Sum Sum Summertime Backyard

June 8, 2015June 8, 201519 Comments

It’s officially summer! The preschool I teach at is now in its summer session! No more curriculum! Yippee! Just fun stuff now, like water play and field trips. To celebrate, I invited the other teachers to come to my house for an ice cream social. Just a casual get-together to relax and enjoy each others company. Since I haven’t really shown you my patio yet, I figured this was the perfect opportunity! You saw a little bit with Haley’s graduation party, but this is how it looks most of the time. I still used a few of the decorations because they fit my color scheme too.

Our pretty patio!

I am searching for a great old table, but this folding one does for now. I added the new chairs I bought at Junk Days (I haven’t recovered them yet) and a few other wooden chairs from the house. I covered the table with a turquoise and white tablecloth and a runner of turquoise, blue and lime green. My husband didn’t want the tool tray anymore, so I snagged it and painted it! I added a little burlap, some seashells and a few other baubles.

Seashells in an old tool box tray.

Sunny Days!

Off to the side, I have a potting table my husband and I built out of old pickets from a neighbors fence. It took me about a year to come up with something to make, but I love this table! We have used it for so many things, but it usually holds drinks for parties. This party was just water, since we were having ice cream!

Potting table/drink station

I added some chrysanthemums I received from one of my students and placed them in my old wooden ice cream bucket from my grandma.

Love this bucket and the flowers look just right!

There is also a wooden star and a chalkboard sign letting everyone know this is the drink station!

Cool down!

I’ve collected a few hanging lamps over the years, so I hung them from a branch in the tree above. Next to the table is an old bike I have had for years. When the kids were little, I had their little seat on it and we went for bike rides. Miss those days! Here’s the other old bike I have. This was my dad’s when he worked at an oil refinery here in my town. He rode this trusty bike all over to get from one side of the site to the other. I brought it home last year, touched up the bright yellow paint, and display it in my yard. I love that this belonged to him and I can have a piece of that history.

Dad’s old Schwinn

On this side we have the seating area. I received the iron furniture from my mother-in-law, but the cushions were not my style. So I bought some outdoor fabric and recovered them. This is not as time-consuming as it sounds, because I use hot glue, no sewing involved. I showed how this is done here.

I love the sayings on this pillow. I sums up summer for me!

Birds that sing, butterflies, sunshine on shoulders, budding branches, warm breezes, blue skies, fresh air

This bowl contains rocks we have collected from the different places we have traveled to. I have the place and date written on the rocks. It’s a fun way to relive some of those great times together!

Rocks from our trips

This deck is right outside our back door. A friend helped Steve build it about 3 years ago, and it’s been wonderful. It’s a great place to sit and relax at the end of a busy day.

Our deck

The sun has gone down and now the lights are on. I love how it looks at this time of the evening. It has great ambience and it feels peaceful. The long day is done.

Relax under the lights.

This picture is a little dark, but you can see all our delicious toppings for our ice cream. Everyone brought a topping, while I supplied the ice cream. It was scrumptious!

Ice cream toppings

Well, the party is over, but I will leave you with this last photo. I picked up this broken chair and spray painted the seat with chalkboard paint. Now we can announce where the party is and when it’s time to go home.

Broken chair

I hope you all have a great week and a wonderful summer!

Bejeweled Bottle

June 4, 2015June 4, 20154 Comments

Haley’s graduation was almost two weeks ago, but I have now decided to post what I made for her. I wanted to make a gift that was personal but still was fun.

I bought a Starbucks frappuccino, you know the frappuccinos that come in the bottles, and wanted to make something cute from the bottle. And, that is where the bejeweled bottle idea came from.

After washing the bottle out as many times as possible to get the coffee smell out of it, I was ready to get working on it. I used the bottle, sticky jewels that you can buy in the scrapbooking section at Michaels, and scissors. I thought that the easiest way to put the jewels on the bottle was to cut them in rows and stick them on.

And then I ran into a small problem. The jewels didn’t wrap all the way around the bottle like I thought that they would. They covered about 80% of the bottle, and then had to use other pieces to fill in the rest of the 20%.

After using about six rows of the turquoise color jewels, I decided I wanted to make a ‘H’ out of the white jewels. I cut out a piece of the white that was 8 jewels across by 16 tall. I then cut the top and bottom to make a ‘H’ and placed it on the front of the bottle.

H for Haley

My next problem came when I got to the neck of the bottle. I had to cut the jewels in single strips to make sure that it didn’t look funny. But, because the jewels are square and the bottle is round, the jewels stuck up a little. But from far away, it is hard to tell what the jewels look like on the bottle.

I finally covered the lid of the bottle to complete the bejeweled bottle. I made a smaller version of the white ‘H’ to place on the top of the lid.

And voila! A bejeweled bottle!

This was very simple and only took me about an hour to complete. Since the jewels are sticky, it didn’t take long for them to stick to the bottle. And if you mess up, it is easy to take off and restick. Let me know if you have tried to use these sticky jewels on a project and how it worked out for you!

UPCYCLE RETRO PET BED

June 1, 2015June 1, 20153 Comments

I hope you all had a good week and weekend! My preschool had their graduation this past week which is always a lot of work but so exciting for the kids! Each class is unique (this one was very talkative!), but also special. They will be missed!

I had hoped to reveal our ‘Dressing up a Dresser’ post, but things didn’t quite go as planned. It still needs a little more work, plus we tried fitting in shopping for a car, changing around my bedroom (which I will post in a couple of weeks) and Lauren ending up being called into work. So today I am sharing a pet bed I made for my Chica before I was blogging. I don’t have too many pictures and they aren’t that great, but I love this little bed, so I wanted to share!

I started out with an old discarded tv stand. It was black and at one time it had doors. I picked out some retro fabric from Lauren’s stash and found some pink pom pom ball trim too. Chica is definately a girly girl, so we needed the pink and some pom poms!

The supplies

I painted the tv stand white and added the little pom poms around the front opening. I sewed up the fabric as a pillow cover so I could take it off and wash it. I used an old pillow to stuff it with. I even sewed a long one to line the back with.

Cozy and comfy!

She does use it, usually when the weather is cold, but it is a nice special spot just for her (sometimes she has to share it with the cat!).

Night night!

I love it when I can take something someone else is throwing away and make something new and useful out of it. Have you tried anything like this? I would love to have you share! Have a great week!