Sports Ribbon Display-Option 2

Do you remember the free crib I got from Craigslist? Do you remember the 1st project from it? The Sports Ribbon Display I made for my daughter from the free crib? Well, today's project is the same but different. Using the same free crib I have made a sports ribbon display for my son.

My son, Jackson is our track star and has a ton of ribbons from his 2 years of middle school track. He did like his sister's ribbon display, just not for himself, "it's too girly." So, instead of using the side of the crib I used the bottom-springy part that holds the mattress. I can't find my before pictures so just imagine the above photo in black. It would have been fine to hang it without painting it but he wanted to use a school color, so it got several coats of royal blue spray paint. My advice to anyone wanting to paint one is to spray a couple coats, let dry, then move it. Turn it upside down or something to get the springs to wiggle just a little or you could end up with unpainted lines under where the springs attach to the frame.

My husband hung the whole unit on the wall using 4 "L" brackets. I think you could hang it with 2 brackets at the top and let the bottom rest on the wall if you wanted. I like how the whole thing stands out from the wall. My son is 15 and in high school, if he hurts himself on the screws or any part of it then I might have to take the display away from him. (kidding) Seriously, if you do make this for a younger child it would probably be a good idea to put caps on the screws and have a no climbing rule.

None of the ribbons he earned came with a string to hang them with so we punched small holes in them and added some string. While I added the string Jackson put all the ribbons on his display. It was his idea to line them up, I think I would have just randomly put them here and there. He's already asked me to paint some frames to put certificates in around the frame-that's my boy! 

Now 2 of my kids have reminders in their rooms that hard work pays off and that Mommy is very proud of them. 

Thanks for stopping by At Home with Sweet T!

-Tracy

Linking up to these fabulous parties:

Fall Hutch

We don't have a fireplace or mantle (boo!) so I decorated our hutch for Fall.

Can I just say how difficult it is to decorate with a toddler in the house! If he gets up on his tippy toes and reaches he can get his cute little hands on a lot of no-no's. 

I really wanted to just stuff the middle shelf with as many of those Sweater Pumpkins as I could but it was way to crowded. They are just so darn cute though. What do you think, too many?

The plate, tray, and candle stick from the top are from a long time ago when I was a consultant for Southern Living At Home (called something else now.)  I thought the colors on them were perfect for fall and they matched the sweater pumpkins so well. The 3 little ceramic pumpkins down front were a great find at the Dollar Tree!

 I made the "Fall" banner at my Craft Party from the tops of brown paper sacks and paper doilies. I'm happy with the final look for now. I have more project ideas in mind just not so much time to do it all.

Thanks for stopping by At Home with Sweet T.

-Tracy

Linking up to these fabulous parties:

Sweater Pumpkins/Gourds

Can you believe October is here? Whew, where has the year gone? I'm not really complaining because I love fall and Halloween so much that I'm excited to welcome October.
Several years ago, I worked as a teacher's assistant for Mrs. Brandt's functional skills classroom. I loved and hated that job every day. The teacher was extremely creative and we did lots of neat things with the students. One thing we did was to make pumpkins using fabric, "fluff", toilet paper, mulch, and hot glue. The pumpkins were so cute and I thought she was a genius, I have no idea if she came up with this idea on her own or found it somewhere. Well, as soon as fall weather hit I knew I needed to make some of those for our house. I thought some cheap sweaters from Goodwill would be perfect and would sort of update the craft. Then, wowza all these creative bloggers I follow and linked up with were posting sweater pumpkins. How cool is that to have an idea like someone else?!?! I hadn't even bought sweaters- those creative ladies are on it!

I finally bought some sweaters-all 1/2 price at Goodwill-in orange, yellow, and green and got to work. I started with a short sleeve, orange shirt that had whimsical stitching on it making a pumpkin from the front and a pumpkin from the back. I just used scissors to cut the shirt, seperating the front and back and discarding the sleeves. I placed a roll of toilet paper in the center of the panel then added fiber fill around the toilet paper. Using hot glue tuck the ends of the shirt into the center of the roll working all the way around. Instead of using mulch like Mrs. Brandt I cut short pieces off of branches. Then glue the stick in the middle. For a leaf I used the belt from a green jacket that I never wear. I ended up only doing the toilet paper roll process for those 2 pumpkins. When I started using the sweaters I started with the sleeves. Since it was a tubular (dude!) shape it was easier and they made cute lil pumpkins.

