DIY Crafty-looking Fabric Boxes

I have this thing for those cutesy canvas and/or other fabric storage organizer container things. If you knew me in real life, you’d probably be surprised to hear this because I ain’t exactly the queen of organization. I’m not even a princess. Heck, I’m more like the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid. Anyway, I love to look at pretty organizational bins at stores and imagine them beautifying my own castle…well scullery, I guess, if I’m just a kitchen maid. BUT, I never buy them. Because seriously, they cost a ridiculous amount for what they are. Boxes. Or wires. Covered in fabric. Not really worth it to this kitchen maid.

In addition to my cute canvas bin fascination, I have a red bookshelf in my home (yes it’s red on purpose) on which rests many books and four boring boxes – 2 black, 2 white – with “stuff” in them. I bought the boxes from IKEA for a different purpose and when that purpose had ended, they came to rest on the bookshelf. Now, what I really wanted was cute fabric-y boxes to match the aqua/red theme in that room. Couldn’t find anything I loved enough to spend money on. Pinterest to the rescue! (Of course.) There are a myriad of simple tutorials for covering an ordinary box to pretty it up. I happened to mostly use this one. Here’s the pin.

THE RESULTS

New and Improved “Cute” Boxes

Sorry, no before pictures – I didn’t think to take them until it was too late. As far as covering the boxes, I didn’t have any spray adhesive on hand, so I used Mod Podge. Just spread it on w/a standard cheapo sponge brush. Worked like a charm.

WHAT I LEARNED

*All of these people who say that 1 yard of fabric covered 2 diaper boxes must either 1-buy very small boxes of diapers, 2-have had much wider fabric than me or 3-be lying. Since I can’t imagine why someone would lie about such a thing, and since I can’t imagine why someone who has a child that poops and pees regularly would make a habit of buying small boxes of diapers instead of big ones, I’m going to go with numero 2. The boxes I covered were probably about half the size of your standard bigger box of diapers, so I figured a yard would cover 2 no problem. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. They were about 5 inches too short! I decided to go ahead and slice those babies down the center to cover 2 boxes anyway and figure out what to do about the 1-2 inches exposed at the tops later.

*That huge run-on rambling up there just means that I learned you should measure before you buy fabric and assume it will work. Which goes against my nature, so I’ll just warn ya’ll about the perils of not measuring and go on with my standard mode of operation.

*I ought to have covered the black boxes w/the more blue fabric instead of the white-heavy one. Didn’t think that one through before charging ahead and now my daisies are a bit muted.

*Knitted stretch fabric isn’t the easiest thing to work with when you’re ironing and using Mod Podge and want straight lines. Now, in my defense, I hadn’t planned on using that fabric, but after the too short fiasco, it was the only white fabric I had on hand and I wanted to add a white band to the top (no, I did not line the whole thing, just the tops) and I certainly wasn’t heading back to the store for more. In the end, it worked out, but other choices would have been better.

—Side note on this one. I just realized that the tutorial I’m linking to doesn’t give instructions for just a top faux-liner and I can’t remember the one that did, so I’ll give the quickest rundown I can here.

First, measure the length all of the way around the top of the box. Add 4 or so inches. This is your length. Then decide how tall you want your “liner” to be and times that by 4. This is your width. Cut a piece of fabric to those measurements.

Iron it.

Fold it in half longways.

Iron it so there’s a crease in the center. Open it.

Fold one edge down to the crease.

Iron it.

Fold the other edge to the crease.

Iron it.

Now fold it in half again along that original crease.

Guess what you do next? That’s right. Iron it.

Viola. Now you basically have a really big binding. Glue it to your box. I glued the inside first and then went around and glued the outside. Your inside corners might be a little bunchy:

Inside Corner

It’s okay. Well, unless you’re OCD. Which, if you’re reading this post, it’s probably not such a good fit anyway. When you come back around to where you started, fold your end under an inch or 2 before gluing it down. Like so:

Where the “Lining” Ends

That’s it!

THE VERDICT

Well, I think they’re pretty cute, anyway. Certainly not professional, but good enough for who they’re for.

Doin’ the Monkey…Bread

Pizza. Who doesn’t love pizza? You? Well, you can leave then.

For everyone else, I’ve got something you’re going to L.O.V.E. I give you Pizza Pull Aparts, also known as Pizza Bites, also known as Stuffed Monkey Bread. Do I even need to explain the reason I had to try this recipe? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

THE RESULTS

WHAT I LEARNED

*We used some leftover french bread dough we had frozen for rolls. It worked wonderfully.

*Ranch works just as well for dipping when you don’t want to bother making pizza sauce.

*If you only have shredded mozarella, don’t worry, it’ll still work. It’s just a bit trickier to pinch closed.

