Just A Frugal Mom

Lego Room

2013-04-23T16:41:00.002-07:00

Finally! The boys have what they want! A Lego room!

Here's the before.

And After!

A while back the boys wanted to change up their room. The main thing is they didn't want bunk beds anymore. So we separated them. They also have been wanting a Lego room for quite some time. I really was hesitant because I didn't like any of the Lego rooms I had seen out there. I wanted something a little less child theme but still fun. So my brain went to work.

Here's the breakdown

My inspiration for the color palette was this. When I saw this I immediately loved the colors. Monkey's favorite color is orange and Big Guy's favorite color is blue. Perfect! Right?

Now to pick the wall color. I wanted to go with some sort of grey. Who knew picking the shade I would want would be such a nightmare! Seriously this is my basket of samples. And lets not talk about how Bear and I spent the entire day painting the room the perfect grey color only for it to look like lavender when we were done. So back to the drawing board. But second time was a charm.

Next was the Lego wall. Last summer when we were garage sailing I saw these Ikea cork circles. They were a little bigger then coasters and smaller then trivets. Not sure what they were for. Anyway I got like 80 of them for $4! Score!

And so the Lego wall began. Although the boys were a little concerned it looked like polka dots at first. I also painted Monkey's dresser blue

Lego wall up close

Now for the bedding. I found these striped sheets at Marshall's. And loved them! Then I found the indigo blue looking sheets at Walmart that matched perfectly. I sewed the two flat sheets together to make a reversible duvet cover. I took the pillow case from the blue sheet set and made a sham. Then used the left over fitted sheets for the bed. The orange Lego pillow is actually a dishtowel that I found at Ross that had a cool texture. I glued some orange felt on it and wa-la....Lego pillow. The Lego head pillow is just grey fabric that I had and white felt. Easy Peasy.

I made them Lego initials out Jenga blocks that the boys have and NEVER play with. I just hot glued them together. Found some wooden knobby things at the craft store and spray painted them. The canvas was on sale at the craft store for $4. I just painted it and hot glued the letters on them.

I didn't do much with the closet. We don't have doors on our closets because quite frankly they were ugly. I painted the closet, spray painted the baskets, put up a shelf and made a Lego sign.

This sign was made from an old canvas I found at a thrift store for 50 cents. I painted it orange, printed up some clip art and decoupaged it on to the sign.

As far as the art that went on the wall, the boys picked out Star Wars Lego guys.

I found these old cork place mats at the thrift store and painted them white.

Then decoupaged the pictured I had photo shopped on them. The pictures were all found online. I just made them black and white and then added a pop of color to each of them to match the room.

There it is. The Lego room!

Vampire Diaries Cake

2013-03-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine had a birthday recently. She and I are both huge fans of the show Vampire Diaries. Anyway I thought I would bring here a little special something to make her day.

Season 3. Episode 1. Just saying

Dr Suess Cupcakes

2013-03-19T11:52:00.000-07:00

Every year the kids school celebrate "Read Across America" week with a fun filled week of Dr. Seuss activities. The teachers ask one parent to bring in cupcakes for the class. Since no other parent volunteered in any of the kids classes I felt like I had to do it for all them. Which meant I was making 85 cupcakes. This is what I came up with this year.

Green Eggs and Ham Cupcakes! The kids loved them.

The teachers all got 2 eggs.

I was so glad they were a big hit.

Skylander Party

2013-01-23T18:49:00.000-08:00

This year Monkey really wanted a Skylander Giants birthday party. I don't know much about this. All I do know is that it is a video. I did some research and found out that these "creatures" live on islands in the sky and battle it out.

For the invitation I kept it simple but special for him.

Next thing I worked on was his banner. I tried to mimic the elements that I had made.

The decorations were what I was most excited about. I made a bunch of elements put up on the cuboards. These were out of my famous felt, hot glue and paper plates idea.

I hung them up all around the kitchen as well has vines to give it an "island" feel.

I took the lanterns that I had from other parties and spray painted them. Then I tried my best to make them look like Skylander Characters.

The skylander gang

I ended up hanging them in the kitchen.

