Simply DIY 2

**I started writing this post over a year ago when I finished this dresser.  Now that I'm trying to finish the post, my memory is not quite the best when it comes to step-by-step instructions.** One day, my little guy will get too big *sniff, sniff* for his nursery and we'll have to send him off to the guest room.  While this is not happening anytime soon, the guest bedroom does need a dresser for our guests.  I figured that I might as well plan ahead and get a dresser that will eventually be for my son to use.  Keeping with the nautical theme that we used for his first birthday party, I've decided to hack an Ikea Tarva dresser to match this someday, nautical-themed, kid's bedroom.   Now, there are A LOT of beautiful Tarva updates all over the internet and I decided that the "framed" drawer was my favorite update.  This very simple dresser looks much more put together when the drawers have that small update.  This project was a big project for me,...

With about four weeks to go until we meet our little one, we finally have our nursery just about finished !  It's painted, furniture is put together, shelves are up, most of the decor is up, and the drawers are just about stocked with clothes and diapers.  Since we didn't find out the sex, it's fairly gender neutral.  I figured I can add some pops of purple if its a girl and leave it how it is if it's a boy.  Here's a little picture tour : The curtains came to me as a revelation.  I couldn't, for the life of me, settle on a pair of curtains !  I looked at IKEA, Target, Wal-Mart, and the internet and just couldn't find anything that fit the room. I was thinking of purchasing a fabric from IKEA, but fully making the curtains was a little intimidating for me (I made my bedroom curtains from scratch and I felt like it took me foooorreevverr to make them and vowed I would never do it again).  Then, one day as I wal...

This post is SOO long over due.  I started this about a year ago, before last year's school year… The end of August brings me to setting up my classroom.  I got this little idea from my school's fantastic art teacher. She has sets of IKEA plastic dishes connected by fish string and hung by color above her tables. So I just borrowed her idea, got myself some IKEA dishes, drilled some holes, added some fish string and got some pretty cool ways to group my students by colors.   I just attached the fishing string to a paperclip and shoved them in between the ceiling tiles.   Each color hung over either a row or a group of student desks…depending on how talkative  well-behaved my students were at the time.   I actually never got a chance to stand on top of a chair all last year to take a picture, so you won't actually see a final result - but it was a great way to add color to the room and divide my students up. How do you divide and label y...

Finally, I have found something little to hang on our bedroom walls !  I'm sort of hesitant when it comes to hanging things up on walls…well, bedroom walls.  A big wall, like our stairwell wall , is easy to decorate since it's one wall with a bunch of frames.  But having to decorate FOUR walls in one room makes me a little anxious.  Having to make it all flow together and look good is what makes me a little nervous. Back in June, I hung up some pictures above our bed.  That was easy because it seemed like a perfect space to hang some frames: However, I have a bunch of wall space that still needs some love in our room.  Since it still makes me a little nervous about what and where I should hang, I figured I'd tackle a small area.  This little wall next to our bathroom door seemed like a good spot to hang something…b aby steps. The other day, as I was browsing through Pinterest…again…I found the idea to frame fabric. ...

Have you ever had some nice gifts from Christmas, wedding, or birthday that you want to put in your house, but just haven't found the perfect place for it?  Well, Kerry and I have been married for almost five years now and we received two pretty shelves as gifts from family friends…we did register for them…and they have been sitting under our guest bed since we moved in.  Now, give me some slack here - we did rent for our first three years of marriage so it was  pointless  hard to hang things up. Well, I was inspired by a friend to get a move on figuring out a place for at least ONE of the two shelves.  It now has a home in our master bathroom.  Above the toilet was a nice, blank wall that needed some decor love, so I figured that would be the perfect spot for a shelf.   To hang up the shelf, I spread some painter's tape across the back from hole to hole.  I made sure that the top of the tape and the top of the shelf were ...

First off…I can't believe my blog has reached 200,000 views !  When I started this back in January, I wasn't expecting many people outside my family and friends to view the blog.  Luckily, I was wrong -  Thank you to all my readers! Speaking of readers…I've been pretty bad at making posts in recent months.  November was such a busy month and December is no better.  However, I did have some time to complete a quick little project that I have been meaning to do for almost a year. When we cleaned out my Grandmother's house over a year ago, I found some pretty cool skeleton keys bunched together on a book ring.  I nabbed those quickly and knew exactly what I wanted to do with them - place them in a shadow box!  Last weekend, I popped over to IKEA with my neighbor and purchased a white one (among lots of other things…don't tell Kerry!) I dug through my endless supply of scrapbook paper and found jus...

I just can't help myself - I like love to hang baskets .  I like the simple look of it.  I like how practical baskets can be.  When we first moved in to our house, I stuck this little basket on the inside of our closet to hold random things - keys, gloves, etc.  It eventually became a holding place for our my sandals and flip flops: The current basket is obviously WAY to small to hold the shoes (Did I mention I like shoes too !).  The basket has a little hoop on the top which is hanging on a picture hanger.   The shoes were too heavy and they were starting to make the basket fall to the floor. Either I get rid of the shoes, or get a larger basket - I'm sure we all know the answer to that dilemma.   So I started thinking about what I could do to hang a bigger basket - more nails, Command hooks, etc.  Then I thought about my  bathroom baskets  and this random IKEA towel rod I had lying around.  BINGO...