Cheap. I mean, Cheap Ottoman

Found this at a garage sale. 2$

Needs some love...

Asked the hubby to tighten the legs.

And colored in the blemishes with Sharpie.

Kinda tacky. I'll admit. But, it is so cute and useful and, and, and CHEAP, you can hardly tell.

The flash in this picture make it look really noticeable. It isn't!

Old Park Bench

Old bench. My parent's neighbor gave it to them when he moved.

The hubs and I also got 2 more for ourselves, but we haven't done anything with them yet!

Depending on how bad off your bench is, this can be an easy or hard fix.

First, take the bench apart remembering to label the wood pieces.

If your bench is well rusted - try using WD40 and a wire brush to clean up the hardware.

This bench was easy to get apart. Our other two? Not so much.

Since this bench wasn't in too bad of shape, we just took the metal pieces outside and cleaned them with WD40. WD40 works great on cleaning rust!

After they were clean, we gave each piece two coats of clear spray lacquer.

Our other benches will need a coat of spray paint. I am thinking of going with the rust prevention kind.

Then we sanded. A LOT.

(Remember your labels! We had them in pencil, so we were constantly re-writing them.)

And, to our amazement, the gray wood was still okay underneath.

If yours isn't, you have two options. Paint, or replace the wood.

Painting is the cheapest, but replacing the wood may be necessary if your wood is too rotten.

This being the case, this project may not even be economical depending on your attachment to your particular bench! It just depends.

We chose to stain this bench.

The dry wood sucked up the stain...

So, after several coats we lacquered the heck out of these too!

Here it is all done! This is at my parent's house a few weeks later.

It had gotten a bit dirty in its time outside.

I am thinking of taking over a can of lacquer this weekend and re-lacquering it for extra durability.

Plus, this was one of my first projects this summer and I am much better with a spray-paint can now!

Some Girly Burpies

After my burpie post, I made these girly burpies. Had to share!

Taco Shells

Here is a quick food tutorial. I am not known for my cooking, but I tried making my own taco shells the other night and they were so GOOD! Yummy. I had to share. Maybe you already know how to do this, but I didn't. Thank you to my friend Cami for teaching me!

Heat up some oil in a pan.

I used a small pan (less oil) and about 1 inch of oil.

This works best when your oil is really hot. Patience.

(And please don't flick water into it... you WILL splatter yourself or your gas stove and create a small grease fire. I know. Trust me...)

Take some small corn tortillas. White or yellow.

We had white, so I used those.

With tongs, hold half of the tortilla in the oil.

When that half is done, flip the tortilla over and work on the other side.

You can kind of create how big of fold in the shell as you want by how you hold it.

Experiment and let me know how it goes!

Better yet, invite me over to try one! hehe!

Baby Tag Toy

I made one of these toys for my baby before he was born. I don't remember where I got the original idea, but he loves his. He chews on the ribbon tags all the time. I take it in the grocery store where it is a toy and an emergency burp cloth if needed.

Here is a pink one I made.

I don't have a finished picture of the red one I am going to show you in the step by step directions and I don't have pictures of this pink one being made.

Use your imaginations!

Cut the shape you want (A square, circle, whatever) out of two pieces of fabric.

I like to use a plain cotton and something soft. The pink one has minky, this red one has fleece.

Truth be told, I have never bought anything to make these before. I just use what I have.

Cut some cute coordinating lengths of ribbon at about 4 inches.

I have three of each kind of ribbon cut here, but I didn't use them all.

Fold the ribbon lengths in half and pin them in between the two pieces of fabric.

Make sure to put them with the folded end facing in.

You can adjust the length of them in your end product now by allowing more of the un-folded ends to be sticking out at this point.

It is up to you!

After you have all sides situated with ribbon, sew around the fabric shape.

Be sure to leave a small section open!!! Just stop about 2 inches before you get back to where you started.

It is also a good idea to sew around twice. I don't always do this, but it is a good idea for extra durability.

Next, trim off the corners of your square at a diagonal. If you did a circle, clip in from the edge of the fabric to the seem (avoiding clipping it!!!) about ever inch all the way around.

These steps help the finished product turn correctly. After trimming, turn the whole project right side out! I like to stick a pen or my scissors in to poke out the corners.

When the whole thing is turned out correctly, hand stitch that little 2 inch section you used to turn your toy closed.

Baby Burpies

I started making these when I was pregnant with my son.

