Cooking. Sometimes I love it sometimes I hate it. I’m more of a cook out of necessity person but I do enjoy a good cooking session now and then. Our old house had a great built in spice rack. Our new house… not so much. See..

I stuck them all in the cabinet and could never find anything. Plus look at all that wasted space at the top! A search for just the right one became futile and eventually I stopped looking. Little did I know all I had to do was look in the cabinet NEXT to the spices!

Add in a little tape, glue and cardstock and voila — spice rack.

Here’s how you can make your own.

Gather your materials:

-Tape (I used blue painters tape because that’s all we had)

-Glue (I used spray adhesive because again, that’s all I had)

- 12×12 cardstock. At least 2 pieces depending on the finished size of your rack.

-empty boxes (I found the ones with about a 2″ depth worked best for the sizes of the spice bottles)

-scissors

Determine how to stack the boxes to fit your spices.

I had a few of the shorter (2 inch?) spices so I laid one flat and stacked one on top to form an L shape. The red box goes under the blue one. It’s a little hard to see since I taped it up already in this picture.

Cut and tape the boxes together

Once you found the right combo, cut the boxes if needed and tape together. My boxes weren’t the same height so I had to cut one down. I taped a stabilizing piece to the open end so it wouldn’t collapse.

I also taped over the open end so nothing would accidentally slip in.

Unless you plan on moving the shelf around a little tape around the bottom will do.

Cover with cardstock

Measure the front and top sides of the shelf and fold your paper to size. Cut the width if needed. Sorry no photos of this step but here’s how it will look after.

I had to use two sheets. One to cover the top “shelf” and one to cover the front of the bottom “shelf.” You can see in the photo it wasn’t long enough. Oops! What’s the saying? Measure twice cut once? Once you get everything cut to size spray the underside of the cardstock with spray adhesive and stuck it on.

Tada! I didn’t do the sides because honestly who’s going to know besides me?

Here’s a close up. There is also a rack on the left but there was still pasta in the box so I didn’t want to cover it just yet.

Now cooking is a little bit less stressful!

Christmas has long been over but I finally got around to snapping some pictures of my 11th hour crafting on Christmas Eve Eve (we open gifts on Christmas Eve after Church and a late late dinner. Some years you could say we open gifts early Christmas morning… say at 1am!)

So there I was trying to think of some stocking stuffers for Little Peanut when I remembered this:

We were at the Doctors office and had an antsy pants on our hands. Luckily there was a notepad and pen on the desk to keep her occupied. I remember thinking at the time, “It would be nice to have some kind of crayon roll for these moments.”

So I pulled out the sewing tools and fabrics, got to work and came up with my “On-the-go Artist” pack.

It holds 5 crayons and a small notepad (that you can find in the dollar section at Target).

It closes with a button and elastic loop.

I designed it so you can leave the notebook tucked in while coloring. There’s a 2 inch slot that you put the back flap into. It’s not quite a pocket but could easily be turned into one by sewing one side down. (Which I would do next time to tuck in some stickers!) Try as I may I couldn’t get Little Peanut to stand still long enough to snap a shot of it in action.

It fits great into my purse and is even useful for my own notes when I’m in a bind! (Shhh don’t tell the kiddo!)

It’s based off of this Crayon Roll tutorial from Prudent Baby.

Little Peanut has a lot of fun play cooking by pulling out all the tupperware and pantry items. Her favorite item to cook is soup for daddy. I always try to get her to wear her Little chef apron but she puts it on for a few seconds and then wants it off. She’s no stranger to watching mom (or grandma) cook but aprons have never been apart of our cooking attire so when I saw this tutorial from Prudent Mama I knew I had to make it so Little Peanut could see mama wearing her apron while cooking and do the same!

The tutorial is great and easy to follow. All you need is a fat quarter and some trim. I didn’t have any cute trim so I tried my hand at making a ribbon ruffle. For the ruffle I did a hand basting stitch about 1/4 down from the top, pinned it onto the apron and then machine sewed it on adjusting the ruffles as I went along.

I hit a few snags (more like user issues, but we won’t talk about that!) along the ruffle but it turned out great.

Here it is in action!

I never realized taking self photos using the camera timer would be so difficult. It took at least a few dozen tries before I got one that was in focus and had all of the apron in it!

These Melissa & Doug magnetic letters were an impulse buy and they’ve turned out to be one of the best. They came with a chalk/whiteboard but I stashed that and put them on the dishwasher for the Little Peanut to play with while I cook. I love them because they’re not the typical plastic letters that you see in most homes. Like all Melissa & Doug products they’re made from wood. They’re also super-sized at 2 inches tall.

If you have kids you know that they would never take the letters off and toss em across the house and become attached to one letter and carry it around with them and make you look for it when they’ve lost it. Nope! What kid does that?! Or maybe you’re like me and a little anal retentive then you would never obsess about finding a missing letter to the point of dumping out every toy bin to find it. Nope! Not me!

