Saturday Housewife

Now that my edTPA is done, I have got to spend my free time doing weird homemaker things I never thought I would be good at but I love! :)

Canning:

This is a few weeks old by now, but I just had to share. Never thought I would ever do anything so home-made! I always remember canning being like....an old person thing? But it is actually pretty fun! We have made tons of tasty things now that may or may not be coming to a kitchen near you ;)

Cooking in Bulk:

Derek and I recently came to the possession of about a million pounds of potatoes. So I took advantage of our time and froze some potato chunks, hashbrowns, and mashed potatoes. I also made about two dozen baked potatoes that I was going to make twice baked potatoes with, but I was a little tired after over an hour on my feet so I will have to come back to that in a bit. Here is our potato pile!

Making Laundry detergent:

For this one I paired up with my awesome friend Brianne,  and we each made our laundry detergent using the recipe from Coupon Closet! I thought it would be hard, messy, and kind of like I hippie thing to do...but I was intrigued by the fact that about $20 of laundry detergent could last the entire year. It is a super concentrated formula so you only need about 1-2 TBS every load.

We were able to find all the supplied we needed at our local Walmart, and we got to work. Now, since I always have to be contrary, I used pink Zote instead of the fels-natha. I guess I had been looking at so many different recipes, I didn't use the amount of oxi-clean it called for (I only used 1.5 pounds...which I swear I read somewhere...oh well!). Brianne and I want to compare our laundry detergent after we get the chance to really test it to see if any of these changes really made a difference. 

Oh and P.S., this project was EASY. Probably took about 30-40 minutes, and over half that time was spent grating the bar of soap! Definitely willing to do this again. 

Arranging the china cabinet: 

Can we just bask in this Christmasy glory? Perfect for the winter season! Looking at my china makes me feel very spoiled and rich (I am only one of those things, but I appreciate feeling like both). Seasons greetings, and Merry Christmas!

Sunburst Mirror DIY

The space above my TV has been longing for SOMETHING for months now. That big blank wall has just been staring me down. Because my TV is a giant rectangle, the last thing I needed was another rectangle of art--- To pinterest I went!

I quickly discovered what I had been needing all my life long was in fact a sunburst mirror. I mean, how in the heck can you say no to this:

$135 from Samjen Arts' Etsy shop

Or this:

$199 from Bliss Home and Design

Or this?!:

$34 +shipping from Target

The Target one by far was the most affordable, but all of the mirrors were about 2ft in diameter (hello, my TV is 50 inches, 2 feet above that looks like NOTHIN.

So the pinterest search continued and I found some great DIYs. I got some great ideas from Stephanie Lynn and House of Fifty that you should check out. Awesome. After some more looking though, I really found a way to blend these and other DIY mirrors into something that was absolutely what I wanted. So without further ado, My Sunburst Mirror DIY!

Yes, we were watching TV and Yes those are our bikes. BUT IT LOOKS GOOD RIGHT?!
Don't worry, more pics to come.

All my shopping was done at walmart and I got everything for $22.33. Roll with me here.

For about $14, I got this mainstays 5pc mirror set.
Mirrors range from 8-11 inches. So for $14, I got 5 little mirrors waiting to be born into lovely sunbursts.

For 97 cents I got a pack of 100 of these BBQ skewers. They may seem small (12 in long) but when we glue them to the mirror, it is going to add a full 24 inches to the diameter, without even adding the mirror into that measurement, its bigger than the ones from the websites above. 

And for 3.97 I got this gold spray paint. I have never bought spray paint before so I didn't know what was good. For future reference: THIS WAS GOOD. It was all I could do not to spray paint everything I own gold.

So that is our shopping list. I already had my hot glue gun and tape at home. Woohoo! I will add that when I bought these three things at walmart the guy was like "So what are you going to do with all of this?" and I tried to explain it to him. He said "interesting". Clearly did not get my vision. Well walmart guy, I will prove you wrong.

First, take out your mirrors. Notice it says "ready to hang?" Ohhh mainstays mirror set, you couldn't be further from being ready to hang.

Take out your mirror, grab some fat tape (all I had was packing tape. C'est la vie.) And go across your mirror with the tape, pushing down in the corners.

Repeat that a bajillion times. I did a pattern like I was cutting a pie. You can see in this photo I still have some more tape to do, but you get the picture.

Once it's all taped up. Grab a knife and slice around the edge of the mirror. 

Once you have cut the tape, pull it all off so the frame of the mirror is exposed, but the mirror itself is still taped up. Essentially we are just taping off the mirror here, but it's a trick that worked for me.

Grab your sticks and your mirror, and spray paint them!

Once dry, peel off that tape. It won't be perfect (as shown), but just grab your knife again and scratch off the paint that got stuck. 

Once the mirror is taken care of, flip it around and start gluing! Just like with the tape, we are going to place our sticks across from each other. One DIY-er said they layered on the glue, after doing a few of them, I can tell you now that that isn't the best for the hot glue. It doesn't need a crazy amount, just a dollop. 

I actually would put the glue down and let it cool a bit before I stuck them on there, otherwise I had to hold those sticks for a looooong time.

Here we are, about half way!

I had to take a sneak peek!

And here all the sticks are glued. You could probably fit some more in there if you want an even fuller look.

Even though there was already a hole in the back for hanging, I fashioned one out of photo frame wire. Much easier to hang up in my opinion!

