Vinyl Decal Decorated Cabinet

I have been looking for a cabinet that will fit the corner of my kitchen. It's a very narrow space between the window and the pantry so it couldn't be more than 23" wide or 12" deep and I needed drawers and shelves to hold my work supplies. I bought a tape measure to keep in my purse and every time I went into a store that had furniture, I'd look. And every week or so, I'd check Craigslist--nothing. For so long that it became part of my regular routine.

Can you spot the kitty?

Finally, FINALLY, I found this beauty for $40 on Craigslist. It was absolutely perfect, except that there is not a single piece of white furniture in my entire house. Luckily, my can of black spray paint is still warm from the last project I conquered.

Aah, better already.

Now to jazz it up a little. I used these vinyl decals but if your taste is not as quirky as mine, there are plenty of more classic options like birds or trees that are a little more understated.

Floating Bookshelf

I first saw this floating shelf idea on Etsy. What a great way to display cookbooks, but the price was a little too rich for my blood. Not too much later, I came across a tutorial for them over at MayDecember. I love the idea of using L brackets--so simple, so brilliant.

Place your brackets on the wall and mark the holes with a pencil.

Make sure you get at least one of the brackets mounted into a stud.

I loved everything about this idea except the fact that the book would show if you looked underneath the shelf. Since I'm placing my shelf fairly high up on the wall, I used a big hardback cookbook that I rarely (and now never) use, slid it into the bracket, and used clear packaging tape to tape the book shut.

If you don't look at the rest of my house, you'd think I was stylish!

DIY: Clay Portraits

With summer vacation upon us, here's an easy, fun project that the kids can do on a lazy day. Have the kids each roll out a piece of clay in a roundish or squarish shape, whatever they want. Use a toothpick to carve the design. If you're lucky enough to have use of a kiln, use terra cotta clay, or if not, use the oven bake stuff (Sculpey is great) or even air-dry clay. Once it's dry the kids can paint it or just seal it with a clear lacquer.


Now take a piece of scrap wood and paint it any color (I used black). Attach a hanger on the back or go the completely cheapskate route and just put two staples in the back and wrap a little wire between them to create your own hanger. Affix the dried clay art to the wood with a good dollop of Gorilla Glue or Liquid Nails.

These look great alone, or make a bunch and group them. My latest idea: colorful clay targets with bulls-eyes in a Kandinsky style, grouped on the living room wall. I'll blog that when it happens; I'm guessing about the tenth of never.

Raising Silkworms

Bieber getting comfy on her queen-size bed.

Happy news! We have two new additions to our family. They are a pair of silkmoths and their names are Justin and Bieber. They were foisted upon us--I mean, we adopted them from my son's second-grade science class. By the time Max brought them home, the rest of our family had missed the real action--the cocoon spinning and subsequent hatching.

Justin and Bieber's love nest, covered with gauze.

The moment Max got them through the front door, he and Elise disappeared for about two hours. When they emerged, Elise had created an amazing studio apartment for them, complete with a sofa for lounging, a rug on the floor, and a queen-size bed with silk sheets. Hubba hubba! I guess it set the mood, because within a few hours, Bieber started laying eggs.

She pushes this thing out of her tail and the eggs drop out. These were the first two eggs.

A little later.

From what Max told me, silkmoths do not have mouths; they hatch, mate, the female lays eggs, then both male and female silkmoths die, their life cycle completed. Kind of sad, but we kept it matter of fact and when Justin kicked the bucket Max was OK.

RIP Justin

So what happens when Bieber's eggs hatch? (There can be up to 500, apparently.) No mainstream nursery in our area carried Mulberry trees, which is what the silkworms eat, so it was off to Exotica yesterday, where I found a 7-foot-tall Russian Mulberry tree and somehow jammed it into my Altima Hybrid for the trip home. Sean planted it and now we wait.

15-year-olds sure do come in handy.

To be continued...

Magazine Rack Refinishing (or Reupholstering?)

Found this magazine rack at a garage sale today for $5. It was so ugly it may as well have had "Janet's a sucker" spray painted on it. I brought it home and immediately cut the fabric from the frame--I would have disassembled the frame but all the screws had been stripped and it was not coming apart.

I put the frame out back with an old tablecloth. When I came back two seconds later with a can of spray paint, this is what I saw. Seriously. Why do they do that?