Ok so maybe me. We’ll call it the “Great search for the letter H.” It lasted for about 3 weeks and got to a point where the Little Peanut would walk by the dishwasher and yell out “H where?!” and come running over to me wanting to look for it. That’s when I decided I would make a replacement using old calendar magnets that I saved (never know when you’ll need a magnet!), corrugated cardboard box, and color card-stock paper.

Step 1: Make a letter template, cut it out.

Step 2: Trace your template onto the magnent, cardboard box and card stock paper.

Step 3: Cutout the letters

Step 4: Glue (I used Mod Podge) the cardboard box piece to the magnet. Let dry.

Step 5: Glue the cardstock to the cardboard box piece. Let dry.

Step 6 (optional): To add a little water protection to the front of the letter cutout contact paper and place on top.

Step 7: To avoid paper cuts make sure the card-stock isn’t too much larger then the cardboard box by trimming off an excess around the side of the letter. I used an x-acto.

Step 8: Stick on your fridge and enjoy! You can see my letters are the “H” and “I” in the photo at the top since they’re purple.

This would be tedious if you do a whole alphabet since you have 3 layers to cut but it would be fun for a name, shapes, or animals. The added layer of the cardboard box makes it more sturdy for little hands that like to crush and bend everything they can get their hands on.

Fabric flowers have been on my craft list for a long time. With the weather getting cooler I did my seasonal closet clean and came across some jersey knit shirts from my pregnancy days. I put them in and took them out of the donate box a few times before deciding to keep them for crafting.

In an “ah ha” moment I remembered an episode of Martha Stewart where she made fabric necklaces from tee shirts with Queen Latifah and a recent tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets on fabric rosettes. After debating on if a necklace would be a good idea (because if you know me you know I’m not a necklace kind of gal) I decided to go with a headband instead. I’m not much for headbands either but there’s a 99% more chance I would wear a headband over a necklace.

And here she is:

Since I didn’t have any fabric glue I used my new favorite crafting tool- the glue gun. It got a little messy at times and I almost burned my fingers but it turned out great (and with fingers intact!). I didn’t have any matching buttons but I did have a string of metallic pearls that I knotted up and glued to the middle for a little bling bling.

Here are a couple of other flower tutorials I’m hoping to try out soon:

DIY fabric rosettes by Susie Harris

Scrunched rosetta by Simply Modern Mom

Fabric flower from Tea Rose Home

Remember these storage boxes? We use one of them for the Little Peanuts train set and she always tries to carry the box around but the problem is there’s no handle cutout on the other side. The poor girl always ends up loosing grip and dropping all the pieces on the floor only to rinse and repeat!

I suppose the easy route would have been to cut out another handle on the back but well… I didn’t think of it until now. There can never be too many storage boxes for toys though so here’s the new and improved version – boxes with a ribbon handle on both sides.

This box was the perfect size so I didn’t have to do any cutting (my arms say thanks!) and just mod podged the paper on. Insane amounts of hot glue were used in attaching the ribbon so I think they’re pretty secure but I’ve already told the Little Peanut the box is for Lego’s only- no rocks! (BTW did you notice the little Lego people in the photo? She insisted they be there.)

Here’s a close up:

And here she is with her new box. Don’t mind the blurry photo. She’s like Flash from the Justice League sometimes!

Want to do your own? Here’s how:

1. Check out Ashley’s tutorial on how to make the box, except skip the part where you cut out the handle. I did steps 2-3 first before adding the decorative paper/fabric just in case I messed up the marking/cutting.

2. Measure and mark where the handles will be on both sides of the box. Mine are 3 inches and I wanted them centered but a little bit closer to the top.  You’re marking where to feed the ribbon through.

3. Using an x-acto cut slits in the marked places. Just a vertical line. Make sure the height is the same or smaller then your ribbon. My ribbon is 5/8 inches.

4. If you haven’t added the decorative paper do so now. While waiting for it to dry you can do the next few steps.

5. Measure your ribbon to be 2x the length plus 6 inches. Your ribbon is going to be folded in half to add extra durability. The extra inches are used for gluing the ribbon to the box. My handle is 3 inches length so the ribbon is 12 inches.

6. Cut out a piece of rectangular cardboard about 1.5 inch longer in length and 1 inch longer in width then the handle. You’re going to glue this piece to the inside of the box behind the handle so you want it large enough to cover and then some. My piece is about 5.5 by 2.5 inches.

7. Make sure the mod podge has dried before continuing on- I speak from experience as I was anxious to get the handle on the first time! Using the x-acto knife cut through your paper from the inside of the box through the slits you made in step 3.

8. Feed the ends of the ribbon through the slits. I used the tip of the x-acto to push the ribbon into the box. Make sure you leave enough slack so your fingers can hold the box. You should have about an inch on each side inside the box.

