An Easy DIY Winter Wreath

Want to make a fun winter wreath to adorn your door? 

This one was made the exact same way as My Easy Burlap Wreath Tutorial, but using a couple fancy ribbons instead of burlap. My mom and I stocked up on silver sparkly ribbons after Christmas at Hobby Lobby last year, and found the fancy blue flowers then too. Afterwards I added the sparkly R. 

You Can Make a Burlap Wreath

Check it out, I made my first wreath!

I have seen some cute burlap wreaths lately and wondered how big of a deal they are to make. Surprisingly, they're pretty easy. And once you have the hang of it, you can make all sorts of different looks to suit your tastes. Take these for example...  

Glass Etching

Have you ever tried glass etching? It's a super easy way to add a touch of cuteness to any glass or mirror, and it's a great way to personalize cheap, plain glass. Think drinking glasses, vases, serving bowls, candle holders, mirrors, even pyrex dishes! 

Here's a candles & mirror set I made my mom:

Bind it Up, Baby!

You may have noticed that I'm a little bit of a do-it-yourselfer. Today I'm going to show you one of my favorite tools I use in some of my do-it-myselfing. Let me introduce my Pro-Click Binding Machine...

This slick little device allows me to do my own binding. We use it for notebooking, binding school papers at the end of the year, and making my own planner.  

What's unique about the Pro-Click is the spines they use. You can "zip" them open or closed, allowing you to add more papers to something even after you bind it.

How cool is that?! (It's great for me since I usually change my mind later and decide to add something extra!) I love it! 

What are some of your favorite teacher tools?

Related post: Never Ever Ever Bind Anything at Staples!

Rit to the Rescue!

Whether you are having your third baby and your white onsies and burp rags aren't quite so white any more, or you have some brand new whites you want to make look cuter... it's Rit Dye to the rescue! Today's post isn't a rocket science project. It's just a quick little fix-up that gave new life to our third-time-around baby whites.

A lot of our white baby onsies and burp rags were all splotched up with yellow stains. I dyed the mostly-white looking whites "Aquamarine" and I dyed the ones with yellow-stains on them "Apple Green." I hoped that since green has yellow in it that it would hide the stains better, and I have to say that I am pretty pleased with how they came out. Not a stain in sight! And now they're so pretty! I wish I would have dyed at least the burp rags the first time around.

While I was at it, I also threw in a pink shirt of mine from Old Navy to turn it purple, but it didn't absorb any of the blue dye!

I don't know WHAT Old Navy did to that shirt to make it so resistant to dye, but if it is half as resistant to baby spit up, then it just may be my new favorite! :)

I Heart My Laminator

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

I love that you save, protect, and shinyize my stuff. 

I love that you turn any document into a dry-erase board. 

DIY Ponybead Suncatchers

This is such an easy way to make cute, surprisingly hardy little sun catchers. We made a couple of these last year and then made a couple more in our recent Kindergarten unit, "S is for Sun."

To make them yourself, you need some transparent pony beads, which look like this: 

Freezer Paper Stenciling

Imagine my dismay when I was wearing a a brand new pair of pants and I splattered them with oil the FIRST time I EVER wore them. I was heartbroken, but what is a girl to do? Oil splattered pants just aren't my style.


FREEZER PAPER to the rescue! Yes, you heard me right, freezer paper. Who knew it was so handy?!? It's cheap too. Just check this out!!! You can't see any oil splatters now can you? 



And, just look at how a freezer paper stenciled tiger can brighten a little boy's day, taking his sweat pants from drab to fab!

Want to know more? I thought so. 

CLICK HERE TO VIEW OR DOWNLOAD TUTORIAL

DIY Custom Artwork for the Nursery

Just because you're not using a store-bought set doesn't mean you can't have some coordinating artwork in the baby's room. In our first son's room I accented with Curious George, who was on a wall clock, some fabric I used in his quilt, and displayed a bit on a shelf. For the artwork, I used a couple Curious George calendar pages, trimmed them to get rid of the little nail hole, then glued them down to a piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper which looked like matting. Then I painted wooden frames, and voila! Curious George artwork! 

Another option is to make some custom artwork, using Mod Podge and a little creativity. For this project, I found a pack of coordinating scrapbook papers that also coordinated with the fabric colors I was using in in my second son's nursery.  I bought a 12x12" paper pack to cover the 8x8 canvases, since I needed extra inches to go around the edges. Then I drew out the designs I wanted  (based on my favorite images from a google image search), cut them out from the scrapbook paper, and mod podged them to art canvases. Here they are:  

Have you made your own cute nursery wall-art? Email me your photos and I'll share them here! 

Sassy Shelves

Want to make some sassy shelves to coordinate with a room?  

How to Make Your Own Notebooks

Spiral Binding  You can take pages to Kinkos for a spiral binding, or if you'll be doing it much you can buy your own binding tool. I have a ProClick Binding Machine , which I think is simply fabulous. It uses special spines that snap open and closed so you can continue to add to your project even after you've bound it initially. I posted about it HERE. 

Japanese Stab Binding    Instructions