How to Finish a Raw Wood Edge

I finished building a pedestal for my washing machine to sit on (with some shoe storage underneath), but I needed to ‘finish’ off the exposed raw edges of the wood before I stain and seal it.

This is what I mean by the raw edge...

How to Remove a Granite Backsplash

For years I’ve wanted to have a tile backsplash installed in our kitchen. 

After a lot (!) of research, I finally decided to just jump in with both feet and get it done. (A huge thanks to my husband for believing in me on this one!) 

If I was going to do this project I was going to take to the extra time to do it the right way (in my opinion). I knew I wanted the 4” granite backsplash, the builder installed, gone. I felt like removing this would give the kitchen an overall cleaner look.

The first thing I needed was a heat gun. Lucky for me, my neighbor had one and graciously let me borrow it. So thankful to him for that!

I have to admit, I was really nervous to get started. I was worried that once I pulled off the backsplash, there was no going back. I decided to have some confidence in myself and tackle this.

To start, I plugged in the heat gun and turned on the higher setting. It kind of just sounds like a loud hair dryer.

Camping Chair Storage

For the past couple of months I’ve been tackling organizational projects in our garage. I felt like too many things where just being thrown here and there, or were just constantly in the way.

Wooden Medal Holder

After finishing the built-in shelves in my son’s room a few months ago, we’ve been slowly decorating his room. He had his medals kind of piled up on a shelf, so I decided he needed a better way to display them! 

Built In Entryway Coat Rack

I am happy to say I was able to complete a few built-in projects over the last few months!

I actually have a few more on my list to complete, but with the hustle and bustle of the holidays I took a little break to focus my time elsewhere.

This entryway coat rack was my most popular post on Instagram for 2018, so I wanted to write a quick post to share all of the details on how it all came together.

Clean design plus functionality.

I'm so in love with how this turned out!

Let's take a look at the 'before', shall we?

Fabric Pumpkin Burlap Banner

I can't believe tomorrow is October!

I absolutely love this time of the year.

September is still warm enough that I don't feel the season change too much, but as soon as October comes we decorate for Halloween, start planning costumes, and the overall feel just completely changes.

The other day I decided to make this pumpkin banner to add to our decorations this year.

I love that it will work for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

I was able to make this whole thing in a little less than an hour.

I've got lots of pictures and instructions for you, but please let me know if you have any questions.

*Also, if you aren't feeling too crafty I have these for sale over at my Etsy shop! Click here to find the listing.

DIY Reversible Burlap Banner

The other day I was thinking about some of the craft supplies that are sadly sitting in my craft room waiting to be used up.

While I was rocking my baby for his nap that day I decided I wanted to use up some of those supplies and try my hand at making a burlap banner.

I wanted it to last longer than one month or one holiday though so I decided to make it reversible!

Since Valentine's Day is fast approaching I thought that would be perfect to have on the first side. 

I love having pieces that are versatile and can be left up for a while, so I thought bunnies on the other side would be perfect so it can be up for Easter but also all of Spring. 

I've got step-by-step instructions and pictures for you, and I've also got a video at the very end of this post if you want to see it all come together that way.

Planter Box Tutorial

I love working out in our yard!

Maybe it's because I don't get to do it as often as I like, so when I actually do get out there I've been looking forward to it and I kind of have a plan of what I want to get done.

Today I wanted to share a little upgrade I did for our berry bushes.

On the side of our house we have about a 4 foot wide gap between our house and our neighbor's fence. It receives sunlight all day long, so two years ago we decided to plant some berries along the length of the house. Might as well put that space to use!

We planted two blackberries and one raspberry.

When we first planted these little guys we laid out the garden fabric, to keep weeds from growing, and cut out a little hole around the base of each bush. We then we covered it all with wood chips.

Last year the plants got so tall, and the branches were weighed down with berries, so we tied them up to the white trellises you see pictured.
It worked, but it looked a little messy and I know these plants are just going to get bigger. I wanted the area to look cleaner and have a wide opening at the bottom so it would be easier to water them when needed.
So this is the solution I came up with.

Bird Feeder Craft

My middle son is at that magical age of curiosity and fascination.

Age 3 1/2.

I absolutely love it.
He is constantly asking about things he sees and is genuinely curious about everything.

I've wanted to make a bird feeder with him for a while, and a few days ago was warm and sunny so we decided it was the perfect time.

