DIY Crafts – Page 3 – Loving My New Simple Life

19
Jul
2017

Creating a Cleaning Bucket

When my home is a mess, I’m stressed!

I love a clean home, but the truth is, I would rather take a beating than clean.

It never ends, the same thing over and over again.

Having my products all over the house made my everyday cleanups worse, so I created a cleaning bucket.

Bought a simple white, 5 gallon bucket, at Walmart for less than $3.00, but of course, it was too plain for me.

I put some fun into the project by adding a little black paint to the handle, a strip of black at the bottom, and at the top. Love it, if you can love a cleaning bucket!

Looked around for a bucket to buy at the usual stores, but they were either too small, or way too expensive.

Filled my bucket with the products I use each day for my everyday quick cleanups, and those weekly more involved jobs.

Everything is now all together in one spot, I just grab my bucket and move room to room. It really does save me a bunch of time.

I have quoted before, from a sweet little book I found at a thrift store some time ago, Being Home, by Gunilla Norris. Meditations on everyday living.

Love this little book, that is now falling apart! It is filled with really wonderful simple, black and white photos.

Gunilla writes, “if I leave a mess, I will find what I left sooner or later”, I must try to remember this!

To end this post, Gunilla writes, “When we clean and order our homes, we are somehow also cleaning and ordering ourselves”….”How we hold the simplest of our tasks speaks loudly about how we hold life itself.”

“Buckets” of love to all today!

08
Jul
2017

DIY Chic Desk Organizer

categories: DIY, Flea Market Finds/Thrifting, Home Projects

Yesterday I gathered together several items from my thrift store, dollar store stash, to make a chic desk organizer.

It was a fun, easy project, that I was able to finish in one day!

The wood tray and the file box are from the thrift store, and the jars from the dollar store.

I love that the inner section of the jar lids can be removed, but the jar rings can stay, allowing the jars to be open at the top for scissors and such.

Cleaned the file box, sprayed painted it and the jar lids with my favorite gold paint.

Sanded the rough spots on the wood tray and spray painted white.

To tie the items together I added angle brackets to the corners of the tray and painted the same gold.

The set looks great on my desk. I love the way it all turned out!

Right now in my life I really feel the need to create and accomplish little things every single day.

Makes me happy!

I have a sweet little book written by Gunilla Norris, Being Home, in it she writes, “As I age, each and every day appears more and more as a gift. I want to live every one of them.”

That’s me! Every one of them!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Live!

13
Jun
2017

Creating a Recipe Binder

categories: DIY, Home Projects

Last week my dear husband ask me to make his favorite chicken recipe.

As it turned out, it took me longer to find the recipe than to make it!

My recipes are here, there, and everywhere! Enough!

It is simply crazy that at my age my recipes are not organized, so I decided to put together a recipe binder to end the chaos.

I chose some colorful binders that provide a clear front insert area for a cover page.

Making one for myself, and a couple extras as gifts.

Pinterest helped to make this a really simple and fun project with all the free printables offered by so many talented people.

I decided on these clean, classic, black and white binder printables.

I love the font used and the extra sweet comment under each category page heading. There are eleven category pages.

After I printed out the pages on white card stock paper, I inserted each one into sheet protectors and all my recipes as well.

Using sheet protectors allows recipes to be kept clean during preparation. Simply wipe off any spills or finger prints and put pages back into the binder for next time.

Click here to download your FREE recipe binder printables!

Offered by Lauren McKinsey (http://laurenmckinsey.com/).

Thank you Lauren!

Just a quick way to get organized and so very easy to put together.

Christmas might be lean this year so making a few extra binders would be a gift most folks would love to receive.

Oh, my husband’s favorite chicken recipe, Santa Fe Baked Chicken, yummy!

Grateful for all of you every single day!

15
May
2017

Note Cards For Moms

categories: Crafts, DIY, Mother's Day

Yesterday was a beautiful Mother’s Day, I was so blessed to be able to spend most of my day with my son.

My son is my special gift from God, the one thing in my crazy up and down life that I got right. He is special, a good and decent human being, and oh I love him so. Jim is so very good to me, unconditional love.

Since my mother has gone to be with the Lord, my sister plays a huge part in my life. I was thankful to be able to spend some time with her as well on this beautiful day.

Also received Mother’s Day wishes, with love, from my nieces, and to end my wonderful day, a call from my sweet brother.

Every Mother’s Day I try to reach out to friends to let them know they are appreciated, especially single moms, what an unbelievably difficult job they have!

Many times I have mentioned my lack of extra money, so I try to make simple gifts, costing very little, whenever I can.

