Bed frame out of a box spring

We've been sleeping on a mattress on the floor for the past several years since we had kids because we co-sleep.  We bought a king size mattress a year ago when we moved to NC, but never bothered to buy a box spring or frame since we didn't want the kids rolling off the bed.  But now they're older, Wyatt is sleeping in his own bed, and we're hoping to transition Emma to her own bed soon as well.  So it was definitely time to get a frame and reclaim our king size bed as our own.

Inspiration for bed frame out of a box spring

I have been searching for a king size box spring since I saw this pin.  It was going to cost me $200+ for a new one, and then I was going to have to find a way to transport it as well, so I turned to craigslist.  Yesterday was my lucky day, and I saw a curb alert for a free king size split box spring.  I immediately called upon my good friend Nicole, who has a van she let me borrow.  I drove right over and loaded up the box spring (which was in surprisingly good condition).  Today I went out and got my materials and, within an hour, had a new frame for our bed!

Materials:

• box spring
• legs ( I bought 6" wooden legs from Lowe's for $4 a piece and needed 9 to support the king size frame.  Depending on your mattress size, you could probably get away less or cheaper ones)
• top plates to install legs (these were $1.93 at Lowe's and you need one for each leg you'll install on the box spring)
• bed skirt
• ped pins
• a drill

We already had a drill and our free box spring, so I just had to run to Lowe's for the legs and top plates and then went to Target for a cheap bed skirt and pins.  I didn't shop around or use coupons or I may have been able to do this project for cheaper, but as it was it wasn't terribly expensive and certainly cheaper than buying a king size frame!

These are the top plates and legs I choose for our frame.

 Once I had everything home, I set the box spring upside down on the floor.  Because I was working with a king size split box spring, I had to line the two box springs up and used the top plates to hold the springs together. 

I placed 3 top plates along the two frames to hold them together, spacing them equally and screwing them in with one side of the plate on one box spring and the other side of the plate on the other box spring so they now are held together as one big box spring.  I also installed 3 top plates on each side of the box spring, so there were 8 legs around the edge of the box spring and one in the very middle to support the huge frame. 

The installed top plates with leg screwed in.

Once the top plates were screwed in (which I managed to do by myself with 2 toddlers running around in under 30 minutes), I just screwed the legs right into the top plates.  It was seriously easy installation.  Emma actually went on my back in the Ergo and fell asleep for her nap while I was finishing the project.

After all the legs were on, which only took a few minutes to accomplish, I carefully flipped the box spring over and laid the bed skirt on top.


I'm not overly impressed with the bed skirt I picked, but it was cheap and does the trick for now.  I pinned it in place, then put the mattress on our new frame. 

It turned out beautifully over all though!  Not only does it look 100 times better than the mattress on the floor, but it's SO much more comfortable sleeping on the box spring.  Complete win all around!

Wyatt approves

Total cost: Since I got the free box spring and had the drill, all I paid for was the bed skirt, pins, legs and top plates.  Grand total of about $60, although the cost would vary depending on the size of the frame and amount of legs needed.
Total time: Just installing the top plates and legs and placing the bed skirt took about an hour.
End result: I'm loving it!

Magnets

Because I made this sweet Magnet board, I felt compelled to make awesome homemade magnets to go with it.  This was very easy and turned out cute and the kids enjoy them.

Materials:

• Sticky back magnetic buttons or magnetic sheets you can cut into the proper sizes
• Any random buttons, googly eyes, jewels or other trinkets to make into magnets
• Superglue (optional)

Magnetic buttons, jewels, and superglue

Close up on some of the different magnets we made

These take no time at all to make, and you can get really creative with what you turn into magnets.  We used some big buttons, plastic jewels, and googly eyes, all of which I had already in my craft box.  Each of which you can buy at a craft store for a few dollars for a package with dozens of trinkets.  The magnet buttons are about $3 for a package of 18.  Or you can buy the strips of magnetic tape and use superglue to stick your trinkets onto it.  We ended up with about 50 magnets for about $10.

All you do is stick your trinkets onto the magnetic buttons, and you have unique, cute magnets to stick on your magnet board or fridge!

Emma plays with her magnets and board

I also bought a little magnetic tray from Target for $3 to store all the kids magnets.  And there are magnetic numbers and letters that I bought from the dollar store as well, which is always a good investment (each pack was $1 for 26 magnets).

All in all, we have some really cute accessories for our magnet boards!

Magnet board with all of our different magnets and accessories.

Magnet Board

I just finished a fun project for the kids, that could also be very useful around the house as well.

