Thrift Gift Facelift Upcycled Jewelry Box

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Have I got a fun treat for you today! Joanna and I are teaming up to bring you a new challenge! Thrift Gift Facelift! Here’s the deal.

1. Partner up.
2. Hit up the thrift store in search for an item to gift to your partner. Your partner will do the same.
3. Give the item a facelift.
4. Post your reveals on reveal day!

So, welcome to the first Thrift Gift Facelift! This month we’ll show off our facelift projects and in the future we invite you to play along.

Let’s get started. Joanna found this little cutie for me!

Perfect for a mom of two little girls right? And for the bargain price of $5.99.

Good bones. In good shape. A little dirty.

Perfect for a Pinterest Challenge!!! Sherry from Young House Love and her crew issued a Pinterest Challenge and I’m always up for a challenge! Wait, is it cheating to combine two challenges? Nah, as half of the Thrift Gift Facelift team I say no.

Of course I thought this little jewelry box needed some paint. And then I stumbled across these gorgeous little jewelry boxes on Happy Day Vintage and I realized it didn’t just need paint. It needed flair! I was ready to upcycle my jewelry box!!!

First things first. Primer and an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.

And check out this beauty now!

Ain’t she cute?

Oh, what’s that? A little surprise up top?

A little stencil action going on there! Though considering this lives on the new Expedit in the playroom and Cupcake is just over 3 feet tall she can’t really see the cute little heart. Yet. She’ll get taller.

Wanna see the inside?

Peek-a-boo!

I gave the inside a good cleaning. I took the necklace hook off to paint. Man was that tricky. And then post painting I had to put it back on. Man was that tricky. But it was the only way to get in there to paint. I opted not to paint the hook, though, as it was plastic, I couldn’t unassemble it and I thought painting it without unassembling would “glue” it in place so it wouldn’t spin any more.

But it’s perfect for holding little girls’ necklaces. And the drawers are perfect for little bracelets.

Speaking of drawers, they got the stencil treatment, too. It was a little tricky working around the knobs, but momma figured it out.

I would have liked to give the knobs a bit more of an upgrade, but they were permanently attached, so I had to work with what I had, so they got some contrasting white paint. And the jewelry box was done!

Cupcake loves her new upcycled jewelry box! She has never played with her jewelry as much as she has the last few days since the jewelry box has taken it’s place in the playroom.

I love that it goes with the color scheme I have planned for the room. Want to know the colors? Of course you do.

Simply Aqua and Hint of Cherry, both by Valspar, but color matched with Glidden since I happened to be at Home Depot returning something else, had the color swatches in my purse, and had just finished painting the room gray and was ready to bring some color in!

OK, now I’m rambling. So, what do you think? If you were an almost 3 year old girl would you be playing dress up more often, too?

And what do you think of the Thrift Gift Facelift challenge? Are you in?

Don’t forget to head over to Joanna’s blog Midwestern Bite and see her Facelift project, too!

Linking Up!

Felt Flower Spring Wreath

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

It was about time I switched out the Valentine’s Day wreath for something a little more springy! I got on my Snuggie, put in a movie and cozied up with some felt to make flowers for my new spring wreath.

Keeping it real, people. This is how I craft (sometimes).

To make a flower start with a strip of felt. I didn’t measure my felt I just cut different widths for different sizes (wider for big flowers, narrower for small flowers).

Fold your strip in half long ways and pin together. Snip along the fold all the way down the felt strip.

Thread your needle and run it through the length of your strip. The length of your strip also depends on how big a flower you want.

Pull your thread to gather up your flower.

Stitch the ends together.

Cut a circle of felt to create a backing. Glue it in place.

If you want to layer flowers, glue a smaller flower onto the larger one. Lastly stitch a button to the center of the flower. Repeat, repeat, repeat until you have enough flowers to decorate your wreath.

I picked up this grapevine wreath on sale at Joann’s and knew it would be the perfect background for some colorful felt flowers. Use a hot glue gun to attach the flowers to the wreath. Hang and enjoy.

I love the bright colors of the flowers.

They make me want to wear capri pants and short sleeved shirts.

And pretend it doesn’t look like this outside.

p.s. Be sure to come back next THURSDAY to link up with Kids’ Reads.

Check out the Link Parties page to see where this post may have been linked up!