This year I decided on note cards with a personal touch.

My cards were made from photos I have taken over the years. Photos from vacations, family gatherings, special visits, or celebrations.

The cards were so very easy to make. Simply select the photos you like, tweak if necessary, lightening them up or cropping, and print out on white card stock.

I cut them down to a 4 x 6 note card size and folded. Purchased envelopes, and finished up by tying with ribbon or twine.

The note cards were just so fun to make. Looking through all the photos I have saved over the years gave me endless ideas. A personal gift for so many occasions, for so many people in my life.

What fun around the Christmas season tied up in a bright red ribbon!

Maybe I am old-fashioned, but in this tech world we have lost something by not actually writing and sending letters and notes. Love going to the mailbox and finding a card or a note from folks in my life. Too busy, everyone is just too busy!

I love when a gift comes back, I just received a warm call from one of those single moms who received her cards, a former co-worker. She loved them!

Hope your Mother’s Day was as special as mine, filled with love.

20
Mar
2017

Simple Kitchen Message Board

categories: Flea Market Finds/Thrifting, Home Projects

Saturday was another really dreary day, no sun at all!

I need sunshine!

Decided to make my own “sunshine on a cloudy day” by working on a fun “find it, fix it” project.

A simple message board for my small kitchen.

Found this piece at a community church yard sale some time ago, broken, and missing a section, but I saw potential.

By simply adding a fresh coat of chalkboard paint to the top piece, and a new cork piece, most of the project was completed.

There were many options I could have used for the missing piece on the lower area, adding a small shelf, a wire basket, but eventually decided on just adding a smaller piece of wood, painted, with knobs, hooks, and a large wooden paper clip to hold my post it notes.

The folks at my Home Depot cut the piece of wood I needed. They will make simple straight cuts for you when you purchase wood at their stores, which is so awesome!

So very pleased with the outcome of my “find it, fix it”.

We all need places to pin things, recipes, notes, reminders, and even a sweet photo to spark a bit of joy to our hearts when noticed during our busy days.

Hope you have ways of adding your own “sunshine on a cloudy day”!

Sometimes simple ways of adding “sunshine” are the best.

Have you ever just stopped what you are doing, grabbed a notepad, and begin writing down all the things, at that moment, you have that add “sunshine” to your life.

Try it!

It works!

Love to all.

07
Jul
2015

Celebrating the 5th!

categories: 4th of July, Celebrate, DIY, Summer

We were invited to my sweet niece’s new home for the 4th. Just being with my sister and her family is always a reason to celebrate for me. They are all so dear and such an important part of my life!

On Sunday, July 5th, I decided to bring out my red, white, and blue for a small celebration with “my family”. Of course, we had another reason to celebrate, looking forward to watching our USA women’s soccer team playing in the final game later that evening.

I set a small table on our back porch with a few special colorful, holiday items.

The utensil bags were easy to put together using a cut off small brown bag and adding a band of star paper and a glitter star.

I love the red and white dotted ice cream cups which were perfect for our dessert, Greater’s chocolate chip ice cream. Greater’s is a famous ice cream shop in our Cincinnati area, and now famous across the country.

Greater’s is also a candy maker and uses the broken chocolate pieces for the “chips” in their ice cream selections. Some of the “chips” are small candy bars!

If any of you ever visit the Cincinnati area, stop for some ice cream at Greater’s. They not only offer chocolate chip, but also chocolate-chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip, and the cherry cordial chip is one of the most popular.

I brought out the beverage tub I recycled last year at this time, and tried a Martha Stewart idea, filling balloons with water and freezing, using to surround the drinks.

It worked great. They froze hard and did not break! I like the idea that you can choose any color of balloons for the occasion.

Our day was fun, peaceful, and most of all, “my family”…… me, my husband, and our son, were together for another 4th and 5th of July!

The day ended with our USA women’s soccer team winning! What joy!

Love and joy to all!

Happy summer!

16
Sep
2014

My Brother’s Birthday Card

categories: Random Thoughts

Today, September 16th, is my brother’s birthday.

We have always exchanged cards on birthdays. This year, just as it has been in previous years, I was so disappointed with the “Happy Birthday Brother” card selections.

They are all so “stuffy”, trees, streams of water, mountains, just nothing that has ever appealed to me for my brother.

I wanted something fun, with some “bling”, some color.

Finally I found a card I really liked, the front was bright, and full of cupcakes!

The only problem, the inside of the card was blank.

So, I decided to make it “personal”.

Typed and printed out my own greeting that tied the cupcakes on the front to a really sweet memory of another birthday several years ago.

I added a photo, another personal touch, of my brother, sister, and myself as children.

