Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Collectible Card Frame

I know, I know… after promises to be back with my many projects I went missing again. Well here is why

                              truckboys

Yes, Hubby came home. He brought his truck this time for the boys to see cause for various reasons he now leases the truck and has a little more freedom.  It was nice to have him home and we stayed pretty busy with family time and outfitting the new truck.

While he was here we headed out shopping. When we got to Target I couldn’t help myself. After the great disappointment  of finding the adorable little green monster nightlight I so coveted NEEDED for my boys room GONE  I still had to wander thru the home decor dept. Not to buy things mind you,  to steal ideas  err… be inspired ! 

I had no problem finding a small 11” x 14” super hero poster a few weeks ago for the “head board” of Rew’s bunkbed.. It came folded in a coloring book.   Bub wanted a  Pokemon one and he wanted it to be more of a character gallery than “art”. I could not find anything that fit the bill. Even on Ebay.

Anyway… back to the Target outing… As I turned into what I promised my hubby would be the last aisle I looked in Bub was chattering in my ear about his Pokemon cards (and why I should possibly , maybe buy him more today) and I saw the answer to my problem. There was a nifty black frame with pockets for framing collectible cards. They had fake baseball cards in theirs but with the constant stream of Pokemon chatter running thru my head guess where my mind jumped  ?? Yep ! BUT the price on theirs was $26.99    Ummm I don’t think so ! Limited budget here ! So we left but my thrifty, crafty side of my brain was churning. I headed to the dollar store (that I can walk to from my house! Yes I am THAT LUCKY ! Go ahead , be jealous. I really don’t blame you.  LOL! ) to re- examine a frame I had admired the week before. It was, if I remembered correctly very similar to the one in Target.  YES !! It was very similar and I actually like it better ! I bought it for a mere 6 dollars and headed home.  This is what I started with  (yes I admit I forgot the before pic so I took a pick from the back !  That’s why you see some blue.      Ha ha ! )

                                                     frame1

While it was drying I headed up to my storage closet dug out the OLD baseball card collection and found a card sleeve that was in really good shape. Now this sounds easy but I assure you it was not. I have not gotten to the closet on my list yet. This means you enter it with the understanding you may not make it out  ! LOL!

Bub and I are already in the process of collecting his favorite  Pokemon cards in holo/foil on Ebay. But for now he picked his favorite 9 cards in his possession.  We put them in the sleeve and …

                                               frame2

Sorry about the picture quality i REALLY need a new camera !

Now I took another frame I already had and it’s “glass” was actually acrylic so I swapped it with the real glass from the frame I bought. This is going to be hanging over my 7 year old’s head. Glass?? No thanks.

Then I gave the frame a nice coat of “True Blue” shade   Krylon Fusion paint. The same color I used on the bunk bed safety rail . I put a white background in the frame .Then I used double sided poster tape to position the card sleeve. I popped it all in the frame with the new acrylic “glass” and WA – LAH !!!

                  frame 3

I have collectible card frame that better matches my decor, better suits my exact needs (and is a little safer for my purpose) and for $6 instead of $26 !!!!  I am so excited about this project ! I hung it up immediately  and Bub LOVES it ! I have gotten many many hugs and multiple compliments and grateful comments from him. And that means the world to me !

This would work for any collectors card, Sports, Bella Sara, Pokemon, Yu Gi Oh!. It’s a great way to get some favorites out where they are visible all the time and SAFE ! That’s big for me the safe part. Bub has his favorites we’re in the process of collecting in holo/foil over the summer. He is a very generous, easily convinced child and I did not want him getting swindled out of them on the bus. They’re his faves and I am putting a lot of time, effort and money into collecting these specific cards on Ebay. I’ve been wondering how to keep them safe and now I’ve got a solution to that as well as the headboard/poster problem. Well I’ve got to go prime another project ! I’ll be back with more soon !!

Peace

Steph

Linked to   Gettin Crafty On Hump Day @ Nikki's Nifty Knacks        

Friday, July 23, 2010

HURRY, its your last chance for the giveaway !!!

Sunny over at Life In Rehab is doing a giveaway !! You can enter for a chance to win $40 to spend at CSN !! YAY ! How fabulous is that ??