Inspiration for Magnet Board

I liked this because I wanted the kids to have a fun place to play with magnets in the playroom, and thought it was neat to decorate the magnet board with whatever fabric you like.  This also turned out to be cheaper than buying an assembled magnet board/white board from Target.  The same size magnetic whiteboard at Target was $12.99 per board.  I made two for $17 and mine are way cuter.

Materials:

• Piece of sheet metal
• Fabric large enough to cover the sheet metal
• Spray adhesive
• Wall mounts
• Scissors

We selected the cheapest sheet metal from Lowe's that fit the space we were looking at.  They were $6 for a 12"x24" sheet.  I bought two.  Just be careful...the sheet metal is very sharp.  I actually cut myself transferring it from the cart to the car.  Once you wrap it in fabric it's fine, but be careful beforehand.  I also picked up wall fasteners from Lowe's since I had a coupon and they were in the same aisle as the sheet metal.  I bought 2 three packs of fasteners that supposedly hold up to 9 lbs of weight and are easy to remove form the wall. 

The fabric we bought on sale at Joanne's.  I picked from the bargain bin, and probably could have made better color/pattern selections, but I had both kids and not a lot of time, so I just grabbed these two patterns, which were $1 per yard.  I ended up only needing a little over .5 a yard of fabric for the sheet metal I purchased, even though I bought 3 times that much.  But better to have too much than too little.

I already had spray adhesive and scissors at home, but the spray adhesive I used is only a few dollars for the whole can, which you only need a small amount of for this project.  Once I had everything home, I got to work!

Wrapping the sheet metal in fabric.

I placed the sheet metal in the fabric and cut it so I had plenty of fabric to cover the sheet metal.  Then I used the spray adhesive to attach the fabric to the metal and pulled it tight.  I only sprayed the back, but the front stayed nicely in place and looked good since I pulled it tight before spraying.

The back of the board with the wall mounts I used to hang it.

After the whole sheet metal was covered, I wrapped it like a present and sprayed it more.  Then I attached the wall mounts to the fabric, also using spray adhesive.

The magnet board mounted on the wall.

I just stuck the wall mounts to the wall where I wanted it mounted and they held up the board perfectly.

And that was it!  A few bucks and a few minutes and I had custom made magnet boards for the kids in the playroom!


Total cost: Between $7-$20 per board, depending on how big the board you want and how much the fabric you use costs.  The total for my two boards that are 12"x24" and covered in the above pictured fabric was $17 (although I already has spray adhesive, so that's not totaled into that cost and I bought most of the materials on sale/with coupons)
Total time: Once I had all the materials, it took me about 10 minutes to make and mount both boards.  We just made them, so I'm not sure how much the kids will use them, but so far they're enjoying them quite a bit!
Result: Pretty sweet!

I'll make a post tomorrow about how we made the awesome magnets and the accessories you can add.

Wyatt is pretty impressed with his board.

Emma plays with the magnets.

Dry erase frames

I've been MIA the past few months as we decided to move back home to NY after moving down to NC for my job last year.  So ending my teaching position in NC, packing up and relocating, and now searching for a new job has been time consuming.  But with moving comes the renewed desire to craft and finish projects around the house so our new place feels like home.  I have been working on an insane amount of projects the past week as we settle into our new place, so I'll have lots of blog updates in the next few days.  Here's one to start off.

Inspiration for dry erase frames 

I pinned this forever ago and loved the idea, but never bothered to spend the 5 minutes to put it in action.  Well, frames were on sale at Target, so I got to work!

Materials needed:

• A frame
• Card stock (or plain paper with some design on it to look pretty)
• Access to a printer/ink
• Dry erase markers

This was so simple and so awesome.  All I did was make a word document with the words "Today I love you because..." and added a few clip art hearts.  I printed the document on card stock and then put it in my new $2 frame.  I loved it and decided to make one for a "to-do" type frame as well.  I just printed "Don't forget..." on card stock as well, and put it in a matching frame.  Voila, a lovely little note center in our dining room!

Finished dining room area.  Please excuse my husband's awesome reason to love me today.  Hey, at least he's using the board! (and likes my butt ;)

I also spent hours creating the kid's frames on the shelf in the bottom of this photo.  One of the frames was given to me as a gift when I was pregnant with Emma, and the other was on sale at Target for $3 and so I had to buy it.  They turned out so perfect and I love how this space looks!  The other framed photo on the top shelf is a picture of my husband and me right after we got engaged in San Diego.  And that frame was also on sale for $3!  Grand total for all the frames was $10, the card stock and markers I had laying around, and the pictures were just a few dollars to print (Walgreens has a sale on 4x6 photo prints right now.  Order over 50 prints online and you get them for 10 cents each...check it out if you need to print pictures!)

