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...  ;)

Memory jar

Who doesn't like to collect pebbles and shells when at the beach? We love it and our daughter even more! But when coming home what to do with them, right?

We try at most not to bring too many home but at this last holidays in Croatia we brought a few "memories" back home, so I chose the largest glass jar I had in my stack and got busy with it:

1. With permanent marker and a ruler define the letter's high and width, then draw the letters of the place where the pebbles and shells were collected. Mine are from our holidays in Croatia, I could also have written something more specific, like the village where we stayed but the word was too long ;)

2. With a rhinestone applicator glue the pearls to define the letters guided by the marks made in step 1.

3. Print a picture of the beach where you collected the little memories you brought. Choose the size photo that will suit your jar the best. My jar was larger than tall so I chose an horizontal picture and then had to cut it to fit in.

4. Glue the photo to the jar, I used double sided tape on the back of the picture to look nicer. 

5. Now all you need to do is place your treasure into your decorated jar.

Mine looks like this now:

Happy memory jar making!

Puzzle for Toddlers

In several countries around the world children's day will be celebrated tomorrow, with that in mind I made a puzzle for my daughter.

It's really simple to make and all I used was cardboard, a paper napkin with Minnie Mouse theme, glue, paintbrush, scissors, exacto knife, ruller and transparent adhesive paper.

Here's how to do it step by step:

Wait about one hour to allow the glue to dry!

Happy children's day and don't forget to allow the child in you to show up to play from time to time! ;)

Keep the flavor of your tomatoes, put this storage box together in 2 simple steps!

Did you know that you shouldn't keep tomatoes in the fridge because they will loose flavor?

Well, I recently found out so I thought of a way to store them on my kitchen stand next to onions and garlic. I immediately found a paper bag so they could breath but it wouldn't stay up, it needed something to support it. 

I went to my "magic boxes" in the attic , found a recipient big enough (2L demijohn), cut the top off and voilá!

1. Cut the top of the demijohn off

2. Fit the paper bag in the recipient and fold the remaining paper outside. (Or in my case, fit the recipient in the paper bag and fold the remaining to the inside)

Happy tomatoes this ones I think! And I really notice the change in the flavor!!! ;)

Used frying oil

Did you know that frying oil can be used 3 times and then should be sent to recycle? The collected oil is mostly used to produce bio-diesel or as a raw material in (non food processing) industry. 

To dispose your used oil be sure to use a non breakable bottle and that you will be able to close the recipient (When I don't have the original empty bottle anymore, I use water plastic bottles). 

You should strain the oil while pouring into the container so small particles of food do not enter the container - this could cause mold to grow. See how to dispose your used cooking oil here! There are also nice tips of how to dispose it in the garbage bin if you don't have a collecting place nearby and how to reuse it for other projects!

I don't use a lot of frying oil and I also don't use it often so it's easy to forget how many times I used it. I started to keep the oil in a used jam jar and then I started to mark the jar with indelible ink pen every time I used the oil, so if I see I would be marking the jar  for the 3rd time I know I have to dispose it after this use. Every time the jar gets empty I clean all the marks (with alcohol). 

So this is my oil jar with my reusable frying oil:

I only painted it so everyone in the house knows what it is and to decorate. I only used a empty jam jar (not exactly this one :D) and special glass coloring pens:

Don't ever put frying oil down the drain: it pollutes water dangerously and it will clog your pipes! If there's no collection system in your area dispose it in your trash bin in a closed recipient. If this would be the case then you don't need to strain the oil.

Plastic bag dispenser

OK... Is it just me or this is how plastic bags end up in your house too???

Every time we buy vegetables or fruit that you have to weight you end up bringing a new plastic bag home, this bags are not big or resistant enough for anything else... ALMOST anything else! This is what I do with them:

1. I place them in my big shopping bag to use them again in groceries (I also do this for bread plastic bags). While reusing be careful to place the new sticker in the same place of the old one (I once paid for the old sticker again and it was more expensive that the new one, but still, I don't want to be doing any frauds!!!). 
2. I use the bags for waste disposal in the bathroom. Bathroom rubbish is usually light and they can take it even if torn. Also in the bathroom you usually don't have to worry about leakage (tried to use them for organic waste in the kitchen but I always have to check if there is any tiny little rupture...).
3. When the bags are really damaged I place them in the recycling bin.

So that's why I keep the bags. In the kitchen I have a bag's bag that my mother in law made me, it's so so cute! But as I forgot to take used bags to the groceries my bag's bag was too full so I took some bags to use in the bathroom but is was getting quite hectic... You know what they say: Necessity is the mother of invention! :P

I grabbed a big box of tea, one big plastic stick and two plastic pieces to use to roll the plastic bags (these last two are from the balloons holders).
All I needed to do was the holes to set up the rolling device on the sides and one other on top to be able to pull out the bags.
To keep the bags organized I folded them crosswise. The first bag was fixed with tape to the stick and kept it tight while rolling. When adding a new bag roll the bottom of the new bag with the top of the previous bag and keep it as tight as possible.

... and by the way 100 posts! Congratulations to our RY!!!

TV cabinet re-do!

Look what we did with this old TV cabinet...

In this case we used:

- sandpaper
- paint and paintbrushes
- storage boxes

The  drawer was falling apart as well as the supports so my "husby" helped me fixing those! Thank you Carlos for supporting me in this crazy ventures!!!

