Just Couldn’t Swing It

Remember back last year when I spray painted these swings for the girls? 
As cool as the idea was and as gung-ho as my attempt was to make them more neutral for Sebastian’s sake and our backyard’s, it failed because these days they’re looking pretty darn sad:
Either that or somebody had a pink paint gun party in our backyard without me knowing.  I wouldn’t put it past the twins…

So, I’m just going to go ahead and say that Krylon’s plastic spray paint does NOT, in fact, work.  Or, maybe it does work but on top of a coat of primer (the can says priming is not needed on most pieces).

Unfortunately, we’ll never find out.  I think we’ll just end up power-washing the spray paint off and selling them so that we can maybe make a couple of these: [Image and tutorial over at The Merrythought]

Although I think the fight to swing next might be between the parents and the kids vs. just the kids because they’re super cool, no?  Or maybe I can convince Anthony to make several and hang one in every room indoors?  Dream on Sheena.

I’m not sure how “high in the sky!” you could get in them though so maybe a couple of these would be better for adventurous toddlers?  Sebastian on the other hand fa-REAKS out if you push him greater than a twelve-inch span front to back, so lounging in a diy swing would be right up his alley.  Or he could just take up residence in this tire swing* we recently bought so that the girls could swing together.

Whatever way we end up swinging, I’ll be sure to give an update.  We still have a couple of months of great outdoor weather down here so time is on our side.  :)

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*affiliate link to product we purchased 

DIY Tablet Mount

While our swagger wagon is in the body shop getting all fixed up (we were rear-ended a few weeks ago) and we’re driving a nice rental van complete with a dvd system, I thought it would be the perfect time to tell you what we do sans dvd player in our van when we need one…like for road trips.

Two years ago, when we were on the hunt for a bigger vehicle to accommodate baby #3, we had a list of things we wanted and didn’t want – this color or this color, none of these colors, leather for easy clean-up, and low mileage on our new-to-us, used vehicle.  On that list at first was “NOT a minivan” and low and behold, that’s what we ended up getting thanks to their lower costs and better gas mileage.  Also not on our list was a dvd system.  It’s not that we think they’re bad because they’re quite handy at times but the thought of dealing with two (later three) toddlers screaming to watch a movie on the five-minute drive to the grocery store did not sound fun to me.  Plus, we had a portable dvd player that my in-laws had given us that worked just fine…except that the first time we used it on-the-go in the van by propping it up on the folded-down middle seat, Seraphia got car sick watching a movie and before we could gage what exactly was going on with her whiny demenear…well, you can imagine.  Thank God for the tiny gas station bathroom that washed all of her stomach contents off her person.  We needed something else by way of tv.  Something that eventually all rows would be able to see and that was where a car television should be – up high and towards the front.

So, last Christmas we used some gifted cash to buy this refurbished Kindle Fire*, found this case* for it at Dirt Cheap for $4 (it’s a really awesome case!), and figured out a FREE way to attach it to our sun roof for optimum viewing for all strapped toddlers. 

Here’s how…

[By the way, if you think I’m cray for writing about this, I probably am.  Ha!  But, let me tell you, I scoured the internet for days before we made a road trip that we needed this to happen for this past summer and there was zilch.  Now that we’ve concocted our own solution, I thought maybe it’d be helpful to the two or three other peeps out there searching for a similar solution!  :)   ]

So, we had our Kindle/tablet in it’s case and we needed it to be temporarily mounted just for long trips.  If we opened the case, we could slide one end of it into the opening of the sun roof and the whole thing would hang there just great.  Only, when we drove with it like this, it swayed back and forth…not so great if we wanted to hamper the car sickness of our oldest or if anyone really wanted to watch the movie playing.  To stop the swaying, I ran to Lowe’s one morning to grab a couple of corner braces like this:
 
I thought maybe I could just slide one side into the sun roof opening with the case and the other would sit against the back of the Kindle.  But the brackets turned out to be too thick and wouldn’t fit.