I kept the present area pretty simple

I made Bouncer out of felt and posterboard

I wish I would have gotten a better picture of the table scape. But here is what I did get. I decorated it was some fake rocks made out of paper bags and spray paint.

Monkey said he wanted a portal as a cake.

For the actives we did a Skylander's Trivia. The kids really enjoyed this.

After trivia we did the funnest game ever! I had made a bunch of these pretend rocks out of paper bags, newspaper and spray paint. We were just going to use them as decorations but then my love thought of a great game the morning of the party. Since they throw rocks in Skylander video game, the idea of the game was to lay all the rocks in a line in the middle. We divided the kids into 2 groups and then had them take 15 steps back. When my love said "GO" they had to try and throw as many rocks as possible on the other teams side of the court until the time was up. Then the team with the least amount of rocks on their side won the game. Let me just say this was a SERIOUS hit!

For the favors I decided to just keep it simple easy. I gave a personalized candy bar away at the end.

It turned out to be a great party!

Ninjago Tooth Fairy Pillow

2013-01-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

Poor Monkey has been waiting for this for a while for this. I think he has lost at least 4 teeth and hasn't had a tooth fairy pillow. He has been asking for a Lego Ninjago one. So here he goes.

Kind of a sad one but I whipped it up in about 20 minutes. Lol.

Homemade Christmas

2012-12-26T10:37:00.000-08:00

Every year I like to make my nieces and nephews one homemade gift. Now that Christmas is over I can share what I did this year. Luckily this year I was able to make some homemade gifts for a few others as well.

These were some homemade coasters for some family friends.

The kids made personalized coffee mugs for Bama, Papa and Mima.

My sis-in-law got this birds nest necklace. I think I want to make one for myself as well. I loved the way it turned out. Thank you Pinterest!

One of my nephew's got homemade play-doh.

I made my niece some cute pom pom pens and a special notebook.

My nephew got a special Ninjago pillowcase.

And my little neice got a shape stretcher game.

I hope everyone loved their gifts. I sure loved making them.

Ninjago Costume

2012-10-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

This year when the boys told me they wanted to be Lego Ninjago Ninjas I knew I was going to end up making them myself. Due to the fact that I didn't have alot of time and wanted going to spend alot of time and not wanting to spend a ton of money. The boys wanted to be Kai and Coal. Unfortunately Coal didn't work out when I tried dying his white karate gee black and it turned out purple. Oops. So next best thing was Jay.

These were so easy peasy to make and guess what? Total cost was $5. I already had the karate gee's and black material. All I needed was the gold martial, brown leather fabric and dye. So with sales and coupons all of it was under $5.

I braided the leatherish fabric to make it look like rope and then hot glued to the gee's

Wa-La! Introducing Kai & Jay.

Ninjago Birthday Party

2012-10-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

It was no surprise when Big Guy told me he wanted a Lego Ninjago Birthday Party. He is obsessed with it. First off I needed to come up with an invitation. I found one I liked online and then tweaked it to what I wanted. Here was the end result. Actually when I picked these up from Walmart they told me I was going to need a copyright release form. Guess they did turn out good. Ha!

Now for the banner. I wasn't sure what I was going to do and then this idea popped in my head. Big Guy really loved the way this turned out.

Decorations! Decorations!

I kept all those Chinese lanterns from Bear's Chinese party and thought maybe I could possibly use them again but the only problem is that they were pink and white. So I thought maybe, spray paint? Yep! It worked perfectly! After spray paint I printed out the Ninjago eyes. I had one giant lantern which I spray painted yellow and made some eyebrows and a beard to make it look like Sensei Wu.

I also found some cheap gold place mats and cut out gold ninja stars. The ninjas all over the cupboards are just dollar store paper plates covered in felt. Cheap easy decorations, I'd say!

Now for the table scape.

This was my favorite part of the food.

And for the cake. He wanted Jay and Jay is what he got. At least the best that I could do.

The front room I decorated only a little for where the presents would go.

This Jay was made out of poster board, felt and puff paint.

This table was the "What's your Ninja Name" table.

The kids had to take the letters in their names and figure out their Ninja name.

