Chevron bracelet color change

I found these adorable chevron bracelets at Kohls.


I was really drawn to the blue one but loved them all.  I especially like how they look hand painted.


I quickly put the blue one on as it matched the shirt I was wearing.  But I didn't know what I would do with the purple, brown and orange (not pictured) bracelets.  I like those colors, but don't have a lot of clothes to match.


Since the bracelets already looked hand painted with shiny paint, I decided to try painting them with nail polish.  And ya know what?  It worked!!!


I had such good luck painting the yellow one, I decided to paint the purple one red. 


Look how pretty they are!


Such lovely little bits of arm candy! 

Sprucing up a wall photo

I'm always decorating and redecorating my house.  Constantly.  This time it's the wall in my living room.  It's the first thing you notice when you walk in my house.  So it's where I like to put our family photos.  I had awesome ones taken by a friend last year. Even with having it printed at 16x20 it still looked puny on the big old wall.  So I had to do something to give it more presence.  


I put the photo in a thrift store frame and mounted it onto another board.  I love the way it turned out!


I started with a large piece of birch plywood (I think that's what it's called) that was cut at Lowes.


I painted it Old White with Annie Sloan Chalkboard paint.  (As a side note, this is the first time I've used AS paint.  It was amazing.  No priming and even coverage.  Love it!)


I taped off some stripes with Frog Tape (that's an affiliate link).  


Then painted it with a blue sample I picked up when I got the wood.  Sorry for the blurry pic.  I tried to retake it but I spilled the paint and it wiped off all of the writing on the sticker.  After the paint dried, I sanded the wood with my handy little mouse sander.


The frame was from my stash.  It's had many lives.  It started black; it's been red and now it's white.  I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of using it before for my family photo because it serendipitously fit it perfectly. 


I struggled a little with how to attach the frame to the board because I wanted it to be removable to change the photo.  I decided to put picture hangers on the board...


and stapled some ribbon onto the back of the frame.


The ribbon on the back of the frame hangs onto the picture hooks on the board.  It  works out really well.   The red theme in our photo doesn't match the blue frame very well, but we are close to having photos taken again, so I'm leaving it this way for now.


I like the layers of the frame on top of the board.  I think it makes it more interesting! 


And it gives a smaller photo a lot of presence on a large wall!


10 on Tuesday

A few random things...


1.  I found this cute box at Home Goods to hold my Blurb Books.

2.  School starts in 17 days.  I'm not ready.  I've really enjoyed my kids home this summer!

3. I figured out that I can use the Nook and Kindle apps on my Ipad to read books.  Even better- I found out that I can download books for free through my local library.  


4.  I'm still loving Instagram. Thanks to a few of the creative ladies I follow, I've found a bunch of photo apps to add flair to my photos too.  My faves are bubbleframe, filter mania, phonto and picfx.  You can follow me on Instagram @shescraftycrafty.

5.  When I stopped by Home Goods for the box for my photo albums (see #1)  last week, I added a few more striped shirts to my collection.  I think I have an issue with striped shirts.



6.  My sweetie and I were able to sneak off for a quick date night over the weekend.  It's so nice to spend time with him and not be distracted by our kids.  We haven't always made date nights a priority because of childcare issues but we have been doing better lately and it makes such a difference in our relationship.

7.  I've been staying up too late (see #3) lately and am super tired.  


8.  My sweetie brought me flowers when he got home from his business trip last week.  I can't believe how good they still look at a week old.  I may need to keep fresh flowers in my house all the time.  I love them!

9.  I still haven't vacuumed out our van from our road trip to Orlando.  I need to make it a priority this week.  It's gross!!


10. My local Target was clearancing a bunch of their jewelry and I scored!!  I've been really into jewelry and accessories lately and have even been making my own necklaces.  I'll post about that soon.

What have you been up to?  

House Tour- kids bathroom

Hi friends!
Today I'm sharing another room in my house tour-
my kids' bathroom.  


bathroom door icons, bathroom for children, kids bathroom, bright and colorful bathroom

Organizing Drawers

have had messy drawers!!  Ha!  Super messy.  The gadget drawers in my kitchen were out of control.  Stuff would fly out every time my kids opened their toothpaste/comb drawer.  And my daughter's foo foo girlie stuff drawer was crazy.


Look at that mess!!  


But then I found these handy dandy DIY dividers (that's an Amazon Affiliate link) and I've been a drawer organizing fool!!


We started, of course with cleaning out the drawer.  I love this photo of my daughter's blurry arm.  It shows how much she was cleaning.  (We threw out 2 grocery sacks full of stuff from this drawer and all of the other ones she cleaned out)


The organizers are customizable and easy to use.  I figured out where I wanted a divider and placed the vertical holders, which have a sticky back.  


