A Swarm of Butterflies

On one of my many excursions into the world of Pinterest I stumbled upon this pin, of a gorgeous butterfly mobile. When I looked for more such pins there appeared to be a small market on Etsy for such cute creations, though the price tags left a lot to be desired. So I decided I could and would DIY-it!

I found a paper cutter with a gorgeous butterfly design in Lincraft for $25. I also bought an embroidery hoop for $3 to form the base of the mobil. I decided I would use paint swatches so that I could create an ombre effect. I collected A LOT of paint swatches from various hardware stores around our area (& I mean A LOT)! And I began punching out the butterfly stencils. This was far harder than I had anticipated and left me with a really sore wrist. I also had not thought through the fact that the back of the paint swatch has printing all over it.

So I gathered even more paint swatches and cut out even more butterflies and decided I would stick two cut-outs together for each butterfly on the mobil. This also helped with gluing the butterflies to the fishing line as it formed a sandwich around the line.

Unfortunately my husband was working some extraordinarily long hours and so I had many hours to spend cutting and gluing butterflies to fishing line and hanging the strands to dry on the clothes hoist. I used ribbon from my ribbon-vase to hide the embroidery hoop and wire, tied some tule to the top and it was ready to hang in Kyah's room.

I really love the little hints of pink that are featuring in the beautiful orange nursery we created for her. I love this delicate  mobil that hangs between her cot and her changing table so she can enjoy it in both places. And I really loved making this little craft project for her.

Do you want one? I will make you one far cheaper than the $70-$100 I saw them advertised on Etsy for. For full DIY instructions see this pin.

Playroom Make Over Take 1

When we moved into our new house, all the boys toys ended up dumped in what was to be their playroom. The shelves stayed where the removalists' had unloaded them and we stacked the toys away accordingly. It really was not a pretty picture, nor a practical one. The playroom is long and skinny and everything ended up stacked on the sides diminishing the width further and reducing the play area significantly. Toys usually ended up everywhere on the floor, leaving no room for the boys to stand or sit, let alone play. Also with only low lying shelves, there was nowhere to put precious items out of reach of our 2 year old "destructo baby" (as his brother calls him). And nowhere to put pencils and crayons out of reach of either of the boys, leading to some wall drawing just weeks after completing our full house repaint!

I needed some solutions to combat this clutter! So began my Pinterest mission to find playroom storage solutions that were attractive, functional and didn't break the bank (the kitchen renovation had already done that!).

We decided on some floating shelves for the "unreachables" we wanted to keep away from "destructo". We found these at Bunnings for $18.90 each and they function well to keep items visually available in the playroom so that my elder boy can ask to play with them when he wants, but out of reach of those little destructive and mischievous hands. They also display some of the art work we have for the playroom.

Next I wanted to de-clutter the red retro play kitchen Noah was given by Santa a couple of years ago. It has always been so jam-packed with food, saucepans, crockery and cutlery that the kids have struggled to use the kitchen itself as anything more than a pantry. I saw this pin, using an old plate shelf to store some of these items for a play kitchen and thought that would be a great solution. But the only plate shelves I could find were in the vicinity of $80-$100. However, IKEA sells spice racks for $2.49, and I have seen many pins using these in kids play spaces. Even better, a quick coat of paint and the spice racks are customized to your decor.

Commence operation find and decorate spice racks:
It took 2 trips to IKEA to purchase them - apparently spice racks at $2.49 are hot items at IKEA.
A trip to the hardware for a can of spray paint.
A quick undercoat (just what we had left over from our house repainting)
A coat of spray paint and we had beautiful glossy shelves ready for installation.
A late night hammer and drill session (I am sure our neighbours hate us)

Voila! Cute retro red spice rack/shelving for the play kitchen. We also removed the door to the playroom (it just took up space and was never closed anyway because there were too many toys stacked up in front of it), moved the kitchen to where the door previously was, and moved the heavy Expedit IKEA shelves to the back wall to open up the play space a little more.

We added a couple of IKEA Grundtal rails ($4.99), some Bygel Containers ($1.99) and hooks ($1.49)  under the spice shelves to hang the pots and pans off (apparently this is a design feature my husband is disappointed did not make it into our own kitchen renovation) and collect the cutlery.

The verdict?
We have some happy little chefs cooking up a storm in their new space. And for $37.36 we have avoided breaking the bank with this kitchen renovation!

We still have a couple of new book shelves and magnet boards to put up in the playroom to help further with the decluttering and organization. Hopefully that happens over the coming weekend.

Renovation Trials & Tribulations

Back in June we bought this cute little house. Our first step into home ownership and joining the ranks of the heavily indebted. It was daunting to say the least!

The house was in need of some TLC after a decade of being an investment property. OK, it needed a lot of TLC. It was screaming for a new paint job inside and out, a new kitchen, new wardrobes in all the bedrooms, a shower repair, replacement of some damaged floor boards, removal of ugly light fittings, and a very good scrubbing! The original 1960s mauve bathroom could also do with a make-over, but we had to prioritise and this slipped off the list.

The fun began! We set about choosing paint, ripping up carpets, pulling out decrepit wardrobes, sanding the floorboards and researching new kitchen designs. Then whilst spackling up the various holes and picture hook marks, we struck this heart wrenching site....