When the guest arrived they were welcomed by Sensei Wu and No-ku-fu-chi-mo-to. Luckily Big Guy's birthday is right by Halloween so I was able to find a Sensei hat at the Halloween store. With a homemade beard, some thrift store pants and a white shirt, Sensei Wu came alive!

After the guest were greeted the they got their personalized ninja bands that I had made each friend with scrap fabric and a sharpie.

We let the kids play and run a muck until everyone got to the party. Then the fun began!

I printed out this Sensei Wu picture on the computer and then made a bunch of beards so that we could play "Pin the Beard on Sensei Wu."

When everyone got their beards I took a picture because I couldn't pass up on a chance to take this photo. Too funny.

A training session with Sensei Wu. I had made some nun chucks for the kids out of foam tubing stuff I found at Home Depot, some duct tape and yarn Again super cheap.

The training session begins.

When it was time for the guest to leave they each got a Ninjago Bonezai favor.

I made these from marshmallows, pretzels and chocolate covered rice krispie treats.

Carnvival Cakes

2012-10-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

Recently I had the chance to make some cakes for a friend of mine. Her kids were having a carnival themed birthday. She gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted. Those are the best cakes to make. These are what I came up with.

Ferris Wheel.

Merry-Go-Round.

And the popcorn cupcakes.

These were some of my favorite cakes I've made.

More Lunch Bags

2012-08-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

So remember these slipcovers I made for Bear's party? Well her friend was having a birthday and since I had all this left over fabric I decided to make her a lunch bag like Bear's.

I found this striped fabric in my fabric stash and it contrasted great.

Wa-La!

Bear actually had two parties to go to that same day and the girls happen to be neighbors so I decided to just make another one.

Lunch Bags

2012-08-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

First day of school is quickly approaching and we have been taking car of all the odds and ends of school prep. This was the backpack that Bear picked out this year. For the life of us we could not find a lunch bag to go with it. She wanted something that matched. After searching all over we still could not find one. So I decided to make one.

It turned out so cute! And she loves it!

Matches? Yep, I think so. Now we are good to go.

Chinese Birthday Party

2012-08-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

This year for Bear's birthday she wanted to have a Chinese Party. She loves Chinese food and so we came up with the idea of a Chinese Luncheon.

Here was the invitation.

I wasn't sure what to do about the banner but then I thought about maybe some Chinese lanterns.

Here are a few more decorations

I forgot to mention it was kind of a "Christian" Chinese Luncheon. Instead of words like tranquility, prosperity and so forth I decided to do the fruits of the spirit. These were hung up everywhere.

The lanterns I actually bought online. The pom poms I made with fabric and dollar store balls.

The table scape.

All I did was decorate the table with the favors that the girls were going home with.

The Cake.

Bear wore a qaipo dress on that we got in Chinatown. Actually we got a few things from Chinatown. It was super cheap.

Now for the outside

This was the most exciting part. Let me break it down. Looks expensive but was really cheap to put this together. The tent is just a tent that we borrowed and hung a bunch of fabric that was also borrowed.

The pillows were all pillows I had around the house but I sewed slipcovers for them from a sheet I got at the thrift store for $1.50. I did buy Bear's pillow fabric and then made some roses to go around it.

Luckily Joann's was having a big sale on their spring flowers for 75% off so those were all super duper cheap. Again I hung the fruits of the spirits up on the branches.

The place settings were just paper plates and paper napkins from the party store. The chopsticks and tea cups were from Chinatown. I think all of them totalled $5. The "bamboo" place mats were just one of those beach mats I got from the thrift store for $1. It made just the right amount to. I lined the back of it with some fabric I had and then cut them to the size I wanted.

Each girl got a special place setting with their name in Chinese.

On the menu which my friend's mom made was Fried Rice & Chow Mien. We also had Egg Rolls, Pot Stickers & Orange Chicken from Costco.

After the girls ate we did an origami craft. I found a pretty flower that the girls got to make.

The finished flower.

When the guest were leaving they each got a simple favor.

Inside was some fortune cookies that I had put bible verses on. Then i dipped them in pink chocolate to make them look extra special.