9. Get your glue gun and glue the ribbon down. Be generous!

Make sure to do both pieces and inside the loop. It should look like below after your done gluing.

10. Glue the rectangular piece on top of the ribbon. Again, be generous with the glue.

11. That’s it you’re done. Enjoy your box!

The box pictured doesn’t have nice paper on it but yours should!

Every time I go to the store (Target, Marshalls, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ikea etc) I look at the plethora of storage boxes. Canvas, leather, paper, wicker, plastic… the options are endless. The problem? None of them fit the spaces I want to put them in (10×10 and 10×14) or were the wrong color. Then a few months ago I discovered Make It and Love It and her tutorial on making storage boxes from recycled cardboard.

I immediately started saving diaper boxes so that I could make my own. It was slow going because I only got two pieces from each box (5 are needed for one box) but just last week we upgraded the Little Peanut from her portable crib to a full size. When I saw the box it came in- storage boxes started popping up in my head! I finally would have some more storage that I so desired (so I could cram even more crafting materials into the house!)

Ta da!

The first box (above) was slow going but turned out pretty nice. I used a box cutter and got some crooked edges. For the rest of the boxes I got a little smarter and used a small hand saw that we have. It worked so much better- the crooked edges were gone!

Instead of using fabric for the fronts I used scrapbook paper. The paper tore a little around the handle area so what better way to cover up the tears then with some bias tape? I did a mitered corner to give it a more finished look. It was just Mod Podged on so there are a few gaps where the tape meets up at the corners.

Next time I would sew the tape up into the square first before attaching it to the box and also use less Mod Podge because it made it pretty stiff. I would have liked a softer handle. The sides, inside and bottom were left raw. The second and third boxes I was able to get the paper around the handle without tearing so I skipped the bias tape.

Currently I’ve got three boxes but have plans for more once my arms are done being sore. The dilemma now has become where do I put them?! They look pretty nice lined up in the closet (second pic), but then I could use them in the bookshelf in the living room (first pic) for toys. One works well under the sink for storing toilet paper too (third pic).

Eventually I would love to make some with covers (and a tie ribbon) for our media stand to house our Wii accessories and games. The ribbon would be to keep the Little Peanut out of the box because she loves to dig through stuff!

You may remember a few weeks ago our Etsy favorite Wednesday: Baby sewing patterns featured the Liberty Lion pattern. I couldn’t resist the adorable patterns and the buy one get one sale from Bit of Whimsy Dolls and bought the Peter Puppy and Millie Monkey patterns.

With the Little Peanut at grandma’s house and no contract work to do I declared today “me” day and finally got to create my own little Peter Puppy. He was so much fun to make and took no time at all. It was nice to get back behind the sewing machine again.

I adore him and I think my daughter will too! She’s in a puppy phase and lets out a little squeal when she sees a dog on TV, in the park, in a car, photos of dogs…. pretty much anything! We live near a dog park and she always has a lot of fun when I take her for a walk there.

His face sides and tail are fluffy fabric that I think she’ll have fun with. I also added interfacing to the face so that it wouldn’t pucker where I used the zig-zag stitching. I stuffed him so he would be a little floppy and easy to hold on to. I’m pretty happy with the embroidery as well since I’m not very good at it!

While doing some spring cleaning I came across a box of candles and some craft supplies that included some glue on jewels. I remembered my sister’s wedding favors and how she slaved for hours gluing on beads and pearls in flower shapes to candles and thought it would be fun to try it out with the jewels I found.

It was fun trying out different designs. I used a silver sharpie on the dark pink candle, the light pink has flowers and the red candle is random sparkles.

It was two easy steps!

1. get yourself some candles and jewels (from the beads section of the craft store).

2. glue on the jewels either randomly on the candle or in a design.

It did take a lot longer then I anticipated because I couldn’t find any glue in the house. The glue stick failed miserably, the rubber cement I had was almost dried up, the super glue wouldn’t even come out of the bottle. In the end I was able to find some Elmers glue that worked perfectly.

Note: I have not lit the candles yet to see how well the jewels hold up to the heat and when it’s burned down.

One of my first Amigurumi's - mama and baby turtle

As a newbie knitter I had learned about craftser.org, a forum for crafters to share their FO (finished objects) and patterns. While browsing I fell in love with these little crochet animals called amigurumi.

I immediately wanted to learn how to crochet and went about searching for online tutorials. I quickly learned how to sc, increase and decrease. But the most useful tutorial I found was this one on making a magic ring.

A magic ring is used to start the circle and allows you to pull the tail tight so that you get a nice clean top without holes.

Some of my other favorite tutorials are at these sites:

- hooksandneedles.com

- lionbrand.com – learn to crochet

If you’re wondering what amigurumi look like there’s a ton of adorable ones in the Flickr amigurumi group!