DIY Archives - Page 8 of 9 - My Suburban Kitchen

Not Just a Plate

January 17, 2012 By Shannah 24 Comments

Our sink is most often a complete mess. Between the regular sponge, the bottle washer, magic soap, regular soap, lotion and dish soap, it is a wonder you can see my countertop over there! I wanted a way to group most of those items together without them just ending up in a pile on the counter. I was clicking around Pinterest and saw someone using a cake plate for this purpose and the light bulb came on!

[Natalme]

Genius idea right? So, I got to work hunting down supplies to make this happen. Candlestick – check! Plate – check! Glue – check! My plate was white so I picked up some colorful spray paint from Home Depot and gave it a good spray. I also used some copper acrylic paint I had hanging around the house to make a very rough looking (on purpose!) border around the edges.

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Basement Planning

January 9, 2012 By Shannah 3 Comments

Remember Mathlete and his planning bug? Well, we are moving right along with those plans! Over the holiday break, Mathlete went over and picked up our building permit.

Yep, sorry neighbors…we are those people with the bright orange poster in the window.
While he has dreams of lumber and electrical wiring, I have my little mind churning on what will go in the rooms once they are all built. Want to see a few?

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Basement Reno – Blocking Cold and Sound

January 7, 2012 By Shannah 1 Comment

Plans for the basement renovation (i.e. turning it from an unfinished storage area to a finished space) are well under way. After we had the floor plan all mapped out, we started talking about other details of finishing the space. One of the big questions: how much insulation do we need?

[Must Know How]

Of course, since our space is mostly underground, we need to add some kind of insulation to serve as a protector such as a thermal block. We planned to have insulation installed in the walls but weren’t completely decided on whether we would need to add it to the ceiling area as well.

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Presents for You and Me

December 13, 2011 By Shannah 9 Comments

So, I’ve been on a decorating kick recently…have you noticed? Last year, we moved into a much larger house but our decoration collection hasn’t quite grown as much as our available decorating space! So, I have been slowly adding to my collection and putting more homemade items out than before.
One of my recent projects were a set of Styrofoam trees that I used everyday items to transform into decorations.

For the larger block, I picked up some peppermint candies from the dollar store and used those to cover the Styrofoam. I purposefully selected the green blocks for this project because I knew some of it might show through.

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The Turkey Bird

November 22, 2011 By Shannah 5 Comments

This is the first year that I will be hosting Thanksgiving at our house. In honor of that, I decided to make a turkey to “host” our meal. I started with some embroidery hoops

I quickly painted both hoops with some brown acrylic paint.

Once those were dry, I grabbed some of my leftover burlap (from this project) and put into the hoops.

I trimmed the excess burlap from around the hoop. Then, I was ready to add feet! I simply cut two little feet out of felt and hot glued them to the bottom of the hoop. Mathlete claim they look more like people feet than turkey feet but I don’t have a close enough relationship with a turkey to really know. So, I left them like they were. Since the edge of the hoop is pretty small, I wrapped a little portion of the feet around the back of the hoop and glued it there too.

I had picked up some feathers and decided, instead of using felt to make turkey feathers, I would use the “real” ones. I simply positioned them how I wanted and then hot glued them to the hoop.

While the feathers dried, I placed the eyes and beak on my smaller hoop and glued them on. Then, I attached the two hoops together. I’m sure you can guess but I used hot glue for that too!

H was sleeping when I finished this guy up so I can’t wait until she discovers him this afternoon!

Have you made any fun Thanksgiving crafts recently? Are you all ready for the upcoming holiday?