Rose Smash Cake

2012-08-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

My friend little girl was turning 1 and she asked me to make her smash cake. She was having a "Pretty In Pink" party. This is what the cake looked like. The picture did not turn out so well. In fact it looks pretty sad but baby "A" loved it.

Mermaid Cake

2012-07-12T10:19:00.000-07:00

As you all know I love to make cakes. This one I made right after we got back from camping. My friend's daughter had sketched a picture of what she wanted for her cake and I tried to do my best. This is almost the final product. Minus the mermaid on top. The cake was a big hit and I was so glad she loved it.

The Big Reveal

2012-05-29T10:19:00.000-07:00

I am finally getting around to writing about my room makeover. My Love and the boys went to the Father and son retreat that our church does and while he was gone I decided to makeover our room. I recruited my bear, my sis-n-law and my bro-n-law to help with painting and hardware stuff.

We have lived in this house for 8 years and never done anything with it.

I wish I would have taken some before and after pics but nope I forgot. Although I did find a few random pics that had our room in them.

This is what the room looked like when we first moved in.

And now this is our room! I love it and so does my love!

The bedspread is handmade. I really wanted the Anthropologie rosette bedding but it was going to cost me around $400. Sooo I decided to make a mock bedspread. Mine? Well, it was a $56. Yes, I will brag about that. ;)

I didn't get a great shot of the curtains but aren't they so cute? I could find anything I liked but then I saw these table cloths at Target and fell in love with them. I know they would be perfect so I made them into curtains.

I used the shams from my last bedspread and made some pillows from some fabric that I liked. The yellow pillow is actually an old place mat that I had but it matched the curtains perfectly that I decided to convert it into a pillow. I just made a flower for it and wa-la!

The frames are all frames I had or bought at a thrift store or given to me. I also found the letters at the craft store on clearance for $1! I love that our room is all about me and my love. Even the pictures are only us. Its our little romantic haven. No kids or kid pictures allowed. Okay they can come in our room but that's it. Hey, its the only room in the house thats just us. Thats fair right?

I bought some molding and my bro-n-law framed it for our bathroom mirror. My sis-n-law being the electrician that she is changed out our ugly 1982 light fixture.

I spray painted this stuff. I wanted to create some wall art so I just put some scrap paper in these frames.

I saw some cute Anthropoligie vases that I loved. They had flowers attached to them. I tried to recreate them with these thrift store vases. I saw an idea (on pinterest of course) of adding paint to clear vases. It worked great. I then just made a silk flower with silk and fire and glued it to the vase.

This is my favorite part of the room. I love this verse because it reminds me of my hubby. Its exactly how I feel about my love. He made a plaque for me so that I could put this verse in it. I love the way the plaque came out. It was a little smaller than I thought it was going to be so I just painted a frame around it. Perfect!

Lola painted our old lamps for me so that they would match our room.

And that's it! Finally it's done. Its so nice not having our room be the eye sore in our house anymore.

T-Ball Banner

2012-05-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

I'm really new to all this T-Ball stuff. I found out very early on that each team was to make or buy a banner for their team. The banner would then be shown at Opening day where we would be competing with all the other banners.

I didn't have a clue on what to do. And apparently when you google Team Banners well, not much comes up. I began freaking out a tiny bit. At first I didn't care about the competition. I just didn't want to embarrass our team. But after really starting to put a lot of thought into this I was really wanting to win.

And guess what?!? WE WON!! We were all so excited! We won $100 towards our team party. Awesome prize!

Here is the banner that I made.

Teacher Appreciation

2012-05-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

I have tried to do something special for the teachers every year when teacher appreciation week comes. This year I decided to make each teacher their very own appreciation cake. This is what they ended up looking like.

I went to Nancy's Fancy's and bought some mini cake boxes

And added a tag that said "You take the Cake!" Each teacher really loved them and especially loved the yummy cake inside.

The best part about this gift is that it only cost me $2.50 total for all 3! Now that's a deal!

Monster Jeans

2012-04-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

I LOVE Pinterest. I am getting the best ideas from there. This being one of them. My sewing machine is not thin enough for me to sew Monkey's holes in his jeans. When I saw this idea I thought it was perfect. He loves all his new Monster Jeans!

