Done to Death

Wanna know what's been done to death in blog land?

The painting of plastic animals.

In my own defense, I did hop on the bandwagon pretty early.

(See HERE and HERE.)

But still...

... I kind of thought I was done with them.  

That is until I saw THESE.  (<-- click that link!)

Be still my heart:  painted animal keychains.

(I just had to make some.)

So I added screw-on eye rings to some dollar store dinosaurs.  (I just did it with my fingers; no drill necessary.)

You can also buy plastic dinosaurs HERE.  

Then I got out my spray paint.

And my spray paint box.  (Seen HERE.)

And I got to painting.

And while gold has been my paint color of choice for plastic animals in the past...

... I branched out a little this time.

And since I only have so many keys, I added a few gold dinos to these pretty little jars:

I might put them in my etsy shop...

...or I might add them to my new desk space...

...where they would go nicely with the newest addition to my office: Mr. Mouse.  (He's a receipt spindle.  Yes, I still keep my paper receipts.  Don't judge.)

So while painted plastic animals have kind of been done to death, they still make my heart go pitter patter.  

Here's hoping they don't go extinct any time soon ;)

Great News!  If you're interested in making your own "Key Rex" Key Chain, you can buy everything you need through Whimseybox.  Just click on the links below.

Shrinky Dink Silhouette Jewelry

Sometimes I get a good idea and I just have to run with it.

And run...

(...and then run a little more)

My most recent good idea?

~Shrinky Dink Charms~

Last time I wrote about them the charms were part of my daughter's "You're So Charming" Valentines.

This time I went with silhouettes.

(And yes, the silhouette is of my younger daughter--and it's being worn by my older daughter.)

Wouldn't this be a great gift for a kid to make for Mother's Day?

Just place the shrinky dink film over a profile picture, trace, color, punch a hole, and bake.

Easy peasy!

(Of course I was lucky enough to have these cool ornaments to trace, but a regular picture would work just fine.)

So since I'm on a roll I have to ask: what would you make with some shrinky dink film?

Linking:
http://yesterfood.blogspot.com/2014/03/treasure-box-tuesday-12.html

How to Wrap an E-Card

... in three easy steps!

E-cards make great gifts and for my daughter's last birthday a dear friend sent her one via my email address.

It is always so sweet when friends and family from afar remember my kids on their birthdays.  For that reason, I wanted the e-card pack the same punch as the the prettily wrapped presents purchased here in town.  My solution?

1.  I printed out the e-card.

2. I rolled it up and inserted it in a tissue tube.

3.  I wrapped it with tissue paper and twine.

The end result was a gift that looked as good on the outside as it did on the inside.  :)

Shrinky Dink Charms for Rainbow Loom Bracelets

This is the post wherein old-school kid craft meets new-school kid craft.  (Prepare to be amazed!)

One might wonder how such a fabulous collaboration came to be...

You see, it was all part of my quest to find a fun Valentine's Day gift for my daughter to give out in class.  (Preferably one that didn't involve high fructose corn syrup.)

We began with shrink film.  This is the stuff you use for shrinky dinks, but you can buy it on its own, without a shrinky dink kit, HERE.  

We traced some hearts onto the film using a sheet of hearts from the internet.

Then we colored them in.  (All of this was done with Sharpie.  I found the brush tip worked best.)

Then we punched some holes and popped them in the convection oven for three minutes at 300°.

Unfortunately, the charms turned out a little bigger than we had hoped...

...and some were just a hot mess!

So we tried again, this time with free-form hearts...

And we added initials...

And we baked them in the real oven  (also for three minutes at 300°).

And when they turned out okay we added a jump ring to each one...

...which connects the charm to the bracelet:

Then it was just a matter of adding a cute note:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Looking for more Rainbow Loom posts?  Click HERE.

Valentine's Day Treats & Eats

Well, I'm at it again: scouring the internet for delicious food (so you don't have to).

The theme this time?

Valentine's Day Treats & Eats!

(How timely!)

The collection is up now on Looksi Bite.

