What to Do with Doilies?

Woah, it's been a crazy busy summer and fall for my face painting business, so I blame that on my absence from blogging!  However, I recently got addicted to Pinterest and have found some really fun things.  This post is all Pinterest finds!

I bought a few a couple years back from a fund raiser for an animal rescue place...really beautiful hand made doilies for just $1 each.  Being a crocheter, I can really appreciate the work that goes into them. But, people just don't put them around their house much anymore.  So, what to do to bring 'em out of the attic and into the 21st century?  Here are some fun ideas!

Check out this gorgeous doily lamp!

This cute baby mobile uses paper doilies, although you could put some fabric stiffener in real doilies and make a better lasting one.

Another idea for paper doilies, unless you want to dye your real ones...but a fun idea for the fall season!

These luminaries are really pretty, and you can re-use some mason jars at the same time!

I always find these embroidery hoops at thrift stores...here's a great idea to pair them with doilies for some pretty wall art!

I think this table runner is a great way to showcase special doilies that may have been passed down or hand made from your grandparents or great grandparents!

Drop-Side Cribs: Immobilize? Repurpose? Recycle?

I held a garage sale last week, and two days before our sale, it was declared officially illegal to re-sell or even donate a drop-sided crib.  Of course, this being our "done having babies" sale, I had a nice drop-side crib all ready to sell.  It now leans against the side of our garage, awaiting it's fate.  Let's just say I'm glad I only paid $30 for it at a garage sale, so I'm not out much cash.

If you have a drop-sided crib that you'd like to keep using, you can get an immobilizer kit that does just that...immobilizes the sides, making it safe to keep using.  For cribs manufactured from 2000-2009, many manufacturers are offering these kits for free.  If your crib manufacturer is not on the list, you can purchase one online as well for $10.

However, if you're like me and you're done having babies (unless God has other plans), and can't sell your crib or donate it, what do you do with it? 

The first thoughts that came to my mind were to make some kind of giant tomato cage or trellis for vines. My husband's idea was to chop it to bits and roast marshmallows over it in one of our outdoor fire pits. My neighbor suggested I see if a local antique shop would like to use it to display antique dolls in.

I did a little web surfing and came across this great post at "Easy Frugal Living" full of ideas to repurpose old cribs into useful items like benches, photo display boards, and even wall art...

"Vintage No. 35" has a great idea to use the springs as a jewelry display stand:

"Upcycle" also posted many great ideas, including a really cool craft station, a cart, a work bench, and a hutch to name just a few...

You can Google "repurpose crib" and find many other great ideas out there, but these are the first few that caught my eye.  I'd love to hear your ideas if you can think of anything else...we really don't have room for our big, white, drop-side crib in our house but if I can find some cool way to re-use it before my hubby takes his chainsaw to it, it would make a fun tutorial post!!  ;-)

Recycled Planter Roundup!

What's greener than upcycling something? Why, planting something green IN that something, of course!!

It's that time of year when plants are springing up all over the place.  Well, we're lagging behind a bit here in MN after a winter of record breaking snowfall, but that makes us appreciate the greener things in life all the more. 

Since moving into our new home, which is landscaped with beautiful perennials everywhere I look, I have LOVED watching our new yard reveal itself.  I'm also excited to plant some stuff, now that our yard isn't all shade. With so much landscaping already done though, it's hard to find places to plant things. So, I have been inspiring myself with some fun recycled planter ideas online, as a way that I can still plant things elsewhere...on the deck, the patio, along the sidewalk, etc.  Here are a few fun recycled planter ideas that caught my eye! 

Check out this cool recycled barrel planter over at Design Sponge. Makes me wish I had a barrel to recycle!

Here's a cool little urban garden in London, where they've turned old 55 gallon drums and plywood into planters with built in seating.

Even old tires can be turned into pretty cool giant planters.

This recycled chandelier is just WAY too cool.  That's it...I'm putting old chandeliers on my garage sale and thrift store shopping list!!

How about an old book?  This is super cool.  I'm thinking, if you used a book about gardening, all the better.  I wonder if you couldn't stack several of these to make a larger "pot."  This would be such a neat gift for a teacher, or a housewarming gift for a book lover.

And, of course, I have to end with a link back to one of my old posts where I turned a bbq grill into a planter!

Happy [creative] planting! :-)

Recycled Paper Garland: A Great Project for the Kids!