Total cost of project: $5 (buy paper and frames on sale and go to the dollar store for cheap dry erase  markers and you could probably make this project for even less!)
Total time: Less than 5 minutes
Result: AWESOME

Sprouting cupcakes

For Wyatt's birthday, I made sprouting cupcakes:

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the process, as my camera is broken.  But it was really simple.

Materials:

• Chocolate cake mix
• green frosting
• green fondant
• green sprinkles
• mini cupcake tin 
• mini cupcake holders
• small terra cotta pots
• toothpick

All I did was make up the cupcake batter, and bake mini cupcakes in the cupcake tin.  Once they were cool, I placed them in the terra cotta pots, and decorated.  I used store bought green fondant and used small amounts to design "sprouts" to stick into the cupcakes.  I used a toothpick to dig a little hole and just placed the sprout fondue into the cupcakes.  I decorated some with fondant and some with frosting, and then sprinkled green sprinkles on top.  They turned out really cute!  And they were definitely yummy!

We used the terra cotta pots to plant flowers in as part of the birthday party activities.  So after the kids made their own ice cream and ate cupcakes, they planted flowers!

Total time: about 1 hour total, prepping, baking and decorating
Total cost: about $15 total
Total deliciousness: definitely worth it

Wyatt's third birthday party

Today was Wyatt's third birthday party, and we celebrated!  Most of the party I planned through pinterest ideas.  We did a spring theme, with sprouting cupcakes, fruit skewers in a flower pot, deviled chick eggs and cake batter truffles.  We made our own ice cream in a bag, and the kids rode bikes and played in water while the adults chatted.  Here are some pics:

Wyatt's sprouting cupcakes.

Snack table; cupcakes with sprouts, fruit skewers, deviled chick eggs and cake batter truffles in the back.

Emma had a good time.

Wyatt rode his new bike the whole party.

One more of Emma because she's adorable.  And stays still long enough to take pictures of, unlike Wyatt.

I'll add details of how I did each project later.  It was a lot of fun and a small but successful party!

Bouncy balls

I was so excited about this project, but ended up pretty disappointed.  I saw two different pins for how to make homemade bouncy balls:

Inspiration for bouncy balls 1
Inspiration for bouncy balls 2

I tried both of these methods, and still did not end up with a nice round bouncy ball to play with.  Here's some pictures from the first attempt:

Wyatt adds glue

Emma helps stir

Almost done

End result

I was far from impressed with the results, as it was basically just the same slime that we had made a few weeks ago.  The ball did not hold shape, and would melt into the table within a minute of being left alone.  Also, the balls didn't bounce!

But then I saw the second pin, with a slightly different way of making these balls.  With renewed hope, I tried several different attempts at mixing everything to make the balls correctly.

They're *kind of* balls.

 I did end up with two semi-ball shaped objects, but again, they did not bounce and they were imperfect balls.  When left alone, they would slowly become flat, and when I restructured them, they had wrinkles in them.  Still unimpressed.

The end result with containers of slime underneath, which were failed attempts at making other bouncy balls.

End result: not worth the time and energy attempting to make these.  Stick with slime.  It's just as fun and less difficult to make.

Color changing shakers

I've been doing all sorts of fun activities and crafts with the kids the past two weeks I've been on break from work, but have had so many visitors and been so busy I haven't posted about them!

Here's something that wasn't actually inspired by pinterest.  We saw these shakers at the children's museum and I loved them so much I had to make them.  It seemed easy enough...just colored oil and water in a spill proof container.

It was actually a lot harder to make them than I imagined, mainly because it's difficult to dye oil and creating the right colors that would blend appropriately took time.  I had a lot of trial and error, but ended up successful!

Wyatt approves!

Wyatt adds food coloring to the water.

If you're interested, comment and I will explain the whole process of making them.  But I'm going to try and make a large batch and put them up for sale on my etsy website if people are interested.  They're really cute and fun to play with!  

The yellow and red shaker is mixed to make orange, and the yellow and blue shaker has settled, but will make green with a good shake!

Loaded baked potato dip turned into twice baked potato recipe

This looked so delicious I started craving it after I saw the picture and had to make it immediately.

Inspiration for loaded baked potato dip

Ingredients:

• 8 ozs sour cream
• a lot of bacon
• 2 cups cheddar cheese
• some chopped scallions
• chips to dip

All you do is cook up the bacon, then mix all ingredients in a dish and let sit in the fridge for an hour or so.  First, there was no way I was letting this deliciousness sit in the fridge.  I started eating it as soon as I was done mixing it.

