Spin Art- A Project for All Ages!

Who doesn't love Pinterest... but how many times do we pin something that "OMG! I HAVE TO DO THIS!" Yet it just sits, forgotten on our board? Kinda reminds me of the digital camera commercial where all the "pictures" are standing around all forgotten, until there's no more room and some get deleted because they were never downloaded. :( Poor pictures...

I digress. OKAY- so I saw a bunch of pins for using a salad spinner to create art. And wouldn't you know it, we have a bagel slicer (never used, because bagels are apparently pre-sliced), a garlic roaster (never used), and a whole bunch of other discarded items in our kitchen, yet NO salad spinner. Come to find out, these suckers are $25!! No thanks. So, we made a HUGE trip to Goodwill to donate- seriously, couch, office chair, toys, weights, crap-ola galore- and wandered in to look for a salad spinner. 2 BUCKS BABY!! :) That's my kinda deal!

So, we set out to spin our way to art! First you need supplies:

1. Salad Spinner
2. Paint (we use washable)
3. Paper (we used index sized paper, because we have envelopes they fit in for mailing!)
4. And cute kids of course!! 

Then, you insert le paper into le spinner and drop paint wherever you want!

Replace lid on top (for spinning action) and spin!! Be careful though, sometimes the handle pops off and children fear the spinner is broken forever!

Once you are done spinning, just pop the top off and CAREFULLY remove the paper! I suggest having something to lay all your creations on... we laid out some paper towels.

Finally... admire your work!!

This was SUCH a fun project- quick, easy, not a lot of mess; unless your paint is clogged like ours and you don't think to use a toothpick to poke it until after you attempt to remove the crusties with your nails. Sigh.

We'll be mailing our creations out, but I think they would be fun to put into frames. :)

Break time!!

I would like to take a break from DIY for a moment to share with you our new favorite book! Those of you that have children that love books know that sometimes you can get in a book rut. And isn't that every parent's nightmare?? Goodnight Moon for the 4th night in a row is enough to make any great parent begging for ANYTHING else besides saying "goodnight nothing" one more time because it is so ridiculous!But I digress.

The point being... Santa was thoughtful enough to bring Jordan books for Christmas, and we've come to LOVE one of them so very much.

Parents: YOU NEED THIS BOOK :)




It's amazing. Take a peek inside, then order it! Err... ask the Easter Bunny to put it in the kiddo's basket this year. ;)

Hall Bathroom Plans

SO, I've been on Pinterest... :) That has got to be my favorite social networking site EV-ER!

I happened across a pin that shows how to fancy-up a construction grade mirror- you know, the GIANT, unframed mirrors that most houses are built with. So boring, and SO not pretty. Obviously, these giant mirrors serve their purpose, and are perfectly fine, so I really don't like the idea of tearing them down and throwing them away... not to mention that I could possibly receive 7 years of bad luck if the sucker breaks during demo.
So, here's the pin picture I saw!

Click Here for the original site.

How pretty, right?! From BLAH to BEAUTIFUL! SO, I was thinking this would be a great solution for our master bathroom, which it still may be, but it would work well in our hall bathroom, too! You see, we have wood laminate cabinets throughout our house. Sure they look pretty, but they are what they are, and they are ALL dark. I've been wanting to make shelf covers for the door-less linen closet in the hall bathroom, but the white shelf covers will not match the dark wood cabinets...

Urgh- do you ever have ONE small-ish project turn into a HUGE project? Or is that just me? Here are the shelf covers.

And your link Here.

Isn't this idea perfect for the linen closet that we can't add a door to? (Fan on ceiling prevents a door)

And now... I've figured it's time to start considering painting the cabinets... Of course I've found plenty of sources on how to do that as well!!

And, Lord bless Justin, he's ON-BOARD!! Just like that!! No begging, pleading or bargaining on my part!! He just said, "Okay." And not even a roll of the eyes!! :) He does love me!

Now I suppose we should finish our downstairs re-do before starting the upstairs one! LOL! No, it's not done yet... with the, uhh... "minor" set-back and the unexpected kitchen faucet incident we're a little behind schedule. We're getting there though! I swear! :)

Unexpected DIY

Hello all! Well, sorry I haven't been making good on my promises to blog. NOTHING is going right in the world of Detwiler DIY projects! :( I'm surprised Justin hasn't banned me altogether from doing anything! This last one wasn't my fault (after all) in the end!!

Last week I woke up to a GIANT puddle on my kitchen floor. Me, knowing the things I know about our house, cursed the dog for having an accident and proceeded to clean it up with paper towels. To my surprise, the paper towels were coming up wet, but not yellow. (Sorry Tessa.) Now we have a bigger problem... what IS the puddle? I let Brittany know and asked her to have Justin investigate- my best guess was that it was coming from the water connection on the wall behind the fridge. Brittany calls me at work to tell me that everything under the sink is saturated with water! :( Well, I'm thinking this could be worse, at least most of the sink plumbing is exposed.

Justin's investigation finds a cracked faucet hose. Decision time: replace the hose or buy a new faucet? Well, the wire/mesh netting around the hose has been frayed since we bought our house, which we didn't worry about because we were planning on buying a new faucet later... Later has just arrived! Justin performed extraction surgery on the faucet.

The netting has been that bad, but Justin had to cut the hose to get it out.

No more kitchen faucet.

 So... now Justin has to go to the hardware store to get a new faucet... alone. omg. Have no fear!! He has learned the art of picture messaging me at work to ensure I'm happy with whatever house-related item he's getting! :) He's awesome, isn't he?