Dr Suess Day

2012-03-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Anyone who's anybody has definitely heard of good ole Dr Seuss. The kids school always celebrates "Read Across America." The kids love it because it is an entire week of fun activities at school. On the last day the kids got to wear their pj's to school. I forgot to get a picture of them but it was really cute.

The night before I packed them a Dr Seuss lunch that I had seen online a few years ago but never ended up doing. This year I was determined to do it. I had to switch it up a little but it was pretty much the same idea.

This was the little note I made to put inside their lunches.

The lunch consisted of hard boiled eggs (dyed green), cubed ham, pink yogurt drink, blue jello, fish crackers and marshmallows. The kids all said they had so much fun with it.

Each class was to have a parent bring in cupcakes. I saw a similar idea on Pinterest and tried to make them with a little twist of my own.

These things had some serious frosting on them.

I had so much fun doing this for the kids. And to make it more special for me is that they LOVED me doing it for them :)

Leprechaun Trap

2012-03-17T11:40:00.000-07:00

Its that time of year again!

Monkey's class had to make some leprechaun traps for St Patricks day. The leprechaun's always seem to come out this time of year and make a mess in the classrooms.

Monkey was determined to catch one. We weren't sure what we were going to do but then we got this idea of a leprechaun falling into a shoe. Perfect! And most importantly, easy!

Monkey got to work. He went in the backyard and found the perfect sticks for the ladder.

He wanted a rainbow on his trap to lure the leprechaun in. We decided to make one come out of the shoe. He added some cotton balls and jewels and....

Ta-Da! A leprechaun trap!

Monkey's teacher had asked me for some ideas on what to do with the class. I found this one idea on Pinterest and thought it was perfect. The leprechaun left a note for the kids saying sorry for the all the mischief he had caused this week and left each child a "shiny lucky penny."

Umm....I went to 5 banks trying to find brand new pennies and apparently they don't have them? Weird, I know. So basically I had to shine all of them MYSELF!

Monkey loved his lucky penny.

Now back to the leprechaun traps. As we were working on Luke's, we all started laughing at the progression of the kids Kindergarten traps.

This was Lola's trap. We obviously had no idea what to do and when we brought it to school we noticed that apparently we were the only ones that had that problem. All the other traps were big and amazing. Poor girl. I still don't even know how this was suppose to catch a leprechaun.

Big Guy's trap got a better. We knew we had to really think about how the leprechaun was going to get trapped. The trap door on top was perfect! Big Guy made the ladder, rainbow and told me where to put the glue so he could place on the stones and felt where it needed to go.

And then there is Monkey's. See the progression.

This week Bear actually decided to make a new trap. A few years late but at least its to her liking now.

Thank goodness we never have to do this again!

Pokemon Birthday Party

2012-02-20T14:21:00.063-08:00

This year when I asked Monkey what kind of birthday party he wanted I wasn't surprised when he told me he wanted a Pokemon Birthday Party. I went to work on the invitations right away. I wanted them to look like a Pokemon card.

Here was the end result. Here was the front of the invitations.

The back.

Next thing to work on was his birthday banner. I decided to make Pokeballs with Pikachu's. I like the way it turned out.

As far as the decorations I went to the dollar store for some inspiration. That's the place that inspires me. Why? Because its cheap. Luckily I did get some ideas. I made pokeballs out of dollar store paper plates and felt. I also went online and printed up some pictures of some Pokemon characters. Then cut them out and hung them up.

The garland hanging from the fan was those plastic hockey balls with holes in them. I just covered them with colored duck tape and black electrical tape to make them look like more pokeballs.

This was suppose to be a Pikachu head. I went to Wal-mart and saw this big yellow ball. I thought if I added some stuff to it, it might actually resemble Pikachu. (the random Clifford was because Monkey was star student and got to take the class mascot home.)

These Pikachu heads were actually yellow eggs from the Easter section at the dollar store. I just added some ears, yellow confetti paper and drew a face on them. Perfect. The table scape was a big felt Pokeball.

The final tablescape.

Monkey wanted a Pikachu cake and so that's what he got. This cake was 5 layers high. The ears were sugar ice cream cones and the arms and legs were Twinkies. The cheeks were red fruit rollups cut into circles.

