Burlap Covered Diaper Boxes

**There are tons of photos in this post, consider yourself warned!**

We cloth diaper, except at night and on days where we are really lazy- about one day a month.

With that said, we have bought maybe 6 boxes of diapers total. Why? Well, they are expensive and toxic. If you don't know the details on how awful disposable diapers are you should look them up. 

I am not here to rant and rave, I am here to tell you about how I am reusing my disposable diaper boxes since the diapers themselves are so wasteful.

If you look here and here you will see the inspiration for my girls' room. This is another low cost project to promote their organization while they live with us full time over the summer! They also helped make them :)

What you will need:

Cardboard (diaper) box

burlap

spray paint

cheap wooden picture frame from Craft store

thin wood to cut (or cardboard might even work!)

E6000 (the best craft glue ever!)

scissors

spray glue

chalkboard spray paint

I primed my boxes.

Here is where I would do it differently if I did it again...

I would spray paint my boxes brown first, since the primer and Luvs label showed through after I adhered the burlap. Which I ended up "fixing" by spray painting the whole box and burlap a nutmeg brown after they were covered...

Awful photo above, sorry, but it was the only one I had of the process :)

Cut your burlap to cover the box and spray the whole box with spray adhesive outside! That stuff is a sticky mess, but it works. I wore gloves, that stuff is sooooo hard to get off of your hands.

Once my box was covered, I spray painted them nutmeg color- and I don't have a photo of this step.

I spray painted a $1 wooden frame blue. 

Happy Hubby used the cardboard insert of this cheap Michaels wooden frame as a template to cut out this thin wood to fit in the frame. I primed it with spray primer and then 2 coats of chalkboard paint.

I glued the frame in with this:

Then glued the frames onto the burlap covered boxes with the same glue and put them face down with heavy books inside of the box to make sure the frames stuck.

Happy Hubby added eyelets to the sides which I intend to add braided jute handles to.

And they fit perfectly on our shelves in the girls' room.

All that is left is to write in chalk what we keep in the boxes and add handles!

Great way to up cycle! 

Dictionary Art

Brought to you by the letter:

Isn't that P awesome?!?!

I got a paper mache P from Joann on sale a couple weeks ago.

In this post I talked about the gallery wall that I am working on in Mr. P's room. 

My vision is letters and numbers, and keeping things pretty classic. 

I love things that are timeless, that way we are not wasting and tossing etc.

I kinda feel guilty for ripping up a dictionary since I just read the other day that no more will be published due to the availability of definitions on the world wide web... Sad!

But I ripped it up anyway... and then lamented that I should have made copies to use instead, and then I thought, well, this is a great way to preserve history right?!  See my dilemma here? :)

Anyhow, the P is covered in ripped up dictionary pages of all P words and will make a lovely addition to Mr. P's room/gallery wall.

I also made this cute little guy:

My lil man is soooooo into bike rides these days!

This is a little 4x4 canvas that I adhered a dictionary page with the word bicycle onto and used my radical bicycle stamp.

I might be able to sell these, what do you think?

Here they are side by side:

I can not wait to get them up on the wall.

Katie from Creatively Living has certainly inspired me with her lovely gallery walls in her home. You should check em out! However making the decision where to hang everything is pretty overwhelming!

We will have it up soon, and photos to brag inspire :P

I Scored! Pyrex Story

I thought the possibility of finding vintage pyrex at Goodwill was slim-to-none. Seriously, I thought that was the first thing everyone looked for when they went thrifting...

I wasn't even looking for Pyrex, I was looking at plates and mugs. We don't really need either but I sort of have an obsession with dishes... especially old ones with lotsa character!

Out of habit, I went down the isle in Goodwill where there *might* be Pyrex...

And look what I found!!!!!

Disclaimer:

They did not look this amazing when I found them. 

The orange bowl with yellow flowers looked peach with white flowers...

yeah, it that bad.

I Started cleaning with soapy water. That didn't work at all. 

You really don't want to use an abrasive on this stuff since it can mess up the finish, but in order to get them clean I had to use Bar Keepers' friend as a last resort. It took quite a bit of the shine off of the orange bowl, it looks pretty matte now. Although, it was so grungy in the first place, it may have already had the shine scrubbed out! I was able to clean my pink dish with a sponge and magic eraser in only some parts. Since that too is an abrasive, I wanted to clean as much as I could with out ruining the finish.

Here they sit atop our room divider... Right next to buddha!

I'm pretty thrilled by this find!