One of the ways you can enter is browsing over at CSN and then coming back and leaving her a comment on some things you might buy. Well I browsed and shopped and browsed some more and had a whole list of things I had ooooo’ed and ahhhhhhhhh’ed over.  But then I saw it… the most adorable little wooden workbench toy. You can really screw pieces together and there are cute  manly little tools. I live in a house with 3 boys. This would be a huge hit !! They all love to pretend build. Yes this would also benefit me (and my walls and my coffee table and my end tables and all my nice paint jobs etc. ) cause they could finally stop “building “ everything in my house.  LOL

So make sure you head over and enter …  Wait ,  I’ll make it easy for you click HERE and it will take you right to the giveaway ! How easy is that ?   I’m sure you’ll find PLENTY of things you’ll want to spend that $40 on so get started !!

Peace

Steph

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Bunk Bed redo

When My oldest was ready to move up from toddler bed to big boy bed we found this at a yard sale and got it for a steal !!!

                                   

I LOVED this bed !!!!  It was so neat with so much potential but when my 2 oldest needed to start rooming together in a TINY little room we needed bunk beds. BUT with hubby unemployed at the time I had to resort to craigslist bartering. After a week I traded the really cool bed (that it killed me to part with) for these…

                                                 

And yes my boys are typical messy boys. I KNOW you can see the toys everywhere don’t pretend you can’t.  We all know they’re there. LOL…

Anyway…the bunk beds remained as they were until we decided to do the room swap/ redo. Now I want all the furniture to match/blend. Yay it’s time for my fave thing, PAINT !!!!! I love how a simple coat of paint can breathe new life into any tired old thing.  (kinda like taking a shower and shaving your legs can make you feel like a new woman after a hair raising day with your kids. I have 3 boys I KNOW these things.) I broke out the sand paper and roughed my surface a bit and then started priming…

                                        bed3

And after the priming and 2 coats of white satin paint I realized the red dinosaur stamp treatment that my 4 year old had so generously given the side rails was bleeding thru no matter what I did.  On to plan B.  I sanded the side rails back down and “colored” the rails. Orange on the bottom for Rew and blue on the top for Bub. Then the safety rail got a coat of dark blue paint. Now we have this…

                                     bed5

It took 4 coats to get that orange right… Orange is just as bad as red when trying to get an even true shade.

Next I added bedding and we get the finished product

bed6 bed4

Yes my boys are still messy, we haven’t gotten to the organization stage yet or the floor scrubbing. LOL ! There are paint splatters everywhere on the floor.

OH !! I almost forgot Rew’s FAVE part of this redo. He has the bottom bunk and hates that its so dim under there so I added a tap light and TA DA !!!

                                   light

He loves it ! It’s his own light and he is in charge of turning it on and off and all the other things about a tap light that would amaze a 4 yearold.

That’s my bunk bed redo.  I took plain old dark wood bunk beds and made them bright cheery boyish beds that blend with  their room and match their other furniture and are “color coded” with their fave colors !! I have many more projects going on in their new room so keep checking back for more fun boy stuff !!

Peace,

Steph

 

P.S.  I am linking this up over at Seven Thirty Three for the What Are Little Boys Made Of  weekly round up. Head over there and check out all the cool boy inspired crafts and projects !!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

How it all started…

I’m finally going to start giving some peeks in on what I’ve been slowly working on… It’s been slow waiting for the money to come in as well as having to work on things on my days off which have been very few.

I figured I’d start with what got the ball rolling…  It actually started in Monkey’s nursery. “How ?” you may ask. Well I’ll tell you.

I painted my boys room when we moved in 4 years ago a plain dark blue. With cheap Walmart brand paint cause I happened to have 2 gallons left from something else. Needless to say its been 4 YEARS and the paint is not only ugly to begin with but has NOT held up at all. At some point Rew even started peeling a big hole ion the paint on the wall. So when I finished Monkey’s nursery Rew came in looked around and demanded to know with a major attitude of indignance “How come da bebe gets cool room and I get crappy room for ?” So here is the baby’s nursery for you to see…

Here was my inspiration piece… a quilt from a bedding set I found at a friends consignment shop but it was already sold.

                            coltbedding

I loved both the colors and the safari/jungle animal theme.