We have this sweet lady across the street who saves fliers and various pieces of scrap paper for my boys to color on.  The other day we were visiting in our cul-de-sac and she ran back in the house to bring me a stack of colorful fliers.  So, since it's raining and we're stuck inside, today I thought we'd utilize this colorful paper and make a project...paper garland!  This is a great project to recycle scrap paper including junk mail!

Supplies needed:

- Paper (colored and/or white)

- Scissors

- String or yarn

- Toothpick or skewer and some tape (or a blunt plastic tapestry needle that's safe for kids)

- Glue

- Crayons, Markers, etc

- Hole punch

- Optional extras: paper edger scissors, paper crimper, paper punch, glitter, stickers, etc...

Our stack of paper from our neighbor.  (It's all blank on one side)

So, basically we made various kinds of beads out of paper to string on our piece of yarn...

 This project is great for short little attention spans because there are many different things to do...color, cut, glue, punch, string, etc.  I started by having Sammy fill the white pages with colors. While he did that I got the string and "needle" ready...

 

I swear I use these bamboo skewers for craft projects more often than for cooking.  I cut one in half and used some masking tape to secure one end of yarn to it, and had a nice "needle" that was easy for kids to use.  On the other end I tied a bread bag tab just to keep the beads from sliding off.

Once I got that ready Sammy had a colorful piece of paper to turn into tube-shaped beads...

 

I cut it into a couple strips.

...then rolled them up the long way and glued it into a long tube.

 

 Hold the tube with the seam against the table for a few seconds for the glue to grab hold and dry a bit.

 

I did this with pieces of the colored paper too. Some of them I let the writing show to add a little graphical interest...others I rolled so the blank side showed.

Now have some fun looking through the tubes or pretending they are walrus tusks or giant straws...

 

 Next we get to play with SCISSORS!  Cut the tubes up into beads!

 ...meanwhile, Toby is having a blast tearing up my kitchen.  This is one of his favorite activities.  But, since he's still at the crayon eating stage, I let him trash the place explore while we do projects. 

 I'm not sure where you even get these things, because I found them at a garage sale, but Sammy had a blast rolling strips of paper through this paper crimping tool.  We then used the crimped paper in some of our other "beads."

Another type of bead we made was just a strip of paper folded back and fourth in a zig-zag...

 ...Then we used a hole punch to go through the whole thing. You can also easily make flat beads by cutting different shapes and punching holes in them.  We did circles, squares, triangles, and of course, fish.

Here are some of our beads. It might be helpful to you to put them in two piles...the 3-dimensional ones and the flat ones. (an opportunity for your child to learn how to sort things)  This will help with threading them, because it works best to alternate flat ones and 3-D ones.  (thus preventing smaller tubes from slipping inside the larger ones) Then you can tell your child to alternate between the two piles.

 A little tip, if you're making fish, you can easily make mouths with a hole punch only half way on the paper. ;-) Depending on your child's level of patience and attention span, they could even decorate/color each fish.  (Milk this sitting-down-being-busy thing for all you can!)

 Now you can really keep your kiddo's fingers busy with threading their beads on the string!  Sammy didn't last for all of that part so Mommy finished it up.  But I figure, hey, if I can get him to sit and work on something creative with me for even a few minutes every day, I'm doing my job!

 Don't be afraid to let your kid's creativity take over and side track from the project.  Their little heads are full of great ideas!! Sammy picked up one of his little "tube" beads and said "We can make it into a tiny little cup!"

 ...to which I replied, "That's a GREAT idea!  I'll make a handle!"  And, we made a tiny little cup.  Well, proportionally it looks more like a pitcher, but he got a kick out of it.

 

 Sipping some pretend water from our teeny tiny little cup!  Sammy had another great idea too.  When we strung a white tube between two flat squares he said, "Momma! It's a paper s'mores! Let's make paper s'mores!"  (And of course, we DID, complete with a paper fire pit to roast over, but I'll save that one for another post!)

So you see, a little side-tracking is great for the imagination! Now, back to the project at hand...

 Concentrating on stringing the beads. I think the long length of the bamboo skewer as opposed to just the end of the string made it easier to feed the string through the beads.

 We got quite a string going!

 Sammy showing off his awesome paper garland!  If you don't have the patience to make a long string, you could also do these as little vertical dangling decorations too, much like the hearts we made on Valentine's day.