A Post From the Corner Office

Back in March of 2012 I wrote a post entitled, "Paging Virginia Woolf," a reference to the essay in which Woolf posits that, "a woman must have... a room of her own if she is to write..."

My post was in response to one written by Karianne at Thistlewood who had asked, "Where do you blog?"

At the time, I was blogging in my kitchen:

Admittedly, it was not a bad little spot, but I desperately wished for a "room of my own" in which to write.  

After reading the post, my daughters generously offered me their playroom.  As sweet a gesture as that was, I knew that if I took over the playroom, their toys would take over the rest of my house (and that was a scary prospect).

So my husband suggested that I put an office in the corner of our bedroom.  

This was also a sweet offer.  I thought about it for a long time, weighing the pros and the cons, and while I ultimately decided that I should do it, I actually did nothing for a year-and-a-half.  

Silly as it sounds, this paralysis was due to the fact that a giant (heavy) armoire occupied the space where my "office" would go.

Finally my husband and I tilted the beast on its side and slid it into our hallway.  (You can read about how we eventually got rid of it HERE.)

With the armoire out of the way I was left with a beautiful open space to play with:

And that empty space now looks like this:

Isn't it great?  

Allow me to take you on a tour.  

I knew that I wanted a Parsons style corner desk and was lucky enough to find one at Pottery Barn Teen on clearance.  The white version was sold out but I guess teenage girls weren't so interested in the espresso because I got it for under $300!

With the desk in place, it was really just a matter of creating a functional (and beautiful) work space using (mostly) what I already had.  Loyal readers will recognize these letters that I made back in October of 2012:

Right below them hangs a cute canvas, celebrating my addiction to love of coffee, that I bought at a local craft fair.  

Decorating with the things that I love is important to me and so is the ability to switch things up when the mood strikes.  For that reason I decided to hang the DIY Linen Pin Board that I made back in June of 2013 above my desk:

I ended up liking it so much, that my daughter and I made two more for the adjacent wall.  You can see them in the picture below.   (Want to make one of your own?  Learn how HERE.) 

The board immediately above my desk contains both important schedules and little tid-bits that I enjoy such as fun postcards or pages clipped from a catalog.  

I even keep a cute pair of scissors on the board so it's always at arm's reach.  

The pin boards aren't the only DIY in my corner:  it shouldn't surprise anyone that I turned an old salsa jar into a pen holder.  The jar rests upon a coaster that my daughter made in school.  (Gotta start 'em crafting young.)

Of course not everything is DIY'ed or recycled.  I purchased this three tiered tray at Target as a repository for all of the little things that can accumulate on a work surface.  

I love that the third tier is actually a bowl.  It's just perfect for paperclips and other tiny things.  I also keep pins for my pin board there.  I've stuck them in a cork which just happens to have my name on it.  :)

Another item I bought is this mouse pad.  I got it from the Mulberry Press Etsy Shop.  I hadn't used a mouse in years but recently bought one with an external keyboard.   As I browsed etsy for a mouse pad I was thrilled to come upon this one.   The quote is something I say to my girls all. the. time.  (Just ask them!)  I thought it was a particularly good reminder to have next to my computer while I browse other people's blogs and Facebook pages, drooling over their beautiful and seemingly perfect lives...  ;)

After admiring THIS accordion collator from Anthropologie, I was thrilled to find one (for far less than $58) on a clearance end cap at Target.

It holds these pretty file folders...

...and sits upon a "Flat File Coffee Table" from Cost Plus World Market.  I'd always wanted a flat file--somewhere that I could store all of those oversized pieces of the girls' artwork I've collected over the years--and while this is really meant to be a coffee table, it serves my needs just fine!

So there you have it,  I finally have a room of my own!

Okay, okay, it's a corner.

But a corner office is kind of a big deal, right?

Handybook (Because Sometimes a Honey Do Is Really a Honey Don't)

Did you ever have a task hanging over your head for so long that it almost seemed insurmountable?  The kind of thing that should be easy to do but somehow it takes on a life of it's own and makes you miserable?

