Framed Bulletin Board

So I was given (yes, G-I-V-E-N) these old beat up pieces of a frame. Can I just tell you how much I love people's trash!?

Love the decorative chunkage!

I was also given (yes G-I-V-E-N) a bulletin board. No photos there but close your eyes and imagine with me: Framed. Cork. Blah.

Of course (because I'm a Murphey's law kind girl and my toast always lands jelly side down) they were not a perfect fit. (And because I'm optomistic I call out "5 second rule!" and scrape the top layer of jelly off and then eat the toast) So I had them cut down to the correct size by my buddy and handy neighbor, Tom (he always reminds me of my Dad...or Bob Villa, but they're pretty much the same guy. Fun fact for you, my first MAJOR crush as a little girl? Bob Villa. I kid not.)

Then I painted the frame and used some DryDex spackling to fill in the gaps. (Murphey's law once again here). And yeah...I used the back side of a plastic fork to dig it out cause I'm shabby like that.

Then I took my cork and wrapped it in burlap (using my love, my hot glue gun to secure it to the back). I popped that sucker into the frame and used 4 metal plates to keep it in place.

I'm loving the distressed blue frame with that burlap covered board!

I hung it up in the dining room as a family command central.

I'm not on the lookout @ Craigslist for the perfect sofa table to put under "command central"

We've also got new white molding on the "To Do" list.

Patience young grasshopper. Patience.

Sharing the decorative chunkage at:

Can't buy me love...oh wait, yes you can!

Remember this post about Joy's fork turned keychain?! Well we had tucked that away in our catalog of spifferfic ideas. Fast forward 2 months and Jenna and I were at "the worlds largest yardsale" (it was pretty stinkin big, but I've heard of bigger...just sayin). 

Jenna with her eagle eyes spotted a drawer of old silverware. Lo and behold...the ten cent spoon collection!!!

On second thought, since we're offering one of these to a lucky winner, I feel cheap telling you how much the spoon cost.

Lo and behold, the 50 dollar spoon collection!!!

There, much better.

So Jenna took her Hulk hands and snipped off the spoony parts with a tool that we don't know what its called, but is now dubbed the spoonypartsnipperoffer

Look at those bulging muscles!

(We also filed down those razor like tips with a metal file so you would not maim yourself reaching for your keys) 

We didn't take a picture of that though cause I was too busy freaking out about the horrible noise it makes (Like when your pencil eraser is almost gone an you erase and scrape the metal on the paper...it hurts me to even type that.)

Then I took my horrificly neglected hands and disgusting cuticles and bent the handle around a pair of needle nosed pliers.

Then I stole keyrings from unsuspecting sets of keys (or if you're not as impatient cheap resourceful as I am, you could buy some)

Then we did what any mature twenty somethings would do, we arm wrestled chose which ones we could get

But guess what, there is three, and there is only two of use. So know what that means!?

GIVEAWAY BABY!

Yes, it is exhausting being this awesome.

To enter...

1. Become a follower (then leave us a comment telling us you've done so). Or if you are already a follower, just leave us a commenting telling us that you are already addicted!

2. Leave us a comment sharing something you have stored away in your catalogue of spifferific ideas

There ya go, 2 entries per person!

Make sure you leave us a way we can contact you if you win!

Giveaway closes Sunday night at 10pm 

Sharing this at the Boardwalk Bragfest

World's biggest garage sale? We'll let you know!

So the other day Tanya was listening to the radio and heard an ad for the "World's largest garage sale" so being the savvy crafter she is, she immediately texted me and had me look it up.  I mean who wouldn't be intrigued by all of those words in the SAME SENTENCE?!?!?!

Here's the dealie-oh... there is over 200 booths all in ONE PLACE at Farimount Park in Collinsville, IL from 7-1pm tomorrow.  Now at first this sounds pretty neat huh?  YES!  Then we found out that you have to pay admission to get into the sale.  A bit of a bummer until we realized that every person that has a booth has to pay $25 for a space.... so they must have some PRETTY FUNKY JUNK they wanna get rid of!  SCORE FOR US!  Besides in our little town, a day of entertainment for $5 admission isn't too bad :)

Tomorrow we'll report in on how grand or ghetto this thing is and maybe even share some funky junk with ya!  Sleep well all!  I'm off to sleep early so I can be an early riser junk shopper.

Fork=Keychain??????

Wanna see how someone turned an olive fork into a KEYCHAIN?!  Yep it's pretty awesome.  Just go to Joys of Home and see how she used her awesome muscles to do it.

My Remote Wrangler

We live in one of 'those' houses.  The ones where the remote control is never where you left it, the husband can't find it, the dogs are no help at all, and we don't have a tracking device on it.  BUMMER!  Worst part is that we DON'T EVEN HAVE KIDS YET!!!!  Dave and I are in SO much trouble when we have kids misplacing our stuff too.

While I would love to blame my husband for the disappearing remote control fiasco, I have to admit I AM to blame sometimes.  I've found remotes in my junk drawer, car, dresser drawer, bathroom, and other random places.  Ergo I decided I needed.... a tray for my remotes!!!!  YAY!

