Creativity, Inspiration, & Projects

Warning: There are no pictures of the kiddos in this post.  It's about me. I promise pictures of the kids in the next 24 hours :)

My neighbor and "everyday bestie," Ashley, is uber creative.  And not only is she creative, she's motivating. What do I mean by that? I mean, she produces her creativity.  She gets the projects she has in her head done.  And she does a lot of them.  In the two and a half years since she moved in three doors down, she has completely redone her kitchen, twice, her dining room three times, and updated just about every space inside and outside her house.  Oh, and she sews, crochets, and knits. And does that wood crafty thing.  Why am I telling you all of this? Because I'm jealous? Maybe, kinda, just a little. But mostly, it's because I find her incredibly inspiring and motivating.  If she can refinish every piece in her house, surely I can manage a few.  I have found that I have great intentions and ideas (thanks to countless blogs and interest!) but not so much action and carry out.  Until lately.  Check out my creativity lately! :)

Copied this idea from a blog but tweaked it just a bit.  The bunting is falling off a bit in the picture but I love how I can trade it out for the different holidays and seasons.  It's had spring flowers, happy birthday, and this patriotic bunting so far.

This used to be an old army trunk that I found in my mom's garage when I was helping her move out.

I painted it and added the decals.  Oh, the paint was found in her garage too and I bought the decals from Ashley's garage sale for $.50 so this project was super cheap! It now resides in our front room as a toy box.

This is the original color.  I liked it but was worried about lead paint as it's from 1943! I couldn't paint over it all though.  Instead, I sealed this part with a clear coat.

Already posted about the train table but I thought I'd add a finished, played on pic!

We gave the sandbox a little love this year - replaced the sand with beachy sand, added more mulch, some stepping stones, and made some covers to keep out the kittys.

This is probably one of my biggest projects of late.  I bought this old dresser on KSL for $25! I was so excited to find it - it was exactly what I wanted and the price was the best I had seen.  Believe me, I had been looking for one for 3 months! 

So I took out the top middle drawer and added a shelf for our DVD and Wii, sanded, painted, and glazed the main parts and the drawer fronts, and spray painted the hardware.  Now we have a place for our TV to sit up a bit higher than before and a place for our movies that keeps them hidden and away from little hands.  I still don't get things done as quickly as Ashley but I have the motivation to get them done at all now!  This baby sat in the garage for 2 months before I started working on it but I decided that it would be my birthday present to myself, so I got it done by June 5th! (Which happens to be Ashley's birthday!) On my birthday, Spencer had school (we went in and visited) and class.  So, I went out to dinner and a movie with some friends - Ashley, Jennifer, and Kistina.  When I got home, Spencer and Jeff had moved this baby inside.  I love it so much!!

My attempts at gardening have been week at best in this house.  The first summer, I weakly attempted raspberries, which never took off.  The second summer, We grew a tiny garden.  The only things that grew were tomatoes and lettuce and the lettuce was yucky.  This year, I decided maybe a different location would be better so I dug out some "grass" (ok, weeds, with a bit of grass mixed in) and made this garden area along the side of the house where it gets way more sun.  I planted carrots (from seed), nasturtium, two types of hot peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas (from seed), and zucchini (from seed). So far, the carrots and nasturtium have either not grown at all or died.  And look at all that growth! I picked the first tomato this week and the little peppers growing are so cute.  I'm looking forward to making salsa and such from this garden.

I also made a little planter box in the front yard and planted some pumpkins from seed.  They looked beautiful and were growing so good.  Then, in the space of 4ish days, they were completely destroyed. I was so sad! Then I noticed my zucchini was half gone and the cucumbers were starting to look a bit sad.  I figured out that it was earwigs. Curse those stupid little buggers! I found a tip online that if you bury a small container to its lip and add vegetable oil, the earwigs will crawl in, get too slippery to climb out, and die.  so I added two traps by my zucchini and it worked wonderfully! Look at those beautiful leaves! This was a week ago and it's almost twice the size already! And the earwig carnage? You can't see it in the picture but it was wonderful as well! Bwahahahaha!

And, finally for now, this little beauty.  Found this in my mom's garage too when we were moving.  My friend Kistina saw it and said, "that'd be an awesome planter box." Yay for amazing, creative friends!  So I rescued this old fashioned wood tool box, spray painted it bright blue, and planted my first ever herb garden.  I've gotten mixed results but have concluded that when it comes to me and herbs, I need to buy the shoots.  I didn't take good enough care of it to have the seeds work out.  There is sage, rosemary, lavender, and basil in there.  Next year I'll add cilantro maybe?

Thanks for letting me indulge a bit.  I need these type of activities and projects to help me feel productive.  It can be hard sometimes when most of what I do during the day gets undone so soon - dishes, laundry, meals, etc... (funny quote: cleaning a house with kids in it is like brushing your teeth while eating oreos! So true!)

And it's so satisfying to see something I made or improved for so cheap beautifying my home. :)