"Don't Tell Small It Can't Do Big" Toddler Chair/Stepstool Makeover

My great grandfather built this for my dad, and his siblings back in the 50's or 60's. My dad gave it to me to redo for my son:). It may have been in shabby condition, but it was still super sturdy! Here it was before:

My sweet hubs got to use his new sander, and sanded off the yellowing, thick varnish so I could repaint it.

I chose a pretty turquoise color, not too far off from what is was before.

I did two coats of acrylic paint and let it dry a couple hours. From cardstock, I cut different size orange and yellow circles for polka dots. Using mod podge I randomly places my dots and let them dry for a minute before going back over the whole chair with more mod podge. I ended up doing two coats of satin mod podge for durability.

Then I found this phrase in a magazine and knew right where it would go...

And now my little man can feel big on his new step stool. He needed a hand doing his very important morning and evening activities like brushin' teef!!

 And it has a new permanent home next to his frog potty :)

Bedside Tray From Broken Picture Frames

I desperately needed a little tray on my nightstand so that my jewelry, phone etc, could be kept out of reach of baby hands! My son has a bad habit of stealing things off of it, and putting them in inappropriate places such as the toilet, his mouth, under the bed, and so on.

In our last move, some frames of mine were broken, and here's what I did with two of them.

The frame I used was a double 4 by 6 frame on a hinge. I just folded it up and wrapped it with ribbon. I chose black satin ribbon ( and ran out of it hence the last bit finished with grosgrain you will see in my pics), and about every 6 wraps I put a dab of hot glue to secure it.  I did wrap it VERY tight, and hot glued the last big of ribbon in place securely on the side I chose to be the bottom.

Next I chose a nicely patterned fabric, and cut it to the size of my glass.

The glass and backing I used was from a 5 by 7 sized frame. I tacky glued the edges of the glass and smoothed my material onto it. I put tacky glue on the edges of cardboard backing and put that on the fabric side, sandwiching it in between, so the printed side of the fabic showed through the glass. I put a couple heavy books on it for one hour to dry... This is your tray bottom. To attach my two pieces together to form the tray, I used Gorilla glue. Make sure you read the instructions if your going to use it, though, because it foams alot, but is permanent! I put a thin line around the bottom my my frame piece and put it squarely onto the bottom piece. I put heavy books onto it for two hours to dry.

Now, for the "legs" of the tray I used little floral marbles that you see in fake flower arrangements or little indoor fountains. You can find them at any dollar store craft section. I glued two marbles together with hot glue on the flat sides, and then glued a "leg" to each corner like so:

As the finishing touch I added trim to hide the seam where we glued our two parts together.

 And now you have an anything tray!! Even a little bathroom tray or a candle dish!!

 Have fun using up some old or damaged frames! :) You could probably be alot more professional than I was too!!

A New Necklace/ Recycling Idea All In One!

Last night I dissmantled a necklace I bought from Forever 21. For my stature, it was to much... AND ahem, I'm on the busty side, so too much necklace looks bad :) I took half of the chains off and the longest strand of pearls.

It looked much better just like that, but I decided to add some emerald jersey rosettes on the side, and matching earrings from the leftover chain/pearls.

It's nothing to flashy, but a litte more dressed up than I normally wear. I love looking at jewelry, and sometimes I enjoy making it, but wearing it is rare for me. So that's all I did, and If I can get a few comments on this post I will do a rosette necklace tutorial/ giveaway!! Yep, that's right, my first giveaway!!

And to cap this post off, I just got this monster print flannel  from Jo Anns, and I made My son a monogramed toy sack (freezer paper stencil) and a changing pad from it. Notice the inside of the changing pad is a recylced plastic shower curtain, so it's wipeable. When my old one got moldy at the bottom, I salvaged the top 15 inches that was never touched by water, wiped it clean just in case, and used it. Wala!! Another way to repurpose and recycle!!!

Recycled Jersey Hoodie = New Pants For Gabe!!!

Since Gabey was born, I haven't been able to fit in my old clothes... At least no pants, and probably half of my shirt. Just one of those things you dont bank on when you get pregnant is how much weight you'll actually gain, and how easy it'll be to lose it after the fact.  And I haven't been working on losing weight nearly as hard as I need to for MY body. It takes ALOT of discipline and focus and work for me to lose serious lbs. That's no excuse however, and I'm doing something about it now before I get the next set of two pink lines!! ANYWAY, with all that said, most of the old T's and shirts and some pants I had went into my scraps pile to recycle... and most of them have already been made into something else!!! Some refashioned for me, but mostly clothes for Gabe. Today I decided to finally do something with a gray and black striped jersy short sleeved hoodie. And this time I did some more pants for him. Hopefully they can be worn util 24 months, because I made them big on purpose.

What I did was fold a pair of  18 month sized pants in half and placed the "non-crotch" side on the outsde fold of the hoodie, as you can see in the pic. That way you get one less seam to sew!! Do that on both sides so you get two pattern peices out of it. Then just cut around the pants giving yourself an 1/2 in seam allowance. I did more because  I wanted a bigger size for him. For the rest of the pants follow this easy tutorial...

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1DANmGTnx38/SwI8iBJk06I/AAAAAAAABBw/oHYZwnQRivk/s1600/DSC02143.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.slipstitches.com/2009/11/baby-toddler-t-shirt-pants-tutorial.html&usg=__ju6iVFqMsohBFZsCoijQGmyiP8g=&h=1200&w=1600&sz=165&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=U2xwjY6s-chVhM:&tbnh=113&tbnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbaby%2Bpants%2Btutorial%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1R2SKPB_enUS360%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Wow, long link!

And here's the boy!

Jailbird baby! Sorry for the bad quality pic...

while we have no camera i'm using our camcorder for pictures :(

Man, I miss my real camera!!!