Upcycled Jewelry Cabinet Organizer

New home for earrings, necklaces & scarves

Upcycle an old bathroom cabinet for $30ish

Is this a steal of a deal or what?! The biggest investment was my time, but for this project I did have to purchase:

• an old but good solid wood bathroom cabinet for just $12
• new hardware for about another $5
• fabric to line the inside cost $10
• hooks, wire and upholstery tacks for the interior was probably about $5

Cabinet before its makeover

Other items I used but had on hand were:

• Hand sander
• Sand paper
• Wood stain (I used two 2 shades on the doors)
• Varnish
• Foam brushes

What did I do to take it from drab to fab?

1. 

   Cabinet after its makeover

   Sprayed it down, cleaned it up
2. Removed all hardware and doors
3. Sanded down the main cabinet and doors with course paper
4. Applied first coat of stain
5. Sanded down the main cabinet and doors with finer sand paper
6. Applied stain for second time
7. Applied 2 coats of varnish over the course of 2 days
8. Lined the interior with velour type fabric with spray adhesive
9. Added hooks to hang necklaces and formed gold wire to hang earrings
10. Put the doors and handles back on
11. Hung it on the wall in our room and admired it
12. Joyfully filled it with my accessories that had been sprawled out over our dresser
13. Hung scarves strewn in my closet on the handy dandy dowel beneath the cabinet
14. Again sat back admired my hard work :)

Stain striping the doors
I decided to get a little creative with the doors. I did a little experimenting on the inside of the door first where later I could cover up all the "testing" with fabric. Using a ruler and Exacto knife, I scored the door in diagonal lines. This step was important in order create that crisp separation between the 2 stain colors, otherwise the stains tended to bleed in to one another.

Earrings hang tidy around empty baby food jars.

I love, love, love this upcyled bathroom cabinet - I can SEE all my options and since the earrings are paired up and the necklaces have enough room to hang freely, I don't spend 5 minutes trying to find matchers and untangling a mess! For my hoop-type earrings that don't hang well, I hung them around the top of a baby food jar (I seriously have to have a post about the many uses for baby food jars!).

*If you're a criminal viewing this, you can see I'm not very fancy so it's not worth your time to break-n-enter :)

Superman cake for a Super Godchild :)

One of our very special Godson's turned 8 yesterday. Seriously where does the time go? I remember the long drive to Wisconsin to meet him. He had a head of dark brown-black straight hair. He was as content as he was handsome! While his hair has changed to a dirty blond and he's grown to nearly my height, he's still as sweet and fun as ever. Have a Super Birthday young man :)

It's a Pretty Pink Party!

Birthday girl in her custom made pink birthday tutu and headband with the proudest mommy around :) Dessert & Gift Table with 1st Year Slideshow.

Happy 1st Birthday Baby Doll! Handcrafted tutu birthday Onesie - $10.00 Treat bags - $10.00 Homemade cake and cupcakes with pearls and sprinkles - $8.00 9 Helium Balloons - $4.00 Pink fabric $3.00 #1 Pom-Pom Decoration - $2.00 Celebrating my daughter's 1st birthday with friends and family in a very pink way  - PRICELESS! I had good intentions for posting all the fun photos from my daughter's 1st birthday blast immediately after it was over... but I was tired... really tired...  Now I'm recovered and am enthusiastically sharing party ideas! Photos and brief descriptions of the extravaganza are below. If you have questions about making/arranging anything you see, please don't hesitate to tell me and I'll share what I know!

Preparing for the Party:

(with a little help of my super amazing husband)

For the backdrop 2 pieces of lattice were hung - our garage isn't very pretty! I draped 2 tables cloth I had on hand, and for the table runners I bought a cheap remnant piece of velour pink fabric and cut a couple narrow strips.

The dessert table offered guests pearl and sprinkle covered chocolate and strawberry cupcakes, strawberry wafers, or jello-angel food cake - YUM! The cupcake stand was spruced up with leftover tulle by simply knotting pieces around part of the frame and fluffing.

Guest of honor had her own ball shaped dig in cake. I filled (2) small, round pyrex bowls 1/3 full and baked. When cooled, both cakes were leveled to the same height. Frosting was then slathered on the wider side of one cake and the other cake was set on top. It was finished with star tips, white pearls and pink sprinkles.

Every princess deserves a birthday throne! I traced the highchair cover to make a simple pattern, and stitch two cream colored fabric pieces back-to-back. For the ruffle I cut a really long 5" strip, made a basting stitch down the middle, pulled the top thread and VIOLA - a pretty ruffle. Then it got even easier... I put the cream cover on the highchair and used hot glue to adhere the ruffle.

The beverage wagon included pink lemonade and water. This cart is very special to me as it was made by my grandpa, so I try to use it on special occasions. My hubby cut a board to fit across the top. I used some more of the pink velour fabric to cover it.

Guests sipped their beverages out of pink straws in mason jars borrowed  from my awesome mom. Pink ribbon wound around the center of the jar, then overlapped and adhered the ends together with a dab of hot glue. Squeezed another dab of glue on top of the ribbon to add the "1" cupcake medallion - Download pdf here to print your own!

Tables were decorated with paisley pink and white table covers. Balloons were also weighted down by a baby food jar but filled with pink and purple Mike & Ike candies (I received a ton free from work :)

Coffee filter flower center pieces with a floral stem were stuffed into a fabric filled baby jar (I knew I was keeping those for something!). I used this tutorial to make them, but I used diluted paint rather than dye to color them.

Treat bags, or "goodie" bags as my son refers to them, for the kids matched the rest of the party. White lunch bags were decorated with the cupcake medallion and pink ribbon. The bag was filled with small but fun things like homemade play dough, bag of candy, note pad and stickers.

Mmmmm................. Princess LOVES cake!

One-of-a-kind BABY gifts for sale

Great for special occasions and milestone pictures too!

I have crazy cute baby couture for sale. Check out the "Couture for Sale" tab above for those available and ready for pick-up or ship. If you're looking for a more sentimental gift, you'll want to see my "Infinity Collection" - Who knew that old jacket could mean so much?!

Colorful Homemade Play Dough

It smells berry, berry GOOD!

I'm getting creative with baby jars, because for whatever reason I've been saving them. My daughter's birthday party is in a couple days and I'm hoping to incorporate them into the festivities. One of the goodies in the kids' treat bags is play dough. What kid doesn't like that squishy squashy stuff? And I love that I can use baby jars for the container!

Way more cool than the re-purposed baby jar is the homemade play dough. Simple and fun! I'm starved of time and don't have a lot of patience, so you can take that statement to the bank! Quite possibly even more alluring is the fact that there are no stains and smells delightful, because it calls for Kool-aid packets rather than food coloring. 

Here's the recipe but you can also go to allrecipes.com for the directions.

Ingredients

• 2 cups water
• 2 1/2 cups white flour
• 1/2 cup salt
• 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
• 2 (0.13 ounce) packages unsweetened, fruit-flavored soft drink mix (such as KOOL-AID®)
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Bring the water to a boil in a sauce pan; remove from heat and set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and soft drink mix in a large bowl; stir the vegetable oil into the flour mixture using a spoon, not a whisk. Pour the hot water into the bowl and continue stirring. When the dough is cool enough to handle, turn it onto a lightly-floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes. Store unused portions in refrigerator.