This post may be partying at the following locations:

Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T., I Made the World Cuter Today at Making the World Cuter, Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple, Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, Market Yourself Monday at Sumos Sweet Stuff, the Craft Catwalk and Embellishing Life, Get Your Craft on Tuesday at Today’s Creative Blog, Tutorial Tuesday at With Hope Studios, Take a Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee Crafts, Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie, Who’s got Glam at Giggles, Glitz and Glam, Tiptoe Thru Tuesday at Crayon Freckles, Show & Share at Southern Lovely, Hoo’s Got Talent at Nightowl Crafting, Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts, Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs, Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home, We’re Organized Wednesday at Organize and Decorate Everything, Wow Us Wednesday on Ginger Snap Crafts, Inspired by You Wednesdays at Eisy Morgan, Whatcha Workin’ With Wednesday at Its Toile Good, Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims, Wow Me Wednesdays at Polka Dots on Parade, 100 Ideas Under $100 at Beyond the Picket Fence, Coffee and Conversation Thursday at With a Shot of Brandy, Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple, Hooking up with HoH at House of Hepworths, Look at Me, I’m so Crafty at It’s Fun to Craft, Craft, Scrappy Happy Me Thursday at Craft, Scappy Happy, Catch a Glimpse Thursday at A Glimpse Inside, Get Your Brag On at Gluesticks, Show Off Your Stuff at Fireflies and Jellybeans, Share Awesomeness Thursdays at The 36^th Avenue, Thrifty Thursday at Thrifty Decorating, Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge, Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous, Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, The Pity Party at 30 Days, Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage, Show and Share Day at Just a Girl, Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home, Free For All Friday at Young & Crafty, the Weekend Wrap-up Party at Tatertots and Jello, Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground, Show and Tell Saturday at Be Different, Act Normal, and the Before and After Party at Thrifty Décor Chick.

Going Down Under

November 21, 2011 By Shannah 1 Comment

Sadly, we aren’t talking about an upcoming trip to Australia today. We are talking about Mathlete and his planning bug. What is he planning you ask? His current focus (his only focus?) right now has been on planning our future basement renovation. Right now, our basement is home to a bunch of our junk, my crafting area (no, Mathlete, those are not redundant items) and maybe some random bugs. Hopefully, by this time next year, that will be a thing of the past.

I have been complaining to sharing with my mom the ongoing planning of this basement project. It isn’t that I am not excited about having a finished basement because I definitely am. Right now, it is in the stage where I can’t picture it and it is mostly talk about electrical, plumbing and drywall. You didn’t fall asleep there, did you?

Enter Floor Planner which allows you to create 2D and 3D floorplans to help people like me get excited about what is to come in a given space. Obviously, I left all the fun design stuff to Mathlete and just waited for the finished plan to land in my inbox {I did hold the tape measure for the measuring portion of this project}. Want to take a look at our current {stage 1} draft plan?
First, in 2D

Now, in super fabulous 3D

As you can see, the plan for the basement to have storage, a theater area, a wet bar, bedroom and bathroom. Where will my craft stuff be relocated to? It is a little difficult to tell but the bedroom we’ve designed is HUGE. So, my craft stuff will reside in there.
Once I got a picture of how it will look in my mind, I started planning different elements. My first focus was the bar area. I’ll share my plans with you for that space in an upcoming post!

Have you ever done a basement remodel? Any tips to share?

Floor Planner has no idea who I am and I was in no way compensated to talk about their website. We just found them the easiest to use for this part of our basement planning.

Everybody Puts Baby in the Corner

November 7, 2011 By Shannah 8 Comments

We recently inherited a lot of furniture from some of Mathlete’s relatives. One of the neatest items is a corner chair. Yes, a chair specifically made for the corner. Cool, huh?

It obviously needed some work to fit into our house a little better so I kept my eye on it for a makeover. Right now, she’s a lot like Jennifer Gray when she is shy and awkward Baby.

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Pinning a Challenge

November 2, 2011 By Shannah 19 Comments

I mentioned here that I was going to jump into the ring for this edition of

[Bower Power]

My final product ended up being a bunch of different Pinterest items all put together but I am really happy with them!

[Johnny in a Dress]

[Good Housekeeping]

[My Blessed Life]

I’ve been jonesing for some new glass hurricane vases but I really didn’t want to pay the new glass hurricane price tag! Thanks to Pinterest, I had seen people make news one out of dollar store materials. In my dollar store though, the supplies would have made vases a lot smaller than I was looking for.
While hunting for Krylon paint for the One Month to Win It – Round 1 challenge, I stumbled across some larger supplies at Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart had reasonably priced hurricane vases for $15 each but, if I could make it with the separate pieces I found, they would be less than $7 each. 2 for the price of 1…cha ching!
I dug through my adhesive collection and found some china and glass cement.

