Easy, Easier, Easiest Displays

I wrote this post on Monday over on Lemon Tree Creations, but I thought I would share it here too, since this is what most of my family and friends visit, and they are the ones who accuse me of being overly crafty.

Anyway, ever since I started publicly showcasing some of the things that I make on blogs, I have been hearing the following comment in some form or another, “Well, I would make stuff too, but I’m just not crafty.” I then start into a tirade logical explanation on how, a lot of the things that I make don’t involve an ounce of craftiness or artistic training, but that sometimes it just involves me literally putting a few things together. Whomever has just received my verbal lashing quickly retreats with a “Well, I don’t know…” but it seems that they are secretly thinking that I possess some secret knowledge that they don’t. Therefore, I wanted to share a few of my most recent assembling-of-goods-into-something-pretty as a reminder that sometimes a little luck in the thrift store is more useful than a little talent.

 

Example #1: Easy

I neglected to get a before picture of this because I wasn’t planning to do a tutorial on it, given that the detailed instructions would be, “Buy these 2 things. Glue them together. The end.” I found the wooden plate and glass cover for $2.50 at Goodwill, headed over to the candlesticks, found one with a similar color of wood for $.69, headed home, added some Gorilla glue to the mix, and was done. The glass was heavier than I had originally thought, and with my toddler currently on a grabbing rampage I wanted it to be a little more stable. So I bought this little round wood piece for $.40 from Jo-Annes, stained it, and then glued it to the bottom of the candlestick.

Tada! This would be the end of the story, but since I can’t leave well enough alone/wanted a little more contrast with the wood in my kitchen, I painted mine a dusty blue from a leftover paint sample.

Total time: Not including shopping, maybe 15 minutes. Craftiness: Not an ounce.

 

Example #2: Easier

What do you do when you see cute spring plates, but don’t actually need any plates? Buy a dinner and salad plate, add a candlestick, and turn them into a tiered display!

I got these plates at Walmart, and the candle stick at Goodwill. I painted the wood on the candlestick white to go with the plates a bit better, then used my Gorilla glue to glue the big plate to the bottom of the candlestick, and the little plate to the top.

Total time: 8 minutes, only because I was trying to be careful not to get the white paint onto the silver of the candlestick. Craftiness: Nada.

 

Example #3: Easiest

Go to thrift store on the day that they receive the truck, go straight to the glassware/house wares, buy darling glass containers that were previously unappreciated and vow not to make the same mistake. Bring them home and fill with goodies.

Total time: I don’t know, how quickly do you commit to your decor? I am indecisive and my displays are constantly evolving, but I promised you displays without craftiness not quick decorating! :) Craftiness: None whatsoever.

I hope these little projects have instilled a little bit of DIY confidence into you non-crafters.

 

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A Sweet Shot

Though I am certainly not opposed to nature photography, it is not usually what I photograph.  But last week this sunset was too pretty to ignore, so I became “that person,” the one shivering in my backyard, crouched over and trying to get the perfect angle of the sky, sunset and tree.  At least it worked pretty well.  I’m linking to Sweet Shot Tuesday at Life with My Three Boybarians.

This weekend will start my very first ever paid photography endeavor.  I am hoping for steady hands, friendly people and nerves of steel.  Wish me luck!

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The Buttered Popcorn Jelly Belly

If you ever get around my brother for a minute, ask him about the time that I gave him his first buttered popcorn flavored jelly belly.  It involves him driving me home from work one night, me giving him this jelly bean, him not liking it, spitting it out, asking for something else to get the taste out of his mouth, and me giving him a few more of the same.  And repeat.  It’s better when he tells it.  And it was hilarious for  me!

 

So I thought I’d see what happened when I gave Jayce one of these jelly beans.  Unfortunately it was not quite as dramatic as with my brother.  Jayce persevered.  Even though he didn’t like it, it was a jelly bean, and jelly beans would be eaten.

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Easter Morning

On Easter morning when we were little, my mom would get up before we did (or before she went to bed the night before), and hide plastic eggs around the house for us to find.  Waking up and finding them was one of our favorite traditions, maybe even more so than our actual Easter baskets.  They were each filled with goodies, some with candy, and as we got older, some with money.  It was just change at first, but there was usually 1 egg with a $5 bill in it, and that was the big one.  The hiding spots got more challenging too, and finding eggs in the really unusual spots was as much of an accomplishment as finding lots of eggs.

I was so excited that this year Jayce would be old enough to participate in a little egg hunt.  We didn’t travel for the holiday and though we missed being with our families, we were excited about the opportunity that this would present to form some traditions of our own.  The first would be the egg hunt.

The night before I took a bunch of eggs, put a single jelly bean in each one, and put them around the house.  When Jayce got up Sunday morning we were snuggling on the couch and I asked Jayce if he could see any Easter eggs in the room.  He gave a little giggle and I put him down to go grab them.  He went after the first one, picked it up, shook it, opened it, giggled again when he discovered the jelly bean and quickly popped it into his mouth.

I know these pictures aren’t great, but I was too busy enjoying watching him carefully make his way around the rooms, looking for eggs, and stopping to open each one before moving onto the next.  It was a fun way to ease us all into this tradition, because I know that before long he will be frantically running around grabbing up as many as possible as quickly as possible.  Even Chris was excited and kept trying to point more out to Jayce, as I tried to keep Chris quiet so that Jayce could discover them on his own.  I did eventually let Chris help him though.

Chris cooked up a great pancake breakfast for us before heading out to church.   We saved Easter baskets for after church and Jayce helped his dad put together this fun new toy. 

which he is still getting the hang of.

It was a perfect day, full of family time, naps, candy, cooking, sidewalk chalk, wagon rides and overall hanging out.

