Making things pretty - 5 tier plastic drawers

I've always been a fan of making things pretty, and with the incoming new addition to the family (T minus 19 weeks) and a change of rooms/rethink of the way our study/Leah's room/spare rooms are used I'm getting a bit nutty with it.

I plan to do a lot more and I promise I will share with you all, but I wanted to show you my attempt at this little project from Simply Living that I'm sure most of you pinterest stalkers like myself have seen once or twice.

I've had the idea in the back of my mind for over a year now and in a spat of boredom this morning, it happened.

This is what my drawers looked like before. Now, I must admit that I've had a clean out of these drawers recently, so they are relatively tidy (ie: looking through the front to what was inside wasn't exactly a disgusting exercise), but even so, the goal for me wasn't to hide clutter, as the simply living blogger was trying to do. I simply wanted to make them prettier!

 I started with this selection of paper, but substituted out the peach coloured number for a darker purple one which I thought would balance the greyish tones better. Application is as easy as cut to size, modge podge and smooth. The blog link I already mentioned has more indepth instructions and I don't want to take the idea away from them so I'll let you go-a' snoopin'.

This is how my drawers ended up looking. They're a bit Monet (fine from far away but don't get up too close). They way my set of drawers is designed was difficult to get the paper in, in an easy manner, but I tried to make it work the best I could.

What do you think?

Giant Paper Pom Poms

We made these super easy and super cute decorations for Leah's birthday. The Martha Stewart ones are $25 for 3 and you still have to puff them up yourself (which is the most time consuming part). What a rip! Make them yourself! I used this youtube clip.

Vision Board

Using this tutorial I made myself a wicked cool vision board. All up it cost me about $30 and something like this would go for $50 - $100 in stores so I'm rapt! What makes it better is that it isn't some boring old design either, it's mine.

SO happy with it.

At the moment it just has a few bits and pieces on it including a tonne of my 'Bucket List' cards.

Annnnnd it's another thing crossed off my 52 in 52 list! YUS!

Zip Lock Painting

Another great pinterest idea came to fruition today on a stunning Waitangi day at home with my favourite people.

This one is pimpsqueak easy - paint, zip lock bag and duct tape.

I know this is very blurry but had to show you that dolly also got a turn.

Then we got out some cotton buds to try drawing and writing in the paint. That was great fun too!

Totally recommend. We'll be doing it again.

Things I'm Loving...

Not every day is good but there is something good in every day...or every week in this case!

What a week. Been flat tack at work getting the classroom together, it's been as hot as anything and I'm feeling eregised and ready to get stuck into 2013 like never before!

Loving sharing ideas with a friend and finally making one of these now I have space on the wall in Leah's room to put it!

Also realised that that girl has way too many hair bows. Insane.

Excited that it's February and I'm geared to get into another month of photos. Thanks Fat Mum Slim!

Loving that after a couple of weeks rest work I still have my mojo to purge stuff and get a nice clean bubba bedroom back in order. Look at the difference. So stoked! You can read more about my 14 weeks to an organised home journey, Leah's bedroom in particular here. So awesome to now have some room for Leah to actually play in her room. I also couldn't believe it took me 17 months to get some photos into her cute animal photo frames. Bad home keeper me!

Loving my classroom. It's all done and rearing to go on Monday when the kids come it. Woo hoo! There are some more photos of it here where I've created an activity for my class. Here is a photo looking down on the space and look, I've even made my office pretty!

What are you loving this week?

xox

Terracotta pot bird bath

I had a tonne of terracotta pots lying around doing nothing much at all and saw a great idea for what to do with them, so I did!

Here's what you need:

I cleaned the pots and bases with paint thinners and then went to work on spray painting two coats. 

After the first coat:

Then you pile the pots up and hot glue gun the bases on. Voila!

Lea is an avid birdwatcher so will love watching the birds come and drink. I just hope they don't eat my growing tomatoes!

Cute Button Bobbies

If you have these three things lying around....

You can make these gorgeous clips. Cute huh? And for 5 minutes work, so easy.

One tip though. The super glue I used wasn't very happy about putting pin with button, so I had to rig up the bobby pins to sit on my work-surface flat while the glue bonded, you may need to do the same depending on the glue you use.

Friendship Bracelets

This challenge, along with #88 make a paper fortune teller were things from my childhood that I could just never do. But, unlike the paper fortune teller, friendship bracelets were still very, very difficult for me to master.

A kit came through a specials book box we have at work for $20. I thought the thread in the pack alone was worth that so bought it thinking that the circular doo-hickeys in it might actually help me to succeed where I've never been able to before. WRONG! The thing is very hard to understand, even my very logically minded husband couldn't get it.

First attempt at using the wheel fail.

So I have a plan! I've made two very basic bracelets to cross this off my list - the twist and the braid. Even put some fancy little beads in the braided one - I'm so talented! I'm then going to take the pack away with us up north, so on nights when cards and board games are exhausted me, my mum, my sister and my two nieces can see if our combined brain power can figure out this tricky thing. The nieces are the hat trick - these dudes will know things.. I'm sure I've seen them with elaborate friendship bracelets on. I hope, I hope, I hope! Oh well, if nothing else it will be a nice bonding experience - failing together!

Quote Canvas

Things I'm loving

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

Loving the warm fuzzies you get from creating someone you love a present <3

Loving 'The Oatmeal'...such good content, for such a long time. Especially love this new comic.

Love being able to get out in the sun this week to have a bit of a play outside. Leah loves the outdoors. More so now that she's walking running up a storm. Unfortunately, Excited Rottweiler + nipple ball =.....

LOVE getting things crossed off my 101 list. I haven't blogged about this yet but I finally made my reusable scrapbooking frame. I probably won't even put it up in this house, but I LOVE IT!

Not loving the fact that I keep writing loBe instead of love in this post. Silly fingers!

What are you loving this week?

Gotta love the holidays

For providing me with time to finish 101 challenge projects.

I bought the photo album when we were leaving phuket but actually wanted to do a scrapbook scrapbook when I made this challenge.  The cool photo album won out and I just made sure I added some special touches to it.

And three guesses on where I saw this idea... lol.