Cork Heart

Last year I got 4 or 5 big bags that each had 1000 corks in them. I found something I wanted to make off Pinterest and after doing a little bit of web based research, I found a place that gave them all to me for free!!! What a score!

For what I wanted to make I only needed about 20 corks, but I couldn't pass up such a generous offer so I took a few thousand and hoarded them away for 'one day' when I'd surely need corks for something!

I ended up making about 8 cork christmas trees (will take photos of them this Christmas), and have had the surplus corks in the garage taking up space ever since. Actually I gave a whole bunch to 2 friends of mine, but I still have quite a few. So a little while ago I searched 'corks' on Pinterest to find some more ideas of things I could do.

Here's the latest cork craft I came up with.

The corks are covered with scrapbook circles glued together in the heart shape. The wooden backing board was also made for free from the scrap bin that I just found at Mitre 10 last week...yay!!! I just lined them up, nailed them and painted them white. Another lovey touch for our bedroom

And this is another heart that I made a while ago by using a wooden board, nails, and orange and pink waxed string

And more frames!

Over the past couple of days I've done some more frame painting and now the piano looks like this.... So happy to finally have a photo of Mum/Grandma in the lounge (doing her trademark thumbs up of course!)

I love teal at the moment obviously. Not sure what I'll do when that pot runs out. And it's the only one out of 5 test pots that the man didn't put the name of the tint on....annoying! I hope I can get the same one again cause I'm only about half way through the supply of frames so far.

The colour brings more life to what we already had on the piano, with a couple of extras (Mum and the wedding one of the 2 men in my life giving me a big smooch!)

This will be mounted on the wall by our drawers to replace the one the girls smashed one day when they were trying to sneak chewing gum out of a drawer. Not why they thought there was some in their Dad's sock drawer?!?!

Frames, Frames and more Frames

After clearing out at Grandies, I came home with about 30 photo frames. Some new, some used. All totally good for re-purposing or selling.

On Monday afternoon I set myself up at the table while the girls were at kindy and Seth was having a sleep. Perfect!

I decided to do a couple of chalkboards, and paint pink frames for the girls 'birth details' to go in their room.

This was most of them, but there was still about 5 that I didn't get out of the garage for this pic cause they were big ones behind other heavy things....some of them were even brand new still wrapped in plastic

Quote Boards for around the house

Last year I asked my friend Mary if she would be able to send me some stickers so I could make some quote boards for around the house, lounge, kid's rooms. Mary Pugh is so lovely and obliging that she made me exactly what I wanted and even sent over lots of extra bits and pieces.
Since they arrived I've known where they'd go and what colour they'd be, but I haven't made them because I've never gotten around to buying the wood. When I finally bought the wood I needed, then I didn't have the right saw to cut it into pieces. After about 8 months, I'm happy to say that I've made 4 of the boards. Thanks to our neighbours for lending us their saw (drop saw, circular saw, skill saw, jigsaw...can't remember which it was in the end!) I love having neighbours you can chat over the fence with, share dessert with when you've made too much, share tools with, give your fruit and veges when you're going away and they might go bad when you're gone, but that's a whole different blog post (and maybe a sad one since they put their house on the market today!)

I'm so pleased with how they've turned out. They add a special touch to the kid's rooms especially and I love they have this reminder of what we believe (even though they can't read them yet!) right next to their beds.

Now that the interior of the house has been painted and we have new carpet I feel like we can do some special things around the place to add to the spirit and feel of our our home.....exciting. Just can't go overboard on pinterest.

Cotton Reel Holder

For a little while I've wanted a cotton reel holder. I looked on trademe and they're about $35 which is much more than I would have liked to spend on one.

I considered making a square board with 'pegs' coming up, but then one day as I was planning my new sewing/computer desk, I had a brainwave.....

Where would I put a big square board? Our office is pretty small and that would take up a big part of the desk that would already be full of computer, printer and sewing machine. That wasn't going to work. And then it came to me. Make a long, narrow board that could go along the back of the desk behind the sewing machine.

So that's what I did - all by myself I might add.

I bought the wood, sanded it, painted it, marked out where I wanted the pegs and then waited for my handyman husband to drill the holes for me. He was taking too long to get around to it so this morning I figured out how to use the drill (not hard but scary as that's how he hurt his little finger a few months ago!).

And voila, here's the finished product. Now I just need to save up my pennies to buy about 8 or so different coloured cottons and it will really be done. No more mismatched cotton colours on my sewing because I can't find them in my craft drawer abyss!