Used photo corners to attach both to the card.

For a little more fun, I added a “party” hat to my brother’s head using “Pic Monkey“. It really turned out so cute!

Added a bit of glitter to the confetti on the card, and an extra comment to the photo.

I really hope when I call my brother tonight, he is pleased.

This is just an idea for making cards, special, and as I said, “personal”.

When you put time into something like this, it makes the card itself a gift to the person you love.

Blessings to all, and especially to my dear sweet brother.

I love you Denny!

XO

06
Jul
2014

Clipboards to Chalkboards!

categories: Uncategorized

I have shared my ongoing project with all of you, cleaning out my garage!

So much to sort through and eliminate.

Last week I came across a box of clipboards that are leftovers from my job when I stopped working, over a year ago. As I have mentioned before, I traveled and did a lot of training with the position that I held. Clipboards were used quite often during training.

I didn’t really want to pitch them, so I came up with a very useful, simple idea that anyone can complete and have fun at the same time.

Using chalkboard paint, a sponge brush, and a detail brush, I painted the clipboards.

So now I have chalkboards!

I bought a bottle of chalkboard paint at Michael’s.

Using a coupon, the bottle at 50% off, was only $2.50. The brand is Folk Art found in the acrylic paint section.

There are many chalkboard paints on the market including chalkboard spray paint.

Using my sponge brush I simply painted each clipboard with several coats of paint, allowing time to dry between each coat, as indicated on the bottle.

Be sure to smooth out as painting, to prevent brush stokes from showing when dried.

I painted up to the clip area on each board, and then using an inexpensive detail brush I painted around the silver clip piece.

When all the boards were painted several times, and completely dry, the fun part was starting.

Decorating the chalkboards!

You can use tapes, ribbons, or most any type of embellishments.

Of course, you do not have to decorate they are good plain for most any room.

An eraser can be stored on the top of the clipboard when hanging, and chalk can be slipped in the clip area for easy access.

Don’t throw out your old clipboards, turn them into chalkboards!

Be creative and have fun with this simple, useful project.

See ya!

28
Jun
2014

Getting Ready for the 4th of July!

categories: Uncategorized

One of the overwhelming projects on my list of things to do, “someday”, is cleaning out my garage.

I really just needed to get started, so I decided to go out everyday and spend a little time sorting out what I wanted to keep and what was junk!

I came across this metal beverage container for bottled drinks that I had purchased years ago.

It was red when new, but as you can see from photo, it turned a shade of pink!

I was going to pitch it, but decided to try and paint it instead.

With the 4th of July this week I picked a navy blue spray paint.

The container had nice wood handles, so I taped them, and sprayed the tub inside and out.

Here it is…

It looks pretty good, but I decided to add an extra touch for the 4th.

I used a star punch and cut out some silver stars. Using one of my favorite craft supplies, glue dots, I attached the stars to the container, here and there. Glue dots have glue on both sides, they are only a $1.00 for a sheet of 100.

The stars can be removed without taking the paint off, so the container can be used any time not just for the 4th of July.

Love it!

It was so simple to do and the results are awesome!

I thought of another idea, that ties in with the container.

Had some stars and stripes duct tape, so I wrapped around the bottled drinks.

Now I just need to fill my “new” container with ice and drinks for my 4th celebration!

It really makes me feel good when I can recycle something that I was going to pitch in the junk pile.

I now have an original beverage container that I can use year after year.

So pleased with the way this project turned out.

I love the simple creative things we can accomplish in this life we love!

See you all next time!

27
Apr
2014

My Old Hymnal!

categories: Random Thoughts

Browsing in antique and old collectible shops is a special treat for me.

Can’t afford to buy a wonderful antique chest or table, but I get such joy finding less expensive items; an old watering can, a tin crayon box, old vintage buttons, and old books. I love old books, especially children’s books.

On one of my browsing trips I found a church hymnal, old and worn, with many pages falling out. It cost two dollars. I bought it because one of the pages that fell out was the old hymn “Jesus Loves Me”.

When my now grown, awesome son, was small I rocked him and sang this song to him. If he was sick, hurt, sad, or sometimes just tired, this song was magic to him. Many times he would look up at me and say “sing Jesus Loves Me”.

I love the memory of this song so much that I decided to take the old page and frame it!

I love the way it turned out. Using a black double mat brought out the discoloration of the page that age brings.

It is hanging on a wall that I pass many times during the day. What joy I receive from the memory it brings to me!

With Mother’s Day in two weeks, this is a gift to myself.

I thank God for letting me be a mother!

Tag: DIY Crafts

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: