Office Chair Transformation

If you are like me, you have an old functional (but not cute) office chair that you sit in day after day at work! Well, this summer, I found an adorable idea on Pinterest to create a new look for my boring office chair. This took less than 45 minutes to complete and requires no sewing!

What do you need to pull of this great look? 

• About 2 yards of cute fabric (will vary depending on the size of chair)
• A staple gun
• A screwdriver
• A big paper clip

 Now these steps may vary depending on the type of office chair that you have.

For me, the first step was to unscrew the top part of the chair off of the base with a screw driver. I could not get the two pieces on the top part to separate, so I improvised. I stretched and cut the fabric for both sides of the top part (leaving extra fabric to go inside the creases) and used my big paper clip to "stuff" the fabric on both sides. I first stuffed the front side. Then used my second piece of cut fabric to stuff the back side. I have been using this fabulous recovered chair since August and have had no issues with the fabric coming out of the creases.

 Next, I put the fabric over the bottom part of my chair and cut it according to the size I needed. Then, I flipped the chair over and used the staple gun to staple the fabric in place.

Lastly, I rescrewed the top part of the chair back into place and VOILA! Love the look of the new chair! It really brightens up my classroom!

Won't Chew Be Mine?

Still feeling a little craft tonight, Henry and I continued making some cute things for his class's Valentine's Day party! We were assigned the task of making treat bags. Now yes, it would be easy to buy some candy, stickers, pencils, etc. and there is NOTHING wrong with that! But We decided to do this cute counting activity instead! Henry's job was to add 5 pieces of gum to every bag. Obviously, I found this idea on Pinterest! Where else do you find cute ideas these days? Oh, besides adorable blogs! :) I would have rather used gumballs, but alas, Kroger was out! I created the "Won't Chew Be Mine?" tags in Publisher and the gumballs in Paint. You can copy and paste the photo below into Publisher or Word and create your own little tags!

Have a SUPER Valentine's Day

Do you ever feel like you are "Supermom"? Running here and there, working, watching the kids, cooking, laundry, cleaning, and of course the list goes on and on!! Well, tonight, Henry and I decided to create our very own superhero Valentine's day "cards" for his pre-school class! We signed "From: Henry" on the back and this super easy DIY project was complete!  I found the cape and mask by doing a Google search. Below is the template I created too! Just copy and paste it into Word or Publisher. Then print it (I printed on white card stock). Then cut out the pieces, punch a hole in the cape, put the stick through the hole, and tape on the mask! So SUPER cute and so easy!

Open Faced Tuna Melt

Open Faced Tuna Melt

Who doesn't love a good tuna melt?!? This recipe is easy and delicious - two qualifiers in our busy household! Now as with some recipes, the measurements are not exact! Feel free to add more or less to your taste!

Ingredients

2 cans of tuna

1/2 cup of Mayo

1 Tablespoon of Relish

1/2 Tablespoon of Sugar

Small handful of Raisins (Crazy ingredient, right?)

1 Stalk of Chopped Celery 

1/2 Teaspoon of Black Pepper

4 Slices of Bread (our favorite is Oatnut)

Shredded Cheese (I used mozzarella in this melt)

Mix tuna, mayo, relish, sugar, raisins, celery, and black pepper in small bowl. Toast four slices of bread. Once bread is toasted, spoon tuna salad onto each piece then sprinkle the top with shredded cheese. Put on cookie sheet and broil until cheese is melted! YUM!!

Perfect Sugar Cookies & Frosting

Perfect Sugar Cookies & Frosting

Looking for a delicious, but easy recipe for sugar cookies? Look no further! These cookies melt in your mouth every time! The secret (to every good cookie, in my opinion) - UNDER COOK them! So many people follow the directions on cooking exactly that their cookies turn out too hard. They may seem soft at first, but once they cool, they become hard as rocks. Cooking cookies less time than the recipe calls for ensures softness! YUM! Like the recipe cards? Another hat I wear is "Recipe Card Designer". My sister-in-law and I started a small recipe card website several ears ago (but that's another story!!) Click here to see some adorable, monogrammed recipe cards.

 

 Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

 1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. Roll dough and cut into the shapes you want. Bake at 350 for 4 minutes. (These were small cookies. For larger cookies, bake time may vary.)

Frosting

1/3 cup butter

3 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2-3 Tablespoons milk

Mix all ingredients together until smooth. Add food coloring if you desire. Use to frost room temperature cookies.

Henry's First Birthday Party

Henry's First Birthday Party

For Henry's first birthday party I decided to do a circus theme with lots of bright fun colors!

The "place mats" under each setting are just large circle cute from construction paper, but they really added a nice pop of color to the table. The white "tablecloth" is just a twin size cheap white sheet from Wal-Mart. I purchased so many gumballs for this centerpiece decoration. The good news is my class at school really loved the extras! The toys on the table are from the Animal Train collection by Fisher Price. My friend Katie let me borrow a few of her pieces, and combined with my pieces we had a cheap and easy centerpiece.

We have a large group of family and friends! Every seat in the house was used!

 I made this banner with felt, fabric, puff balls, scissors, and a glue gun! No sewing involved!!

 Loved Henry's cake! Cute and delicious! Thanks "For Goodness Cakes" for making such a great cake for Henry's first birthday! Also, I love to use cute wrapping paper as a "tablecloth". This polka dot paper was perfect! Makes for very easy cleanup!

I forgot to take a close up picture of the water bottles! These bottles were purchased in bulk online. I have used them for SO MANY parties! Tie a ribbon around the neck and add a name tag and you have a place setting for each guest. The straws are the long red straws from the gas station that are normally used for Slurpees.  My husband asked the man working at the station if he could buy 30 of them, and the man gave them to him! I cut off the "spoon" part at the end.

The birthday boy really enjoyed his cake too!

It's as Easy as A-B-C

 

It's as Easy as A-B-C

Making these adorable framed pictures was a fun, yet easy task!

Step 1

Purchase coordinating scrapbook paper based on your color scheme. I purchased a book from Wal-Mart that had several different styles, but they were all similar colors that I wanted (mostly reds and blues).

Step 2

Go online and search for the images that you want. I wanted an airplane, a boat, and a car. I then copied and pasted them into Word and made them the size that I wanted. Next, I printed the images and cut them out. mycutegraphics.com has some great picture for FREE!

Step 3

I then traced each of the images onto the backside of the scrapbook paper I wanted and cut them out. I used different papers to add details. For example, the airplane wings are a different paper than the airplane body. I glued all the parts together to form the shape I wanted. 

Step 4

I wanted light blue as my background so I printed "is for" on three pieces of light blue card stock. Don't have the colored card stock that you want? Make a rectangle in Word and change the color to fit your needs. Then print! (It uses a lot of ink, but will be worth it)

Step 5

I found a font in Word that I wanted the letters "A", "B", and "C" printed in. I then made them a very large size and printed them. Then I cut each letter out and traced the letter (reversed) on the back side of the scrapbook paper that I wanted. Next, I glued the letters onto the light blue card stock.

Step 6

Lastly, I glued the airplane, boat, and car where I wanted them. Then I placed them into a frame and hung them above Henry's bed.

This was a really inexpensive way to add art to Henry's bedroom!

Chalkboard Mirror

DIY Chalkboard Mirror

1. Find a mirror to use. I found this one at Wal-Mart on clearance for under $5.  

2. Spray paint the mirror part with black chalk board paint. Spray paint the frame a color of your choice.

 3. Voila!

The Bathroom Transformation

The Bathroom Transformation

 For years (nine to be exact), I have wanted to paint this old oak cabinet and give it a fresh look and new knobs! Finally, I decided to just do it! I was thrilled with the results.  I could not find a picture of our exact vanity from our house. I found this picture online and it is a pretty close replica!

 My dad put down this white ceramic tile not long after we moved in. It replaced a yucky brown and tan linoleum. The tile looked great for years, but eventually it began to crack due to our old, slanted house! We ended up discovering a DuraCeramic tile that is white with gray marbled. Instead of a traditional, straight pattern, we decided to do a "brick" pattern on the floor to make the room appear wider!

 I decided to replace the shower curtain too in the remodel! Love this adorable, gathered shower curtain from Target.

 Like I said in a previous post, the bathroom was the only room we did not paint when we moved in our house. The stripes were endearing and I loved them, but after nine years, I was ready for a change. This beautiful grey was found by my mother-in-law at Lowe's.

 Not much besides the paint and flooring was changed. I still love this towel rack, and it is perfect for storing our towels in this small room.

Hard to believe this is the same light fixture, right?!? I removed the old globes, spray painted the fixture in a metallic oil-rubbed bronze finish, and replaced the globes. What a change! The total cost for this update was under $10. Below is the spray paint that was used.