$6.99/piece, can't beat that with a stick!

Crock Pot "baby food"- apples and sweet potatoes

This is a favorite in our home. All three kids will mow through a batch of this in no time, and it's so simple. I got tired of making a huge pot on the stove so now we crock pot it.

What you'll need:

Apples

Sweet Potatoes

Lemon or lemon juice

Cinnamon

Peel and cut up sweet potatoes and apples. 

Place sweet potatoes on the bottom of your crock then apples on top- since apples make a lot of their own water.

Add water to the crock. I added just enough to cover half of my apples and sweet potatoes.

Cook for 4-6 hours on low. 

Sweet potatoes should be tender, but not mushy. 

It should look about like this:

Toss apples, sweet potatoes, and water from the crock in the blender (or food processor, but blender holds more). 

Add a squeeze of lemon juice- it's about 1/4 medium lemon's juice for 1/2 a crock's worth. Make sense?

Add a few dashes of cinnamon and blend away! I never really measure anything...

It'll look like this:

And there you have it.

I have a feeling my children will be eating this all the way through college. 

Seriously, they like it that much.

The babes will snack on just the apple flavored sweet potatoes from the crock pot.

In this post I wrote about baby carrots in the crock as snacks. 

You can do carrots in this recipe as well instead of sweet potatoes. In which case I like to add a little ginger.

The other cool thing about this mixture is that it makes a great addition to pancakes or baked oatmeal!

That'll have to be a whole other blog though!

Happy Crock Potting!

This stinky desk...

This desk stinks. I'm serious. This desk smells so bad that it makes me gag... 

That is why I have been putting off doing something to it.

But it's time.

This stinky desk is getting a makeover!

Wine bottle to vase! A quick project tutorial

I am going to tell you how to turn a wine bottle into a vase!

Remember this post? 

There was really just a smattering of color in the form of fabric and fake flowers that were inspiring me for A & B's bedroom. Whimsical really.

I could not pass up these huge daisies at Michaels at 50% off a couple of weeks ago, but we needed a vase and I really did not want to buy anything. I already hadn't purchased enough fabric with my coupon stash and had to go back to buy more for a measly 10% off. 

I do not like buying things that are not on sale. I think I inherited that from my father...

Ok, on to the tut.

So simple:

1. Raid your recycling (or someone else's!) and select a bottle.

2. Soak it in hot water to scrape curse peel the label off.

3. To get the excess gunk off from the label you can use goo gone, vegetable oil,

 or rubbing alcohol and some salt is a great little abrasive.

4. Wash the bottle very well with dish soap. 

5. Let your bottle dry all the way. 

I waited a whole day, and I lived to tell about it ;) 

6. Spray primer! 

Cover the whole bottle.

7. After your primer has dried (usually about 20 mins or so), 

spray paint your bottle your chosen color. 

In our case it is white.

8. This is the most important part: 

Put your bottle someplace safe and relatively warm and let the paint cure for at least a week. 

This will keep your paint from chipping, peeling or cracking.

**If you choose to add huge whimsical flowers, set them up in varying heights, as seen in the photo, and trim the stems with burley wire cutters. You may have to twist them slightly to get them into the bottle.

PaPaBAW!! (pom pom balls) toddler activity!

PaPaBAW!! (pom pom balls) Mr. P yells this every time that I get the pom pom balls out. I keep them in a jar and let him stick his hand into the full jar (sensory!) and pull them out. 

Keeping Mr. P in the high chair for this activity helps to contain the balls and maintain his focus. 

I love this activity, because it lasts awhile, it is educational, it's super cheap, and it doesn't have to be directly supervised if you need to buy some chore time!

As you see here, we get out multiple kitchen containers for lil man to practice sorting and use his imagination!

We are teaching him to sort by color in the silicone ice cube tray.

Just look at this concentration caught on camera!

he really loves this activity. It is fun to watch him make up different things to do, sometimes we inspire him and other times we leave him alone to create.

We purchased this pack of primary color pom poms at the Dollar store! We also got a pack of pastels to mix it up. 

Eventually we can start talking about comparisons and what colors combine to create other colors!

And sometimes the measuring cup just becomes a telephone!

**Please note that if you toddler likes to stick things in their mouth this may not be the best activity for them unless highly supervised. Mr P is not big on putting everything in his mouth, but he just had to try it once. We watched very closely as he tested one in his mouth and spit it back out- quickly! It only took one time!

If you think of any other pom pom games/activities, please let me know! These things are so versatile!