I spray painted it a gloss black, and while it was drying, went to the fabric store and found a replacement. I laid the old fabric out on my dining room table and cut the new fabric to fit the size, not worrying about the handle holes. I hate sewing so much that when I want to tackle a project that involves my sewing machine, I usually don't worry about such trivial matters as measuring, or matching the thread to the fabric, or anything that involves basting. I just want to get it done, and fast.


So, using brown thread on my black, white, and turquoise fabric because that was what was already in the bobbin, I hemmed all four sides of my rectangle and then folded it over the frame. Fabric strips on the bottom had to be hand-sewn because of the aforementioned stripped screws that prevented me from taking apart the frame. Ditto for the fabric folded over the top of the frame.

This project took no more than two hours from start to finish (FAST!) and I decided to put my new rack next to our entry pew to hold shoes. Even though the closet is literally one step away from our staircase, there are shoes lying on the bottom step every single day. A cute new shoe rack will certainly solve the problem. Right? I know. But it looks darn good.

Kittytown, or Do it Yourself Cat Fencing

Can you spot the hidden Rocco?

Foiled!

She's thinking how immature he is. He doesn't care.

A few months ago, my friend Jennifer sent me a link to a story about a guy in Florida who has built a tall fence around several acres of land and runs a cat sanctuary called Caboodle Ranch, where the cats can roam freely about the property. Starting a dog and cat sanctuary is my ultimate dream, and this guy is my hero.

Since my home is built on a tiny 7,000-square-foot lot, for now I'll have to settle for (much) less. Jen's email got me thinking, though...what if I could fence the yard in so the cats could go outside? It has been difficult for me to keep the cats inside for their entire lives; it's just not natural. Yes, I realize it's safer for them but it would be safer for humans as well to never step foot outside the house. Doesn't quality of life count for anything?

So I dug in--literally. I began by Googling "cat fencing." You'd be amazed at how many companies there are that will provide you with an entire system. Some of them even launch the cats back into the yard when they try to escape--the video is quite amusing, I must say. The one thing that was consistent about each of these companies was their prohibitive cost. So being the resourceful type, I decided this was not rocket science, and I would do it myself.

Objectives: To keep the cats from escaping under, over, and through.

First step: a trip to Home Depot--hooray!--for chicken wire or any type of strong mesh with small holes (under and through) and something called garden fencing (over) that's apparently used to keep rabbits out of your yard. You'll also need lots of garden ties and possibly some smooth metal sheeting if you have trees that your cats can use to climb and escape.


Under: Try not to tackle this step on the hottest day of the year, like we did. Dig a trench under your fence that's about 8 inches deep. Bury a foot-high strip of chicken wire partially underground, bending it toward you when you lay it in the trench so the cats won't be able to dig under it. Make sure the top part of the chicken wire sticks out of the trench by at least a few inches.


Through: For any areas of fencing that are not solid wood, get your mesh or chicken wire, and zip-tie it to the entire length of the fence. Use more zip ties to attach the pieces of chicken wire that are sticking up from the trenches underneath the fence.


Over: If your fence is solid and nearly touches the ground, you may not need either the under or the through steps, but you'll definitely need the over. Fold your garden fencing over where the smaller rectangles meet the larger squares. I could manage about 8-foot sections at a time. Lay them so that the large squares are against the fence and the rectangles angle back in to the yard, creating a ceiling that your cats won't be able to jump over. I found u-shaped nails that worked great to attach these pieces to the fence.


Over (gate): If you have a gate, attach a length just to the gate, so it can swing out still, and put the garden wire at a slightly lower height on either side of the gate so the wire sections won't knock into each other when you open it.


Over (trees): If your cat can climb a tree and use a branch as a launching point, they will do it. George has mastered the trick of building up speed and then launching herself to heights I did not think possible. Bad kitty. I cut open the plastic zip tie canister (though when I get back to Home Depot I'll probably use a piece of metal sheeting) and wrapped it around the trunk of the tree so she could only go so high. Every time she races across the yard and then hits that plastic, I can almost hear the Flintstone brake squealing sound effect and see her legs spinning with smoke coming out. I yell "ha ha" at her every time this happens.