I painted these canvases…

elmcanvas  Z

 

                                          G

 

 

You’ll see in a minute that my nursery has a sloping ceiling so I have two short walls that are parallel to each other. I wanted to do vertical stripes on those to “add height” and solid blue on the tall end walls. BIG problem ! My walls are not even and are crooked and messed up like everything else in this house that was built in a hurry by a crooked contractor.  So my husband suggested polka dots instead and I’m happy he did. They look way better than the stripes would have anyway. My blue and chocolate paint was left over from my living room and I made my own khaki  by mixing some white and chocolate. My wonderful sis Shay bought me the green as a “baby present” and even helped pick/find the perfect shade. So I spent nothing on paint !!

I had an old dresser that was given to us by a very special family friend that had been special to their family as well… but it is old… So I gave it a face lift. Sorry I have no before pic but it used to be oak looking and had very tarnished gold pulls. My crib is white so now the dresser looks like this

                        dresser

I also took the ugly OLD blue Lazyboy rocker/recliner you can see a smidge of in that pic and made it a slipcover with a sheet I bought for $3 on clearance at Walmart.  It was the only one and the perfect shade of blue.

                                      beanies

These Teeny Beanies from McDonalds belonged to my husbands Grandma. They were very close. My other children have many birthday and Christmas gifts from Grandma but she passed away a month before we found Colt was coming. So it’s nice he has these that belonged to her and they match our theme.

                                        c-o-l-t

 

I wanted his name in big letters on the nursery wall but I couldn’t find any I liked. So I bought these wooden circles and painted his name on in a font I liked !

Now here it is all put together !

                 nursery2                                                    nursery1

 

nursery3 nursery4

Well there it is the room that was “cool “ enough to inspire jealousy in the heart of my 4 year old and make me realize after 4 years and bad paint it was time to give the big boys a new room as well.  I’m quite proud of how it turned out !  Hopefully I can keep on this roll and slowly give you peeks at projects before revealing the boys new room and how all the projects look together!

Peace

Steph



Wednesday, July 14, 2010

A little peek… (sort of)

Ok I really am gonna get to blogging about my room move/redo for my boys. I just want to have more done first and it’s slow going finance wise…

Today I had to cancel a shopping trip for a rug due to financial reasons so I figured I’d head to the park for a free part of a project I wanted to do in their room.  It will be a photography/art project… I think. I have several ideas I’m playing with, not sure which one(s)

will end up in the room.

SO I dressed the boys in “blending” outfits and took them to the park. I picked this park cause the playground is orange and blue so it matches the accent colors they chose.  Here are some of my results…. (I actually have TONS these are just my favorites.)

contunn rewtunn

                             Bub                                Rew

connorpoles rewphone

boytunn 3boys

I added Monkey to that last one so they’d have a pic of all the brothers together even if Monkey does have his own room.  They turned out so much better than I expected since I desperately need a new camera !!  I love the orange and blue playground equipment ! How great is it that it is the exact same colors my boys picked to accent their apple green ?? It’s awesome !!   All right I’m gonna go join family movie night but I hope to have more to share soon !

Peace

Steph

Friday, July 9, 2010

My Experience at Best Buy…

Well I haven’t blogged my awesome project I did for my lil Sis yet cause… I forgot to take all the pics I needed and she is at camp this week and couldn’t email some. She comes home this evening so I should be able to share soon.

However, while we wait I just thought I’d share my experience shopping at Best Buy and warn everyone so that you don’t end up like we did. Let’s just say I will NEVER under any circumstances shop at Best Buy again.              N-E-V-E-R !!  

It started when we went to Best Buy last time my Husband was home. So about 3 weeks ago. He needed a TV for his truck. He wanted a flat panel cause they are space saving in such tight quarters. We headed down to Best Buy cause that’s where we buy all our electronics etc. Before my husband lost his job we were  updating some appliances and my husband is a tech junkie in the worst way so I can safely say in the last 4 years we have spent SEVERAL thousand dollars there. Okay more than several … cause to me that implies 3 or less and it’s way more than that. We have been very loyal customers.

