City girl gone coastal: July 2011

Kitchen Door Command Centre!

I think our kitchen has possibly the least amount of wall space EVER!

Honestly, there is room for nothing, so trying to find a spot for those all important lists and reminders has been an impossible task.

That was until I sat looking at this door, I hate it by the way, the door leads out to the pantry and laundry area and also the gas boiler, and it’s that nasty looking thing above Ahren.

We want to move the boiler; it is a total eye sore and gets in the way, not sure how many times I have walked into it! But to move it will cost big bucks due to moving gas lines and stuff, poop! So that’s two issues with my kitchen which were bugging me this morning, how to make the door more appealing whilst distracting from the boiler!

Scrapbook paper!

I grabbed a bunch of papers and measured the glass panels in the door.

Unfortunately the panels are just that bit bigger than my papers, even the 12x12!

I selected my favourite papers, and cut them to size.

Using the left over scraps and sticky tape I added extra to the bottom of each paper to ensure they would fit the glass panels.

I decided I would make 6 panels into reusable lists,

To Do

Shopping

Appointments

Birthdays

Don’t Forget!

Using a selection of sticky letters from my stash I added headers to the papers.

I gave the glass panels a clean and made sure they were all dry, then decided which papers would go in which panel.

Once I was happy I used a clear tape and glue dots to attach the papers to the glass panels, the side in the pantry / laundry area not the kitchen!

Turns out the glass panels are all slightly different sizes, grrrr, so there are a few gaps, but I can live with that.

Using an erasable marker I can now write down reminders and important info all in one central, visible place, and erase when it’s no longer needed!

No more random lists or notes all about the house and I’ve temporarily gotten ‘rid’ of that eye sore boiler!

Out of sight out of mind!

What do you think of my ‘command centre? I love that when I get bored of the papers I can just replace them, especially at Christmas time for a more festive look!

Linking to some of these blogs

Safety Whilst Crafting

Toddlers = Tiredness = Craft Safety Mishaps

You don’t need twin boys who are making the most of the terrible twos, to make you tired, but it helps!

Lately my little darlings have been waking up at 5am and when we’re really lucky, not falling asleep until 11pm, which means mummy does STUPID things when it comes to crafting.

Example 1

Do not ever, no matter how much you think you want to or need to, use spray paint in a cupboard indoors! wait for hubby to come home to help you carry it outside.

The back spray is ridiculous, and unless your house has no walls or ceilings, it is not ventilated. You will no doubt get a fine mist of spray paint on EVERYTHING in the room; carpet, furniture and toys.

And the bonus, when someone knocks at the front door, you don’t realise that you look like someone about to audition for the latest Smurf movie, yep I managed to paint my face blue, go me! Respect to the delivery lady, she didn’t even laugh!

But in all seriousness, don’t be stupid like me, the can says to use in a ventilated area for a reason!

Example 2

When your tools seem to become stuck, like my staple gun did, DO NOT, try to fix it using a screw driver and a chisel thingy, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.

If you can’t fix it, it’s probably safer to buy a new one, do you like my new staple gun, love the baby blue, and it has a punch behind it, woohoo!

Example 3

The humble sewing machine, it’s been around for donkey’s years, and without it we would be really cold and unable to sleep cause of all the light coming through the windows, they deserve respect!

They do not deserve to be used by people so tired they actually think it’s a good idea to remove a bit of fluff from the fabric whilst it’s still doing its thang at something near a gazzilion miles a second. You will get your thumb stuck

It will hurt alot, you won’t be able to free your thumb for a while until the pain gets so bad you have to wrench your thumb free. You will defrost a bag of frozen peas trying to keep the swelling down and will snivel for about an hour or so wondering how on earth you can be so bloody stupid.

I can tell you how, TIREDNESS!

All joking aside, these things and more have happened to me, because I’ve been tired, and crafting and tiredness don’t mix. Not only is it ridiculously dangerous to your own safety, but think of those around you. If you’re lucky enough not to cause either yourself or someone else injury, you could totally mess up what it is your working on, wasting any money and effort already invested.

The same applies whether your a crafter, DIYer or baker, all could be incredibly dangerous if you participate whilst tired.

Next time you feel like crafting, but you’re tired, make a cuppa and head on over to Pinterest and swoon over all the inspirational ideas.

Linking to some of these blogs

Wooden Bathmat revamped for the garden!!

