DIY: File Cabinet Makeover

First things first: I bought a new camera! Well, new to me. My brother got a digital Canon Rebel XTI in high school. I just bought it from him since he 1) needs money and 2) doesn't use it anymore. This was my first project with my new camera. Hopefully, this means that some of the angles I took pictures from turned out cool. Well, they look cool to me and I hope you like them.

So, I acquired a file cabinet a few years back when I was doing my student teaching. Of course, it was the terrible putty color that most file cabinets come in nowadays. I took out the drawers, took the parts outside, and sanded down all the surfaces that I planned on painting: the outside of the file cabinet, the inside & outside of the drawers.

See? Cool angle! You can see the marks the sandpaper made.

Then, I spray painted all of the surfaces that I had sanded.

This is the spray paint I used. I needed 2 cans.

The cabinet itself needed at least 3 coats on each surface.

The drawers needed 2 coats on the inside of the drawers and 1 coat on the outside of the drawers. 

The outside of the drawers won't be seen unless the drawers are pulled out.

See how much cleaner & better white looks compared to putty?! I didn't paint the drawer faces because I wanted to Modge Podge Scrapbook paper to them.

This is the first paper I picked.

From this angle, you can kind of see the piecing job I had to do to fill up the whole drawer front. 

I had to cut around the lock as well.

This is the second paper I picked. After two coats of Modge Podge, I cut out the area to put the handles back in the drawer. Please excuse the ugliness of the Modge Podge job. I'm relearning.

I started to cut out the handle area before the Modge Podge had dried completely. Oops!!

Finished top drawer with handle.

Finished bottom drawer with handle.

File cabinet with drawers back in it.

I'm in love!!!

Welcome to my craft corner!!

See why I wanted the file cabinet white & not putty?

I would LOVE to know what you think! Thanks for stopping by.

DIY: Menu Board

So, I'm lame. I hardly update on here, choosing to veg after work instead of letting you know about all the fun things I've been doing.

I'm behind on posting. So behind that I actually made this before the new year so that I could start using it on January 1st. Well, after using my menu board for 2 1/2 months, I can say that I LOVE IT!!!!!!

This was my inspiration found here.

Robin was amazing and even sent me all of her recipe cards and menu labels. Once I bought my calendar, I realized that it was smaller than the inspiration one. I had to cut down all of the menu labels in order for them to fit in each day's box. Also due to my smaller calendar, I couldn't put the desserts and the color code labels on the calendar. I decided I just "had" to make a cute cork board to go with my menu board. Twist my arm about it why don't you! =)

I found a piece of cork, with built in hangers on the back, that was as tall as my calendar. So, this picture shows the cork going side to side not up & down.

Sad picture I know but I wanted you to see the empty cork board.

The first thing I did was pick my ribbon for the border around the cork board. I decided to go for the obvious and make it Oklahoma State colors, officially my favorites now. Haha. Actually, I already had these ribbons for that reason, the colors and patterns. The black and white gingham was leftover from my BOO Jars. The white polka dots on orange ribbon was purchased on a whim because of the wonderful colors and pattern. =)

I bought these at Hobby Lobby.

I took the gingham and used it to frame the cork board. I used a hot glue gun to make sure that it would never move. I wrapped the ribbon over the sides to hide the cork all the way around. I did this on all the sides except for the top. I'll explain in a second.

Wrapped around the edge.

Once I did the short ends, I wrapped the long sides. I just put the gingham on top and just kept gluing.

The corner.

Ok, now why I didn't wrap the top over the edge. I wanted the full width of the gingham ribbon so that I could layer the polka dot ribbon on top. If I wrapped it over the edge, you wouldn't have been able to see the gingham at all. I centered the orange ribbon in the middle of the gingham and used hot glue to secure it.

Don't they work so well together?

I then created a bow out of the orange ribbon. I learned this trick making a college-themed light box as a Christmas present for my brother's girlfriend. (tutorial coming - will include the bow)

I forgot the picture until it was all done. Oops!

I then added the color code menu labels onto my completed cork board. I also put the two desserts that I wanted to make first onto the board.

Yes, I'm slightly OCD. But I love the colors fading into each other like that.

This is a picture of my menu board. I printed all of the things Robin sent me. I printed them on card stock according to the color code in the above picture. I then randomly (as random as I could with my slight OCD) placed recipes on the board. The push pins at the bottom are where the recipes would hang (sorted by recipe type/color) if I was going to hang the board on the wall.

Dark Blue (Scrounge Night) is Leftover Night.

This is how my board looks right now. Since I'm still at my parents house, Mom doesn't hang much up on  walls. Mom is a little scared of bright colors so this is sitting on the built-in desk next to the kitchen. It works really well for us, which kind of surprised me. I know what to go shopping for every weekend. Mom (and everyone for that matter) knows what's for dinner and that we have everything already to make it. Sometimes, Mom even has dinner started or prepped when we get home from work. That's one of the perks of living with your parents and you do the part they don't like, grocery shopping!

I hope you guys find this helpful!

Food Craft: Marshmallow Pops

Inspiration & Directions

What are you thinking when you see this picture? I was so inspired and decided, "I will make those." And I did for the baby shower!

Here's what you need:

Marshmallows

Pink Candy Melts (or whatever color you need/want)

White sprinkles (preferably round)

Lollipop sticks

Pink M&Ms (again, or whatever color you need/want)

A container for the base

Styrofoam that fits in the base

Scrapbook paper (something to hide the styrofoam)

 I put the styrofoam in the bottom of the box and covered it 

with a scrapbook paper that matched the diaper cake I made.

I did pre punch some holes with a wooden skewer so that 

nothing would fall off my Marshmallow Pops when I added them.

I "skewered" 25 marshmallows with lollipop sticks.