Termite damage in the master bedroom. Thankfully after a pest inspection it was determined the damage was up to 20 years old, the damage was localised to this corner of the house, it had been previously and successfully treated, and that there were no living termites in the house. Phew!!

Then behind the wardrobes we found wallpaper. Lots of wallpaper. Wallpaper that had been painted over. And spent an entire weekend scraping and soaking and sanding and scraping and scraping and... well you get the picture!

Then the painting began and the repairing of water damaged walls and floors. Thank goodness I have a father who not only works ridiculous hours (starting around 4am!!) and as a result was free to help at the house every afternoon, but is also extremely handy with all things DIY - designing, painting, scraping, removal of walls, rebuilding of walls, replacing floors, and project management! (I think he missed his calling). Of course, he had a couple eager little helpers to assist in all the jobs that needed to be done. For a couple of months, we spent every spare minute and weekend at the house making it livable and beautiful.

After pulling out the old kitchen and a few walls, finally settling on a design for a new kitchen, going through the time consuming and depressing process of gaining quotes for the new kitchen, and finally contracting a cabinet maker, we had 9 weeks of living in the house with no kitchen. What fun!

Then, after what was a very long wait, the kitchen arrived to be installed. And was wrong, was removed, and a week later re-installed. All up after, what turned out to be a 3 week installation process, we had a kitchen! I have never been so happy to have running water in the kitchen! And a dishwasher! During that 3 weeks installation, the boys found many wonderful hidy holes in the partially installed cabinets! At least someone enjoyed the drawn our nature of that process!

For the moment we have called timeout on the renovations, though our list seems to only grow longer and longer as to what we would like to do and change. I am dying for some new wardrobes, but until then I am making do with some IKEA clothes racks and wardrobe moving boxes. We haven't even turned our attention outside yet - other than to mow the very long grass and plant a few herbs! All in good time.

Pinterest DIY Fail

Well it was bound to happen. I attempted another DIY project inspired by Pinterest and it was a flop. I saw these cute painted vases and jars on Pinterest a few months ago, and after my success with the twine wrapped vases I was was keen for more cute vases. And I had heaps of paint left in the sample pots from the previous DIY project.

So I gathered together a few vessels of varying sizes - a vegemite jar, a pasta sauce jar, a wine bottle. And I set to work swirling paint around in the jars and setting them to rest. They looked spectacular.



 

However, this is when I encountered my first problem - 2 days later the jars were still wet. And the paint appeared to be sliding down the glass and leaving large streaks. So I re-swirled and set them to dry again. 

Fast forward 2 days - same problem. So I examined the "pins" which had inspired me and read a little more about what others had done. The first set of instructions - which I had followed suggested it was as easy as "pouring a dollop of paint into the bottle gradually rotate/swirl the paint inside until the paint coats the entire interior. Some may need two coats. Dry on a damp or plastic dropsheet. And voila! "

This however was not the consensus with the other pins. There were suggestions of surface conditioner, draining the vases upside-down on damp paper towel for a few hours before turning them on their sides to dry for 48 hours. Well it was too late for surface conditioner but I did drain the vases upside down and then turn them onto their sides to dry. This method at least got the paint to dry, but it did not solve my problem of streaks.

None-the-less it was time for my sister's baby shower and I wanted to use the jars as vases. They looked cute, even with the streaks. But after the shower had finished I ran into my final problem. The paint had bubbled off the glass completely and was floating in the water. The flowers were looking a little worse for wear. Thats when I read the final piece of advise from the "pins" I had seen on Pinterest. "Remember these are only for DECOR. Don't drink out of them, heck... I wouldn't even put water in mine. I'm simply sitting them on the shelf."



But it was not a complete failure. The vases did look cute for the baby shower even if I had to throw them out at the end. They attracted a few comments and praise - though the twine-wrapped-vases were the real stars. 





[I have to say that I clearly didn't take any photos which showed up the streaks and flaws in the little jar-vases - they still look pretty cute in all these photos.]

What DIY failures have you encountered?

One Persons Trash...

...Is Another Persons Treasure!

Whilst I recently read an article about the "crazy phenomenon [that]... devoted mothers get on Pinterest" and how really all our children want is for us to be present and loving. I totally agree.

But I also know I am a Pinterest-addict. And every now and then I find something amongst the 1000's of items I "pin" which gives me an activity to share with my family. So yes, once again Pinterest has given me craft-inspiration. Of course, I saw this idea months ago, but I finally took action a few weeks ago and tackled this project. All that I needed was some empty bottles, kitchen string, PVC glue, and some sample pots of paint which I picked up at the Hardware. The best part of the project, was having my little helper paint the bottles!

I used a wine bottle, a beer bottle and an olive oil bottle so that I had "vases" of varying sizes and shapes. And I chose to paint them in 3 different colours as I was thinking about using them for my sister's baby sprinkle next month.

It was a quick and easy project (though truthfully I stretched it out over a number of weeks, as I took awhile to visit the hardware and then actually paint the vases). The flowers I bought to display in the vases when they were completed are cheap carnations - a flower I usually ignore and avoid, but once again Pinterest showed me they are an often overlooked flower (and so cheap!).

What do you think about the role social-media, such as Pinterest, play in our roles as Mothers? Do they make us feel inadequate because we aren't living up to the ideals we see there? Or are you a fan/addict?





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