We wanted to make the feeder out of things we already had around the house, and we wanted to make it functional and give the birds a place to sit while they eat.

After a little searching online we put some ideas together and created this little feeder.

I've included pictures and details of how we put this together.
From start to finish it probably took us around 20 minutes.

Heart Garland {For less than $5!}

For our monthly activity for our Relief Society (women's group) for February we put together a Valentines dance.

This dance was for couples, singles, friends, whomever wanted to come.

I am the one in charge of planning these activities, and after a little brainstorming with my committee (1 other girl), and some scrolling through Pinterest, we had a plan of what we wanted everything to look like.

I took over all of the decor, and I was really excited because I've never really done much in the way of decorating for Valentines, so I was ready to take on this new challenge.

We knew we wanted to do a little photo booth area with props and a simple background.
The background of the photos was just plastic white table cloths from the dollar store, and this heart garland I made.
This is the first garland I've ever made and I was pretty excited with how it turned out!
The nice thing is this garland isn't just for Valentines, you can whip this up for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
I've got pictures and instructions below for you to see how this all came together.

Relief Society Super Saturday

First of all, I am well aware that this post is long overdue.

At least I'm getting it done people! 

For those of you who aren't familiar with what I'm even talking about here, I'll quickly explain.
Once a year the women's group in our church gets together for a 'Super Saturday' where we basically eat some good food and make some crafts.

Who wouldn't want some of that?!

I am the one in charge of planning this, and I was really excited with what I had come up with.
I had two crafts available for the women to make, and I brought them to church a couple of weeks before our big day so the women could see what we were offering and decide if they wanted to come.

The two crafts I had available for the women was the DIY Temple String Art and the DIY Reversible 2x4 Craft. These linked posts are tutorials to show you how to make each craft.

This post is to show you how we set up everything for our Super Saturday.

Shoe Rack Tutorial

In the winter months, since we're stuck indoors so much,  I start to notice projects around the house that I haven't gotten to yet.

This would be one of them.

When we first moved in to this house over 2 years ago I was bound and determined to make some sort of shoerack/shelving in our master bedroom closet. 

It bothers me when stuff is spread out when I can have it stack up, if that makes sense.

Well, throw in yard projects, painting projects, being pregnant, and having a baby, and our closet kind of got pushed to the back of my mind for a while.

A few weeks ago we made a trip to The Home Depot to buy some stuff to organize our hallway closet and while we were there my husband grabbed some shoe racks that were like $30 each (!!)

He told me it's been 2 years of me talking about building something, and he just wanted to get the shoes off the ground. 

Reluctantly I let him buy the racks and the next day I put one together.

I hated how it looked and it was too small and way too boxy.

This kicked my butt into gear and I took it apart, boxed it back up, and made shoe racks myself.

For a ton cheaper.

Reindeer Wreath Toss

For the Relief Society Christmas party I planned a few weeks ago we had dinner and minute-to-win-it type games.

I found a couple of ideas on Pinterest and then came up with a few of my own.

I had seen a reindeer game for sale where someone wears balloon antlers on their head and the other players tossed rings to catch on the antlers, but I didn't want to spend our budget money on that, so I made my own version of the game.

This could also be great to make for your little ones at home!

Baby Food Jar Candles

I've mentioned here in the blog a few times that I am the one in charge of planning the Relief Society activities for my ward (church). 

Last week was our annual Christmas party and the Relief Society President (lady in charge of the group) wanted a small gift to hand out to each of the ladies at the end of the evening.

After like a week of tossing ideas around in mind head I remembered that I had been hoarding these baby food jars from like 2 years ago, and I decided that I was going to turn them into candles.

I wanted a special Christmas type message to go along with the candles, and at first I was going to go with something along the lines of when Jesus says 'I am the light of the world', or 'let your light so shine' but I couldn't decided yet for sure and I knew I wanted the candles, so I just started there.