The present area.

More Pokeballs and a homemade felt Pikachu glued onto poster board for Monkey. He loved it.

As far as the games I found a great blog online that gave me the idea for the "Hunt for Pokeballs." I found some ping pong balls at the dollars and colored them red and black. Then we hid them around the house and the kid who found the most won the prize.

The next game was "Pass the Pikachu." The big Pikachu head was perfect for this. Although half way in we realized that we should probably take the ears off since they were almost poking kids eyes out. Other than that it was perfect.

When it was time to leave, everyone got a party favor. Each favor had a homemade coloring book. I love making these. They are cheap and easy. Each guest also recieved pokemon cards. These can get expensive but I bought 100 used (but like new) cards for $9. Also each favor had a personalized Pokemon card that I made and had laminated for them. I asked each parent to email me a picture of their son/ daughter so I could personalize each card. I found this website online that allowed me to make these. Then I found another website that if I plugged in the child's name and favorite color in, it was give me their "Pokemon name" and bio. It was perfect. Here were my kids cards.

The favors.

Beyblade Birthday Party

2011-10-29T14:20:00.001-07:00

This year Big Guy wanted a Beyblade party. In case you don't know, Beyblade is the hottest craze amongst kids right now. It's all about these metal top things that battle against each other.

I had no idea what to do for this party. There were no decorations anywhere except online which I didn't have time to order. I even tried to convince my son to change his theme to a Nerf Gun Party. That worked for about a day and then he was back to Beyblade. I had no motivation or inspiration for this theme. I was struggling big time. I even watched like 3 episodes to try and get some ideas. That ended up being 1 & 1/2 hours of my life I couldn't get back. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me.

Once we decided we were going to have a Beyblade tournament I started with the invitations. I tried to play on the wording in the cartoon.

The front. I photoshopped Big Guys face on the front.

The Back

Next was the birthday banner.

As far as the decorations I tried (tried is the key word) to make Beyblades with paper plates and felt. Then stuck them on the walls and cupboards.

Unfortunately I forgot to get picture of the table scape with the cake when I was done. But I did take a picture of the table beforehand.

I made this beyblade out of felt

In fact I forgot to get a picture of the cake but I did take one when it was in the fridge.

The tournament area that my Love and I put together.

I put these wire cube things around the stadiums to make it look like the cage fighting arenas from MMA.

The tournament rules

Each guest got a tournament lanyard when they got to the party. With these, I just found the clipart online, had them laminated, punched a hole in them and then put some yarn on them so they could go around each childs neck.

My Love and my brother-in-law has some referee shirts and refereed the matches.

The tournament begins.

It finally came down to the final 2 competitors.

After cake and ice cream we had an awards ceremony. I found some certificates online and just printed them out. Then bought a dollar strore trophy which I printed out a tag and stuck it on.

The final results.

When it was time for each guest to leave Big Guy gave them the favors that I had put together.

Each favor had a beyblade coloring book that I made by downloading coloring sheets, some crayons, a squishy hand to represent the "let it rip" saying, a medal and 2 lollipops.

****UPDATE 2/21/2013***

If you would like to purchase the Clip Art for this Beyblade Party you can click on the "Buy Now" button and I would be more than happy to send it to you.

KEEP IN MIND YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE THE CLIP ART INSTANTLY. I TRY MY BEST TO SEND IT WITH IN A FEW HOURS BUT THERE ARE SOME INSTANCES THAT YOU WILL RECIEVE IT WITHIN A DAY OR SO. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND WHEN ORDERING. Thanks!

Included in this file is

*Arena Signs

*Certificates

*Lanyards

*Tournament Rules

*Lollipop Tags for the Favors

Money Jars

2011-10-10T13:08:00.009-07:00

I know this looks like scrap wood and a jar but it does make something neat. My Love and I have been wanting the kids to have money jars for a while. A visual for them to understand money more. We want them to have a good concept of money. Why not start at a young age? I saw an idea online at "Bits of Everything" website and went with it. All I needed to do was make a crate for the jars.