Your fence will probably look nicer than mine; I'm definitely a "let's get it done, right now and quickly" sort of person, rather than a perfectionist. (Imagine how happy that makes my engineer husband!) You will have to be vigilant about watching the cats for the first week or so; you'll be surprised at how they will find a way to escape through a tiny opening you left, or a piece of fencing bent down a little too much at the top that they can scale.

Now I have help with the yardwork!

Magnet Spice Rack/Bulletin Board

I have spice issues; they've been out of control for some time now, and I'm finally ready to admit my problem and conquer it.

Some of my friends like Pottery Barn; others spend their time at Anthropologie. But give me Home Depot any day.

I cleared out a drawer full of spice packages and bottles, and put them into these cool magnetic containers from World Market. Now all I needed was a magnet board to hang them on. Unwilling to settle for a plain boring metal sheet, I browsed the aisles of Home Depot until I found these. They were in the "vent" section and came in several sizes; these are about 15"x8".

I made some labels on clear decal paper and filled my jars.

With my spice issues are under control, I was inspired to tackle the space issues over my desk as well. Now, if only the kids' clothes and toys were magnetic...

Custom Tile Table

When it comes to redecorating, it's amazing what you can accomplish with a can of black spray paint. I found this TV tray at a garage sale for a dollar. It had a super groovy retro fake wood grain but once I sprayed it black, it looked great, clean but with the retro lines. To make this project, look for a table with a small lip around the edges--they're not as hard to find as you'd think.

When you are Home Depot picking up that black spray paint, get some tiles (I used 4"x4"). You'll also need tile adhesive, grout, a sponge, and spacers. How you lay it out is up to you but I jazzed it up with a sheet of this stuff, which I found on clearance for about $7 a sheet. The 1x1" tiles not only finish off the look well, but also fill the space if your tiles don't fit quite perfectly. I'm not going to explain how to lay tile--there is plenty of info about that on the Web, plus I have to pee.

Now the boring part is over--look through your kids' drawings and choose as many as you want to put on your table. (I recommend using the one that Jr. drew of your husband with no neck, but not the one of you that makes you look really fat.) Scan them into your computer and resize them so they're roughly the same.

Now here's where my shameless plug comes in: if you want them to be totally permanent and scrubbable, contact me at sales@customsepia.com or through my Etsy site Custom Sepia and I'll fire your images onto 4x4 square white or cream tiles. (You can also use these tiles for your kitchen backsplash or in your bathroom shower or tub.) If you want to keep this project totally DIY, print your images onto these decals and affix them to the tiles. If you go this route, you will want to use a sealer to preserve the images.

You will be amazed at the compliments you get from this project, and your friends will envy how talented your children are, and isn't that really what it's all about?

Quality Time

Vacation time used to mean taking an exciting trip to a faraway land, but for the past couple of years it's been more about paying the mortgage and buying groceries. Holing up with the kids for a week (or two, or even all summer) is a great opportunity to bond, but how many games of Crazy Eights can you play without going a little crazy yourself?

Last summer I really wanted a new kitchen table but the aforementioned mortgage and groceries once again took priority. I thought about tiling over it but came across lots of decoupage ideas on the Internet and decided to try a combination of the two: paper mosaic.

It took many, many hours of all 3 kids and me working but was a great opportunity to just sit and chat. It's also fun to see their work style--Sean (age 12) saw it as a math project and fitted the pieces together like a puzzle. Elise (age 10) was more concerned about making sure no matching colors touched. Max (age 6) just stuck pieces on randomly but it didn't matter and I didn't have to teach him the "right way." We had a fun time doing this project but we were all glad when it was done, and the compliments we received on it continue to this day.

Paper Mosaic Table

First, prepare your table. We filled in the dents with wood filler and then painted the whole top black.

Purchase lots of card stock in your desired color scheme. It doesn't have to be too thick, and we got most of ours from Michaels with a 40% off coupon. Cut it randomly into smallish or large-ish (you will be happy about the large-ish pieces the longer you work on the project) shapes.

Brush some Elmer's glue (diluted with a little water) on to the table and start laying your pieces down. Make sure they stay flat so they don't curl up later and cause an uneven surface.
Once your table is done and dry, coat it with polyurethane (I used several coats of semi-gloss) to create a durable finish.

Note: The only thing that bummed me out slightly about this project was that the polyurethane soaked into the paper a little and created some dark spots on the paper. Not sure how to avoid that but would love suggestions if you can think of a solution.