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Blue: The Kitchen Part 2

We painted the kitchen and it is beautiful. It’s crazy how finding just the right color can completely transform a room. It is now a perfect, airy, cool blue.

I keep just walking into the room and smiling. (If you want to see my unhappy before pictures, click here.)

I don’t even mind that it is barely decorated, having a good color is decoration enough for now.

That said, I am enjoying filling it little by little. Before, none of the “accessories” in the house looked good in that room, but now they all do. After the room was reassembled, I just went around the house picking up my favorite items, bringing them into the kitchen and smiling at how lovely they all looked in the new light. Ahhhhhhhh.

I feel like I should point out that, for the purpose of these pictures, the room has been moderately to heavily staged, and many items were removed. Jayce started running around like crazy when he woke up from his nap, and grabbing up all of the items that had been temporarily moved into the living room while I was taking these pictures. He would triumphantly bring each thing over to me, yelling excited toddler jibberish, as if he was saying “Toaster! My booster seat! Dish soap! I never get to hold this stuff!” He also just could have been excited about the new color.

Also, the color is Pelican by Olympus, which I got at Lowes.

Chelsea, now will you forgive us?

Also, I finally finished this PB knock off this weekend and posted the tutorial on Lemon Tree Creations if you’re interested. Yes, it will probably end up in the now-perfect kitchen.

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And It Was All Yellow: The Kitchen Part 1

In our old house in Cincinnati, we painted the feature wall a nice soft buttery yellow color, and I absolutely loved it.  Everything else in the kitchen was white, and at the time I didn’t know how that played into my love of the kitchen, until now.  We had a white ceiling, white floors, white appliances, and the other 3 walls were white.  We had dark brown cabinets on one of the walls, but other than that, the whole room was filled with a soft light glow, especially in the morning and evening when the light was coming in from different angles.  I always smiled as soon as I walked in that room.  So when we decided to paint this house, I took a similar approach, not taking into account any other factors in my decision other than having loved my old yellow kitchen.

And I ended up with this.  It is not actually such a bad picture, and you are more likely to look at the clutter than the wall color (please don’t though, it’s not usually as bad as this!)  If I had thought ahead, I would have taken pictures of it at the times of day when it bothered me the most, but this was more of a last minute, I’m-about-to-paint-over-this-so-I-should-take-a-before-picture.  Anyway, in this house, my kitchen is filled with beautiful maple colored cabinets and drawers.  Pretty much from the top to the bottom I have a warm orange-y brown color. 

In our dining nook, our table also has a walnut colored finish, and our sliding doors are covered by a dark brown curtain, which was specifically chosen to give us a bit of privacy, but also allow us to see the backyard through the curtain, so that we could enjoy the great scenery that we lucked into when we bought this house.

All of this brown plus the yellow wall color means that all day our kitchen is full of a warm orange glow, which I hate.  It is dark, orange, impossible to decorate, and I just hate it.  I’ve realized in this process that I just really prefer neutral and cool colors.   They are on my walls, in the decorations that I put out, on the things that I make, in my closet and even  the clothes that I buy for Chris and Jayce.  Furthermore, I have been trying unsuccessfully to decorate this room ever since we moved in, but every time that I hold something up against the walls, it just doesn’t look right with the yellow and ends up somewhere else. 

So this past weekend, when Mom came into town to visit, this was our big project.  The kitchen.

I knew what color I wanted on the walls instead. Something  that would compliment the cabinets better and bring down the orange-y yellow factor a ton: a nice cool grey blue.  We went to the wall with a few paint samples and were really surprised by results.  In the picture below, the 2 colors on the left are the exact same colors that are beside them on the white!  Don’t they look so different?  (Just say yes, and appease me, please.)  I couldn’t believe when I first painted them how periwinkle colored they looked!  A friend came by and commented, “Yep, the yellow just completely sucks the grey out of those colors.”  (That yellow paint, it does stuff like that.)  Luckily we tried the colors on white, were able to get a better idea of what the color would look like, and picked a good one.

Another picture of the grey-sucking yellow color.

The funny thing about Mom and I painting the kitchen is that last Christmas, Mom, Chelsea and I painted the kitchen this yellow color in a weekend painting extravaganza.  Chelsea wasn’t able to come to town this time, and was really annoyed that we were painting over the yellow, which she liked.  She had taken tons of time to carefully tape off all of the edges of the room and paint the annoying small spots that mom and I had put off, and was probably even more annoyed than she was letting on that we were painting over the evidence of all of her hard work.

So Chelsea, I would like to dedicate this post, the yellow post, to you.  You were not afraid to go the extra mile, and put yourself a position that someone could possibly photograph and harass you over, in order to get the yellow edges painted perfectly.

All together now, “She’s going the distance, she’s going for speed…”

Stay tuned for pictures of the new kitchen, in all of it’s loveliness…

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Easter Fun

This morning the rec center in town had a little Easter egg hunt and activities for kids, so we took Jayce on over to check it out.  They had a great little program set up, and it was all free.  We started off with a little egg-on-a-spoon race,

we then hopped down the bunny trail to the next activity,

which was guessing which egg the candy was under, and Jayce guessed right!

He then climbed through the bunny tunnels,

and landed in an Easter egg patch,

with plenty of eggs to gather,

and even his friend Apollos.

We then went on to the Easter bunny, who gave Jayce a little bunny of his own,

Jayce checked him out for a second…

and then moved in for a hug.

It was a nice little Easter weekend activity, especially since this is the first year that Jayce has been old enough to be interested in something like this.  We have been playing with eggs all afternoon, and now I’m just looking forward to tomorrow morning and a bit more Easter fun.

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