So both my husband and I immediately started chowing down, dipping potato chips non stop in this delicious concoction.  After we inhaled half the dip in a matter of minutes, I realized it would be quite easy to make this indulgence slightly healthier by making it into twice baked potatoes.  We happened to have baked potatoes already cooked, so I took two large potatoes out, gutted them, added the potato to the remainder of the dip, and put the entire mixture back into the empty potato skins.  I then re-baked the potatoes for about 30 minutes.  And, viola, dinner instead of snack.  Unfortunately, we ate those twice baked potatoes so fast I couldn't even take a picture.  They were that good.

Robot snacks

I thought this was a really cute, healthy, snack idea for the kids.

Inspiration for robot snacks

Materials:

• single serve applesauce
• juice boxes
• small single serve raisin containers
• individually packaged pretzel rods
• plastic spoons
• tape
• sharpie

I gathered all my materials and was excited to get started.  I decided against using pretzels for the arms, as it was we already had a package of pretzels and I didn't feel like wasting money on individually wrapped pretzels for arms.  I used the sharpie to make eyes on the upside down applesauce containers.  I set all the snacks on top of each other and they looked adorable.  But when I tried to attach the snacks together, I realized it was nearly impossible to actually get everything to stick together right.  I managed, but wasted a ton of tape, and tried other attachment methods to no avail.

Adorable, but not really worth the hassle and waste of materials.

The end project was cute, but I don't think I'll be doing this again.  It might be nice for my students at school, but for the kids at home, there was no reason to buy individually packaged snacks.  These robots aren't really transportable, so they just sat in my cupboard and my kids were not overly impressed with them.

End result: not worth the time, money, and effort.

Slime!

Another fun kid's activity.  

Inspiration for Slime 

Materials:

• 8 ozs Elmer's glue
• 1 tsp Borax 
• a bit of warm water
• food coloring
• dish to mix in
• container to store in

All we did was take a tsp of borax and dissolve it in some water.  Then mix a few drops of food coloring with the Elmers glue in a dish, and slowly add just a tiny bit of the dissolved borax.  Immediately the consistency of the glue changes to slime!  Here's a video:

The kids loved it!  The slime will conform to any container you put it in, but when you play with it it's hard enough to stay somewhat solid and doesn't leave any film or residue on the kids' hands.  You can break it apart in chunks or cut it with scissors, but then once you leave it in a container for an hour, it all meshes back into one big hunk.  Store in an air tight container or baggie or else it dries up. 

Showing off his slime.

I think my 15 month old liked this more than my 3 year old!

Total cost: About $1.  The big container of Borax I bought cost a few bucks, but you only use a tsp, and Elmer's glue was 2/$1 at the dollar store.  Two containers of Elmer's glue made plenty of slime.
Total time: The kids play with this all the time.  It took less than 5 minutes to make, and definitely has kept them occupied!
Total mess: Even when the kids left the stuff on the carpet, it didn't stain or ruin the carpet.  Once it's mixed, there's really no mess.  And the making of the slime is quick and easy, and only requires washing the dish you mix it in.

Playing with baking soda and vinegar

Another fun activity for the kids. 

Inspiration for playing with baking soda and vinegar

This is pretty self explanatory.  Set up a bin and give the kids baking soda and vinegar to pour together and watch the reaction.  I added food coloring for fun.  This activity is pretty much completely full of win.  It's extremely cheap (2 for $1 1 lb containers of baking soda from the dollar store, and a gallon jug of vinegar for $2 will keep them occupied for quite awhile), both kids (15 months and almost 3 years) can enjoy it together, and instead of making a mess, it actually cleans my house.  After they're done, all I had to do was mop my floor with a dry mop.  The baking soda and vinegar are actually natural cleaners, and mopping quickly left my floor cleaner than before!  I could not love this activity anymore than I currently do.

Total cost: $2
Total time: 2 lbs of baking soda and a gallon of vinegar kept them both occupied for about 45 minutes
Total mess: A quick mop actually left my floor cleaner!

Cloud dough

I'm always looking for fun toddler activities, and I've pinned a whole bunch of them.  Here's one we tried over the weekend with great success.

Inspiration for cloud dough

We went to the dollar store for a bunch of materials for different projects we're planning.  So while we were there, we picked up a big bag of flour and a container of vegetable oil (each for a dollar).  Once we were home, I got out some old plastic containers and small bowls and let my son have at it.

Please excuse his ridiculous bedhead.  This was an early Saturday morning activity.

