diy home sweet home: March 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

OMG!!!

Have you ever seen or read the REAL SIMPLE magazine?

Well, I'm a huge fan. They always have great articles about cleaning, decor, and (my favorite) organizing. They also have a great blog which you can view here.

So why am I so excited?

Because I just went to their blog and saw this

Yep. That is a photo of my cookie cutter on the Real Simple's blog.

You can read the post yourself by clicking here.

My cookie cutters have been featured on several great sites but to have it on a site that is actually owned by one of my favorite magazines is so exciting. Ok, I know that it is just thier blog and not the actual REAL SIMPLE site, so call me a dork. I'm sure that several of you have had projects featured in magazines, books, and top sites.

But for me, being fairly new to blogging, this is a huge deal.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

More The Merrier #6

Happy Monday!!!

Yeah!! Its my favorite day of the week!!

Before we get the party started I want to share a few of my favorites from last weeks party.

Spring Wreath - Copy Cat Crafter

Tissue Paper Cherry Blossom - Sarahndipities

PB&J Doughnuts - Mom's Of All Trades

Strawberry Shortcake Hat - Wiccan Make Some Too

If you have been featured please be sure to grab my button.

And now....

On to the Party.

Guidelines:
1. Please link directly to your post and NOT just to your blog.
2. PLEASE LINK BACK TO DIY HOME SWEET HOME OR GRAB THE MORE THE MERRIER BADGE.
3. Please Follow DIY Home Sweet Home.
4. Please visit as many links as you want links and leave comments.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Making the most of a small kitchen

Our home has the cutest little kitchen. I absolutely love it because it is so easy to clean. However, it is greatly lacking in storage. If you have been following my blog for a while you may remember my earlier post on extra kitchen storage. Well, the last couple of days I have been searching for even more kitchen storage solutions. So here is the plan:

1. Make some toe kick drawers to store sheet pans, cake pans, holiday platters. Basically anything wide and flat.

Under-Cabinet Drawers - The Family Handyman

2. Install these shelves on the inside of my cabinets to hold spices. I also think these would be great for holding my Tupperware lids, spice packets, and anything else that is small and would get easily lost in the pantry

Back of Door Spick Rack - DIY Warrior

3. Install towel bars on the inside the lower cabinet doors where we keep our pots and pans, to hold all of the lids. I may even install these under the sink to hold hand towels and even cleaners like the ones stored here.

Lid Racks - Martha Stewart

4. Add mount strips inside a cabinet door to hold our measuring cups. I could also see this same method being used to hang large spoons, spatulas, whisks, and tongs.

Measuring cup hang-up - The Family Handyman

5. Our pantry is fairly large but it has those awkward bi-fold doors. So here is what I plan to do with them.

Behind Closet Doors - Ana White

Can you imagine all of the things I can store in those doors? Not sure how much weight they can hold so I don't think I would want to fill the shelves with cans. I think I may make the shelves up top smaller and closer together to hold things such as soup packets, small boxed items, and candy. While larger ones on the bottom would hold chip bags, extra paper towels, cereal boxes, and Tupperware. Running With Scissors also used this same idea to organize her craft closet. You can check it out HERE.

6. Add some sort of pot holder. My mom has an amazing one that her boyfriend made using an old chain. I wish I had a picture to show you guys. I also absolutely love this idea of using a screen door. Look at all of the added storage above it.

Unique Pot Rack - Do It Yourself Magazine

7. Make my own drawer dividers because there is so much wasted space in my drawers.

DIY Cutlery Drawer - Full of Great Ideas

So what do you think? I'm pretty sure that when all of this is done I will have more then enough storage. Now if I just had the energy to get off of the computer and do it.

Showing some ETSY Love - Baby

I have a few friends and family members that are expecting so obviously I have had babies on my mind. Check out a few of the great things that I found at ETSY.

Boy Owl Hat - A Lil' Something

Little Bunny Hat - SOAL

Retro Ruffled Sun Suit - Mimi's Dress Shop

Blossoming Tree with Butterflies - The Kinky Wall Studio

Embroidered Alphabet Letters - Evgie

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Ugly to FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!

We have this chair sitting in our living room. It is probably the most comfortable chair I have ever sat in but it is far from fabulous. The chair actually belongs to my father. He has had it for as long as I can remember. Even though I'm sure that he will eventually want the chair back one day. But until then he is so graciously letting us borrow it and has even given me the go ahead to recover it. I have never recovered a chair before so I have been doing a little research online. Here are a few great inspirations I found to get me started.