To make the sleeve pumpkins I cut each sleeve into 3 segments. Turn the segment inside out then hot glue into a +, then turn it right side out. Stuff. To glue the opening shut I added glue in 4 equally spaced spots and pinched closed but it still left an opening. Then glued these pinched flaps down all going in the same direction.This made it easier to add glue to the branch and insert it so that the glue pulled the glued spots inward. I know that's not completely clear but I couldn't figure out how to apply glue, pinch and hold the camera at the same time-I only have two hands. :)

The striped gourds are from a scarf that again I don't wear. I'm not a scarf person, sometimes I wish I was because I am jealous of how cute some ladies look in them-on me it's a huge FAIL! Anyway the scarf was knitted and tubular and had fall colors so I thought why not. They aren't my favorite gourds from the patch but I think they fit in with the others. 

Once I got started on making these lil cuties I couldn't stop. I still have an orange and green sweater that I haven't cut yet. Honestly, I'm thinking about saving the orange sweater to wear myself because it's an accent color for the kids' school colors (don't ask, lol)

Now that October is here that means it's time to get the Halloween decorations out too! Woohoo!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by At Home with Sweet T!

-Tracy

I will be linking up to these fabulous parties:

Goodwill Canvas

This is just a quick little Mod Podge project I did recently. Nothing fancy or difficult. I have been making very regular stops at our local Goodwills (3 are reasonably close to me). A recent trip turned up this cute 10 x 10 canvas for $2:

I'm sure it was very cute in a little girl's bedroom at one time. I didn't have a plan for the butterfly I just wanted it because it was canvas and $2. Our family room is really blah and I'm slowly adding pops of color here and there. We recently sold our (hubby's from his bachelor days) tan sectional, and replaced it with my green couch that had been-the clean laundry landing zone-in the master since we moved in. My husband is not a big fan of green but I want to make the couch fit in.
Inspiration  Motivation struck one day so I grabbed the butterfly, scrapbook papers, navy craft paint, and mod podge. It took several layers of the navy paint to hide that pink. I got scared after 3 layers because all I could see was purple :(

It might be hard to tell from that photo but the edges looked purple to me. Love my painting surface-local sale ad? Finally I was able to achieve a navy edge. I stopped worrying about covering the butterfly on layer 5 of the paint, I was just going to cover it anyway with the scrapbook paper. It just so happens that I had a stack of awesome scrapbook papers in 8 x 8 size, no trimming necessary-Yay! Bye-Bye butterfly...Hello gorgeous blue green paper meet my friend Mod Podge:

A couple of coats later and I had forgotten all about the butterfly. Do you recognize this finished project? I shared a sneak peek when I showed my yarn wrapped letters. The grey letters go nicely with the blues and greens, I think. I'm sure this piece will get moved around the room regularly because I really like the colors.

That's all I have today. I hope you have a great weekend! My first born turns 15 and my cousin is getting married so we have a busy weekend ahead. I am off to finish a wedding gift.

-Tracy

Knobby Jewelry Organizer

I may have mentioned this before but my husband is a carpenter, he owns his own business (insert shameless plug here: Carpentry Plus). Last year he remodeled a kitchen for a family. After some convincing, he (or his helper) retrieved a few items from the dumpster for me to re-purpose. I wish I could have seen this kitchen before the remodel. 

I can't decide if the kitchen was cute based on the color or an old DIY project gone bad. This is just a drawer front in a lovely blue-tealy color with cute little white ceramic (I think) knobs. I think the drawer and the front were separated in the dumpster tossing. Seeing the front alone with the cute knobs gave me the idea to turn this into a jewelry organizer for my necklaces. 

To begin I cleaned the whole piece up because it was gross dirty. Then I removed the knobs, see how gross dirty they were:

Yuck!!! I soaked these little guys in vinegar overnight before I could touch them again and clean them up. No worries though the gunk came right off. I decided 4 knobs wouldn't be enough so I stole knobs from the other rescued drawers. 

That's the drawer I stole from, I only added this pic because I thought it looked like the drawer is looking at you. 

Ok, so after all the cleaning then I borrowed hubby's sander again since it worked so well for me on the Photo Door. I think I am getting lucky with projects turning out so well after just some sanding. I really like that look though and it just made the tealy color so pretty. After I sanded it down, hubby let me borrow his drill (I NEED my own tools, don't ya think?). I added more holes for the extra knobs. Look at me go:

I like the look of the knobs that they show the screw heads. Of course I had to make sure the slot in every screw head was lined up perfectly. So here's the finished Knobby Jewelry Organizer

What do you think? I have more jewelry so I think I might use the other rescued drawers for more storage. hmmm.

Have a great week my Sweets

-Tracy

I will be linking up to these fabulous linky parties ;)