I actually really enjoyed making these, I've always wanted to make my own candles, and I love how these turned out.
About a 2 weeks before our Christmas party the church we belong to came out with their #LightTheWorld campaign (It's 25 ways in 25 days to serve others and bring Christ to our minds this Christmas season. To learn more about the full campaign click here).
The Christmas party was a success and at the end of the night I took a few minutes to talk about the candles.
I told the quote from Harry Potter where Dumbledore says "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
The candle is all ready to go, but it can't light itself.
We need to take action, we need to actually light it for it to bring us light.
The same goes for the Christmas season.
We need to include Christ in our celebration and bring the light into our lives.
I hope it made sense when I was talking, ha ha sometimes my words come to me better AFTER I'm done talking.
Anyways, I've included a full tutorial for you so you can see how these candles came together.

Baptism Book

Our oldest son turned 8 last month.

In our church that's a very special age.

At the age of 8 children can be baptized by immersion (in water) and become official members of the church. We are baptized the same way that Jesus was baptized as described in the Bible.

(If you would like to learn more about baptism you can click this link lds.org)

On this special day family and friends go to the church building and are able to watch the baptism along with hearing some music and talks about the gospel. 

I wanted to have something for my son to look back on from his special day, something that family and friends would be able to leave a sweet message in for him, so I came up with this sign-in book.

I put this together a few weeks beforehand so it would have time to be printed and shipped.

Ugly Sweater Trophy

This last week we had our Relief Society Christmas party.

(Relief Society is basically the women's group in our church. I am in charge of planning the monthly activities.)

Along with a dinner I decided to have games and a 'festive sweater' or 'festive outfit' contest.

(I'll do another post with the details of the games and everything).

To add to the fun I wanted to have a trophy and prize to give to the winner for putting forth the effort of dressing up of course! ;)

I just have to say, I'm pretty bummed that I didn't get a better picture of the finished product. I was so busy that day with last-minute prep for the party that I totally spaced it.

DIY Temple String Art

A few months ago I was trying to come up with a craft project for our upcoming 'Relief Society Super Saturday'.

I had Google searched ideas over and over and I ended up finding a picture of some temple string art, I don't even remember which temple it was a picture of, but it sparked my mind and thought it would make the perfect craft.

I had a an idea of what I wanted so I started sketching my own design of some temples, and I was really excited with what I came up with.

I had to make a 'trial run' to see if this would all work, and actually look like a temple, so this was the sample I created. I also needed a sample to show the women at church what we would be creating.

This is the Mount Timpanogos temple.

I loved the result, so I put together a tutorial together if you want to make your own.

Harry Potter Wand Tutorial

For Halloween this year my oldest decided he wants to dress-up as Harry Potter.

We talked about the details of his costume and he for sure needed a wand :)

I've been trying to step back more and let his creative juices flow, and I must say I'm pretty proud of his thought process and how this turned out!

It all started the other day when he found this stick.

I told him I thought it would make a good wand, so he held on to it.

DIY Reversible 2x4 Craft

I feel like when it comes to seasonal decor, I'm kind of a minimalist.

I honestly think I don't like a lot of knick-knacks and stuff because my boys already leave so much crap everywhere they go that it just looks like it's adding to the clutter...

Does anyone else have this problem??

Anyways, I've mentioned before that my new calling (volunteer type position) in my church is the person in charge of planning monthly activities for the Relief Society (women's group).

Once a year there is something called Super Saturday.

It's pretty much a chance to get together and make some common crafts, nibble on treats, and chat with the other women.

Our Super Saturday is next month, but I made the crafts in advance so the other women could see what's in store for them if they're able to make it.

As I mentioned before, I don't like having a lot of seasonal stuff, but I kind of wanted something.

I decided to make these reversible 2x4 blocks as a way to have them be a little more functional and last a little longer through the seasons.

I really wanted this craft to be customizable for the women attending.

Meaning; they don't have to do Fall and Winter. They could do any season they want, or even a saying like 'Love at Home' or whatever.

I will actually post more about different options after we have our Super Saturday and I have more options to show.

For now though, I will show you how I made these ones.

DIY Pokeball Costume

A few weeks ago I was talking to my 3 year old about Halloween.

He is so excited to go trick-or-treating, and much to my surprise he already knew what he wanted his costume to be.

When I asked him what he was planning on dressing up as he squealed with delight "A Pokeball!"

Ha ha ha

Um, it was the cutest thing ever to hear him talk about being a Pokeball and I was excited because I knew this would be something I could easily whip up for him.

I love how this turned out, and I love that he'll be able to wear a coat, or sweater, or whatever underneath it and you'll still be able to see the full costume.

I've got step-by-step pictures and instructions to show you how this came together.