Craftastic!

Since it's coming into guest season, I've been working on a few things for the guest house. Most of these ideas are my own version of something I have seen on a blog (usually via Pinterest). If you want to see my guest house Pinterest board, click here.

I wanted to stencil the cardinal directions and elevation along with our latitude and longitude on the guest house walls, but decided to make this instead. The boards are from a pallet left here during pool construction. I just used an old transfer technique I learned in middle school art class to transfer the lettering onto the board and then filled it in with a black Sharpie. Twine holds in all together and acts a hanger. [The pool arrow sign below it was a project I made last year. And, yes, it really points to the pool.]

I finally printed out my "Guest House Rules" poster. I made the "rough draft" last year using the free online photo editor Pic Monkey. Unfortunately, I had the settings wrong to print a large size without cutting off some of the words so I had to re-do it. It didn't take too long since I had already worked out all the details. I sent it to Costco get a 16x20 print. One of these days I'm going to mount it on a board. I tried a frame and didn't like it.

While I was on Costco's photo site, I found a couple stock photos of beaches. You can print these stock photos out like your own for only $1.49, so I ordered two and stuck them in a couple dollar store frames to balance the wall.

We made scarecrows at our church family night a couple weeks ago and I grabbed a little bit of extra burlap to make this wreath. It was easy, but time consuming. I used a piece of foam pipe insulation as the form and then tied (I didn't count but it felt like a million) strips of burlap around the form. I think it came out pretty cute but the insulation isn't quite sturdy enough to hold the shape I wanted so I had to use tacks to keep it from being more of an oval.

The next two projects are more makeover than craft. I got both the "painting" and mirror from a friend who didn't want them anymore. I thought I'd give them a little makeover to match the coastal/beach theme I am going for out in the guest house.

The painting started out like this...

A few coats of white spray paint to the frame and some acrylic paint to "canvas" and I had this...

The mirror went from this (sorry for the bad photo - it's the only before I could find)...

I painted the frame and added a piece of scrapbook paper to the top.

When my parents were here last year we made a trip to IKEA. Among other things we found a set of these metal vases. I love them. They come in this color, cream, and an orangish red. If you want to look for them they are called Socker. I saw you could buy packages of sticks to put in vases, but I have a ton of branches in my back lot thanks to wind storms this summer. I cut a few and saved my money.

Last year, I used a few more sticks from the backyard and some twine to make this star.

This next little craft is still a work in progress. I just love colored bottles so I have collected a few to put above the cabinets in the guest house. Some were already colored and some I colored using various methods. The white one is just straight up paint - makes it look like milk glass. The more turquoise ones are Mod Podge and food coloring. The Mod Podge method worked better on the bottles with wider mouths, so this method would work great on Mason jars. Of course, these are NOT food safe or even water proof, just strictly for decoration. I still have a few more bottles to work on and a couple got messed up so I'm going to wash them and try again.

A few weeks ago the kids and I did some painting with water colors. I put my water color sunset in a dollar store frame (that I spray painted white) and hung it in the main bedroom of the guest house.

This cute little palm tree was an IKEA find. I thought it went well with my beachy theme. My mom bought the little basket when she was here last year and this little guy fit in it perfectly.

Sometime last year I got two ceramic sea shells (only one is pictured) from the dollar store. They were kind of ugly colors but I knew a little white spray paint could fix that.

In my internet wanderings I had seen this nautical pier post. I thought something like that might be a nice addition to the decorative ledge in the guest house living room, but I wasn't about to pay $80 plus $40 shipping.

I found this stump out in our wood pile. I bought some rope and ended up with this:

My cost... I'm guessing that piece of rope cost about $1 and about 2 minutes of my time. (I bought a 50 ft. rope for $8 and used about 1/8 of it.) 

This last project took two seconds! I put some sand in a Mason jar with a candle and tied on some twine. Cheap (free really) and cute!

I updated the guest house "tour" if you want to see these items in their new home. They look a lot better in person so why don't you come see us! 

Space Room Tour

I was going to wait until I found a few more accessories before unveiling the twin's space themed room but I'm doing some catch up blogging and if I don't do it now it might never get done!

I've already shown you the before and after of the other room. So I'll start with a few quick before shots of this room.

This was the "nursery", otherwise known as JD's room. These pictures are a bit old since he moved to a toddler bed awhile ago but you get the idea. I do have to say that I will miss the Noah's Ark decorations, but you never know... maybe I'll be able to get them back out someday. :)

This room got new flooring as did the hallway between the two rooms. We did paint, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic since we just freshened up the color that was already there. I sewed a new valance and made the space window to hang on the wall. I also ordered some planet Wallies and put those up.

Can you see the Space Shuttle flying up in the corner above the planets? (Click to enlarge if you can't.) I made that with some of the leftover foam scraps from the space window. You can't see it but there is also a glow-in-the-dark planet mobile hanging in front of the new valance too.

I moved a poster (that I got from the dollar store) from the homeschool room in the basement up to this room since it had an astronaut hovering over earth with the saying "The Sky is the Limit". In among the planets is the boys Moon in My Room light that they got for Christmas a few years ago.

We are going to get an area rug for this room. (What do you think about this one?) For some reason it is the coldest room in the house and right now the sound bounces off the walls and floors something terrible. If you don't have little boys let me just tell you... they can be quite loud and we don't need to amplify the noise!

