helps to push the corners out. They can be stubborn otherwise.

Now you have a 3 inch opening to stitch up.

Just fold the edge of the fabric down so the edge stays consistent with your sewn edge. If you want to put a final ribbon tag in, you can. Pin the opening closed and stitch it up. I prefer to do this final part by hand (rather than sewing machine) so I can control the process. Since your seam is hidden on the whole project, you don’t want this 3 inch section to look awkward.

And that is it.

Here is the final product. It makes a crinkle sound every time you touch it.

So have fun with this. I hope your baby enjoys it as much as mine did. 🙂

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Hanging frames

If you have any frames whose propping flap (does that thing have a name?) is broken or if you’ve run out of room on your tables, here’s an easy fix. All you need is ribbon, a hot glue gun and some nails or removable hooks.

First, decide where you want the picture to hang on your wall. This will help you determine the size of ribbon you’ll need.

Then turn the frame over so the back of the frame is facing you. Fold your ribbon in half with the ends at the top of the back of your frame. Hot glue the ends into place.

Then flip them over and hang them however you like. I had a shelf that had hidden hooks so I hung mine there.

But you can get as creative as you want. If you hang them from a nail or a 3M removable hook, you can just decorate the hook.

I hot glued a pebble directly onto my hook to create this look.

The nice thing about these is that you can do so much with them. You can make the ribbons any length you want, use decorative ribbons and do all kinds of things with decorating the hook.

Have fun!

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