I am now making them all the time for baby gifts.

They are really cute, inexpensive to make, and very useful!

I buy the Gerber cloth diapers. The pre-fold 3-ply.

(I have a pack of 12. It cost about $10.00)

Always wash them before you start sewing.

They shrink A LOT in the first wash.

I fold the diapers in thirds. (This is a new step for me. In the past I just put a strip of flannel or ribbon on these open. I am liking these folded ones better these days, though.)

Then, I cut a piece of flannel about 4-5 inches wide and about 2 inches longer than the diaper.

I fold over the two long edges and iron flat. Ironing makes the sewing much easier!

After ironing the edges, I place the flannel centered onto the diaper on the side with the folds.

I fold down the top (short) end and sew around the big flannel rectangle. I follow a pre-determined line. Sometimes there is a stitch line showing from the diaper. If not, I can pin the flannel onto the diaper straight and centered and trust my pins.

Also, when I sew the burpies, I like to use a coordinating colored fabrics and thread.

I make my burpies in a set of three. Usually, a solid, a print and a stripe.

This set has a navy blue solid in it, so I used a lime green thread for contrast.

Sometimes I use a straight stitch, but I really like the way the zigzag looks!

This set of burpies was my first with an applique.

I cut a square out of double sided fusible interfacing. Following the instructions, I heat set the interfacing to the back of my striped fabric.

Then, I drew a simple car shape. (You can do this!!! I am not an artist at all!)

I cut out the shape, removed the paper backing and then heat pressed the car to the solid colored burpie. I then sewed around the car to secure it.

**The best way to do an applique would be to put it onto the flannel panel you wish for it to be on before sewing that panel to the diaper. With this set, I didn't do that! The applique was an afterthought. So, I had the shape of the car stitched all the way through the flannel AND the diaper. Had I sewn on the applique before putting the flannel onto the diaper, you wouldn't have seen my stitches on the diaper at all.**

Here are my three finished burpies!

I rolled them up and tied them together with ribbon for a finishing touch.

Four Layer German Chocolate Cake

I made this cake for my husband's birthday.

I baked four 9inch round cakes two at a time.

I used two German chocolate cake mixes.

Before putting the batter into the pans, I sprayed them and then lined them with parchment paper to make sure they would come out easily. The spray helped to hold down the parchment paper.

After they were baked I made sure the cakes were cool before attempting to remove them from the pans. I used a plate to flip them out of the pans and then upright onto the base of my cake keeper.

I used a cake leveler thing to level the cakes, but a knife and steady hand would work great!

Between each layer, I put chocolate frosting. I melting the frosting slightly in the microwave for like 5-8 seconds and stirred it. (No, it is not homemade! I cheated!)

After the cakes are all layered, cover the whole thing in chocolate icing. My friend, Melinda, was over and helped me with this part!

After the chocolate icing is all on. I put pecan coconut icing on top.

Then I crushed some pecans and literally threw them at the sides of the cake until they stuck!

Cut, and serve.

Oh, and don't forget to sing 'Happy Birthday' if this is a birthday cake!

New Bar Stools!

After transforming our table into the black and wood combo, I decided we needed to spray paint our counter-height bar stools to match the motif. My husband was a little wary, but they look awesome!

In the beginning

A quick sand with a fine-grit paper just to rough up the finish a bit.

A coat of primer

And two coats of black.

After screwing the seat cushion back on - the end product!

Can you believe we used 1$ spray paint from Walmart?

The primer was the most expensive part of this project at like 3 or 4$!

Formula Containers

I have a million formula cans around here. (Okay, not a million, but a few...)

So, I turned them into cute containers for my kids' art supplies.

I use the double-tall containers, but the regular size would work fine.

I spray adhesived the back of scrapbook paper I cut to size and then quickly rolled the paper onto the cans.

I found it easiest to lay the middle of the paper on the can and then smooth in each direction.

When all the cans were covered, I used letter scrapbook stickers to label each can.

Can you tell which letters I made by using pieces of other letters?

Cute, huh!? and it seriously took me like 30 minutes.

Table Transformation

Table 20$ on Craigslist

We used a gel stripper to take the varnish off the top.

And then we sanded it with a fine grit sandpaper.

And after 3 coats of stain and a coat of varnish...

Here you are!

We also painted the legs and skirt black and added our inherited chairs.

We LOVE it.