Showing posts with label crafty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafty. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Spring cleaning

My husband loves a lot of things about me, obviously, but I have to imagine that one thing he does not love is my affinity for list making.  I make lists about everything.  My newest list is a list of all the around-the-house projects we need to do but have been putting off.  There is a greater sense of urgency now that our whole world is going to be turned upside down in November.  So I have a list of all the projects we need to get done and every month he gets to pick one and then we do our best to get it done.

A month ago or so we decided to tackle our basement.  Our house used to belong to my husband's grandparents and there were lots of "treasures" that used to belong to them that still lived in the basement.  I'm talking old engines, wires, a birdcage, a boot, and lots of other crap (because this is the nicest word I could think of to describe it).

This is how terrible it looked before we cleaned
Years worth of trash
During our cleaning, I found a bunch of old baby food jars.  I had seen on Pinterest where someone took old jars and put paint in each, so they had paint handy for touch-ups.  I thought this was genius.  When I saw the baby food jars, I immediately decided to make my own touch-up jars.

The expiration dates on the jars went all the way back to the 1920s, so they were a little dirty.  I sanitized them in the dishwasher and was ready for business.

The jars pre-sanitizaiton
Then we filled each jar with paint and labeled them by room.  This was a little tedious and a lot messy.

We labeled each jar with the room where the paint was used

The colorful finished product

I give this project two thumbs up and think it was the worth the time and effort.  I used to stare at spots that needed paint and think that I would get around to fixing them one day.  It is so much easier and I have put almost all of the jars to use.  And on that note, I need to go touch up the paint in the guest bathroom.


Sunday, August 21, 2011

Getting crafty

If you have talked to me in last month, chances are I have told you about my new obsession. Pinterest. I love love love it! It's hard to explain, but you have different boards and you "pin" pictures and links to your different boards. I have gotten so many great ideas for things to do around our house and new recipes to try. If you haven't heard of it, you need to check it out. You will thank me; your husband/significant other might not.

That being said, we bought a porch swing from Amazon.com at the beginning of the summer. We have done so much work on the inside of our house that the outside doesn't really reflect the cuteness. Our next big projects will be painting and adding shutters. Since we aren't ready for that yet, I decided a porch swing would be a nice addition.

I really wanted a black swing to match the shutters that we will be putting up, but I couldn't find one that I liked. So in the spirit of Pinterest and being crafty, I decided that the husband and I could stain it and that this would be an excellent project for us to do together (or for the husband to do and for me to supervise).

The porch swing sat in the garage all summer until I decided that this weekend was the weekend. I was feeling very motivated and maybe a little embarrassed by the exterior of our house. Whatever it takes to get things done.

What we started with


After the first coat of paint


Coming together



Ta da! The finished product


I am very proud of our little porch swing. We saved money and got to spend time together. Now on to the next project!