Foam Shape Match

I coordinated a Toddler Busy Bag Swap with some moms and this is the project I took on. I was inspired by looking here, here, and here. I took a package of foam sheets and then used a Sharpie to make grids. I then found 2 sets of each shape. One set I glued down (with foam glue) onto the sheets and the other set I placed into a jewelry bag. I tried to make the sheets different levels of difficulty since we have a pretty wide range of kids that are the recipients of the busy bags.

Exploding album interior

I made this exploding album for my niece's baptism. I received one of these from Gail for my daughter's birthday. There are simple steps to making this album which can be themed any way you choose.

Easter Fun

I used my Silhouette to cut out the baskets and then I pieced them together. (Thanks for the tip on these Amy!) Vicki made felt colored eggs to use as a matching game.

Exploding Album

I made this exploding album for March. I'm giving it as a gift in April. I will post pictures of the inside after the gift-giving is done. Stay tuned...

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Kitchen Cabinet Makeover

So this month I decided to tackle our kitchen cabinets.  We have 70's style cabinets in our house and while someday we'd love to replace them with custom wood cabinets, we just didn't want to spend the money at this point.  So I went to Lowe's and purchased over 200 feet of molding, primer, paint, nail gun nails, and new hardware.  Scott gave me a quick lesson on using the chop saw and you can see the "final" results below.  Unfortunately, it took me about 4 coats of paint before I found a color scheme I liked (don't worry, I had to redo the entire thing only once, while the middle 2 attempts were only on 1 door).  And I still have lots of work to do on them, so not sure if I can officially count this one for March :).  Still have to apply a Polycrylic coat over everything, rehang the doors that were/are on there crooked, plus paint the interiors, and attach a few more knobs in some problem areas.

And then someday there'll be Part 2 - the countertop....

Original cupboards - left

New look - left

Original cupboards - right

New look - right

Dining Room Wall Art

At the end of February, my in-laws came down and helped paint my dining room yellow.  For March, I've been working on new stuff to go with the new look.  Here's what I came up with....

I put up an art gallery between our living room and dining room.  The boards are just plain 2x4's cut to 3 feet long.  The edges are routed so that they aren't sharp.  The boards are painted with magnetic paint and topped off with black spray paint.  I bought OXO colored magnets to add a little fun for the boys.  (Perhaps I should have made some of Allison's magnets from January!)  I also used my Silhouette to cut out the wall vinyl in Georgia font to go above.  FYI - I had this up for awhile in a different location, but realized that the wind would take everything off the wall.  If you are planning on doing this with magnetic paint, just make sure your placement isn't in a wind tunnel when your house is all opened up!  I got this idea from Gail's Masterpiece area and from Pinterest.

On the other wall, I placed this sign I got last fall, but wasn't sure where to put it.  I was afraid to place other pictures around it because it might get a little too busy.  Instead, I bought two canvases that are 16 x 20.  I painted them white, and the one on the left I painted the red strip.  I used my Silhouette to cut out all of the dates and family rules.  I put them on the canvas and then painted over everything in black.  Once it was dry, I removed all of the vinyl numbers and words.  I then sprayed everything with a clear acrylic spray paint.  The dates on the left are our birthdays and anniversary.  The words on the right is a subway art of some of our family rules.  I found these ideas on a Silhouette group on Facebook.

Wedding Gift

It's wedding season!  Allison made this with a few girlfriends to give as a wedding gift in April.  She bought a document frame and used a Cricut to cut out the words and shapes from scrapbook paper.  Next she used a glue roller to stick everything down.  The quote is "A house is made of walls and beams, a home is made of love and dreams."