Passive Humidifier

The air in our homes can become quite dry, especially during winter due to the central heating. This can cause dry skin, cough or worsen asthma symptoms.

To help you prevent a too dry environment you can (re)use small food cans with water placing them close to the heating system. Of course you have to be a little bit careful with materials used to decorate them and location. Also, monitor the amount of water to be sure there's always enough water in them. 

Here's what I used:

1. Cans
2. Wire
3. Pliers
4. Hammer and nail
5. Hot glue
6. Scissors
7. Several decorations (adhesive paper, ribbons, etc.)

How to do it:

1. Take out all labels and glue 
2. Perforate the cans on top at two opposite points (I used a hammer and a sharp nail) 
3. With the pliers cut enough wire to make a handle 
4. Pass the wire through the two holes and use the pliers again to roll the wire over itself to clench it and be sure it's not going to harm anyone.
5. Decorate as you want, just be sure to not use very light paper or anything that could easily burn (the radiators are not that warm, but we don't want any accidents to happen).
6. Hang the cans and fill at least half with water.

Here are my first ones:

I can already see the difference, not really in my skin yet, but with the recovering from a persistent cold and dry cough.

Lanyards

One of my colleagues mentioned once that with winter coming she would wear more the type of clothing that has no place to hang our ID batches from work - leggings and long sweaters kind of thing. She had asked for a lanyard at security but there were none left so I immediately thought I should make one for her. And I finally did.

2 (old) in 1 (new) shirt

So this story is pretty short, I had put aside some shirts because they were too short, I mean my belly would always be showing (and I'm not even pregnant) or be cold because of this, they just become too uncomfortable. Luckily I didn't do anything with them until I came out with this idea of using two shirts to make a longer one and I had seen this shirt on TV with a triangle and I fell in love for it. So here's my version of it with instructions to do your own if you feel like it, I hope you enjoy it.

Cute frame with powder milk box

When I made the vases for the vertical garden with the powder milk boxes - see here; it hit me that the top part of the box was cute to make a picture frame with a cover.

I used:

• Top of the powder milk box, 
• Scissors
• Paper glue
• Card (to place behind the photo)
• Decorative paper for the sides of the box
• Hot glue gun and glue
• Decorative material for the cover (eva, buttons, are just an example)
• Wood bar to balance the frame

1. Cut the top of the powder milk box leaving 3 cm height
2. Cut decorative paper with 3 cm height and glue it around the box
3. Cut the photo the shape of the box and from the bottom place it as close to the cover as possible
4. Cut card the shape of the box and glue it to the bottom
5. I had a piece of wood from a broken hanger so I cut it to the size of the box's base and glued it with the hot glue gun to give more stability
6. Decorate cover, you can use eva, figures, buttons, use your imagination and whatever you already have laying around :D This is the most fun part!

What do you think? Is it maybe a nice project to do with your children to offer to grandparents at Christmas?

Vertical garden

A good husband brings home stuff to recycle, listen to what I say...

That's how this all started. Here I was dreaming of a vertical garden made with pallets, so trending, right? But my hubby goes and brings these modules where they used to have fruit at his work, they were going to end up in the recycling center! I immediately started to picture our future vertical garden! They were still in good shape to repurpose before the recycling center and I'm glad they were given the opportunity to be in use a few more years! :)

So first of all, I had to sand all surfaces of the modules so I could paint them. I'm so economic that I even had a remaining of paint from when we painted the cabin!

I won't fool you! Each module took me around 3 hours, plus maybe 1 hour around the bins. This was due to the stripes of wood, I wanted them well done in the breaches since they will have to resist to a lot of raining!

For this fase I used:

• Electrical sander
• Sand paper
• Paint brushes
• Varnish
• Diluent (to clean the brushes after use)

The idea is to have letuce, cabage, tomato, peppers and herbs on the platforms and hang flowers on top, I still have to buy some plants...

To make the vases to hang with flowers I used the powdermilk boxes I still had from my baby and to protect the wood from rainwater I used some plastic packagings:

I hope this inspires you to make your own vertical garden :) You can chose herbs or vegetables you usually use daily for tea/salades/spices, this will help your grocery budget and will reduce packaging waste as you wont buy it so much from the shop. It's a win-win.:)))

Birthday party ideas for toddlers

In need of ideas for kids birthday party? I've got just the thing for you!

I did all the decoration and cooking myself with the help of my partner and family members that came over for our little one's 2nd birthday!

We tried to keep it simple and healthy, without spending too much money. ;)

I truly believe the secret lies in the simple things and kids are happy with anything that comes out of their routine. It was a success!

As sweets we had: fruit kebab, popcorn, candy gum, salame (chocolate salame) and birthday cake, but the highlight were the lollipops dolls we made out of chopsticks, styrofoam ball and old clothes.

I stucked 3 chopsticks in the styrofoam ball, my mother in law (can I call her that even if we are not really married?) sewed a little dress with an old shirt of mine. Then I glued eyes and drew mouth and nose!