Fun, Food or Fitness – A Pinterest Challenge

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Sherry from Young House Love has teamed up with Katie from Bower Power to issue a Pinterest Challenge. It is to help you stop pinning and start doing. I’m going to sound a little conceded here and say I’m pretty good at executing a good number of things I pin. Especially dinner recipes. But I also get busy with crafting. I was out of town over the weekend so my time was limited, but I accepted the challenge and this is what I did.

First I figured I’d whip something up on the sewing machine. I love me a good sewing project. I pinned this Latchy Catchy forever ago (51 weeks ago to be exact) and thought heck, I could whip one of those up with scrap fabric I have on hand! I measured my door, made a plan, ignored the fact that I was supposed to be sewing a birthday present (floor cushion), and set to work. I should have just done was I was supposed to be doing (the floor cushion).

It was too big. There was too much slack. So I attempted another version. I made it a little shorter and made the elastic a lot shorter. I made the elastic too short. I couldn’t get it around the door knob. So I scrapped the project and whipped up the floor cushion that needed to get done (which turned out great and the birthday girl was pleased!).

So, back to the drawing board. I’ve been pinning a bunch of exercise stuff. Mostly having to do with how to get rid of my jiggly I’ve had two babies belly, but doing one of those wouldn’t make for a fun post, so I decided to skip that.

I did what I know how to do best and I got out the baking supplies.

I had two unopened bags of brown sugar and 6 bags of chocolate chips in there! I’ve not been baking nearly enough!

And then I decided on a recipe that had no chocolate in it. Something I only pinned 5 days ago. It was fresh in my mind and I couldn’t stop thinking about it! Pioneer Woman’s Strawberry Oatmeal Bars. I had a brand new jar of peach preserves handy so my oatmeal bars are peach flavored instead. PW knows her stuff so I knew these would be good and I needed good after my flop.

The recipe seemed simple and I had all the ingredients on hand, though I don’t have a pastry cutter. I used a fork.

And while doing so I was totally regretting not picking up a dough blender at Home Goods last week. I had it in my cart, but I put it back. I thought it was a unitasker. And Alton Brown says don’t buy unitaskers. It would have come in handy when I made dumplings last week. And it would have come in handy when I whipped up these oatmeal bars, too. Instead I spent 10 minutes smashing to end up with this.

There’s still a lot of butter chunks after all that work. Anyone want to buy me a dough blender?

Anywho, the bars came out great!

I love oatmeal, so these are right up my alley. Cupcake liked them and asked for seconds. Hubby, who typically doesn’t like oatmeal, even liked them. Guess what I’m having for breakfast for the next few days?

OK, Pinterest challenge complete. I’m off to install some shelves in the bathroom. And to make something with some of that chocolate I’ve been hoarding.

What have you pinned and made lately?

Magnetic Sensory Bottle

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

I’m on a roll here, people!!! Toddler activity time again. This time it’s a magnetic sensory bottle.

Gather up your materials.

You’ll need an empty, clean 2 liter bottle, pipecleaners, a STRONG magnet, a dowel rod and a glue gun.

Cut your dowel rod to a length comfortable for a toddler’s hand. I cut mine about 4 inches long.

Cut some pipecleaners into small pieces. I cut each one into about 6 pieces. I used about 5 pipecleaners.

Glue the magnet to the end of the dowel rod. Again, I stress, you need a strong magnet. The cheap ones from the craft store will work, but not very well. Try the office supply store.

Put your pipecleaners in the bottle, glue the lid on and let your toddler get to work!

It’s a great sensory and motor skill activity. Cupcake likes her sensory bottle. Though she seems to prefer just to shake the bottle instead of try to pull the pipecleaners up with the magnet, but that’s a toddler for you!

This post may be linked up with these parties.

Make Your Own Slime!

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Just in case you didn’t find anything that was up your alley in my Indoor Activities for Toddlers post I have another idea for you. Make your own slime! I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, but I kept forgetting to pick up some glue. Yesterday we swung by Target (for the third time this week) and I grabbed two bottles of the cheapest glue they had. And today we made slime!!

All you need is glue, Borax and some water. A cute and inquisitive 2 year old helps, too.

Have your handy helper pour the glue into a bowl.

Mix 1/2 cup water and food coloring in with your glue and stir, stir, stir.