And then the mail lady came.  And she dropped off a little box.  And I removed whatever was in the little box.  And a light bulb went off.  And I got to work.  

First, I opened the box up all the way and cut off one whole end.
The end I cut off was a mirror image to the top of the box above the horizontal fold that you see in the picture above.

All I needed was the bottom of the box, two sides, and one of the top flaps.  I was lucky in that the bottom of the box I found was almost the exact width of our tablet.  If you’re looking to make one of your own, all you really need is the side and top flap on one large box – something like what the green lines indicate below.    If you make two folds in the cardboard where the two ends of your tablet case would be and use the top fold, you’ll then just need to cut away two squares at the top corners.  (This all might make a little more sense once you see it in action below.) 

So, installation…

With the case holding the tablet, I opened ‘er up, grabbed my cardboard reinforcement, and laid the case onto the cardboard with the empty flap of the case against the shorter, top fold.

Then, with the sun roof cover closed, I slid the empty side of the tablet case along with the cardboard into the sun roof cover’s slot in the ceiling.

Last, to keep the tablet and cardboard backing from swaying forwards and backwards, I folded out the two side pieces of cardboard.
(Those small pieces of cardboard sitting against the sun roof cover are totally not needed…I was just too lazy to cut them off.)

Works like a charm!  Plug it in to the dashboard, turn up the sound, and you’ve got yourself a built-in but removable movie system!

 
If you don’t have a sun roof, you can always grab a tablet mount off Amazon that attaches to the head rest of the front seat.  We bought this one* but ended up not liking it only because the third row tots couldn’t see the greatest without straining.  For a two-row vehicle though, it’d be great!

I remember back in the 90’s, growing up when my parent’s bought a new Suburban complete with a VHS and television set built-in to the front console.  It was super duper cool along with the huge bag phone sitting in front.  Entertainment and wireless communication at your reach all while you’re heading to your next destination.  Someday our kids will talk about “those days when my parents rigged an old tablet to the ceiling of our minivan” as they stare at the projection plastering the air right in front of them…also as their old lady is squinting at her old iPhone 4s, trying to keep up with her fellow oldies on that old app called Bookface…or Facepad…or something like that. 

;)

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*affiliate links

Just Some Things

I’m busy prepping for a yard sale over here (leave all the tips for one of those in the comment section because this is my first one!) so allow me to leave a few links for you to chew on whilst I price and sticker.

Amazingly smart and beautiful Jenny at Mama Needs Coffee asked me to fill in for her while she’s relishing that phase you might know as the precious newborn one and so I did.  And it’s all about weeds.  It’s nothing even remotely as good as anything she writes so, if you get through the whole thing, make sure you tread through the rest of her blog.  I can honestly say I’ve saved more of her posts than those of any other blog anywhere. 

Have you seen this video yet?  It made me weep…in the very best way.  God always has a plan and it’s always the very best.

One of my closest friends, Lauren, is an incredible decorator and she seems to do it with ease.  You have to see her boys' room and especially, the huge pirate map/wall hanging that she made for them out of an old, used drop cloth.

I know summer is on it’s way out (even though it’s still sweltering down here in the deep south) but I FINALLY found a swimsuit that I am in love with.  It’s this tankini*.  I bought it in hawaiian blue on sale a couple of weeks ago but couldn’t buy the matching bottoms because they were all sold out of my size.  That’s okay though because it happens to match my favorite bottoms just perfectly.  Anyway, I haven’t gotten a new suit in five years so this year was the year I was determined to grab one.  If you’re in the market or you just want to snag an amazing Anthro suit while it’s on sale, go now! 

Last but never least, we’ve been on the hunt for a stool for the kids to use for all their duties in their bathroom.  We wanted one that was tough but could also be folded up and stored really easily since the bathroom is relatively small.  Well, I finally found and bought this one* from Amazon.  We’ve been using it for a few weeks now and, as much as you can say this of a stool, we love it.  :)

He loves it.
  