By the time I got home I had a new, beautiful faucet installed and operational!

Isn't it beautiful?!

No netting to fray here!

 Ahh, life is good. That is until the NEXT morning. Well, first of all I realized the faucet handle was crooked. Anyone notice it's in front of the faucet instead of off to the side? I did. Justin was not happy about having to adjust it, but I was adamant it was going to be adjusted. To the right, please!

So, the morning after the new faucet came to live with us, I turned it on to admire it's working beauty. THEN- the faucet POPPED OFF and it started RAINING in my kitchen!! OMG!! It took me about 5 seconds of trying to comprehend what was going on before I turned the water off. Since everyone was asleep, I called Justin after I got to work to tell him what happened. You know what he did? He accused me of breaking it! Umm... I'm the one that is in faucet-love (unlike him), and I broke it?!

You wanna guess what happened next? He disassembled the faucet, took it back to Home Depot, and they told him it was a FACTORY DEFAULT! (Insert smug grin here.) Apparently there is a screw that is supposed to hold the hose portion to the base portion, and it was too short! He apologized and installed the new-new faucet... and we've lived happily with it since!

Baby Shower Prep

So, I was banned from throwing any more baby and wedding showers after the last one I did. HOWEVER, Justin just couldn't stand listening to our neighbor, and very good friend, sit in our dinning room and talk about throwing her own baby shower. So, he said, "Why don't you just let Krystle throw it for you..." :) BIG SMILES!! I love throwing parties! :)

Jaime is having boy #2 late May - early June. So, Brittany and I have decided we are going to throw her a Mustache Bash! :) Everything is going to be green or have a mustache! :) We're talking photo booth, mustache straws, the whole nine yards!

I've already completed a couple projects...

The initial picture...

The Frame

Baby's first initial

The completed project/gift!



Mr. Piggybank...

BEFORE 

 AFTER

I'm thinking that, instead of a "Diaper Donation" table, I'll set up a table for people to drop some money in Mr. Piggybanks to help get Cameron going! Both Jaime and I encourage our toddlers to save their pennies, so hopefully this will be fun for her!!

Those are a couple of the projects I did this weekend. I'm super excited about the mustache bash, but I'm also excited to have had a good excuse to get my craft on!!

Hall Bathroom Quickie

Home Depot trip yesterday to pick up supplies for the 1/2 bath remodel downstairs. After everything was picked out, and let me tell you what an ordeal picking paint was, I spot a faucet I love! My love, however, does not mean I was willing to change the design plan of the 1/2 bath...

So, Justin, in his infinite love for me, suggests we get it anyway and put it in the hall bath upstairs. SO WE DID! :) While this bathroom is typically referred to as the "kid's bathroom", it is also Brittany's bathroom currently, so I'm really glad I didn't go with the Little Mermaid decor I originally considered. Instead, that bathroom's theme is bright colors. All the towels are different colors and the shower curtain is striped in all bright colors :)

Don't you just love how you get distracted from your actual project by multiple little side projects along the way? No? Me either... but I am really glad we did this one, and that Justin knew how to do it, because it was a minor $30 for a major big difference!

Before:

Boring, standard new construction install. 

ALL GONE!! (And... YUCK!!)

After!!

It sticks out a little further than the old one, so we won't have to wash our hands against the sink basin. :)

Don't you just love the new faucet?? I think it's perfect for a fun bathroom!! :) But I have always been a sucker for things that are labeled!! LOL! Maybe it will help the kids learn to read. If not, it still looks great!

I'm loving seeing all the little changes happening around our house. It's taking our house from, "the same lay-out as the one around the corner." To, "Our home." :) We're on a roll, and we're not stopping now! This weekend is the 1/2 bathroom remodel!! 

The Ugly Office Chair

While I love my new job... I do not love my new office space. The lay-out is awkward, leaving dead space, which is not good feng shui!

My office manager offered to get me a new chair, which was very sweet... but honestly... the chair is pretty comfortable. And being a, uhh... not tall person, a comfortable office chair is hard to come by; they are usually just too deep for my back to actually be supported.

SO! I decided to recover the chair and make it beautiful! After all, if I failed I could just cash in my office manager's offer for a new chair. I couldn't lose!

Before:

Ugly, right? Well- the best part about this chair is the split back. Each back piece is attached to a rubber "spacer" or "arm" of sorts. This allows each back piece to adjust to your back shape and also each time to lean to one side or the other. Comfort... no style.

So... I disassembled it! (No picture, sorry my phone was dying!) Each piece (both back pieces and the seat) were backed with plastic, so I had to separate the padded pieces from the plastic pieces. The seat pad just unscrewed from its plastic piece. The back pieces, however... were GLUED to the plastic!! Great.

After tearing up my hands trying to pry the pieces apart... I got smarter than the chair and got my blow dryer!! I just heated up the plastic, and glue, and they came right apart!! (I win.)

Now, who knew a staple gun was such an AMAZING creation?! And who knew that Justin had "acquired" FOUR of them from his time in the Army? Well- they rock! And if you don't own one, or two, you must go straight to the store and get one!! I just stretched the fabric around the existing pad, and stapled!! :) It. Was. Awesome!

After putting the pads back on the plastic, I just screwed all the pieces back on the chair frame, and VOILA'! .

After:

Well... pretty amazing, huh?! :) Not too bad for a couple hours and $15 in fabric. Now, I have a pretty chair for my not-so-pretty office!

Next up: Recovering the two Craig's List chairs I bought last weekend to replace the oh-so-ugly visitor chairs in my office!!

Attactive, no? No. You'll have to wait to see the amazing ones I found!!