Then I measured how long the divider strip needed to be, scored it with a hobby knife, snapped it by hand and stuck it into the holders.  We continued to measure, score and snap with all of the other dividers we placed.  It went really fast and was easy to do.


We were able to make the compartments the exact size we needed.  After it was all done, we put everything back and even added a bunch more stuff that didn't fit before.


I'm really happy with how my gadget drawers are organized in my kitchen too.


I had to include this funny picture of my little photo bomber!!


The before and after of my daughter's drawer.

Linking up to:  Liz Marie

Florida Vacation 2012

We just got back from 7 fabulous days in Orlando, Florida!  At the beginning of the last school year, we sat down with our kids and set some education goals (principals list, advanced on standardized testing, etc) so when they met them, we could go on a trip.  I gave them a few options of places to go and they chose the Nickelodeon Hotel in Orlando.


The Nickelodeon Hotel is a destination all by itself.  It has a big water park that is included with the hotel stay.  Not to mention all of the other exciting stuff to do there, like character meet and greets, 4D shows, arcade and more.


There are slides, a pool and pool side activities like slimming and night time dive-in movies.  Both of my big kids were chosen to do the slime activities.  It usually involves answering a question or participating in a relay and then getting slimmed. They loved it!!  


After a few days of swimming, we headed off to Islands of Adventure at Universal Studios.


Which is where the World of Harry Potter is located!  I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan and was probably more excited to go here then my kids were.  We were able to go to Olivanders, Honeydukes, Zonkos and the Hogwarts Castle ride (where I came ...this close... to losing my breakfast).  It was amazing to see everything in person.   I was not disappointed at all.


We also went to the Universal side of the park.


As a surprise for our kids after the Nick Hotel, we went over to Disney World to stay for a few more days.


We stayed a the Hotel Coronado.  It was so beautiful!  I highly recommend it and will totally stay there again when we go back.  My husband had to leave to get back for work, so the kids and I packed as much as we could into the next couple of days.


We went to Animal Kingdom.  Seeing the animals on the safari ride was so exciting.  I could have touched that giraffe it was so close . The tour guide told us that the Animal Kingdon park is so large that all of the other Disney parks could fit inside with room to spare.  Each night all of the animals (except the crocodiles)  are rounded up and taken inside to be checked out, given proper nutrition and rest for the evening in safety.  


After Animal Kingdom we went over to Epcot.  We visited the different countries like France, Japan, Germany and more.  We also went on an Agent P, from Phineas and Ferb, mission.  (That's what the phone is on the top right photo) 


The next day we spent the entire time at Magic Kingdom.  It was the most fun we've had on any of the trips we've gone to Disney.  We shot Zurg with Buzz Lightyear, went on Splash Mountain, tried to pull the sword from the stone, visited the Hall of Presidents (where I had to brush back a few patriotic tears), toured the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, saw Goofy and watched the Electrical Light Parade.  

It was such a fun trip and a much needed time to recharge as a family.  Even though it was super hot and humid, we had a fantastic time and I can't wait to go back!!

Summer Fun List 2012

Every year we make a list of all the fun things we want to do in the summer. 


 This year seems especially busy so we haven't had a lot of free time, but we are managing to scratch a few things off our list.  



We keep track of our list on a large set of chalkboard doors that lead to my hubby's office.  



We have gone to the drive in and had a water fight.  We've also done some other things that aren't on the list like use chalk on our tramp, go see Madagascar 3, go to the American Girl store, go bowling (there is a free summer bowling program at our local bowling alley that rocks), put our kiddie pool on the tramp and jumped and played.  We've had lot of fun so far and are looking forward to all of the fun stuff we still get to do.  

What fun things are you doing this summer?

Rug Anchors

Do you have a rug that slip slides all over the place?  Are you convinced one of your children (or even yourself) is going to break their neck by sliding on it?  And you're sick and tired of adjusting it every time you walk into the room? Yes to all 3 questions for me.


It got to the point that I hot glued my rug to the floor. 


Well, my rug hot gluing days are over because I found these rug anchors from 3M.  I use velcro adhesive all the time to hang stuff on my walls.  So I was so pumped to find the ones for my floor.  (Got them at Haven.  Thanks 3M!)

They are super simple to use.  You barely even need directions but I'll go ahead and do it anyway- put the "rug" side of the velcro on the rug, stick the other side of the velcro to the one already attached to the rug, take the adhesive strip off, push it down to the floor.  


Voila!!  Now my rug is stuck to the floor.  No tripping or sliding.  Yay!


When it gets dirty, I pull it up (leaving all the velcro in place) shake it out and pop it back down.  Easy peasy!


My kids will just have to find another way to entertain themselves instead of sliding around the floor on our rug!!