Considering it’s meant to be summer it has been raining, a lot! So much that the other day our back garden got a little flooded, and I ordered a new brolly!

And whilst all this rain is great for the water companies (bet they still impose a hosepipe ban) and the farmers, it has wrecked the door mat I had placed outside the patio doors, this used to have a couple of reindeers on it, I’m a total sucker for Christmas and, yes, I do wish it could be Christmas every day!

The thing must be 10 x the weight from being waterlogged, so instead of trapping the dirt of shoes and feet before they enter the house it just makes everything wet, which is just icky nasty!

Obviously it had to go, tata!

I needed something in its place, something that wouldn’t get waterlogged nor look nasty and faded after a bit of time outside in the glorious British summer time, oh, and I didn’t want something that would feel totally icky either!

This is where the wonderfully named Duck board, wooden creation that is the bathroom mat comes in to play!

This thing has been pootaling around in the loft for a few years, until it got a wipe over and some paint.

I decided to use 3 colours, pink, blue and green, kinda summery and beachy at the same time. I painted the slats alternate colours.

Once it was dry, I added a few rub ons to add a little flowery charm!

A few coats of varnish and tada, I have the cutest door mat this side of the M25.

I think it will look even better once it’s got a little weathered.

Looks better don't you think?!

The exploding staple gun, and memo board!

At the moment I’m trying to sort out my craft desk / stash, not as easy as I’d thought!

If I had a craft room I’d have a bunch of my favourite things out on display, but with the terrible twosome getting into EVERYTHING I can’t risk having anything dangerous or important within reach of their grubby little mitts.

Having given up in defeat I decided to revamp the memo board, wouldn’t cause too much hassle I thought!

I was wrong.

My staple gun exploded in to this!

And why on earth I thought the terrible twosome wouldn't be interested in

Scissors

Hammer

Tack pins

Hot glue

Glitter

Paint, I don't know!.

Sleep deprivation has messed with my judgement obviously!

Anyhoo, here’s what I did,

First of all, I kinda broke the staple gun, this step is entirely optional, but I wouldn’t recommend taking a screw driver and chisel thingy to it, or you get this.

Told you I was sleep deprived,

Once you gather all the pieces, hide them from hubby and think of a plausible excuse as to why it’s in so many pieces.

Next grab a hammer, tack pins, fabric and pin board. Cover the front of the board with the fabric, use tack pins to secure in place at the rear of the board. Trim away any excess.

I used different coloured ric rac, strung across the board, secured at the back with more tack pins, to hang bits from.

I didn’t want to just use regular plain push pins or mini pegs, so I jazzed them up a little with items from my craft stash, flowers, glitter, sparkly stars and metal toppers.

I love how you can turn something plain and ordinary into something a little special with nothing more than glue, paint and a few embellishments!.

And now I have a rather funky memo board and cute pegs, seems a fair exchange for an exploded staple gun and a pot of pink glitter all over the house!

Aren't these just some of the cutest storage boxes ever? No idea what to keep in them, but they sure do look nice!

Linking to some of these blogs

A shameless plea

I know you’re all ridiculously busy, with kids, work, crafting and just being your wonderful selves, but if at all possible could you please spare me a minute or so of your precious time and pop over to ‘To Sew With Love’.

My air mail pillow is in the running for TSWL finest July week 2 vote, so if you can spare a minute to vote for me please do, there are a bunch of other projects to vote for which are also fantastic, so I need all the help I can get!

This link will take you to the voting page, thank you!

Hope your all having a great week so far.

Organising those wires and cables, loo roll style!

Have you seen all the amazing ideas for using up empty loo rolls?

I haven’t made any fancy wall art, but this idea might come in handy for organising your wires and cables.

Chucking out loo rolls just seems a waste, and if you live with a techi nerd you probably have a house full of wires and cables!

Simple solution really, use the loo rolls to store the wires and cables into the loo rolls, you could leave them as they are, or pretty them up a little.

I decided to cover the loo rolls in some pretty paper, covered in sticky back plastic, this give it a bit more strength and they look nice!

I cut the paper so it was slightly larger than the length of the loo roll, then cut the sticky back plastic about 1cm larger than the paper, Peeling off the backing, I secured one end of the sticky back plastic to the loo roll, attached the paper and then rolled both around the loo roll.