So we pick out a tv. This is after my husband spends close to an hour deliberating and only finally made a decision cause the kids ( baby included) were starting to make a ruckus due to “starvation”  LOL :o)  He decided to give their “in house” brand  Insignia a try due to the fact that they were on sale and he could get a new LED type for the same price as other brands older LCDs.  While checking out,  the little teeny bopper cashier asks if we would like to purchase the protection and replacement plan. My husband looked at me to see my thoughts. Now knowing this TV is going to be traveling around in a semi tractor I grilled the girl heavily on what it would cover. She satisfactorily answered my questions and it seemed like a very good idea all things CAREFULLY considered so we paid the extra 50 bucks.

My husband left out the next day and when he got to his truck he plugged the TV up with the component cables and the whole picture had a bad blue cast to it that could not be adjusted. SO he hooked it up with the AV jacks and then noticed that only when it’s on you could see a small crack on the INSIDE of the screen. So he put it back in the box. Now you cannot just pull into a Best Buy parking lot in a semi tractor pulling a 53 foot trailer that weighs 40,000 pounds. So he had to wait 3 weeks til he had off time again.

He came in this past week as you know and we headed right out to Best Buy. He pulled the tv out of the box and unfortunately riding around in that big truck the vibrations had caused the crack to spread but it was still only on the inside.  The Best Buy guy said Geek Squad had to look at it.  They determined it to be “physical damage” which they do not cover. I said we were told the protection/replacement plan we purchased did indeed cover accidental physical damage.  They said the cashier was mistaken. My husband told them all the problems and that it was that way straight out of the box. They said he could not prove it and should have come in sooner. Then they add  that they could fix it for an additional fee. My husband said “Bull I already paid for your bogus plan that covers nothing so no way and I’m never shopping here again”.   He was told it was “his problem” .   We used up a gift card we had to purchase a computer game for our son ( why not use the free money) and my husband told that cashier what was going on and she said call corporate and gave him the number.  

I just want to add here we were NOT asking for a refund. My husband wanted to exchange for a more expesive brand and pay the difference or even just exchange for the same thing.

We called corporate and after getting bounced around to 5 different people and departments including Insignia themselves we are now stuck with a broken useless TV  and are still paying it off on the credit card  :o( My husband was pissed beyond words and wanted to leave it in the parking lot I loaded it into the car and said  “ARE YOU CRAZY ???  So one of those rude little geek squad losers can come out here fix it and sell it ???  NO WAY !!!

Now funny little side detail the sales guy who sold us on the TV in the first place walked by while hubby was arguing with Geek Squad. He was all smiles and asked how I was. I told him not good and started the story with the Insignia TV was broken right out of the box and now they’re not honoring the protection plan. He could NOT rush away fast enough, dragging the guy with him away at the speed of light. I found out later from hubby that they headed up to the customer service counter for a Best Buy credit application to buy a 60 inch flat panel. No wonder he didn’t want the guy to hear me.

Needless to say we will not shop at Best Buy again.  EVER.  NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER… PERIOD !!!!!  I just wanted to share this to say Best Buy’s customer service both in store and on the phone with corporate was lousy and rude. Geek squad was condescending and rude. Insignia products seem to be cheaply made. AND most of all even if you choose shop there DON’T buy their protection plans they are a GIANT JOKE and  really cover nothing !!!!!

Peace

Steph

as a disclaimer I was not asked to blog ,share or say any of this by anyone. Everything I just shared in the above post is purely my opinion on my experiences with those mentioned.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

I Promise I’m coming back soon…

Things  here have been CRAZY !!! I took last week off from blogging to roll up my sleeves and do a MAJOR project cause my boys would be at Grams and then found out I had to work 6 days straight. It made it very hard to complete my project but I went as far as my financial budget would allow. Also my Lil Sis who I am very close to received some very sad news and I had to make her a cheer up project on top of my major project. I have been taking pics of everything along the way and promise I have TONS of blog posts coming up but I will not be blogging again til Wednesday.

On top of al my other stuff going on  a bit of good news !! My hubby is in for his time off and he gets an extra day off !! 4 days this month instead of 3 !! YAY !!!!! So between now and Wednesday morning we will be having family time and a huge BBQ on Sunday for the 4th.

So happy 4th of July to all my 9 loyal followers and any readers lurking around out there!  I will be back on Wednesday with a big blog post about my awesome project for Sunshine.  (my lil sis) I am so proud of it !!! It turned out better than I ever imagined.

Peace

Steph