To display the popcorn we made cartridge with a napkin and put in a plastic cup to hold them up (right side on the picture, we were to busy to take pictures of everything). Some popcorn were sweet and others salty, I was surprised that most children prefered salty!

I also used part of an old pie pan as base for candles with the letters to write "Happy Birthday", it was handy to save the table from melted wax...

The rest of the decoration was mainly balloons, I've put a garland with flowers made of egg carton on the window behind the table but I couldn't manage to take a good picture of it (too much light coming from the window). I find it really hard to take a picture that makes justice to some of the things I make...

And that was it, to leave you with apetite I leave you this one:

Sunshade cover

I've seen people going to the beach with sunshades in capes made of old jeans, or at least it seemed like it, and I thought it was a great way of recycling old jeans. This summer the plastic cape that came with our sunshade got ruined so I asked at home if anyone had old jeans that would be sufficiently long to do a cape for it. I was given an old stained jean but I only had an idea of how to do it – sew the bottom of one leg to close it and then on the top put a cord to close it like a bag. 

Luckily I could use my mother in law’s sewing machine and expertise in sewing… I forgot that by cutting one of the legs of the jeans I would also have to sew a little bit on the side and that the top of the cape would not be straight – jeans are lower on the front than on the back. I learned how to sew with a machine and how the top of the jeans are made.

This time I didn't take a picture of the materials used, I used a lot of the sewing stuff from my mother in law, she has some fabulous tools that I even didn't know existed; I really want to learn more about sewing!

Material needed for this project:

• Old pair of jeans (you only need one of the legs provided it’s long enough, I used part of the waist band as well)
• Scissors – to cut the jeans and thread
• Sewing machine, I guess you can do it without but I was afraid the stitches would not hold with time and use (optional)
• Thread
• Pins – to hold the jeans together where you want to sew
• Cord – To place on top
• Stitches remover – I didn't know this existed it’s really practical to undo stitches (optional)

       How to do it:

1. Place the sunshade in one of the legs of your old jeans to check if it fits and the jeans are long enough

2. After having chosen big enough jeans, with the sunshade still in the jeans, see how you have to cut the jeans so you have enough space to sew.

3. Take the sunshade out of the jeans and cut the leg as you determined on step 2

4. With the pins align the parts that need sewing

5. Sew

6. Put the cord on top of the cape – I needed to undo the top, cut, align and sew again before passing the cord.

Pet bed

When I saw this bed pet I thought immediately of our cat but had no sweatshirt to make the project. unfortunately with time one of my favorite pullovers shrank and I decided it was time my cat had a proper bed instead of sleeping in ours ;) 

I used a pillow and her blanket as well:

The blanket was used to fill the sleeves and the pillow to fill the center:

After sewing everything together this was the result:

Now all I need to do is convince the cat this is a better bed than ours! :P

Ideas / Organizer Board

It's been hard for me to keep track of everything I have to do and all the ideas I have in my mind. Sometimes I can't even sleep, and I can tell you that some ideas are left in my mind maturing for several weeks until, suddenly I know how and what material I will use. I guess that's how artists get their ideas as well... all the sudden!

This idea board has been in my mind for nearly 2 months, until the day I knew exactly what I wanted - a board where I can write what comes to my mind but where I can also pin ideas/tasks I wrote down on paper, so I keep everything together.

I knew I would use corks from wine bottles for the pinning area but not sure how to cut them etc.; in the end it all came down to this:

1. I used the exacto knife to cut the bigger side of a box I brought from the local supermarket. 

2. Also with the exacto knife I cut corks in 3 parts (in height).

3. I lined the board area (approximately 40x40 cm) with the blackboard sticky paper.

4. I glued decor paper on the pinning area (aproximadamente 20x40 cm) with paper glue.

5. With my hot glue gun I glued the cork pieces on the pinning area. 

About the pinning area - I didn't have enough pieces of cork; but I couldn't wait to finish the project... So I also realized you can't pin in the hole area, you need space for your notes to be readable, so what I did? I glued the pieces with enough space apart to be able to glue extra pieces in between when I have more. Not sure I'm going to do that though, because like this you can see the decor paper better. I like it as it is!

In the end I also wanted a place to put the chalks, pins, etc. so I cut a plastic packaging lengthwise and placed it under the board. If you need hanging your board you can glue it; hot glue will be best.

Bracelets for Toddlers

This is a very simple project - my favorites! It was actually my daughter's idea, kind of... ;) You know kids have a bright imagination, every time she found a toilet paper roll she would put it on as a bracelet - a huge one! LOL

Than it hit me - I had bought some decorative tape, why not decorate paper rolls with tape and cut it in strips?

This was all I used, nothing special:

- Decorative tape,
- Card roll,
- Scissors
- Exacto knife












Voilá:

I take them out for showers and sleeping - as soon as she wakes up she asks for them! Kids... They need so little to be happy! We are the silly ones...  ;)