In a separate bowl add one teaspoon Borax and 1 cup water (I did the Borax measuring since I didn’t want Cupcake to inhale the powder).

Stir, stir, stir again.

Pour your glue mixture into the Borax mixture.

The mixture will solidify on contact! (Science is cool!!!!!)

You can start pulling the slime out of the bowl.

Or let your little helper do it! (There will be leftover water in the bowl and that’s OK.)

Squish!!! The slime will be quite watery at first, but as you play it will thicken up. (Feel free to mop up some of the water on the table, but don’t touch your towel to the slime or it will stick.)

Bathtub toys are great for playing in slime!!! Oh, no! The crocodile is stuck in the gooey goo!!!

And baskets with holes (from the dollar store) are fun, too!

Slime will keep those kiddos busy for hours! (or at least long enough for you to edit photos and type up a blog post!)

When you’re done playing for the day store the slime in a plastic bag in the fridge. Also, might I suggest putting a smock on your toddler since the slime does stick to clothes, though it will wash out.

Slime

Combine in a small bowl 4 oz glue + 1/2 cup water + liquid food coloring

Combine in a small bowl 1 cup water + 1 tsp Borax

Combine the two bowls and play!!

Have some slimy fun on this icy day!!!

Linking up with:

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

We had our Valentine’s Day playdate yesterday since one of our friends has preschool on Thursdays. 5 mommas, 5 almost 3 year olds, and 5 getting mobile babies is getting crazy in my living room/kitchen! We had some delicious food including Chocolate Dipped Rice Krispie Treats, vegetarian chili (was soooo good I asked for the recipe), apple muffins, peanut butter bites, sugar cookies, chips and salsa, carrots and hummus, mmmmm……I ate too much!

The girls did a craft project. We made Love Bugs out of toilet paper rolls.

They loved the glue sticks! And Cupcake loved jamming foam hearts into my punch (and one of them will not come out!).

Messy face was pretty pleased with how her love bug turned out. And I love hearing her try to say googly eyes.

This ornery one is struggling with sleep since she learned how to roll over. She was so tired at the playdate. I got her to sleep, but it only lasted 10 minutes. The rest of the day was catnaps. She’s darn cute, though.

Playdates wear me out! Apparently they don’t wear Cupcake out any more. I think she’s done with the nap. I’m going to miss that nap from her, though she’ll still have quiet time in her room for an hour every afternoon.

She wanted to play with the craft supplies a little more, so she made a Valentine’s Day card for daddy. The plan was to stick it in his carry on bag since he had to head out of town for the day, but as soon as he came home from work Cupcake told him she made a special project for him. So she gave it to him.

Since it’s just me and the girls for Valentine’s Day today we’re going to play and read and snuggle and eat leftover pizza for lunch. We’re going to go to Qdoba for dinner to take advantage of their BOGO with a kiss deal (starting to become a tradition). And after the girls go to bed I will continue on my quest to ready this house for an influx of family this weekend!!

I hope you have a great Valentine’s Day with your loves!

Do you have any Valentine’s Day plans or traditions?

Valentine FAIL

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

It’s been a heck of a week already. I had this great idea for a reusable love note, but it worked much better in my head than executed. I’ll show you anyway.

I started with a piece of felt and I cut it in half on the long side.

I took some embroidery floss and split it. I like working with 3 strands.

Using some disappearing ink I drew out lines on my felt to look like a piece of notebook paper.

And I started stitching.

My lines were about one inch apart.

I cut out some hearts from purple felt and stitched them on using a blanket stitch.

I wrote out the word love and stitched in the bottom corner.

I got my disappearing ink back out and wrote a little note to Cupcake.

It didn’t show up very well. Using the markers on felt is not easy. Turns out it doesn’t disappear either.

It was such a cute idea in my head.

If I had the patience to do it again I would do all my stitching on some cotton fabric, then adhere the cotton piece to a larger piece of felt. The disappearing ink markers write better on cotton. And they actually disappear from cotton after a day or two (or with water).

At least I had some Conversation Hearts to munch on.

Multicolor Crayons

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Cupcake and I did a little project. She loves projects! You just tell her we’re going to work on a project and she’ll drop whatever she’s doing to work on it. Even if she doesn’t know what it is! She liked this project, though. We made multicolor crayons out of her old broken crayons.