*Don’t be afraid of the garlic bits – just brush them right on with the butter. If you like garlic half as much as I do anyway.

THE VERDICT

Oh. My. Yum.

I’m going to admit that I’ve never made monkey bread before, but after this, it certainly won’t be the last time I do. The kids devoured it. And we couldn’t help but think of all the possibilities this gives us – we could stuff the bread with anything: ham and cheese, broccoli and cheese, chocolate even. I’m thinking that should be next – it’s okay to have chocolate for dinner, right? But maybe we’ll leave out the garlic.

The Glitter Jar

Long, long ago in a galaxy far away…

I found this glitter jar idea and pinned it.

And then I tried it.

And now, I shall blog about it.

THE RESULTS

WHAT I LEARNED

*I originally made the jar with Batman (5) in mind because he has some sensory issues and is drawn to visual stimulation. I thought it would be good for calming him down when he’s worked up. Alas, it only holds his attention for approximately 13.2 seconds. If we’re lucky.

*Superman (who is 2) however, loves it.

*A little food coloring goes a long way. As you can see by our nearly black creation. Oops.

*You can’t use too much glitter. Trust me.

*A bit of cute paper and some glue can be a great way to cover things like “Salsa Verde 10/11″ on used jar lids.

THE VERDICT

*I like it, but I won’t be making another one. Mostly, it just sits on the counter being ignored. Perhaps if I’d not been so heavy handed with the food coloring it would get more use.

Quietus Bookus

Way back in once-upon-a-time time, when my dear husband and I were trying to figure out what to give our children for Christmas, he suggested I make a quiet book for Mr. Two Years Old (aka Superman). I agreed it was a great idea and forthwith set to work looking up ideas and pinning them to my trusty ol’ Pinterest boards. To make your life easier, I’ve moved all of these ideas to one Quiet Book board for you to peruse at your leisure. I’m nice like that.

Anyhow, so I’m gathering ideas and making lists of what I’ll need for supplies and my dear husband points out that I might as well make one for my 2 year old nephew as well, since we had their family for Christmas and I was sure to end up with extra supplies from the one I was making anyway, right? Note to the world: It takes twice as long to make 2 quiet books as it does to make one. Just, you know, in case you were wondering.

Oh yes, back to the making of the thing. I really liked the method and look of the quiet book shown here, so I decided to run with it. My one regret about that is that I wish I’d made the pages a couple of inches bigger than I did. Not a big deal, but still.

There are SO MANY great ideas for quiet book pages out there. I had a hard time narrowing it down and in the end, I probably did a few too many pages for one book…I don’t know, is 18 too many pages? Since it turns out the book can double as a pillow due to it’s thickness, I’m going to go with yes.

On to the book (prepare for picture overload):

The Cover, In All Its Glory

Here’s the cover. I saw one somewhere that had the child’s initials on the front and liked the look of it, but didn’t want mine to be quite so specific to one child, so decided to use the same idea to make the purpose of the book clear: Shut your trap. Of course, then my dear husband pointed out that it probably should have had  2 “h”es. How do you type that? Two aiches? Two aytches? 2 Hes? Anyway, he said it should say “Shh” Whatever.

Funny Faces

I love this page. I got the idea for it from here. Actually, that book has some other awesomely fantastic page ideas as well. It looks like she actually made each little face piece from fabric, but seeing as how I lack talent and patience in that arena, I just made a bunch up w/the simple shapes in Microsoft Word, printed them out and laminated them. Alas, this page ended up being the most difficult, even though it was supposed to be easy peasy. I *wanted* the pieces to attach with snaps. With that in mind, I added snaps to my pages before discovering that I couldn’t find a glue strong enough to withstand the laminate piece being pulled on. Every glue I tried pulled the laminate from the snap and left the snaps together. Even gorilla glue. Actually, as a side note…I’ve never had gorilla glue work for me. Not a fan of that stuff. Anyway, I ended up using some velcro dots I had and attaching them to the snap and the piece, so now when Mr. Two Years Old pulls on it, the velcro comes apart and the snap stays together and it all sounds more complicated than it really is.

Moving on.

Pages 3 and 4

Bead Counters

A lot of quiet books have a page like this in one way or another – I think it’s a pretty standard addition, so I don’t really have anyone to give the credit to, but I like it.

Tic Tac Toe

I got the idea for this page from here, where I also got several other ideas. I actually love almost every page in that book, so if you’re looking for some great ideas, don’t skip over that one! I didn’t want mine to take up 2 pages, though, so I made the green “playing field” a pocket. See where the stitching is different on top? Yeah, that’s where it opens. I might as well tell you right now that all of my pockets are reinforced along the top with an extra layer of flannel bonded to the back of the felt because I didn’t want it stretching out.

Let’s Go Camping!