No science here. I just pushed the stick into the marshmallow.

I had these pearl sprinkles leftover from throwing 

my parents a surprise 50th birthday party.

These are the Candy Melts I used.

Yes, they were heart shaped. 

What? All the Valentines stuff is out at Michael's.

 These are the Candy Melts after they have been melted in the microwave.

 

This was my sprinkles & M&Ms set up and ready to go.

Dip the marshmallow about half way into the Candy Melt. 

Roll the sides on the sprinkles.

 

Add the M&M to the top!

 That's it! Just repeat!

These are what mine looked like in the container! Cute right?

PS. I added some extra pearl sprinkles on the scrapbook 

paper to fill in some extra holes I punched. They didn't fall off.

DIY: My First Diaper Cake

Hosting that baby shower last week was stressful. Only because I love the mommy-to-be with all my heart and wanted everything to be perfect. I saw this gorgeous cake on Pinterest and used it as my inspiration.

Found on The Hostess Blog

Here is the shopping list given for this gorgeous cake.
Set of 3 DwellStudio receiving blanket (from Target)
Size 2 Pamper swaddlers
chocolate brown grossgrain ribbon
Pink shabby rose trim (sold by the yard at Hobby Lobby)
chocolate brown ric rac
Pink & Brown scrapbook papers – used to create the “vase” at the top of the cake and then cut into 1.5″ circles for the “candles”
Scrapbook embelishments
Faux flowers – from Michaels

Unfortunately, I could not find the swaddling blankets that were featured on this cake. So, I made due with the ones that I was able to find. Here is my step-by-step process in making the diaper cake (featured here) with my mom.

Step 1: Buy all of your supplies! =) I bought size 2 diapers as recommended. Babies are born in many sizes and grow at different rates. It's not a guarantee how long they will stay in newborn diapers very long, or at all! My niece was born at just over 9 pounds. There was little time for small diapers. =)

Some of the ribbon pictured was not used. 

Step 2: Find/Create the base for your cake. I originally planned on just putting an extra layer of diapers in each level but then found an almost empty wine bottle. I dumped the contents and washed out the bottle. It was a great anchor in the middle of the cake as well as a vase for the flowers!

Yes, that's a wine bottle. No, it is empty.

Step 3: Start rolllin'! Stack 2 diapers on top of each other and start rolling them from the hip to the middle. Try and keep one end even and flat so that it can become a base. Wrap the roll with a NEW rubber band. Trust me, even new ones break.

Rolling 2 diapers.

Tight rubber band.

Step 4: Start layering. I used a post recommended by The Hostess Blog. It is from Alpha Mom. I mostly used her just to get the ideas for rolling and layering. If you notice her cake, she flattens out some diapers to fill in empty space around the bottle. I didn't and later, I will tell you why. Ok, this step (and all the rolling) is where having my mom helping me was amaze-balls! After we had enough to make one layer around the bottle, she held the diapers in place while I stretched a rubber band over the top of the bottle and around the diapers to hold them in place. We did this one more time but thankful my dad walked by to help hold all the diaper rolls!

Bottom tier, layer 1. We added one more circle around but I didn't get a pic!

Step 5: Cover tier. I took one of the 40"x40" swaddling blankets, kept it folded in half lengthwise, wrapped it around the 2 layers of rolled diapers, and tucked in the excess between the bottle and the inner circle of diapers. This is why I didn't do the flattened diapers around the bottle. These blankets will have enough excess to fill in the gaps.

Swaddled diapers.

Step 6: Ribbon base. I bought a satin-like chocolate brown ribbon to cover any imperfections or gaps at the base of each tier.

We just taped the seam together. Cover up coming!

Step 7: Repeat steps 3-6 for the middle tier. This tier only had one circle of diapers. The swaddling blanket had more excess since the tier was smaller than the previous. Make sure that you try and line up the seams at the end of the swaddling blankets. This helps for covering the tape, pins or whatever you use to secure the ribbon and blankets.

I put the swaddling instructions around the bottle too! (See it?)

Step 8: Repeat steps 3-6 for the top tier. This tier had so much excess blanket that there was no way there were any gaps.

I love how I forgot some crucial pics but at
least there is one for every step.

Step 9: Bouquet topper. I bought 3 fake, pink hydrangea and 1 fun, pink and brown polka dot gerber daisy. My mom helped me bend them to where they covered the space from the top of the tier to the top of the bottle. We left the stems pretty long. The cap of the wine bottle was removed and the stems were put into the bottle. Even after being cut, the stems still reached the bottom of the bottle. This gave them great stability!

Such a fun gerber!

Step 10: Ribbon decor. I added a pink rose ribbon around the top of the bottom tier and pink rick rack (wavy ribbon) at the top of the middle tier. Mom had the clever idea of taking ribbon down the seam in the back to cover it up. We used the chocolate brown with pink polka dot ribbon. My mom used a safety pin to secure the ribbon on top of the top tier (but under the flowers). We then just tucked it under each their using the end of some scissors. We did this 2 more times to give the "cascading ribbon" balance around the cake (split it into thirds).

Wow! This picture makes it look lopsided!
It really wasn't!

Step 11: Making the name "candles." I used my Cricut for this part. I found a scrapbook paper in one of my packs that had pink, green and brown.

2 inch circle

I had to cut - well my Cricut had to cut - 9 for Emma Grace.

I hot-glued lollipop sticks to the back of each circle.
The lollipop sticks were leftover from the Marshmallow Pops.

All 9 "candles"!

All I did was tuck the "candles" behind both types
of ribbon on the bottom 2 tiers for stability.

The completed cake!

The end! I hope this was super helpful and you think it turned out as cute as my mom & I did. And maybe the guests too. =)