The twins love it.

[They’ve been on a skirts-under-dresses kick…I guess a bigger skirt makes you more of a ‘pincess’ as you have more to ‘spin’.]

And I love that it doesn’t have to exist when not in use.

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I hope you all are having a great Thursday and I’m serious about those yard sale tips!  Here’s hoping we can purge and rake it in all in one swoop!

*affiliate links to products I purchased

DIY Cardstock Mat

My grandparents drove in for a little visit last month and with them, they brought a plastic bag filled with stuff of my dad’s from high school.  (In case you’re new here, my dad passed away when I was in college, so as you can imagine, having his stuff means so much to me.)  Among the random things was a big stack of photos.  They all seemed to be from the same road trip out west and some of them were really cool pictures.  I picked out four of my favorites and hung them in Sebastian’s room last week.
  
Because they were a tad smaller than the normal 4 x 6s of today and therefore didn’t quite fill the space behind the mats already in the frames I put them in, I whipped up some new mats for them out of cardstock I picked up at Hobby Lobby (only 54 cents each!).

See?  Not quite wide enough.

They now not only fit just perfectly with the new mats, but they add a bright punch of color to Seb’s room too.

So…

To make them, I gathered a few supplies – a ruler, an x-acto knife*, a pencil, and the cardstock and frames.  (If you don’t have an x-acto knife laying around, I’d totally recommend getting one!  They’re so handy!)

First, I laid the existing mat onto one corner end of the cardstock and lightly traced around the outside and inside.  (Note:  Since I needed the mat opening to be a little smaller width-wise, I just made it that way by drawing a new line farther in from the existing line on each side.)

 
Also, by placing the old mat on the corner end of the cardstock, I could make sure it was properly lined up and straight and it eliminated the need to cut those two sides.

So next, I grabbed my x-acto knife, placed the ruler along each pencil line, and cut away.  Of course, if you don’t have an x-acto knife, a scissors would work great too!  :)

Using the ruler as a guide to glide the knife along helped me to get nice straight edges.
Last, I placed the new mats right on top of (or under if you’re looking at the back of the frame) the old in the frames and hung them.  By using the old mats and placing them into the frame upside-down (with the beveled edge touching the actual photo and the flat edge against the new mat), it gave each frame a sort of mini-shadow box look.

 

[Too hot for shirts in Arizona apparently.]


[That’s my old (young) man on the left…all chill-like in Utah.]
 

 

Hopefully someday I’ll find out the sure-to-be great stories from this trip.  Until then, I’ll let Sebastian make up his own.  ;)

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*affiliate link to an x-acto knife very similar to the one I purchased

Feeling Shelfish

Let there be more storage! 

We finally got some long-awaited shelves up in the living room a couple of weeks ago!
  

We really needed more space to put books as the bookshelf currently in our bedroom is overloaded and these shelves were a great and inexpensive solution.
  

Here are all the details on how they went up…

Spacing
To start, we had to figure out how many shelves we wanted.  Initially, I was set on four.  So, I stuck four pieces of painter’s tape up on the wall about where I’d want the shelves to be and stared at them upon passing for a few days.

After those few days, they started to look a little too close together but I didn’t really want to raise or lower them so I took them down and re-taped with three lines instead.

After much hemming and hawing and consulting friends, we decided that three it would be.

The Brackets
I’m kinda in love with these curvy metal things.  I got five packs of them (Threshold from Target) at Dirt Cheap last year for under $2.50 a pack (80% off original price).

Four of them were black and the other one was silver so I knew I’d definitely be painting them to match.  After a coat of Clean Metal spray primer* and a few thin coats of my favorite gold spray paint*, they were ready to go up…right after I also spray painted the screws that would hold them up since they would be visible.  Sticking the ends into a diaper box and then spraying them from the top ensured I didn’t gunk up the threaded parts with paint.