 So much fun!  I hung it on the underside of our fireplace mantle, where it currently waits for Daddy to come home to see!

 There are an infinite amount of things you can do with paper. This is one project that ANYONE can do.  Feel free to go nuts on your paper decorating too...glitter them up if you want!  Heck, you can even throw in some cheerio's or dry pasta in there.  Anything with a hole in it goes. Got little girls? Make it into a necklace!

This project can so easily be adapted to go along with any holiday theme!  With Memorial day coming up, try making this with red, white and blue paper and cut some star shapes.  You'll have some one-of-a-kind decorations for your Memorial day bbq and a great conversation piece!  Put some supplies out on a little table if you have kids coming over and they can make their own to take home!

Enjoy those rainy days....Happy paper recycling! :-)

Earth Day Discount! 20% OFF Junk Mail Gems this weekend!

Happy Earth Day!! 

In honor of Earth Day this year, I am offering all of my loyal readers 20% off your Junk Mail Gems order! Just enter the coupon code "EARTH2011" at checkout! 

I just recently switched my entire site over from Paypal to Google Payments, and one main reason was so that I would have this ability to offer coupon codes and promotions.  So, this is my first crack at a coupon code.  Hopefully it works...if not, please let me know! ;-)  There are NO minimum orders required, and this coupon is good all weekend, NOW through Easter, April 24, 2011! (One coupon use per customer) Use it to get a jump on your Mother's Day shopping, or just treat yourself for being the earth friendly bargain hunter you are!

And since I don't have anything else amazing to share, I'm going to mooch off of some other bloggers who were more on-the-ball this Earth Day and prepared more fun material for you...

ReadyMade posted a link to a great tutorial for making your own plantable paper!  Very cool.

Hop on over to Inhabitots for 5 fun ways to celebrate Earth Day with your kids!

However you choose to celebrate, have fun! :-)

My Junk Mail Gems Inspired Bathroom!

We recently moved to a new house, which for me means that I get to start all over with painting and decorating!  That sounds like a sarcastic remark, but I really LOVE making over rooms.  Sometimes over and over.  Anyway, when the time came that I could start painting, my first target was the downstairs bathroom, which was all decked out in pink, purple, blue and yellow sponge painting...

...which I'm sure was perfectly lovely for the previous owner, but just didn't quite scream "me."  Since this tiny bathroom is right next door to my studio where all of Junk Mail Gems happens, I thought I'd do a Junk Mail Gems inspired theme.

While moving into my new studio I came across my old Danny O calendar that I couldn't bring myself to toss because the images are so fun.  I thought the car and camper went well together so I tore them out, trimmed them, and put them in a pair of Ikea frames I had picked up at a garage sale last summer for $0.50 cents each...

I decided to go with neutral walls (very off character for me, I know!), but I wanted the colorful accessories to pop.  I did use a little bit of color on the base of the cabinet, on the light fixture and a wood board that had a bunch of towel hooks on it.  It's all stuff that we plan to remove someday and totally remodel, but until then, a little paint made it all more bearable for me!

I painted the wood cabinet, and added a strip of decoupaged junk mail around the sink for a little color.  I simply cut a couple rectangles of cardboard from an old box, decoupaged them, and then stuck 'em on the face of the cabinet.  I think it turned out pretty cool!  It's still sortof temporary, but then again the whole bathroom is according to my husband, so I figured anything goes in here...

I broke out the Mod Podge once again to decoupage colorful junk mail over the old switch plate covers.

I also picked up an updated pair of brushed nickel knobs for the wall cabinet (which I plan to paint too in the near future), and a towel ring since there was no place for a hand towel.  The mirror I replaced with a much larger one I had found at Goodwill for $14 back when I was staging our old house for sale.

Yeah, that's one tight little corner to do your business in.  It's fine for me and a little claustrophobic for my hubby, but it gets the job done.  An even slightly large person would likely get stuck in here, which is one reason we plan to gut the thing eventually! The bottom half of the walls under the chair rail had some kind of wall covering that didn't lend itself well to painting, so I haven't touched it...yet.

So, there you have it...a room inspired by junk mail recycling!!  It's still a work in progress, and I've got my eye on a recycled flip flop floor mat that I'd love to put in here someday...for now it resides safely in my Amazon wish list!  :-)