Happy Easter!

Birds's house

Easter is usually around Spring time and decoration's are related to one another, the egg symbolizing new lifes coming, small birds in the nest waiting to learn how to fly, bunnies... everything blooming in colors and green from the new leaves.

So I made a bird's house with carton to decorate the living room:

This is what I used, looks like a lot but it really isn't:

1. I put a small card box together but I could also have used one that wasn't dissembled yet, mine was around 15 x 15 x 15 cm. 
2. I've cut the box (scissors) in half so it's not too deep.
3. I've cut the top off and made the roof with another piece of card. This piece has to be longer than the top so you can make a gabled roof. I fixed the roof with glue and staples (stampler)
4. I've cut stripes of colored paper with a zig-zag scissors to decorate the house. I used colored paper from envelopes (letters from the tax office come in envelopes that are pink inside and letters from the city hall come in envelopes that are grey inside, how about that?) 
5. I drew a little bird on a card, I picked a yellow cereal box, and cut it off.
6. I've glued the bird on the straw and the straw on the sides of the bird's house at mid height.
7. I've made a bow with a ribbon on top so I can also hang it if I want.
8. I've covered a table with brown paper as a base and used green sand on it (like if it was grass on the fields), with my finger I drew a road  on the sand. I had made the flowers in September already and reused them here.

And that was it. It takes around 20 minutes tops to make this project, it took me long to select the materials and draw the bird, but execution is easy and fast. 

Easter bunny!

So how about doing a Easter bunny for Easter decoration?

It´s a little last minute but this project is quickly done, I just took a long time to come up with it and deciding which materials to use!

(Materials used)

I had two oval butter packaging that were great to make a big egg: I cut one in zig-zag to make a broken egg effect and glued it to the other packaging.
I found a rabbit shape in the internet that would be appropriate to embrace the egg and resized it, printed it and made a card one to glue on the egg.

I've put some strips (that I kept from a surprise gift box) as hay and placed the small eggs in the big one.

Here is a view of how I made the smallest eggs:

I used two baby powder milk spoons that were round shaped, cut the round part off and glued them together.

I cut some strip of paper with a curved scissors to decorate the eggs.

You can also use real small chocolate eggs to put inside the big egg as decoration.

I will do at least another one to take to work on Easter Friday! Yes, we will work on Friday and at the office even, but at least we will have a Easter bunny and some chocolates!!! It will be another Happy Friday as we usually call it! 

You can also do it for your little ones in the family as a Easter gift! If I have still the time, I will make one for my neighbours (my little one is still too little for chocolates but she already finds the bunny funny)!


....I had the time to do it, after all, it doesn't take too much time to repeat it once you have everything - 15/20 minutes!

Book with cards and plastic box

A while ago the supermarket we went to was giving animal cards for every 5 or 10 euros of shopping, I kept them to learn the animals in Dutch! 

Now that I see that my daughter just loves them as well as books I combined the 2 things together (just in time for international children's book day :p):

I took the label out with steam (although I used another packaging that was smaller and fitted better in the end).

I used the hole puncher do make holes in the cards.

I passed the thread into the cards and box's holes and firmly tied a knot, so my daughter doesn't take it out, but with enough space to be able to open the box and turn the cards.

That's all folks! ;) Very simple project, you know how kids love the simplest things!

Watering pot

Just a few days ago it was raining hail but believe it or not spring is coming... :P  One has to prepare for warmer days!

The last few years I became reluctant to buy plastic things, because I just think there's already too much plastic in this world and I don't want to be one more contributing for that. 

I have been fascinated by the evolution of indoor watering pots, but I kept resisting buying one, I always use a glass or a mug to water indoor plants :D But now I don't need to buy a watering pot nor to use my porcelain! I made my own watering pot out of a clothes detergent packaging, here's how!!!

1. Remove label using steam (I made some tea and used the steam from the kettle to remove the label).

2. Mark where to drill the holes on the cap and drill!

3. You have to carefully drill another hole so the water can flow when you water the plants (air inlet). You must be careful to drill it on the top where no water will be spilled. Use a smaller drill at first and then larger ones until you're happy with the water flow. If you use a big drill already at first you will damage the pot. Then I've smoothed the edges with a file.

4. I've also wrote something to brighten up the watering pot.

Now you only need to water your plants! :)))

Flower pin

How often do you have the feeling you need a little something to style your outfits, shake things up? Sometimes I get so fed up of wearing the same clothes that I want to change my all wardrobe so when I saw this flower from this awesome blog I thought why not make a PIN with it to brighten up things a little.

You can make it in several colors and different fabrics. Of course there are so many kinds of flowers you can make... on the blog´s post there are 2 kinds of flowers but I preferred this one and there is also the fuxico flower I already posted here before...

Happy flower making! 

All you need is a sewing kit, fabric and scissors.

Cut a rectangle of fabric, I've made mine with 20cm*10cm. 

Fold the piece in half and make cuts at regular intervals from the folded part to the unfolded part leaving 0,5cm uncut at the edge. Fold the rectangle (first photo) or roll it (second photo)

Stitch it at the bottom. 

And voilá... 

By the way! That's me! Hi! Nice to meet you! :D