She loved that I let her tear the paper off the crayons. I even gave her permission to break the crayons, but since they were mostly small already she needed a little help with that.

She loved filling the silicone mold with the broken crayons. We used a heart shaped ice cube mold from IKEA that we had laying around. She might have filled some hearts too full while not filling the others enough so momma did have to even them out a bit.

She was so proud of herself. I think she might have been happy just to keep rearranging the crayons in the mold, but alas the project had to go on! I set the mold on a baking sheet and popped it into the oven at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. In the meantime……

Cupcake and I had a birthday party. See, she’s wearing a party hat. And by party hat I mean silicone muffin cup. And being the nice girl she is she gave me 3 pieces of cake, while only having 1 herself.

She also invited Mortimer Moose to the party. I had to share my cake.

Time’s up!

Melty goodness! Oh, wait, those are crayons, not food. They’re pretty, though! Now they just need to sit and harden back up.

We popped them out of the mold and Cupcake went to town coloring! This was a quick, fun, toddler friendly project. And a great way to use all those old crayons. I think we’ll package them up and pass them out to her friends for Valentine’s Day!!

Linking up with:

Felt Conversation Hearts Wreath

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Now that Epiphany has passed and all the Christmas decorations have been put away my front door was naked. I guess it’s time for a Valentine’s wreath! I decided on a Conversation Hearts theme using felt and the wreath leftover from Cupcake’s birthday party. I dug out my Big Shot and my Hearts Collection Framelets. And I found some felt in pinks and purples and did some cutting.

Aren’t they cute? They’d be cuter if they weren’t plain, though, so I found some coordinating colors of embroidery floss.

I free handed my embroidery, only because my disappearing ink pen is dead. I laid out my hearts on the wreath how I wanted them, plugged in the glue gun, made another craft project for another blog post while it warmed up, then glued the hearts in place. I added a ribbon for hanging and……

Hubby noticed it when he came home. He appreciated the compliment upon his arrival.

I meant that one for Cupcake, though. It is her favorite phrase these days. Well that and “That’s so silly.” This one was intended for him.

Cute, right? You can quickly whip up a Conversation Hearts Wreath during a nap time and still have time to watch an episode of Dexter or Once Upon a Time or Revenge or whatever show on Netflix floats your boat. Better yet do them both at the same time!

I’d love to see your Conversation Hearts Wreath when you’re done with it!

Linking up with: Tidy Mom, Tatertots & Jello, I Heart Nap Time, Chef in Training

Christmas Tree Cones

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Heather Hawkins

I interrupt your cookie week to bring you a fun, food related activity to do with your tot. It’s messy, it’s colorful, and it’s edible. Sounds like a good time, right? Now, I don’t know much about making gingerbread houses. I think you can buy kits, right? Well, we don’t have a gingerbread house kit, but we wanted to have some gingerbread house like fun. What we did have was a can of frosting that was on clearance for $0.75 because it was “fall” frosting (vanilla with a packet of brown and orange sprinkles). So I picked up some ice cream cones and some spice drops so we could have some fun making Christmas tree cones.

Someone was very excited to play with an ice cream cone. So much so that she practically broke it in excitement while I was preparing our decorations.

I scrounged around the house for some sprinkles and food coloring, so we had two colors of frosting to work with. We also had the spice drops that I picked up at the grocery.

She got to work spreading on the frosting.

Look at that concentration! This is serious business people!!

This is when things really started to get fun! Sprinkles! Or as Cupcake calls them, sparkles! I think she would’ve been happy just playing with the sprinkles the whole time. She just kept adding more and more and more….

She couldn’t get the spice drops to stick. A combination of not enough frosting and their weight. She decided to eat them instead.

It was all fun and games until she ate a red one, though. Red = cinnamon = hot = crying.

That was the last red one she ate.

The finished product! I think it turned out beautiful! I might be biased, though. She was pretty happy with it.

Momma made one, too. Cupcake was impressed.

Now what? We taste them of course!!!

They taste as good as they look!*

*OK, maybe they don’t taste all that good. Way too sugary!!!

We definitely had fun, though. Cupcake loves when we can turn on some Toddler Radio on Pandora and have big girl time while Pumpkin is napping. I suppose we should’ve listened to Christmas music…………….

What kind of Christmas fun are you having? Did you make a gingerbread house this year?

Linking up: TidyMom