One Man's Trash is Another Girl's Dress

I am the 8th of 9 kids in my family. I remember one time growing up when I grew out of one of my pairs of shoes and finally convinced my mother that I would need new ones. She took me to her storage closet in the basement and pulled out a trash bag FILLED with shoes. Some were hand-me-downs, some were from garage sales, and some were brand spanking new (the strange-looking rejects on the clearance rack at department stores). Besides the fact that I didn't like a single pair of the shoes in that bag, none of them fit me. Nonetheless, those were my choices, so she suggested picking the pair that was closest to my size. Let's just say my old pair of shoes didn't seem so small after all.

This story has almost nothing to do with this blog post except to illustrate the fact that I come from frugal roots, and I find great satisfaction in re-purposing something that I have no need for anymore. I know there are lots of tutorials for how to make cool stuff with an old t-shirt, so I'm not including any instructions, but here are a couple of things the Mrs. has done to re-purpose old stuff:

This is from an old blue t-shirt of mine. I believe she even cut the collar and bird out of an old pale yellow t-shirt and hand-stitched the legs with some yarn she had on hand.

 

Baby formula canisters, scrapbook paper and Mod Podge:

I'm not quite sure, but these leggings my daughter is wearing either came from some old women's leggings (referring to the leggings as old, not the women) or tube socks:

I don't know if this constitutes "re-purposing" something old into something new, but my wife made this headband (and a matching one for herself) out of a few scraps of lace she had from another project.

 There are actually quite a few other things I can think of that my wife has done to re-purpose used items, but I could find any pictures of them...and nobody wants to read a blog without pictures. :)

Antique Dresser Refinish

I admit that I helped on this project, but it was all my wife's idea. She wanted badly to paint an old, unique dresser white and use it as the media stand for our TV in our living room. After a few weeks of perusing Craigslist for such a piece, we came across a beautiful 9-drawer dresser in perfect condition.

Then it sat in our garage for at least a month while we convinced ourselves to strip the stain off the dresser. The wood was immaculate, so if you're a wood furniture purist, you should probably stop here. This is the original dresser:

My job was to strip the wood of the stain. I used Klean-Strip brand aerosol spray stripper from Home Depot. It required only one application to sit for 15 minutes before I could use a plastic putty knife to scrape the stain right off. It still took a long time because of the drawers, but also because I had to do the main body in sections so the stripper wouldn't set too long and dry.

After all of the stain was stripped, we did two coats of nearly-white latex paint. My wife wanted a more modern look to the dresser, so she replaced the old-fashioned hardware to give it a new look.

If you compare the before and after pictures, you'll notice that the center drawers in the before picture have hardware that requires two holes, while the after picture shows hardware for a single hole. We couldn't find two-hole hardware that would fit the center drawers (probably because of the age of the dresser), but my wife found some black and white single-hole hardware that she really liked. So, we filled the holes on the center drawers with wood filler and drilled a single hole for the new hardware before we painted.

 Here's the finished product in our living room.

A word of warning: We have friends that did a similar project, and they topped off their last coat of paint with some clear-coat paint. When they woke up in the morning, they found their white dresser had turned yellow because of the clear-coat paint. So, we haven't done our clear-coat layer yet because we want to wait and make sure we get something that won't make all our hard work go for naught.

This was what I like to refer to as a "burn-out project." It's large and time consuming enough to deter us from any more projects for at least two months. :)

Typewriter

I just read an article the other day about how typewriters are a popular household item nowadays. Interestingly enough, we sport a typewriter in our living room right now.

This was a fun little project my wife did in an hour or two. We were perusing a thrift store last year, and we spotted a typewriter for $6. It was dirty and gray, but overall it was in pretty good shape.

The same day we bought it, she used tape and newspaper to cover the letters, logo, and mechanical parts of the typewriter.

 And then she spray-painted it turquoise with paint she already had.

Now it sits in our living room, and visitors (especially kids) love to stop by and punch the keys. We think it might even work if we replace the ink ribbon. We're considering putting it in the entryway to our house so guests can type us a message when they come and go.

