Chalk Painted Bed

After painting the two nightstands, my older daughter, wanted me to paint her bed.  This bed frame is the one I had growing up.  It was plain medium brown wood.  Nothing exciting, nothing fancy.  I started out strong with the painting but had a little mishap after the first coat.  I went out and tried to open up my chalk paint bottle and it was painted shut!


Funny story...this chalk paint was in a normal mason jar.  I spent weeks trying to figure out how to open the bottle.  I looked for ideas on cutting the glass, I ran all these ideas by my husband, but he wasn't too excited about soaking a string in lighter fluid, setting it on fire, and running it under cold water hoping it would break nicely, or similar suggestions.  After weeks of this, my husband remembered he had a cousin that does windows and glass for a living.  He took my little jar of paint into him and asked him if he could cut the glass.  He explained that he couldn't because you score the glass on one side, and then tap it from the other side, so it just wouldn't work.  But after that he got a smile on his face and asked my husband why he hadn't just punched some hole in the top of the lid so it could be poured it out!  Hum...why didn't we think of that during the last several weeks! :-)


So after weeks of having her bed sitting in the garage, half painted, my daughter finally got her bed back!  She loves it and it looks great!  The chalk paint that I bought at Pixxie Stixs in Brigham is the bomb...it was so easy to use, went on great and dirtied up really well.  Thanks for the tips Karen!

Thank You Card

I had so much fun making this Thank You card using my Silhouette machine.  I used the sketch pens to have the machine write the "Thank You" and it also cut all the pieces out, so I just glued them together, added the string and the brads and viola!  Super Cute thank you card ready to send.

Maxi Skirts

I found a Maxi Skirt Tutorial for little girls online.  They used a cheap tank top/t-shirt and cut it off at the top and made the skirt.  I bought 3 tank tops for $3 and made 2 skirts for my little girl.  She loves skirts and these were super easy to make and she loves to wear them!  So much fun and finished them both in probably under 1 hour!

Car Vinyl

I worked on doing some car decals for a Roofing Company.  I did three different colors of vinyl.  The offset is white, the terracotta color and a gray color.  They turned out great.  I also made a large banner for them to hang on their building and a smaller decal to put on their front glass door.

Knitted Scarves

This last year for Christmas I learned how to knit ruffle scarves for my girls and for my niece.  They were so quick and easy to do.  My girls loved wearing their scarves all winter long...in fact, my youngest two came up with quite the combinations of outfits to wear, I wish I would've taken pictures of them wearing their bright scarves with crazy different colors of pants and shirts...it was pretty entertaining!

Night Stands

My girls have been wanting night stands for their bedrooms.  I have been looking for some, but haven't really found anything that I loved enough to spend money on them.  I happened to mention it to my mom one time and she said she a couple of old ones that my Grandpa had bought at DI 30 years ago.  So she brought them down and I had fun trying my hand at using Chalk Paint.  I painted them and vinylized the inside back wall of them.  And of course we had to put a sparkly diamond drawer pull on them.  They work great and my girls love them!

Kids Craft Sale 2014

Every summer my kids have a craft/bake sale.  They spend a couple of months preparing and making crafts (with my help of course) and then they deliver around invitations for a specific time and day to all the houses in the close neighborhoods and then they sale like crazy for one whole day.  They use the money they earn for family summer fun activities.


We have amazing neighbors and friends that come every year to support my kids.  Thank you to all that come shopping at our 1 day store!


Here's the rundown of the Craft/Bake Sale 2014:


Altoid Tin Games:

I bought Plain Altoid Sized Tins.  We used them to make Magnetic Paper Dolls.  I download paper doll picture and printed them on sticker paper.  We then put the sticker paper on Magnetic Paper.  We cut around all the shapes (using the Silhouette) and my daughter made cute labels and named all the dolls.  Max from Max and Ruby was so fun and had a ton of different costumes.  The Paper Dolls are vintage looking and just the right size to take on trips or throw in your purse to entertain little ones while you are out and about.

We also made Tangrams in the tins.  My kiddos loved playing with them.  After the sale they came in and tried out the extras.  They were fun and some were a little more challenging then others.  Since the sale, my kids have taken these in the car and to church.  They are now working on downloading even more shapes to build.