I chose this because it was dishwasher safe. I find it easiest to get glitter and stuff out of vases by just shoving them in the dishwasher so that was a big bonus.
First, I had to clean all of the glassware. Some of it still had price tag stickers so I used goo gone to remove those first. Then, I wiped everything down with alcohol.

I put a thin layer of the cement around the edge of the candle holder. It comes out white but dries clear so don’t be worried if you use it and it shows up white at first.

I placed the candle holder on top (the other piece was upside down) and pressed. I held it for about 45 seconds. Then, since the full drying time is 3-6 hours, I used a book to put pressure on it while it dried. {Thanks again to Mathlete for the awesome Anniversary gift…it is already proving to be extremely useful in and OUT of the kitchen!}

While my hurricane vases dried, I broke out some dollar store pine cones and my spray paint can.

I sprayed on some red and gold spray paint and left them to dry while I searched for some other vase filler.

I just randomly put things into the different vases until I was happy with how they looked. I had an extra vase that I threw into the mix for fun too.

Now, these babies are ready for Christmas which is fast approaching!

**Sorry for the terrible photos here. I am a night time crafter this week due to an super crowded weekend!**

This post is partying at the following locations:

Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T., I Made the World Cuter Today at Making the World Cuter, Motivate Me Monday at Keeping it Simple, Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, Get Your Craft on Tuesday at Today’s Creative Blog, Tutorial Tuesday at With Hope Studios, Nifty Thrifty Tuesdays at Coastal Charm, Anything Related at All Thingz Related, Take a Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee Crafts, Tip Me Tuesday at Tip Junkie, Hoo’s Got Talent at Nightowl Crafting, Show & Share at Southern Lovely, Wow Me Wednesday on Ginger Snap Crafts, Whatever Goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts, Show and Tell at Blue Cricket Designs, Penny Pinching Party at The Thrifty Home, Fall in Love with Your Home at Décor to Adore, We’re Organized Wednesday at Organize and Decorate Everything, 100 Ideas Under $100 at Beyond the Picket Fence, Coffee and Conversation Thursday at With a Shot of Brandy, Strut Your Stuff at Somewhat Simple, Hooking up with HoH at House of Hepworths, Doggone Dirty Craftin at Rhinestone Beagle, Look at Me, I’m so Crafty at It’s Fun to Craft, Craft, Scrappy Happy Me Thursday at Craft, Scappy Happy, Feature Yourself Friday at Fingerprints on the Fridge, Frugalicious Friday at Finding Fabulous, Flaunt it Friday at Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, The Pity Party at 30 Days, the Weekend Wrap-up Party at Tatertots and Jello, Show and Tell Saturday at Be Different, Act Normal, and the Before and After Party at Thrifty Décor Chick.

You can also find this post linked up the Pinterest Challenge at Bower Power, Young House Love and House of Earnest

It’s Your Time…to VOTE!

November 1, 2011 By Shannah 1 Comment

Well, my dear readers, it is the moment you have all been waiting for! Today is the first day of the One Month to Win It competition that I am participating in! Week one is sponsored by

All the contestants were required to use Krylon products in their submission. Winners from the competition are chosen by reader and judge voting. So,

to go vote! I can’t tell you anything about my project but hopefully you can a) figure it out on your own or b) just think my project is the bees knees and vote for it anyways.

Where do you vote? Click here!

Pin, Pin, Pin

October 28, 2011 By Shannah 3 Comments

Ok, so by now I am sure you have heard about the 2nd Pinterest Challenge. Right? If not, go visit Bower Power to learn all about it.
I’m beyond excited about this 2nd challenge. I had so much fun doing my first project that I can’t wait to get started on a new one. My ‘Pin It’ link has been working hard ever since I read about the new challenge.

Want to see some of the thoughts swirling around in my head/on my board?