Cute Little Shelf Ikea Plants - For a super little post

Aren't they cute!  I was near an Ikea (hallelujah!) over Christmas break and picked up these 2 adorable mini palm plants.  The planters are also from Ikea.  They have amazingly pretty plants both large and small.  I am limited to the amount of stuff I can cram put into the back of my car so sadly I could not purchase the larger plants.



I put these on my kitchen shelf:

They really liven up the space!

Thanks for looking!

:)

Lego Chocolates!

My son's teacher know he loves and adores Legos so she told him about a nearby candy store which sold candy shaped like Legos that you can actually build with and then eat!  Well, my little guy loved that idea so he needed to go to that candy store.  After digging around a little, I found out the candy shop had closed down last year....well, that started a breakdown of epic proportions did not sit well with my son.
 
I checked around on the web and thought I could make some type of Lego candy.  For simplicity sake I decided on Lego chocolates because we could get our supplies that night and the chocolate would be ready!  I was inspired by these Lego gummies too.  I will try these soon!

There is a product called 'Amazing Mold Putty'.  I picked it up at Hobby Lobby for $20.   You can make a mold out of pretty much anything!

Here is the back of the box....all of the included directions.

It comes with 2 tubes of putty.  You mix them together in equal amounts, knead them and then press the Lego into the putty to make the mold. 

Leave the Lego in the mold for about 20 minutes, then remove it.  The putty becomes rubbery and if you're careful, should not come apart when taking the Lego piece out.

I bought this chocolate (although I'm pretty sure it's fake) at Hobby Lobby, melted it in the microwave and poured it into my little Lego molds.

After about an hour in the fridge, I carefully took the chocolate out of the mold and was left with these chocolate Lego pieces:

My son loved them!


I wrapped them up and gave them at the neighborhood holiday cookie exchange instead of cookies.

They tasted pretty good but I bet if you used good chocolate, or made your own they would be even better!

On a side note:  can you believe I posted 2 days in a row??

Thanks for looking!

:)

A Late Christmas Roundup

Yes.  I realize Christmas is over but I wanted to post these cute little ornament animals we made inspired by Sherry and John.

Below is a rubber spider my son had in his bin.  Painted green with craft paint, it doesn't look so scary!  

This dog is from an old Wizard of Oz set.  We had 4 of these 'Toto' guys floating around so I painted them blue and hung them on our tree!

Here is how to make these ornaments:

1. Find a bunch of critters from the land of forgotten toys. 

2.  Drill a small hole in each figure. 

3.  Screw in small hooks, the kind that come with picture frame hangers.

4.  Prime them with spray paint primer.  Let them dry for 2 hours.

5.  Paint the figure your choice of color with craft paint.  Let dry for at least 1 hour, repeat as   necessary.  2 coats were enough for these.

This is what they looked like after priming:

Above is my tree..... with a little green fishie.



The family room mantle:

Christmas cards hung with clothespins:

Now I can put Christmas behind me!  I hope yours was merry and bright! 

Happy New Year!

xo

Gallery Staircase

The walls going up the stairs are finally covered with some frames!

After painting the walls and picking up some white frames of assorted sizes at Ikea and Target I was ready to plan out where the frames would go.  After seeing this post on YHL I used newspaper and cut them out to the size of each frame and taped them on the walls.  This way I could move them around easily.

This is what it looked like with the newspaper up:

I kept switching the arrangement around.  It took me forever a few weeks to finally start hanging the up the actual frames!

So away we go with some before and afters of the same space:

Before:

After:

Before: 

After:

In the picture below, you can see a problem I was having hanging some of the frames.  After hanging with the wire, the shadow box type frames were not sitting well against the wall.  See the space between the frame and the wall?

To fix this little problem, I first used package tape on the wire, but that did not hold for more than 2 days.  I turned to Gorilla Tape!

And simply taped up the wire:

So now it sits nicely against the wall.  Take a look:

Before: spacey

After:  not so spacey

It's been a month now and the Gorilla Tape is still holding up (literally).


Thanks for looking at my new staircase gallery!

PS- all the items in the frames are either photos or the kids' artwork or stuff I put together from meaningful items I had at home.  For example, the kids' birth announcements.  I tried to coordinate the colors and the white frames tie it all together.....or so I'd like to think.

:)

Fall Ramblings

Fall is is not my favorite season.   This is mostly because summer is over (boo hiss) and we are heading into the cold winter.   BUT..........

This year I have a positive new outlook on the fall season.  This is largely due to the fact that I've taken up running in the woods.  Yes.  I feel one with nature and it feels great!  Now I can understand why my little sister would talk and sing to trees.  (Arp, you were ahead of your time).

Check out this beautiful waterfall below.  I plan on putting this photo in a frame and hanging it on one of my many blank walls.

 

This waterfall is in my very own town!  I had no idea.  Goes to show you that by trying something new (running for me) it can lead to other awesome perspectives.  But I digress.....more on running for a later post.......

Okay, now that I was psyched for fall:

We went apple picking:

And to the dairy farm to get pumpkins:

Oh....we had a blast at my brother's wedding:

Made a not-so-scary scarecrow:

Watched my son get a higher belt in Karate:

And got ready for Halloween:

 

All in all, a very fun Fall!  

Happy Halloween!

:)

Homework Area in Family Room

Even if your kiddos have desks in their rooms, don't they always seem to do their homework in the kitchen or common area of the house?  Mine do.  Instead of having them fight over the kitchen table, I thought it would be nice to create a homework space in an unused corner of the family room.

This is the space I'm talking about (blue arrows):

There is a desk back there, but nobody uses it because the table lamps take up so much space.  So....lamps are craigslisted (should be a new word....maybe it already is) and I'm left with a desk and a blank wall.

I saw YHL had simply placed colored paper in white frames for their family room art.  Why couldn't I do the same?

So I did with this result:

I went down to Hobby Lobby to pick up some paper (AC Moore, Michael's or any craft store will do). Or you may just have some scrap booking paper lying around to use as your framed art.  I made sure I picked colors having my family room colors of blue/tan/white so I couldn't go wrong!

I had some Ikea frames but any white frames will do.  The chair is not staying.  I bought the lamp a while ago from Joss and Main and had it in my bedroom.  The lamp was a bit short for the space so I placed in on an old woven suitcase thing I had in the basement:

I put my mags and library books in the wall letter holder so it's off the kitchen counters!  Containing clutter is key for me!

Hopefully this corner will get more use now!

Do you have an unused space that could be put to use?

:)