One more game in the tins we made was a baseball game.  Unfortunately we forgot to take a picture of this one.  Gray and his friends tried it out during the sale and had a great time playing it.  We sold all of them and so now he is telling me that I need to make at least one more for him!

Marshmallow Shooters:  Gray built his PVC marshmallow guns again this year.  They were a big hit...the first to sale out and he actually put out a sheet of paper for special orders.  He built 10 more the next day and delivered 6 of them around to the neighbors and kept 4 for us.  Needless to say, our lawn is dotted with miniature marshmallows!

Kool Aid Jammers Pouch Purses &

 Duck Tape & Candy Wrapper Wallets/Coin Pouches/Zipper Pouches/Ziploc Pouches:

I thought these little purses turned out so cute.  We also made a variety of duck tape projects, but we put candy wrappers on the outside to make them look super cute.  The Duck Tape/Candy Wrapper projects sold out too.  Some were plain wallets, some used a strong magnet to close for a little coin pouch.  Some we lined with fabric and sewed a zipper in the top and others we did pencil pouches that closed like a ziploc bag.  After the sale we made a few more for my kids.  On some of the wallets we did one side to hold cards, and one side with a little magnetic coin pouch.  My daughter loved the idea of this because she always has coins, but not too many cards.  So many ideas for duck tape!

The Pouch Purses were one of the items that I thought turned out the cutest, yet only one person bought those.  So on the fourth of July my kids used the extras as their candy bags at the parade.  They worked out perfect.  I actually made a larger one as well that I kept as a library book bag.  They are surprisingly strong and sturdy.

Out of the KoolAid Boxes, we made cute little 5x5 inch notebooks.  We just put plain paper in between the front and back box and bound it with a spiral binder.  The kids loved those too.  We also thought about making them into coloring books, but we started running out of time and decided plain notebooks would be just as awesome.

Lip Balm & Lotion Bars:

We made several flavors of all natural lip balm & lotion bars.  My daughter used her silhouette to make cute little holders to put the lip balm in to display.  So many yummy flavors and both the lip balm and lotion bars are amazing!

Parachord Bracelets:

On old one, but still a fun craft for kids.  My kids love making these and we often take parachord with us camping, so the kids can make new bracelets and have a little craft to make.

Hi-Ho Cherry-O:

Last year I made a couple Hi-Ho Cherry-O games just for fun and I still had one in my craft room.  So I set that out too.  It comes with four tree placemats, cherry buttons & an oversized dice.  Such a fun classic game from my childhood that is easy to play with young kids.

Sidewalk Chalk Games:

During our last sale, we also did these Sidewalk Chalk Game Bags.  My mom loved them and had 10 more almost all sewn up.  So she brought them down, I finished sewing them, and this year instead of buying the sidewalk chalk we made homemade sidewalk chalk and put them in the extra lotion bar containers.  They were fun to use and the kids didn't get their hands all chalky.  I just made sure to save the same containers, to use over and over again.  You could also use deodorant containers as well.

For the bake sale portion we just set out samples of each item.  We left the rest in the kitchen, so when someone ordered something one of the kids would run in and get their order.  This kept everything from melting, bug out and kept the kids from touching them all.  Plus we wrapped the cookies in plastic wrap, but them would slip them in cute little chevron paper bags.  Way cuter to hand our customers.  Our menu included:

Jello Shaved Ice (8 different flavors)
Brownies with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Frosting
Rice Krispie Treats shaped like Watermelon Slices
Marshmallow Brown Sugar Popcorn
Lemon Sugar Cookie Bars
Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites (we sold these in bags of 8)
Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
Popcorn Balls

It's quite the project getting everything ready.  My oldest two help out a lot with preparing and actually during the sale.  My oldest did great taking care of the money, adding everything up and making sure everyone got the correct change.  The younger two made it until their friends came over, and then they were off playing.  The kids are always excited to count up the money.  This year I took all the check and deposited them in my account to help pay back what I spent.  Each of the kids took a small amount of the money to spend however their hearts desired.  And the rest of the money is family fun money...so they are talking about and deciding how to use this money all together this summer.

From Blah To Bling

This year my daughter danced in a Patriotic Program our town has every year with her dance group.  I was supposed to get her a red and white outfit.  I was really struggling trying to find something I liked.  So I bought a plain red tank top for $3 at Walmart.

After a few rhinestones and some ribbons on the sleeves...this is what we ended up with.  Much better!