A Valentine Wreath

Paper is an amazing tool! It comes in so many forms, colors, thicknesses, and you can cut it any way you like it. Here's a great way to create a little love in your home for Valentine's day.

This simple paper wreath was created over at "the hybrid chick". I think my door is calling for a little facelift this month.

For more Valentine crafts for kids, visit the top 15 ideas posted by Parenting.com

[Appliances] Dishwasher Tune Up

Here's some great info I found over at "The Quick & the Hungry" blog by Cindy. If your dishwasher is in need of a little TLC, then this just might help you out.

Here's what Cindy had to say:

"Over the past 6 months my dishwasher has steadily stopped washing my dishes well. It started with the glass cups, leaving food on the inside, then got worse and worse until two weeks ago when nothing was coming out clean and was actually dirtier than when it when in. Then to top it off, it started leaking like crazy! Arg! This happened in our old home and we ended up selling our home with a brand new dishwasher.

Well, we just financed a fence for our new home and I did NOT want to tack on another $450 to our Home Depot credit card. So, what's a gal to do? Clean baby clean."


To see the steps needed to do this in about 15min, be sure to visit The Quick & The Hungry blog to get all the details!

[Build] - Space Saver!

I am one who constantly looks at the space I live in to figure out how it can be better, especially more practical. We live in a 1100 sq ft. home with 3 kids and 3 bedrooms, so we usually have to get creative with our space.

About 2 weeks before Christmas, I got the crazy idea to attempt to build a "murphy bed" for my son's room. His room is so tiny (only 7' wide to be exact) with double doors that open up into our family room - the one and only living area, so his room is always open for viewing. Plus, we get most of our natural light from his window, so I usually want to keep the doors open. His twin bed literally took up more than half his room.

[Solution]: Build a wall bed.

It just so happened that a while back my dad acquired a wall bed mechanism kit from "Create A Bed" (the hardware is supplied, but you have to build the bed out of wood from the plans provided). He found it on Craigslist

for super cheap (normally retails for $300) but never ended up using it. When he generously gifted the kit to me, I couldn't wait to build it - though I admit I was a bit intimidated at first.

From start to finish, this bed took me about 1 week. A few days for

cutting, a couple more to build, a couple more to paint, and then a

couple hours to assemble in the room. During the same week, we painted my son's room too.

Good thing I had done my Christmas shopping early or this would have been the only thing out on Christmas morning!

[Build]: Cubbie Wall Shelf

This is my first build since inspired by Ana White - but it's a custom one. For some reason I didn't even use existing plans from her site. But I suppose this made it even more personal. It's kind of a random piece, but it ended up having a good spot and purpose.

This project allowed me to experiment a little with a great tool (suggested by Ana), called the Kreg Jig. It's a very simple and quick way of joining wood. It works best if you're building a piece where you can hide those joint holes. (this project wasn't the best for that, but it can all be hidden with wood putty)

[kitchen]: Tool of Choice

What is your favorite kitchen tool?

A favorite of mine gets used EVERY day. It is probably the smallest kitchen tool I own, but it gets a lot of love...or a lot of dirt, depending on how you look at it.

 
Given family name: "brown scraper thingy"

Official name: "Pampered Chef Nylon Pan Scraper"

Uses:
- scraping hard to clean pots, pans, dishes
- scraping dried, crusted, sticky food off my floor and table

This tool makes cleaning much quicker. I recommend it to anyone with a kitchen!
Plus, it won't break the bank!

But if you don't want to spend your pennies on one of these, try giving an old credit card a second life. Credit cards are great for scraping ice off your car windshield too.