Industrial Sconce Light Makeover At the moment I’m helping Mum organise and re-design the little nook (parent’s retreat) off her and Dad’s master bedroom. Whilst the complete room reveal is still a whiles away I wanted to share the finished upgrade of the wall sconces. If you’ve read this blog more than once then you’d probably know I like the creative challenge of making the most of what’s already there, so rather than replace the lights completely (which, let’s face it, could probably have been done relatively cheaply and easily) I decided to flex some inventive muscle and see what I could come up with. (If you’re in the US then there are products like this everywhere – just Google ‘lamp cage’ or ‘lamp guard’ - though here down-under they are elusive so I was pretty pleased with finding them – even if $16.90 is a bit pricey if you ask me). “Hmmm, they could maybe work”, I thought to myself, and after checking some dimensions I ordered my cages. (I bought mine from my local Bristol paint specialty store.
Cloud Lights (Tutorial in comments) Tot Treasures: SLIME Don't you LOVE it when your little one is over the moon about an activity you shared together?! I do!! This morning we made RAINBOW SLIME and Biscuit was beside herself with excitement. There are a few ways to make slime, however I found this recipe works best ~ 1 1/2 cups of CLEAR glue and 1 1/2 cups of liquid starch. You mix it all together, separate the slime into a few small bowls and add food coloring to each bowl. You only need a few drops of food coloring!!! Making her slime All ready to go! "Stretchy" "Eeeeeew." "I squish it!" Deep in thought.... By the end there was just one big ball of slime. She played with this stuff for thirty minutes ~ uninterrupted. *High-fiving myself* Happy Playing & Exploring!!
Custom Color Chalkboard Paint - Martha Stewart Organizing Crafts Thanks to paint that dries into a chalkboard finish, your board can be whatever size you desire and placed wherever you like. Store-bought formulas come in traditional green and black. But you can also follow our recipe to mix your own batch in any shade. Cleverly applied chalkboard paint means new places to track appointments, keep lists, and leave messages. Or simply use the surface to draw or doodle, which will appeal to kids and the kid in everyone. Tip: Start with flat-finish latex paint in any shade. Wall Calendar A home office is the ideal spot for a family planner. Mudroom Mural The bottom half of a mudroom wall is just the right height for pint-size Picassos -- when coated with store-bought green chalkboard paint. Message Center Write-on paint needn't be applied only to walls. Pantry Reminder Covered with chalkboard paint, a pantry door serves as the perfect place to keep a running shopping list.
Convert a Music Tripod into a Lamp Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact I get to call Australia home, though a word of warning to anyone thinking of moving here (particularly if you’re a home DIY-aholic accustomed to a seemingly endless array of affordable and easily attainable supplies). Sure, we might have lovely weather (most of the time), beautiful beaches (almost exclusively) and kangaroos frolicking about (nearly everywhere) though you can pretty much kiss good-bye to affordable and easily obtainable tinted wax sealers, oil-rubbed bronze spray paint and Hershey’s Bars (whatever they are) amongst many other wonderful things :-( So why the rant? Well, I’ve seen a tonne of DIY lamp kits readily available from a heap of international sources though do you think I could find any here in Oz? Course not, though never fear, there’s always a longer, frustrating, more expensive way around these things. Anyways, enough venting and on with the actual project. Anyhoo, you will need…. Something to form your lamp base. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Made this lamp for my buddy on his birthday How To Mix Chalkboard Paint in Any Color We love using chalkboards as backdrops for displays and parties (like this one here!). So we were super excited to learn that you can create your own custom colors-and it's really easy! We first learned how from Martha Stewart whose tutorial you can read here. She recommends that you use latex paint, but we tried it out with acrylic paints with much success. Supplies: 1/2 cup acrylic paint (choose any color you like, or mix colors together to make the perfect shade!) 1. 2. Once your chalkboard has fully dried be sure to slate the surface before using it for the first time. Have fun creating any color combination you like!!
Grow your own sweet potatoes :: Outlaw Garden Have I told you yet about my love affair with sweet potatoes? Have I explained how they are the ideal plant for a front yard vegetable garden; the perfect combination of beauty and ease and taste? Have I mentioned their attractive foliage and their purple flowers? Oh. Yeah. I did. Ok, then. [Update: There's more!! Here, in northern Virginia (USDA Zone 7a), we can plant our regular potatoes in March. If we don’t plant the sweets until June, why am I writing about them in April? [Note: You can skip this whole thing, and just order sweet potato slips from a quality nursery or seed company. To make new sweet potatoes, we start with an old sweet potato. [Don't think organic makes a difference here? Ok. Next, place each section of sweet potato into a container with water. Set the container near a window, and you’re done. After four to six weeks, you should have a nice growth of little baby sweet potato plants. With any luck, some of your sweet potato sprouts will already have roots.
Restoration Hardware Inspired Lamp <p><strong>This page is having a slideshow that uses Javascript. Your browser either doesn't support Javascript or you have it turned off. To see this page as it is meant to appear please use a Javascript enabled browser.</strong></p> I love Restoration Hardware. Lamp by Restoration Hardware I happened to have a microphone stand in my garage that my son left behind from his “I’m in a band” days, and it looked a lot like this lamp stand. Very similar, don’t you think? All I needed to do was spray paint this a dark bronze color and attach it. Restoration Hardware Inspired Lamp from memakeythings.com Wow. Tagged as: DIY , do it yourself lamp , Edison bulb , reading lamp , Restoration Hardware Inspired
Make-up Magnet Board - StumbleUpon We all know with craft blogs that original ideas are often hard to come by, we find ideas we love and make them our own but we didn't come up with the idea ourselves. I feel like I've finally done something original here and I'm excited about it. I'll show you the finished product and then explain. Behold my Make-up Magnet Board. I have a friend who is beautiful and stylish and has always loved make-up but recently took a course that intensified her love. The basket was a mess and I was overwhelmed with all my choices never knowing what to use, digging through to see what I had and find what I wanted was a pain. I painted it (The hard way, with a brush instead of spray paint. I went to the hardware store and picked up some metal and had them cut it to fit inside my frame. Here comes the brilliant part though. Here's the stash of eye shadows we're talking about (I've even added a couple since this picture). Next I wanted a place to store my brushes and liners though.