Start with one UGLY DUCKLING tray, complete with glitter overlay.  The poor lady at the thrift store took the taped sticker off carefully cause she was nervous she would tear the picture.  Poor sweet fool!

Tear the duckies to smitherines as much as you can.  If some of it won't come off then soak the rest of the paper in warm water by dripping it into the tray.  After letting it sit for a while, rub off the paper with either with your finger or a scraper for a pizza stone and it should come off beautifully!

Then you can either prime it (which I wish would have been my choice) OR you can sand the bugeezus out of the thing.  Rough on the fingers and a little more time consuming.

Spray paint your new tray a beautiful shade of sage green and plop it on your table.  It holds your remotes beautifully until your husband takes advantage of the empty tray and makes it his homework inbox.  Oh well!  I still love it!

Since this picture doesn't do the color justice I'm also giving you this one, and yes I know it's a HORRIBLE photo- please don't judge....

May all your remotes be wrangled!

How To Drive Hubs Nuts (Shutter lovin')

Step 1. Declare that your hanging tv needs a friend to hug it. (::dodge strange look from husband::)

Step 2. Visit local junkster store, find a pair of old dirty shutters. (::do a happy dance::)

Step 3. Ask the teenage boy working the counter how much they want for the pair. He says, "I dunno, five bucks" FOR THE PAIR! (::pee your pants a little with excitement happy dance again::)

Quick ring me up boy, before the store owner hears what you just did!

Step 4. Show your husband your awesome new score. (::dodge strange look again::)

Step 5. Pull off the little movey thing cause you don't feel like painting it

Step 6. Paint it black (just one, for a test) and hang it on the wall for 24 hrs (::husband says the tv now looks like it has wings::)

Step 7. Decide he's right. Hate it. Stalk Visit your favorite blog for color inspiration. Mix your paints that your mother had sent out for the kids to play with (cha).

Step 8. Paint and hang. Still hate it. (Notice what hubs does when he's given up on the possibility of me wanting to go to bed before midnight)

Step 9. Sand it down some. Yeah, that black paint underneath? I totally meant to do that.

Step 10. Repeat all the same steps for the other shutter and LOVE IT.

Shutter Card Holder

While cruising around some blogs I saw and fell in love with Kristen's door in the corner @ We are that family.

In my own improvisational/bartering extraordinair style, I found a shutter at a local "junk" store to use instead.

But then, I saw Shelley's Shutter Message Board @ How Does She.

Put the two together, plus an over whelming feeling of "What do I do with all these Christmas cards!?" and you get...this....

Thanks for the inspiration ladies!

Framed Bow Organizer

Everyone is doing it.

Making fantastic bow holders that is.

I've seen it done many times before in frames, frames, and more frames.

I've also seen it done in old windows (of course I can't find the link now!)

So when I saw this frame on sale at Walmart for 5 bucks, I had to try it.

So here it goes...

Take everything out of your frame: glass, matting, I even used my utility knife to cut the backing off.

Then paint and distress as you please!

Next, I hot glued different ribbons across the length of the frame. I also reinforced my ribbons with thumb tacks (although I'm not sure it was necessary. I just felt better about doing it!)

Flip and clip!

Cute huh!?

It makes a great gift too. Buy some clips and bows, and you'll have one very happy little girl (And Momma!)

TV Tile Chart

I'm so excited to show you guys my very first project! We've got lots more coming up, so stay tuned. But for now, here's one that I'm linking up to the Shanty2Chic sister's Rustoleum Revamp Party!

After realizing how much television my children watch, and reading (for school) about the correlation between increased TV time and decreased attention spans, I knew we needed some way to give (and take away) TV time. So here's my solution...

The kids start the day each with a tile on the chart
(1 tile=1 show). If they happen to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, the TV is taken away before they even get to eat their Wheaties. Then throughout the day, they can earn another TV show (or have it taken away as punishment)

Ok, I realize that there are enough tiles to amount to like 5 hrs of TV but they don't earn them all in one day (Don't worry Mom!) I made extra incase we lose some!

So here are the steps I used to create our
TV Tile Chart

First, I primed my clipboard with Rustoleum magnetic primer. I put on several coats (ahem....like 5!)

Next I traced the clip board and cut out my paper. (Note that I cut out a square in the bottom paper for the magnets so they would not have to go through 2 layers of paper).

Then I used Mod Podge to adhere my papers to my clip board. Before I put on the center square, I inked it with Tim Holtz Distress Ink. I sanded and inked around the rest of the board, after I had glued the rest of the pieces down.

After I rubbed out all the air bubbles, and let the paper dry, I put several coats of Mod Podge on top of the paper to seal it and keep it from tearing.

Then I embellished! (My favorite part!) For the clip, I made a little sign that said 'TV' using matching paper, stickers, and MORE MOD PODGE!

Then for the top ring I simply looped all different ribbons through the ring, and kept adding til it looked not-so-pathetic.

I debated on just buying plain ol magnets to stick on there, but WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT!?

So I took some metal charms (a letter for each child's name) and painted and sanded them.

Then I Mod Podged them onto some brown cardstock and (you guessed it...) Mod Podged over them! All I had to do was slap on self-adhesive magnet strip, and we're in business!

What do you think?

Now if I could only make a "remote sharing time chart" for my husband!