debor026

It was time to get a little more grown up in tables and the train table needed to move on.  So I turned to Ana White and her awesome plans.  I modified her plans for the Adirondack Coffee Table and created this a little wider and longer (49" x 33") with a lower shelf that will hold up to 6 of our toy buckets.  It's 20" tall to accommodate the extra storage.

With the boys moved in to their rooms we are working on the cabinets on the outside of the wall. I'm pretty happy with how they are turning out so far. I didn't want to buy expensive countertops for this and even the cheap prefab laminate counters were $100 each and I needed two. Yeah, no thanks. So I built my own counters for about $55 total. Thrifty Decor Chick just did something similar here and I thought I could work that idea in to my project. Because I was putting this on top of 12" cabinets I couldn't use 1x4s only (at 3.5 inches it would only be 10.5 inches total and I needed more like 12.5 inches). I did still want it to look like it was intentional so I didn't want to tack a random 2" piece on the back.  Luckily, it turns out the measurements worked out for 2 1x4s with a 1x6 in the middle which looks way more balanced. In order to hold it all together I put a 1x12 underneath to screw through but since that's only really 11.25 and not 12 i...

The kids have been into Minecraft all year and Glenn has been begging for me to paint his bedroom walls with creepers and zombies. Knowing that they will outgrow it in a year or so I wasn't too keen on painting the walls again that quickly, though. But with a painting we can swap it out later when tastes change and this way we're both happy. The pixelated style of the game makes painting very simple. Lay out a quick grid with some pencil and start filling. I used 5 shades of green and just randomly picked the squares as I went. A little black paint fills in the face and voila! It's a Minecraft Creeper.

We have walls!  The tape is done on the outer wall and will be done in the two rooms today.  The plan is to do the texture in the morning and since we are using quick drying texture we can hopefully paint tomorrow night. Our four footed helper is very excited about the changes even if she has no idea what it is that we're doing.

Erin said she wanted to go to Build-A-Bear for her birthday and to go with that she wanted a "Destruct-A-Bear" birthday cake. She wanted to make a bear at the store and pull one apart with a cupcake cake. I heard a friend talking about putting cupcake papers into a shaped pan to make a cake that was basically precut. She was doing it with a flower shaped tin but said she got the idea from someone else who did it with a round one. I thought that would be a good basis for a pull apart bear and easier to frost than separate cupcakes. I have to admit, it worked better than I thought it would. I frosted everything in chocolate and just put the white frosting right on top of it. For the nose I used a Starburst cut in half. Then, to make the lines for his mouth I dipped a butter knife into the chocolate frosting and drew with the point of it. Add a couple of eyes from M&Ms and two ears from extra cupcakes and you have yourself a very quick and easy Destruct-A-Bear cake...

I started this blog on my birthday in 2009 as my 30th birthday present to myself. As the 4 year anniversary of that is coming up next month I thought it would be fun to go back and showcase some of the most popular projects that I've done since the beginning. Lamps in Toyland has certainly been one of the biggest. This was inspired by an artist named Ryan McElhinney. My creation as I made it is here and the finished lamp is here . Toy Lamp The headboard I created for Erin's tween room has been featured a few times.  This project was under $20 to make and it created a great statement piece in her room. Grow Tween Headboard The Monster Truck Birthday cake made a pretty big splash on Pinterest.  It was really easy to make and the kids loved it! Monster Truck Birthday Cake My stone cabinet knobs/pulls were fun to make and I like that they have some history to them. Stone Cabinet Knobs/Pulls The framed foreign coin collection also went kind of viral on Pinterest.  I t...

So many new visitors today.  Welcome!  I've got a few fun projects in the works right now and I'm looking forward to getting those projects up here in the next few weeks.  My two oldest boys have been sharing a bedroom and it's time to get them into their own spaces so we are remodeling.  The framing is up, electrical is in progress and hopefully the drywall will be coming quickly along behind that.  As they have two very different personalities they will also have two pretty different bedrooms so the crafting going in to that will be fun as well.  I just snapped a quick photo with my cell but look for some more fun pictures to come!