Easter apothecary jars

My latest holiday update to my apothecary jars. Easter eggs as filler and duck cookie cutters instead of letters (couldn't come up with a three letter word I liked...egg?). I had both already, so the only purchase was the ribbon for $1 at Michaels dollar section.

I also updated the footed candles on the island (filling them with nerds from Dollar Tree : )

River rock sink area - finalized

So my spa bath redo is complete.  I added the river rocks to the sink, painted an old chipped soap dispenser to add to the right, added the ceramic container (with ribbon detail added) to the left to hold the room spray, and my sink redecoration project is complete. Just a few more tweaks in the 1/2 bath to remove all traces of red, and the room will be complete. :)

Update plain container with ribbon

Took a plain dark-brown ceramic container I had and wanted to add detail.

Decided to add some brown & white zebra ribbon I had from another project. Cut it to length and melted the ends to prevent fraying (I use a lighter to do this).

A little hot glue to attach and voila! Much cuter.

As most of you know, I'm in the process of changing my 1/2 guest bath to better fit with the new rocks in the sink spa feel.

I decided I needed another item on the left side of the sink. I have the much needed room spray atomizer that looks a little plain by itself.  I decided to make this to set it in.  Picture of the finished sink area to come :)

Painting soap dispenser

Today I decided to add another piece to my "spa" guest half bath. I had added red to that bathroom a year or two ago, but after adding the rocks to the sink (see my other post) the red just doesn't fit anymore.

I took the old soap pump (which I had taken out since it had fallen off and chipped) and decided to paint it with my favorite Modern Options blacked brown paint (see my earlier post on painting hinges to find out where to buy it).

Now it matches much better with the new spa look I'm going for (and now I can touch it up if it falls and chips again :)

Make a footed candle at Ikea for $1.30 : )

My daughters and I went to Ikea for fun over spring break and found an inexpensive way to improve the inexpensive scented candles they have (For .79 cents).  Right next to them were some .49 cent small glass candle holders.  And before our eyes we created a much more attractive candle holder for 50 cents more.

The before and after right in the same photo.  Two people around us commented...what a great idea...and picked up a few of each ).

Use a glue gun to connect the two together (just like my dollar store apothecary jars and Bath and Bodyworks footed candles).

These even look more modern for a home with cleaner lines.

Happy hunting for ideas of your own.

Make a spring arm cupholder work better

Use rubber tubing to make a spring arm cupholder grip better.

I have some spring arm cupholders in my car, and it seems they just don't hold cups that well. Let's face it, my daughters can knock over a cup in just about any cupholder, but I was looking for something to help them grip. I had some black tubing, so I cut it to length and slid it on. So much better!

A custom playset sign

...or what your daughters do when they are bored and have a mother who does projects all day and rubs off on them : )

So my youngest daughter came to me over spring break and said she wanted to make a sign for her play set.  This kid loves to come up with outlandish projects and then leave it to me to iron out the details.  Since we didn't go on vacation over the week, I decided a few fun projects like this would help the time pass by and result in a lot less "I'm bored"s.

I started by having them make a list of possible names.  This was definitely the fun part.  They ended up choosing The Rotten Raft (they thought it was funny because their playset is older, 10 years old now, and it sort of looks like a raft).

I found and old piece of scrap molding we used in our old house and they approved.  They liked it because it was only lightly primed and therefore looked weathered.  They then got out our old paint collection (and decided on orange, since we had red and yellow left over craft paint and the orange would match a new bucket they recently added...another project I will detail later).

I took on the task of painting, as I was going to be able to see this sign from my back windows and I didn't want to stare at a badly painted sign every day.  I mixed the paint, drew the letters out on paper for their approval, lightly penciled it on the board, and quickly painted them.  It turned out just the way they wanted (or so they said).

Once it dried we hung it on the playset with two nails straight through the sides of the sign into the play set wood, and they just love it!

Now where else do we need some custom made signs? : )