The Wood Planks
We bought two large pieces of wood at Home Depot and had them cut-to-size in store to make the shelves.  (I think the wood was called common board.  I don’t remember the actual type of wood.  Sorry!  Next time I’m there I’ll look and update the post.)  The two bottom shelves were cut from one piece of wood and the top shelf plus a matching extra shelf we have were also cut from one larger piece.  Home Depot makes the first two cuts of any piece of wood you buy for free so we paid zip for the cuts and (bonus!) didn’t have to do it ourselves!  We wanted to keep them au naturale but I did brush two coats of Polycrylic over the top of each piece to protect them and so I could clean them without ruining them.

After we got them up, we had major doubts about leaving them void of stain.  They just looked really unfinished and hastily hung.  I reached out to my Insta and Facebook friends the second we got them up, eager for favorite stain colors, and I got lots of ideas in return (thank you!!).  Before we stained them though, we decided to just live with them unstained for a few days to make sure we didn’t like them and whaddya know?  They grew on us and we decided not to stain after all!
    
Spacing
We hung the shelves so that they butted right up to the brick of the chimney.  The plan is to eventually move the cable box, modem, and blu-ray player onto the shelves so we wanted them as close to the television as possible.  And we wanted to give them a built-in feel…does that sound like crazy talk?  Probably.  My heart longs for built-ins and this is as close as I’ll probably get in this house.


Their placement will make a little more sense a few paragraphs down.  For those of you who want technical details though, the shelves themselves are 8 inches deep.  Each bracket is screwed into a wall stud and so, since the closest wall stud to the chimney was 14 inches out, there is 14 inches of wood shelf extending out from the end brackets with 16” in between each bracket since that’s the distance between the wall studs.  Also, there is about 15 inches from the top of one shelf to the bottom of the other vertically.  Make sense?

Currently, they’re filled with a bunch of stuff that will probably get moved around.  I just wanted to get them up and running for this post.  There are a lot of browns and golds going on, which isn’t bad, but I’m wanting to incorporate more beachy hues kind of like in the hutch opposite the room.  Of course all the books on this shelf will be actual books that we read vs. thrift store books just bought for the color of their bindings so I won’t be able to “decorate” with books this time around.

Decor Details
Bottom shelf:  the JESUS plaque was made by my grandfather-in-law, the vase/upside-down light fixture was thrifted, the leaves are from the hydrangea plant in the backyard and wilted five minutes after this shot, the Mary statue was thrifted, and those books were thrifted and will be turned into a modem-hiding contraption soon.

Second shelf:  the close pin vase on the left was something made by my dad in his teens, the bramble ball-thing used to be a friend’s old topiary, and the gold vases were yard sale finds.

Top shelf:  the yellow vase was a Kroger clearance find and the bottom is broken off but you’d never know, the mirror was a $3 Dirt Cheap find and the bottom of that is broken as well but you’d never know that either, the blue pot is a hand-me-down, and the clear vase was a Gabe’s find back in the day.

Money
Between the brackets, the spray paint, and the wood, this whole shelving unit/thing cost us a little over $40.  But, that includes the extra shelf and three brackets we have that we’re going to sell to bring the total of this project down another $15-20. 

Plans
Way back when the girls were infants, I enlisted photoshopping to visualize what I wanted for this big, blank wall.   Shelves close to the chimney with a frame collage to the left, balancing the whole thing out.

Then we moved the living room furniture around and our infants grew to toddlers and I realized how foolish it was to think we could get away with having shelves that low with lots of non-toddler stuff on them.

So now our plans have changed to include this possibility:

These three frames over the couch to balance out the shelves and a “please let’s get rid of that awful mantel and build a big, chunky white one Anthony…pretty please”.  He agreed…on the mantel, not the color.  Details to be worked out later.  I know the photoshopping is real bad but if you squint, it’ll look better.  :)

I can’t promise a diy mantel post any time soon but it’s on the assembly line, complete with a hidden compartment on the left side to house cable wires.

I can’t wait.

:) 

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*affiliate links