Running With Scissors - Office Chair

Lemon Tree Creations - Easy Upholstery Projects

Nuestra Vida Dulce - Chair Transformation

Pretty Handy Girl - Rattan Chair Makeover


A Little of This, A Little of That - Retro Rocking Chair Re-Do

Monday, March 21, 2011

Oh yeah, I'm Stylish!!

OK, maybe I'm not but at least a few people think my blog is.

I received this award from Miscellany of Me. Thank you so much. You are too sweet.
Since I already received and passed on this award before I'm not going to follow all of the rules. I will however tell you a few things about myself and pass this on to a couple great blogs.

A few things about me:
1. I love recess peanut butter cups, root-beer floats, snowball fights, Indian food, waking up to the sun shining through my bedroom window, golfing, country music, my 3 year old's laugh (super loud, mildly annoying, and oh so contagious), turning something ugly into something beautiful, pink, pink, and more pink, and yellow too, organizing, diet Dr. Pepper, sweet tea, coffee, coffee, and did I mention coffee, Sitting at the dinner table as a family (although with a house full of boxes this has been put on hold for a while), anything hot and spicy, tapas, splashing in puddles, fish (the kind you eat), fishing for those fish that you eat, mudding, 4wheeling, listening to the rain drip off of are awnings (reminds me of the song at the beginning of Bambie, drip-drip-drop-little-April-showers or however it goes), my blog, my followers, exercise, a warm bath with a good book and a nice Riesling.
2. I hate chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake, nuts in chocolate, muddy dog prints in the kitchen that I just cleaned, grammar, exercise ( I now I already listed this in the things I love, its a love hate relationship so it fits in both), big crowds, bills, Tuesdays, houseplants (only because I can never seem to keep them alive), deciding on paint colors, mopping, wind, mean people, tears coming from my girls eyes.

And now to pass on this award to a few amazingly stylish blogs.

1. A Little Bit of Everything
2. Ink Blots & Polka Dots
3. The Littlest Crafter
4. City Girl Gone Coastal
5. Biljana Shabby

Sunday, March 20, 2011

More The Merrier #5

I'm trying something a little different this week so please bear with me. I'm sure that some of you have noticed my Linky Party page is no longer working. I was using the free 1 month trial offered by linky tools and it is now expired. I have no problem paying for the service. I think $2 a month is well worth it but I'm just not sure that I like using linky tools. For some reason it takes forever for me to add links when I'm using linkytools. I'm trying out inlinkz right now and I think I may go with it instead but I just want to make sure before I actually pay for it. The regular picture links should be back to normal next week as well as my linky page.

And now on to last weeks

link party favorites.

Rustic Renditions - DIY Decorative Books

Designer Garden - Paint Stick Crate

Craptastic - The Pink Lady

A Law Student's Journey - Whimsical Lamp

If you have been featured please be sure to grab my button.

And no onto the party.

I look forward to seeing all of the great projects this week.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Bathroom Organizing #2

For those of you who missed my first post on bathroom organization, you can find it here. This week I decided to tackle another shelf on my bathroom cabinet. What do you think?

I started with this empty trash bag box.

Cut it in half and taped down the lid.

Then using scotch multi-purpose adhesive I attached some fabric to the boxes. I then cut some labels out of an old cerial box.

Painted the labels with chalk board paint and metallic spray paint and glued them on.

BEFORE

AFTER

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Showing some ETSY Love - Vintage Aprons

I have a confession to make. I am a KLUTZ. I don't think I can go a single day without spilling something on me. Due to this fact, I have become a self-proclaimed professional at removing stains from clothes. However, there is one thing that I cannot remove from my clothes. BLEACH SPOTS. I have tried several cleaners over the years but I keep going back to bleach. Maybe because it's convenient. Maybe I just love the clean smell after using it.I'm not really sure. But one thing is for sure, it is destroying my clothes. I recently started to look into buying myself an apron. I am amazed at how many beautiful aprons there are. Check out these amazing aprons I found on ESTY.

I Love Lucy Apron

Vintage Style Apron

Sassy Short Retro Style Apron

Waist Apron

Of course if I buy one of these aprons I'm not sure that I will want to wear it for fear of spilling bleach on it. Maybe I will just stick to a cheap wall mart brand apron. Or even better, just make my own.