I have enough fabric left over to make a throw pillow for the window seat and maybe cover a lamp shade as well. One thing you can't "see" on the tour is their cool night light. I found one that shines an image of the planets on their ceiling. They love it! The dresser is has nothing on it right now. I'm not sure exactly what we are going to put there. I might try to find a model of the space shuttle, maybe a lamp, and the boys want a clock as well. If you have any other suggestions let me know!

A Window to the World

I've already given you the tour of Wesley, Hayden, and JD's room... but the twins got a "new" room too. The transformation wasn't quite as dramatic. They chose a space theme. Dinosaurs were in the running as well... space won out in the end. I'll be posting a tour of their room soon, but wanted to show you the "window" I made for their room.

Since the other boys got a fun window I tried to find one for Eli and Justus. No such luck. I did find lots of space murals hand-painted on walls. I'm good, just not that good. I was not ready to paint something on the wall and then not like how it turned out. So I asked around for suggestions. I needed something smooth, lightweight, paintable, and easy to cut.

I almost went with luan board, but decided on foam board when I found out you can get it in very large sizes at Hobby Lobby. I ended up buying a huge piece for about $9 and over the course of a few days it was transformed into a space window... as in you are in space looking back towards Earth.

All good ideas start with plans. This was my inspiration. This was my plan on paper:
And then I transferred the grid onto the foam board:
And then I took a deep breath and cut the hexagon:
Actually, it went better than I thought. It cut beautifully with a utility knife and straight edge. Then I taped off the "windows" to paint the black sky:
Here is what it looked like after it was spray painted with the black:
If I get some weird lung disease, please remind me it was probably breathing in all that spray paint back in 2010. Then I covered the "windows" to spray paint the "metal frame" with metallic spray paint. I used plastic cling wrap and for the center circle a piece of transparent contact paper. The white is where the tape was on during the first round of paint.I spray painted the frame and then came the details. I glued real metal nuts all the way around the perimeter and between the window panes. Then I painted the moon and the stars. For the moon I traced a drinking glass, filled it in with off-white paint, and then used a straw dipped in grey to make the craters. I wasn't brave enough to hand paint the space station so I printed on offline and glued it on. The stars were just randomly dabbed on with a toothpick.
And then came the earth and clouds:
Final product: measures 40 inches high by 60 inches wide. Final cost: about $12. Final results: Overall it turned out pretty well. There are a few mistakes if you look really close. I am not a very neat spray painter and that stuff drips if you spray it on too thick. The tape and contact paper left a little bit of residue too. The only thing that really matters though is that the boys really like it!

Extreme Room Makeover: Blue Room Edition

Have you ever read the story "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"? This is the story of "If You Give Shelly New Flooring" because you know she's going to want some new paint, blinds, etc. to go with it!

We decided awhile ago to replace the flooring in the boys bedrooms. It was getting pretty gross. It was the original carpet (about 10 years old) and showing it's wear. We shopped around a bit for carpet but decided that with five little, stain-making boys we'd just be in the same boat again in a few years. We priced laminate wood flooring and were pleased to find it was half the cost of new carpet if we were brave enough to install it ourselves.

But... before we put in new flooring we thought we would take the opportunity to paint the boy's room. Only one room had been painted an actual color when we moved into this house. And what a color it was! Thank goodness we had boys! I'm not sure these pictures really do it justice. The walls were a bright blue and the ceiling was a shade or two darker. Even the blinds were blue. This room gets afternoon sunlight, but it always seemed dark. The light (natural and artificial) was just swallowed up by the dark colors.

So the first step of the room makeover was painting. We chose a light tan. Thank goodness for primer and paint in one! I have to admit I was quite skeptical when the paint guy at Menard's told us it would cover the blue... but it did. Even after just one coat the blue was covered! It was amazing!Beside having poor taste in color... the previous painters didn't take the time to properly tape off any of the wood work. I gave up around the closet/door/window and painted the edges of the trim to cover it up. The baseboards were removed to prep for the new floor so I was able to scrape the blue paint off of those. Not a fun job, but worth it in the end.
We left the carpet in as a "drop cloth" while we painted. Once the painting was done it was time to rip out the carpet. We pushed this up on the schedule a little bit to catch the bulky item trash pickup week. Which meant the boys lived with only plywood floors for a couple weeks. Don't worry, I covered it with sheets so they didn't get any splinters. It was real high class!
Then came the laminate flooring. It was a learning experience and we made a few mistakes, but it looks AMAZING! Sometimes I just want to stand there and stare at it! It is such an improvement over the nasty carpet and we did it ourselves!
The final touches were the only thing left. So the boys and I discussed several options for "themes" in both rooms. We had already decided that the Eli and Justus would be moving to the front room and Wesley, Hayden, and JD would share this room. Since Wesley has always been my nature lover and we already had some leftover cabin/lodge decorations from their room at the old house that is what we chose for this room's theme.


I did a little online shopping and found some "Wallies" on clearance. Everyone loves the Wallie cabin window! We trashed the old (broken) blue blinds. Since they fit perfectly, we ended up moving the white accordion blinds from the front bedroom into this one. I hung Wesley's old quilt and sewed a new valance and we were good to go!!
Well, except for a bunk bed. When we went to reassemble our old set the wood cracked. So Wesley and Hayden ended up on mattresses on the floor until we could find a new set of bunk beds. After a fruitless search for a decent used set and pricing them new we decided that we would build them ourselves. What can I say we were on a roll! You'll get a peek at them here, but the bunk beds are another post!The painting and floor part took us about 2 weeks. The bed building and decorating took another week. In the meantime we still did our usual working, schooling, feeding, clothing, plus several other activities! The only things that suffered were our backs and our blogs!