There is little as special as a peaceful bath with soap you have made yourself. Try different scents, and let the kids experiment with their own colours and smells. Handmade soap is spectacular hostess treat for the holidays, or perfect for holiday gifts. Once you are comfortable with the basics, you can try different recipes, or interesting moulds to create amazing one-of-a-kind soaps.
“What do you think about yellow for the walls?”
“I like green.”
“But yellow is invigorating.”
“So is green.”
“Yellow would make the room seem bigger.”
“Maybe we can find a yellowish green.”
“Maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself.”
Well. Home repairs and renovations can be stressful. Twelve percent of people in one survey actually said they’d considered separation or divorce during a remodeling project. Fixing up your home doesn’t have to be that scary, though. You might even find it brings you and your spouse closer. “You and me against the house…” Here’s how to do it right.
Adding color to your living room is a great way to revamp your home and give a fresh look to your living space. The only question is how to do it without breaking the bank. It’s actually pretty simple to brighten up the room, and the best news is you can do it on a budget!
These are a few tips to help you bring color into your living room and keep your bank account happy.
If you want your children to be skilled and creative problem solvers, consider preparing outdoor play spaces for imaginative play! Fantasy play and imaginative role playing, in spaces like fairy gardens, are well established pre-cursers to divergent and original problem solving later in life; skills that are well recognized in highly effective students! Fairy Gardens are a great way to encourage imaginative play and they are perfect for taking advantage of the magical thinking young children bring to their everyday play.
The arrival of spring means that a lot of beautiful things are about to bloom. It also means that some not-so-beautiful things are about to arrive as well… I’m talking about every lawn’s enemy: weeds. We have have a cringe-worthy abundance of these, but I’ve figured out how to make the best of the situation and how you can to. What I’m suggesting is a weed bouquet. Sound hideous? Maybe! But as far as decorative experiments go, this is quite cost-effective. In fact…completely free.
Wow! Do kids ever grow up fast! Track how they grow in style with this simple and easy DIY barn board growth chart.
Growth Chart Skill Level:
FUN & EASY!
Time:
1 Hour
Materials:
- Barn Board (found at an antique dealer outside of town)
- Stencil (purchased from the dollar store. You can also get them from craft stores such as Michaels)
- White Paint (also from the dollar store)
- Saw
- Paint brush
- Pencil
Growth Chart Instructions:
- Using a saw cut the barnboard to desired length. I chose 6 1/2 feet
- Prep the wood for painting. Depending on how it was stored you may need to dust it off before bringing it in to the house. Mine was outside in the elements so I also gave it a few days in the sunshine to dry out.
- Using the stencil, sketch out at least 1.5 full feet to scale of your growth chart to determine how you intend to draw out the measurements. I chose to use a longer thicker line to mark feet, a slightly shorter thicker line to mark each 1/2 foot and finally a think short line to mark each inch. It is up to you how you style it!
- Using a pencil lightly mark your measurements on the wood. My barnboard was quite soft so once I made a mark I was not able to erase. Instead I used knives, for no other reason except that it was handy, to mark out each foot. Make sure you consider how high the growth chart will be hanging. You will likely have a gap between the floor and the chart so make sure you start at the right height. I started 6 inches off the floor.
- Paint the ruler lines using the white paint. I made my own stencil on cardboard for this.
- Next using the stencils, paint on the numbers.
- Do as many coats as you think is necessary. This will depend on how much paint you put on for each coat and how opaque you want the numbering to be. I did 2 coats but I was quite liberal with the paint.
- That’s it! You’re done! Now hang!
Tips and Tricks:
- The hardest part of this whole project was finding the barn board. I ended up locating some through VarageSale. She even cut it for me to the dimension I wanted.
- Instead of barnboard you can purchase a plank from Home Depot . They will cut to length for you as well. To give it a bit of character you will need to distress it. Young House Love has a great post about “How to Make New Wood Look Old“.
- For selecting the best piece of barnboard I wanted something with a little character. I looked for knots and cracks and seams. But be careful. Too much character can make it difficult or impossible to paint your measurements and numbers. It also prevents you from tracking your children’s measurements too.
- Depending on how soft your wood is might determine where you hang your growth chart. Since mine was quite soft and easily marked I hung it a little out of the way.
- When tracking your children’s heights use a thick permanent marker. I tried a paint marker first and it didn’t paint onto the barn board at all.
I know I’m not the only mom who dreams of long soaks in a beautiful spa shower or of spending a quiet evening reading a great book in a whirlpool bath. Of course, when you have young children like I do, the reality is bathroom time is (at best) fast and functional. All the more reason to create a space that is inviting, and maybe even inspiring. Whether you’re in desperate need of more storage, hope to streamline your space, or you’ve simply grown tired of the decor you currently have, you can completely transform your bathroom next weekend.
These homemade Valentine heart dog treat bags are the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for the dog in your life. This potato stamp project is an easy and fun kid’s craft.
If you’ve ever asked a young child to, “wait a minute,” they’ll be inquisitive before that minute is up – heck, it might even happen before you’ve finished speaking! The concepts of time and patience are abstract, and difficult to grasp for concrete thinkers. That’s why I used the Crayola Melt ‘N Mold Factory to help teach time and patience to my almost 8 year old son with Autism.
Now that winter is in full swing, it’s hard to imagine spring bursting from the cold, barren ground in a few months. But until then, why not create a terrarium to bring a little life and greenery inside? A homemade terrarium is an easy and inexpensive project you can do by yourself or with your kids in an afternoon. The bowl of year-around greenery, will instantly brighten a room and make the browns and whites outside seem a little less daunting.