He played for about an hour before he started beasting and throwing the stuff all over the kitchen.  As you can see, my attempt to keep the kitchen floor clean with a cheap plastic tablecloth failed miserably.  But it did allow us to save a lot of the cloud dough that would have otherwise been spoiled by the excessive amount of dog hair all over my kitchen floor.  All in all, a 5 minute clean up and quick sweep took care of the mess.  Because of the consistency, the cloud dough is neither sticky nor dusty.  It doesn't really leave any film on your hands and, unlike plain flour, it sweeps up easily and doesn't leave any residue on the floor.  I didn't even have to mop afterwards.  It was a definite win as a toddler activity.

Total cost: <$1 (we used about 1/4 of the bag of flour and oil that we bought for $2)
Total time: almost an hour of occupied toddler
Total mess: about 5 minutes to clean up and one set of clothes that needed to be washed

Menu Board

One of the first things I pinned was a menu board.  I loved the idea of a menu board to organize our grocery list and meal planning.  One of my New Year's Resolutions was to pay closer attention to our grocery budget and spend less money on groceries.  A great way to accomplish that is to have an organizational system in place to plan meals and write grocery lists.  

Inspiration for menu board

I really wanted a menu board that had room for 2 weeks of menus, so that I could see what we are eating the current week, but also plan for the following week and have a grocery list that coincides.  I also wanted an all inclusive menu board, with room for a grocery list as well as a place to store grocery receipts to help with the budgeting.  So this is what I came up with.

Here's my materials list.  I bought the cork board, clothes pins, stickers, index cards, note pad and push pins at Walmart for approximately $12.  The rest I already had laying around:

• 14" x 14" cork board
• small clothes pins
• letter stickers
• index cards
• note pad
• push pins
• elmer's glue
• fabric glue
• white ribbon
• an old piece of cardboard
• a few pieces of colored paper
• a sharpie pen

I had push pins at home, but I splurged and bought the pack of fancy ones that matched the clothes pins.  I liked the wooden look to them and figured I could use them to post random stuff on the cork board if I ever felt the desire.  Once I had everything in front of me, I got to work.

Step 1: Cut out 14 small hearts from an old piece of cardboard.  I used an old beer case (no joke).  I did this free hand and they turned out fine, although it was somewhat tedious.  Then place the appropriate letters on the hearts to indicate the days of the week.

Step 2: Use Elmer's glue to attach 7 clothes pins to each side of the cork board.  I didn't bother to measure, as it seemed like more effort than it was worth.  But I put a clothes pin 2 inches from the top, and then one every 1.25" down, approximately.  This left enough space for the envelopes at the bottom and enough room for the menu cards to be attached to the clothes pins.

Step 3: Use Elmer's glue to attach the hearts with the appropriate day of the week onto each clothes pin.  Then use Elmer's glue to attach the notepad in the center of the cork board.  I did measure the center of the cork board to place the note pad to make sure it looked right.  I put it slightly higher than the exact center because of the size of the note pad I bought. Leave the board alone for 10-15 minutes to give the glue a chance to set.

Step 4: Use fabric glue to put two small pieces of fabric around the top of the cork board to make it look fancy.  Then use more stickers to label "This week", "Next week" and "Shopping" (or whatever words you like) on the top of the board.

I really have no idea why there were bananas in my living room while I was doing this project.  I blame my 15 month old.

Step 5: Cut the index cards into small strips and label each with a different meal.  Use one sheet of paper to make a heading such as "What's for dinner?" and place it at the top of the board.  Use two other sheets of paper to make small envelopes at the bottom of the board and label "Meals" (to store your meal strips) and "Receipts" (to store your grocery receipts).

And, viola, you have an all inclusive menu planning station!

Unfortunately, my final picture is missing an "e" because I need to buy another pack of stickers for that one e.  I also think I want to redo the envelopes on the bottom and make them into simple boxes.  I just used the push pins to attach the top banner, because I wasn't overly impressed with my quick "What's for Dinner" sign and will probably make a new one.  I may revisit this project, but for now I love how it turned out!


Total time: ~1.5 hours (it took me a little over 2 hours, but that's because my 15 month old was "helping" me)
Total cost: ~$12

So I finally signed up for Pinterest...

and I am just as addicted as everyone else.  In an attempt to not have all the time I'm spending "pinning" be a waste, I've decided to start this blog to document the crafts, projects, and ideas I have made that were inspired by my pinterest pins.  So here is my blog that I hope to update at least twice a week with pictures and descriptions of projects I've finished.  Enjoy.  And feel free to pin!