They each have 1 jar for GIVING. They put 10% of their money in this jar. We have explained to the kids that everything we have is because of God. He is the one who has blessed us with what we have and we should want to give back to him. They were all happy to do this. Our church is trying to raise money for the youth building right now so they love that they are able to contribute to that.

The second jar is their SAVINGS jar. They each decided if they wanted to put 40% or 50% in this jar. This jar is for obviously savings or if they ever want to save up for something.

The remainder of their money went into the SPENDING jar. This is probably their favorite. jar.

I'm so glad this little system has been working and the kids are willing to do it. Its so nice that they are learning to make good choices regarding their money at such a young age.

Garage Makeover

2011-09-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

We transformed our garage into a playroom a number of years ago. We had the idea of doing it right after Bear's Hannah Montana birthday party. We had put carpet in the garage for the dance party and then loved having the extra room that we decided to leave it that way.

Unfortunately we just have too much stuff and our garage ended up being a "dump" zone. We would clean it up and it would look nice again but then it would get messy again. I mean seriously look at how bad it got at the beginning of summer. Yes, that is a piano in our garage. Don't ask.

We ended up doing a garage sale and made a good profit to renovate our garage. Plus we found an amazing deal on this shed. It's a $700 shed that we got for $180 on craigslist. I have been looking for years for a shed. My love worked hard and put it together. We loaded a lot of stuff into it and then were able to start on our garage.

The plan for the garage was renovating it into a playroom / sewing room / man cave my hubby and his buddies. I have a really hard time committing to colors. I absolutely love bright colors but the problem is I love to many color schemes. I decided that the first thing I needed to do was pick out the colors I wanted in the garage. I decided on these fabrics. I thought pops of orange and lime would add some funkiness to the garage.

Here is what our garage looked like in the very beginning.

And here it is now. So exciting. I LOVE the way it turned out. We got everything for super cheep or free which makes me love the transformation even more.

We got to re-carpet the entire garage. Someone we knew had some connections with a guy that was getting rid of 2 year old carpet and padding.

The couch we got at a rummage sale for $4. It was an old couch from a youth group room. Not so pretty but super dooper comfortable. I made some pillows to spruce it up a little.

This SA-WEET orange recliner we got from craigslist. We actually found this recliner on craigslist after we were done with the garage but when I saw it for $5 I had to have it. It was perfect. Nothing yells out "Man Cave" like an orange recliner. The lady was just happy to get rid of it that she ended up giving it to us for free. My love LOVES this thing.

The door well other than paying for the tiny $2 samples of paint it was free too.

This side of the room is way more organized too.

Our more than organized shoe shelf. Not many changes in this area.

The lockers...you all know these were free. And the bike rack we got a while ago.

Now for the other side of the garage. The organized shelves. We were able to put an entire gorilla rack in the shed so that gave us a ton of extra space.

Okay this is the most exciting part. At least in my opinion. Its my personal favorite part of the garage. My sewing area which is hidden behind the couch. I turned my old sewing chest that was in our kitchen into a toy box for the kids. Just painted it lime and had my love put some new slow closing hinges on it. It works perfect and holds a ton of toys.

My sewing desk was a garage sale find. The cabinet drawers were from craigslist and fit perfectly under my desk.

My new sewing cabinet was also a craigslist find. It was exactly what I was looking for. I was so excited when I saw this. It fits all of my things perfectly. I spruced it up with some clearance boxes I got for $2 at IKEA and one of the buttons from Bear's Runway party.

I loved how everything came together. Our family is constantly out in the room. It literally feels like the fun room and we are always hanging out out there. My love and I sit out there just to talk about our day and we have even had a movie night already out there.

I'm so glad it turned out like I had imagined. Now if I can only get my bedroom done.

Switch it up

2011-09-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

When we were renovating our garage. I made myself a sewing area. I happen to be at the craft store one day and this caught my eye.

It was originally $19.99. Then clearanced down to $5.00 and then 75% off of that. So for $1 and some change I couldn't pass it up. But what was I going to do with some wooden letters that said "SMILE"?

Then it came to me. Take out some letters and switch up the others. I took out the "L & I" and turned the "M" upside down and got "SEW." Perfect! Right? I painted the letters and set them up. I really like the way it looks.