Tent With Finger Puppets Inside

Alright, so “Let’s Go Camping!” is one of my favorite pages. I’m pretty sure I came up with the idea on my own. Which is probably why it’s one of my favorites. I wanted something with a zipper, so here it is and there are two little finger puppet people who live inside. Cute, no? The fire? Well, it’s just a fire.

Pages 7 and 8

Brush the Lion’s Teeth

The lion, oh the lion. I got the idea for the lion from here – seriously cute lion – and the teeth brushing from here, where I decided that the monkey, though awesome, demanded much more work than I am capable of. Plus, I wanted to use the lion. Too bad my lion turned out looking mostly psycho instead of cute. Se la vie.

Buckle the Dog’s Collar

The dog idea came, once again, from here. Told you she had some great pages! And it was freakin’ hard to attach that collar. Just so you know.

Car Track in the Middle

I saw several different books with a car track in them and l.o.v.e.d. the idea. Unfortunately, I ended up in a time crunch and I didn’t get different road signs made, which was my original intent. But Superman loves this page nonetheless.

Pages 11 and 12

Just your basic shape and color matching pages.

Match the Shapes

The outline of the shapes are here in white so they can be matched up with their counterparts…

Match the Colors

…and colors over here. Funny thing about this page. When I was making the books, I accidentally wrote “Math the Colors” on my nephew’s. Oops! Had to go back and squeeze a “c” in. At this point, you might like to know that I used Crayola Fabric Markers for when I needed markers. They are heat set, so apparently, they should be able to handle being washed, which will never be tested in this instance because I’m not sure the rest of my workmanship would survive a trip through the washer, but there ya go.

Shark and Pirate Ship

Superman LOVES pirates. LOVES. So I totally copied the pirate ship from this book. The shark is attached to the page with a ribbon and can hide behind the water. The pirate ship doesn’t do anything but sit there. I was *going* to make it so you could raise and lower the flag and add an anchor, but time was not on my side.

Pages Something and Other (What are we on now?)

Mailbox. Found it here. And here. The flag goes up and down. Letters stick to the other side with velcro.

Last Two Pages

Puzzles

This quiet book (yes, it’s that same one I keep linking to) had some cute puzzles. I worked not as hard on mine and made the pockets on the same page as the puzzles because I didn’t want to take up more space. There’s a star and a heart.

Notebook and Pen

And the best for last. No really, I think this might have been my very best idea. At least, I *think* it was my idea. After looking at so many different books online, I’m starting to wonder if I saw it somewhere else or not. Anyway…it’s a pocket for a notepad and pen. I don’t know about your kids, but my kids only last so long, even with the mother of all quiet books, but give them a pen and some paper and they’ll last…at least 5 minutes longer. So that’s exactly what I did. We usually end up with some stickers in there too. Who doesn’t love stickers?

So there you have it – more than you ever wanted to know about what took up almost the entirety of my time in December. Yeah. It was a lot of time. I can’t believe I made two. I’ll probably never make another quiet book in my life.

Natural Looking Curls

Yes, my friends, this is yet another curling your hair trick. What can I say, I like having curled hair but alas, I was endowed with only natural straightness. What really drew me to this method of hair curling, was that it does, indeed, look much more natural than using a curling iron the traditional way. So, of course, I tried it out.

THE RESULTS

From the front

Sideview so you can see more

WHAT I LEARNED

*My awkward arms + my hair’s ODD made this a bit…awkward…to do on some of the curls. Perhaps because I kept switching which direction I was doing the curls. I don’t like all my curls to go the same way.

*It took a long time (like 45 min I think? I don’t know, wasn’t timing it)

*Didn’t last as long as I hoped it would.

THE VERDICT

I liked the results. I didn’t like the time it took. I’m not sure the amount of time spent in proportion to how long it lasted makes it worth it. That said, I can’t remember how big my curling iron is, but I *think* it’s bigger than an inch – maybe an inch and a half – so I think I’ll try it w/the 3/4 one next time and see how long that lasts. So yes, I’ll try again. Maybe even today.

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

Just a quick post and run today. I recently pinned this yummy looking smoothie to try for a protein boost after working out.

THE RESULTS

I’ve had them twice now. First, I tried it with a non-frozen banana, and then when I decided I liked it, I popped the last two bananas into the freezer so I could try it the way it frozen.

WHAT I LEARNED

*Frozen banana or not doesn’t really make much difference at all.

*It’s just the right amount for a single smoothie (I tend to make them too big, but then my kids always want some anyway, so they never go to waste). As a disclaimer, though, I don’t really measure when I make smoothies, so everything was just approximately as much as the recipe says.

*Frozen bananas are hard to peel.

THE VERDICT

Love. It.

