Tuesday, December 30, 2014

From Goodwill Nightstand to Play Kitchen!





This year my daughter's big present from me and her Dadda was a little play kitchen. I had seen a few tutorials and examples on the interent and gathered all the ideas I liked. The harderst part was actually finding a nightstand to use. I checked craigslist but they were usually too expensive. It was when I went to the nearby Goodwill that I found this charmer for 9.99!


Unfortunately the nightstand was too tall for my little girl so we used a jig-saw to cut the top drawer off the table and then reattached the top to the base. Now it is a much better height for the little gal!


The next step was to sand and prime to wood. I used which seems to have worked well so far!


Please forgive me because the last few weeks were kind of crazy so there aren't as many photogrpahs but I will explain everything the best I can. So after priming I taped off the different sections and started with the final matte coats using Behr Premium Plus in Island Oasis and in......


The fun part was adding the fixtures! We used old CD's spraypainted black for the burners (with a matte top coat for protection), a small stainless steel bowl for the sink, a PVC attachment for the faucet, and drawer knobs for the burner dials. I also bought a white magnetic board for the side of the play kitchen, timer, magnets, a push light for the inside oven, and a few pots and pans. These items are best bought at Dollar Stores or my nearby Daiso store. 

The majority of the foods were knitted by me! There are tons of knitted playfood patterns I found at KnittingPatternCentral.



To make the oven door we dettached the drawer front and then cut a square hole. The we used a small piece of plexiglass on the back of the new oven door. To make the cute look more even I added white trim around the edge made of balsa wood. We used to original drawer handle for the oven handle becasue I liked how vintagy it looked. The oven door gave us a bit of trouble the night before christmas because the hinges were not lining up right.  In the bottom picture the oven light is on abd you can see the veggies "cooking".


So hopefully this gives other a few ideas of how to make their own play kitchen! It was a great learning expereince for us and I am excited to see what my daughter cooks up. If you have any questions at all just leave a comment and I'll get back to you!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Jazzing up those Jars

Let's face it, Mason Jars are very durable but a little utilitarian. So for the holidays I began brainstorming SIMPLE ways to dress up the lids of the Mason Jars. Make sure you also include the date of when you canned it on the lid or sticker!


1. Use old Christmas cards! I hate throwing away cards so I have a few really big boxes of old birthday, christmas, and whatever other holiday card.


2. Trader Joes Shopping bags! Have you ever looked at the incredibly cute vintage designs on their bags? Perfect for a lid topper!

3. Wrapping paper! Buy discount wrapping paper from dollar tree and go to town.

4. Scrapbook paper! Find some paper with a snazzy holiday design to jazz up your jars!