Well for the last month or so I've had two of them:  

The first was a monster armoire that needed to be moved from our second floor down to the first.  Having witnessed the movers carry this behemoth up the stairs when we bought the house, I knew my husband and I couldn't do it on our own.  It was huge, heavy, and needed to be maneuvered down a narrow staircase with two hairpin turns.  

So for six weeks it sat on our second floor landing while I wracked my brain looking for a solution.

The second was a giant mirror that needed to be hung over the fireplace in our den.  When I purchased it online I had no idea that it weighed roughly a zillion pounds.   While my husband and I might have been able to hang it on our own, it had the potential to be a nightmare.  (Hanging any picture with my husband is a nightmare.  We have one of the most solid relationships around but if you ever hear that we're getting divorced you can be pretty sure that a level and a stud finder are at the center of the dispute.)

So I did what any good procrastinator would do:  I propped the mirror up against the armoire and tried not to look at them when I walked past.

I know what you're thinking, "Why couldn't she just get on the internet and find someone to do this stuff?" And the answer is that I could have. I could have paid a fee and joined a website and read through lots of reviews to find someone who would meet my needs. Alternatively I could have used a free website and hoped that whoever I found was capable and trustworthy.

Instead I opted to close my eyes whenever I walked down the second floor hallway.

Then, in almost fairy godmother-like fashion, I was approached by the website Handybook.  It's probably worth mentioning that I'm frequently approached by companies asking me to review their products on`a casarella.  As you can probably tell from the number of sponsored posts that I've done (three in the last two years), I usually turn them down.  That's because I will never write about anything that I wouldn't be willing to write about unprompted.  Let me assure you, if I had known about Handybook before they found me,  I would happily have written about them all on my own.

You see, Handybook is a site that enables you to book pre-approved cleaners or handymen with the click of a button. Beyond that, they do all the heavy lifting (pun intended) for you:  they find the service providers, they do rigorous background checks, they schedule the appointment according to your needs, and they even handle the billing. 

Holy convenience, Batman!

So when they asked if I had any jobs that needed doing you can be darned sure that I said yes!

But I'm not going to lie.  I was still little worried.  This was uncharted territory for me and I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

Apparently what I should have expected was greatness.  I kid you not.  These guys were fantastic.

After booking my appointment with Handybook I received a "Meet Your Handybook Professional" email with all of the relevant details and contact information.

Russ and Luis (henceforth known as my new best friends) were the professionals assigned to my job.

They showed up on time in their Handybook uniforms with all of the equipment they needed to get the job(s) done right, starting with the mirror.  I had set up a template of sorts showing them where I wanted it hung.  Using their own tools and supplies, they had the mirror up and straight in under five minutes.  It was exactly as I wanted it.  (Or so I thought, but more on that later.)

Remember my last post when I told you all about my improved photography skills?  Well, obviously this shot doesn't count, okay?   

Next they turned to the armoire.  Despite their obvious capability I kept blathering on about how heavy it was and how they didn't have to do it.   They assured me that they were fine.  Then they set to work removing the doors and shelves from the unit to make it less unwieldy.  Even the professional movers who brought the armoire up in the first place hadn't removed the doors.  Once they did that, they strategized the best way to get the unit down the stairs.  This was the part I'd been dreading, but they executed it brilliantly.  They got the armoire safely into my garage with no damage to the unit, the banisters, and most importantly, themselves.  (They also reattached the doors and shelves.)

But let me tell you about the best part.  While Russ and Luis were preparing to move the armoire, I decided to examine the mirror...

...at which point I determined that it was about four inches too high.

This, my friends, this is when my husband would have (justifiably) lost his marbles.  But Russ and Luis?  Do you want to know what they said when I told them??

"No problem!"

And that?  That is when Handybook earned a well-deserved spot on my bookmark bar.

Are you interested in learning more?  If you have a house that needs cleaning, IKEA furniture that needs assembling, or any other household tasks, click over to Handybook's website where you can read all about their company and book yourself an appointment today!

Please note that while I have been provided with product compensation for this post, all opinions are my own.