Our Christmas Eve Tradition

Since I’ve posted about Christmas Eve and all, I figured I’d share one of our family traditions as well. Now, you may be surprised to find out, but I occasionally have an idea or two of my own. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens. Several years ago, my husband and I noticed that Christmas Eve was dragging on sooooooooooooo slowly and we got to talking about how it often felt that way as children too. Then I had a brilliant idea. (Actually, at this point, I can’t remember if it was mine or his, but I’m just going to go ahead and take credit for it.) You know how on Christmas Eve, lots of people get to open a present of new PJs to wear to bed? Well we do that too. (No, that is not the brilliant idea of which I speak.) But now, every year on Christmas Eve morning, our children get to open one present which contains a new pair of PJs to wear all day AND a new book to read. That’s right, Christmas Eve is officially pajama day at our house. We hoped, as the kids got older, that this would help to make the anticipation of Christmas morning weigh a little less heavily on their minds since they would be engrossed in their new book instead. And this year, for the first time, we had a child old enough for that to actually work. This Christmas Eve, the Princess started and finished her new book (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) on Christmas Eve. It’s a fun tradition that we love and if you want to adopt and love it too, be my guest!

Glue Catchers

A while back I discovered the amazing Play At Home Mom blog. They have fantastic ideas and are much nicer to their children than I am to mine. One of the projects that they posted was these Glue Catchers. I decided it was just the kind of thing my kids would love to do, so on Christmas Eve, we broke out the cookie cutters and glitter and got to work.

THE RESULTS

All Set Up

I got it all ready and then invited the older two to come and have some fun. They enjoyed it and we ended up adding about 4 or 5 more cookie cutters to the tray before we were done.

The Princess Squeezing the Glue

“Batman” Adding His Glue (Geeze, this takes forever!)

“Superman” Up From His Nap and Doin’ the Glue Thing

Squeezing was a bit hard at first – even for me – but I snipped off just a little bit of the inside tip and things went better after that.

GLITTER!!!

More GLITTER!!!

Like there can ever be too much glitter.

In the end, it took about 3 days or so for them to dry and I never did get pictures of the finished product.

WHAT I LEARNED

*It is not all that easy to mix food coloring into a glue bottle. The glue tends to be…sticky (imagine that) and doesn’t want to mingle so much with the coloring, especially when you’re just using a skinny little skewer. I think it would have been easier had I dumped the glue out of the bottles to mix it. But then I would have had to pour it back in…so…not happening.

*I was surprised at just how much they shrunk in thickness as they dried. They ended up pretty thin, but I certainly didn’t measure so I couldn’t say how thin.

*Everything’s better with glitter.

THE VERDICT

It was fun! The kids really enjoyed making them and we could do these for just about any occasion. Even just a rainy day.

Chicken Cream Cheese Taquitos

Hello again! Long time no see. I got super busy in December with a Christmas project I was working on (soon to come if I ever get around to taking pictures) and then…well…life just happened. All of the sudden I realized it was the middle of January! Today I want to share my take on these Chicken Cream Cheese Taquitos and their yummy dipping sauce. Anything with avocado in it is sure to get my attention, so when I saw the pin, I just had to try it.

THE RESULTS

Now, I’m not into making more work for myself, so there was no cutting of the tortillas into 3 mini tortillas and making mini taquitos. We just enjoyed them full-sized.

WHAT I LEARNED

*I either need to take notes when I’m trying new pins or blog right away because, honestly, we had these so long ago that I don’t remember many details.

*That was a good lesson to learn.

THE VERDICT

If I remember right, we liked ‘em. I was especially fond of the avocado dipping sauce – it was kind of ranch-ish, but not quite and quite yummy atop those taquitos. I’m pretty sure even my kids liked them. But without the sauce, of course, because they couldn’t possible put something green in their mouths.

Glow Jars

You might be surprised to find out that I try things that don’t involve food or hair from my Pinterest boards. This next little tidbit was something we did for the Halloween party we threw for the neighborhood kids.

I give you: GLOW JARS

THE RESULTS

We used baby food jars, with the intent of scattering them throughout the “Haunted Forest” to create some eerie lighting.

WHAT I LEARNED

*Apparently, I’ve been forgetting this section. Let’s just pretend nobody noticed, eh?

*The instructions are to break a glow stick and dump the contents into a jar. It’s a bit tricky to just “break a glowstick.” I used scissors.

*Unbeknownst to me, glowsticks actually have a little glass tube inside (which is why you have to “crack” them to make them glow.) Fascinating. This also makes cutting a bit tricky. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT cut them in the center. You will have a big mess. Trust me. Snip off the tip. And then snip off the other tip so there will be some air pressure at work so you can dump out the contents.

*This is a bit messy.

THE VERDICT

They turned out great! They glowed just enough and were a lot of fun!