Not a bad accent piece for $6. :)

Mother-Daughter Calendars

The other day, my wife told me about a routine conversation that she has with our 3 year-old daughter almost every single morning right after she wakes up:

"Mom, what are we going to do today?"
"I don't know. We need to go downstairs and eat breakfast."
"What are we going to do after breakfast?"
"Maybe we can do a puzzle."
"What are we going to do after a puzzle?"
"Well, we're probably going to go to the library today."
"What are we going to do after the library today?"

...and so on; I think you get the idea. You might have even had this conversation before. Since this was happening day after day, and at times throughout the day, my wife decided to make life easier on herself by making a "calendar" for my daughter. She put it right underneath her own whiteboard calendar on the wall.

It's an old frame with Christmas wrapping paper behind the glass. Then she just printed off the days of the week on some card stock and created a stack of hand-drawn pictures of the potential activities they might do in a day. 

My daughter loves to check her own little calendar every day, and it saves my wife some breath, too. :)

Special Events: Baby Shower

It seems like more and more of my wife's ideas are inspired by something she has seen on Pinterest. However, this sweet little set up originates from a variety of unknown sources dating as far back as 2009, or 1 B.P. (One year before Pinterest was launched in 2010).

The following pictures were taken just before the baby shower my wife threw for a friend. Most of her materials are re-purposed items that she didn't even pay for, including these baby jars that she just cleaned out and spray-painted the lids:

 
Then she filled some of her own jars with ingredients to make facial scrubs for the women coming to the shower to make their own and take with them.

If you want to know what recipe she used for the scrub, you're on your own. I'm sure you can Google it and find lots of them. On the other table across the room, she placed some of her own nail polish and manicure tools (forgive me if they're not called manicure tools, but let's be honest, that's what they are), along with a sign that said, "Give yourself (or a friend) a manicure."

I'd like to stop right here for a moment and make something clear. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling less and less masculine. In case my brothers ever stumble upon this blog, I think it's important to note that I have very little no interest in facial scrubs and manicures; I was just genuinely impressed when I walked into the room and saw all of these interesting ways to spruce up a baby shower.

Moving on...


Before the shower, she purchased a bunch of small bottles of (probably cheap) nail polish and some Dove chocolates. She wrapped them by putting them into fold-top sandwich baggies and tying them with thin rope. I've watched her as she's done this before, and before she puts things into the baggies, she will take a pair of scissors and cut both sides of the part of the bag that is folded over. That way, the previously folded side straightens up to the height of the other side and it simply becomes a uniform little baggie.

Finally, the most important table -- the treats! I'm fuzzy on the details, but I do remember that she used two different recipes to make the cupcakes and then placed them on her homemade cake stands. (The low-down on the cake stands...she went to a thrift store, picked three unique drinking glasses that she liked that were different heights, as well as three uniform plates. Then she glued the plates to the tops of the glasses and spray-painted them a creamy white).

The other treats are rice crispy treats in two different forms. She cut half of them into small squares and the other half she made into balls to put on lollipop sticks. Then she drizzled pink chocolate over all of them. On their way out, the women could pick up one of the brown paper sacks to take some goodies home, including the facial scrub and nail polish.

I believe the theme of the shower was what she stamped on the sacks, "Pamper Yourself" (I think she already had the stamp and ink pad). My wife's friend for whom she was throwing the shower had mentioned that she had already received a lot of clothes and toys from family, and she also didn't really need any of the typical large baby-related purchases. So, my wife encouraged all of the guests to bring gifts for the Mom-to-be that would allow her to pamper herself before or after the baby was born.

I've never really considered asking my wife to host a Super Bowl party, but after this I'm curious to see what she would come up with for men. :)

Let Me Explain

Creative ideas flow through my wife's mind constantly. Most of her ideas are creative enhancements to something she saw online or in a magazine. Because it comes so naturally to her, she hardly recognizes that she has a gift for producing practical things in a beautiful way.

On numerous occasions, my wife has considered starting a blog, both to share her ideas and to keep a record of the fun things she has been able to create for herself or our children. There's one minor deterrent preventing her from following through with it...she doesn't like blogging.

Ultimately, I would like to share this blog with my wife and remind her just how talented she is. In the meantime, however, my intent is to make this more enjoyable for myself by doing it without her knowledge for as long as possible. :)