TA DA! It is finished!

Usually my projects seem to look....homemade....but I can honestly say these have turned out looking WAY better than I ever expected. They have a nice clean look to them! My mirror ended up being 34 inches in diameter, and it really fills the space. I love it because it really does look very high end and expensive (and it was not!)

Local folks, if you are interested, I have made up all the mirrors and I am selling them for $10 bucks a piece. Cheaper than it would cost to do it yourself AND you help me get rid of all these sunbursts I have now ;) So let me know if you want one!

xoxoxo

4 Things We Learned From Our First DIY

This past holiday weekend, we updated our china hutch from this:

to this:

We had so much fun and I am really enjoying the fruits of our labor. This is our first furniture piece that I have really really loved and been able to make MY style.

How it all went down:
I knew I wanted to do my hutch for a while, so I was excited when the stars aligned and there was finally time! I had previously talked to my Mom (you can see all her amazing craftiness at her blog) who gave me a few tips, and after some google searches, I stumbled across Live Love DIY's blog "How To Paint Laminate Furniture". If you are tempted to paint SOMETHING check out that resource.

1) We took apart all of the hinges and drawers

2) Used Kilz Original primer on everything ($6) 

3) Then we used an acrylic paint from walmart ($8)
4) We did a second coat of the acrylic paint, I mixed up a little blue paint for the back.

5) Let it all dry, put it back together, and we were DONE!

But it wasn't exactly seamless. Here is what we learned.

1) It took me 30 minutes to pick out what "white" paint I wanted. I knew I wanted it to look warm, so I was thinking "ivory". I picked out a shade called "White with Everything". It was actually the darkest "white" shade they had. I AM SO GLAD I DID. Anything less cream-colored would have just looked stark white. As far as the white shades go, choose one darker than you think. It will still look white, it will just look warmer. For anyone who cares, we chose a flat paint to mimic the chalk-paint style that is fashionable these days. 

2) One thing they don't teach you in your first 20 years of life, is that primer is THICK. It also dries fairly quickly. That means any globs or unevenness you see needs to be taken care of pretty quickly. If you are going for smooth finish, put on smooth primer. For the most part, ours turned out very smooth and we weren't super aware of that, but there are some spots that could have benefited from smoother application.

3) Here is where I got stupid. We live in Pullman, Washington. On a nice January day, it may get in to the 40s or 50s, but by evening it is back in the 20s. Do you know that paint doesn't dry sub-40ish degrees? It seems obvious, but we didn't think of that. After waiting hours for the last coat to dry (unlike the others which only took a little bit), I turned to google and found that I needed to rescue that furniture ASAP or I would end up with an icy mess. So, at about 11pm, I made my husband lovingly asked my husband to help me bring all of the doors, drawers, and the big piece itself into our make-shift art studio (my living room). We put down an old sheet and towel and got everything situated, and touched up any little mistakes. It wasn't a huge deal for us, but just remember to check the drying temperature of your paint, otherwise you may end up with an icy/frosty mess!

4) "Do you ever swear in your head sometimes?" Derek asked me this after we had been frustrated for hours trying to get the doors to close properly after putting back on the hinges. I quickly responded "YES." So we are probably going to H-E-double-hockey-sticks for sure. But really, those door hinges are a nightmare. Everything finally worked out after messing with them for a day or two. Out of everything, I think this is the most important thing we learned: Instead of getting excited and removing every hinge you see EVER, tape over them (or I suppose you could just paint them too!). It really wouldn't have been too hard to just paint them while they were attached, so taping is a possibility. My dad also suggested that at the very least, you mark where the hinges were before you take them off. Ours were adjustable, so even though there is only one hole drilled in the wood, the piece can move up and down AHHH. It ended up being that I was screwing the screws in too tightly, and it was slightly warping the hinge. I loosened up the bottom a bit and PRESTO- it was good to go.

We are already getting excited for our next DIY. I wonder what it will be! In the mean time, I am enjoying seeing my vintage style starting to appear in our little place. Things are coming together!

A Picture's Worth 1000 Words...

For the past two weeks, I have been painstakingly re-positioning about eight photos, struggling to make the gallery wall of my dreams! I feel like art in the home brings such a happy spirit...and our white walls were driving me nuts! Unfortunately for me, commitment to something permanent has always been a hard thing (Derek is lucky he made the cut!).

When I decided I wanted to make a photo wall, first I gathered up some things I really wanted on there. Not all of them made it in the end, but they will certainly find a home soon. Then I proceeded to spread them all over the living room floor...for about 12 days....(thanks for letting me carry out my creative process in our living room, honey...).

I found out I wasn't too creative. So I took to the streets of pinterest to find my dream photo wall!

Nothing really struck my interest. Until I saw:

I LOVED the top picture. With a little tweaking, a couple more days of "creative process", and a good night's rest, that sketch became this...

I knew I wanted to display The Living Christ and The Family: A Proclamation to the World...and I REALLY wanted to display our wedding certificate from the temple. The middle picture right now is a bridal, but we are planning on getting one of our wedding photos blown up to put in there (because 16x20 pictures of yourself is just slightly awkard). We will also get some wedding/engagement pics for those 8x10 frames, but we are still waiting on the digital copies from my parents.


I am loving the photos. My husband loves seeing the living room floor again. Win-Win.