REINVENTORS SHOWCASE

Happy Monday morning everyone. We've had quite the rough week here, adjusting to life with a one-legged seven year old. Thanks so much for all of your well wishes, my son has enjoyed reading the comments, and has been amazed at how many people are "worried about me!"

Today is the first day of school. Not EXACTLY the first day of school that I had imagined, but I'm feeling thankful and knowing that his injury could have been much worse.

Unfortunately, most of my projects have been set "on the back burner", so to say, so, for the next week or so I'll be content to imagine what wonderful home decor projects I'll complete when I have the time!

I have some ideas brewing...so I hope you'll join me for "BROKEN LEG WEEK" at REINVENTED!

Yeah, that's the best I can come up with, people.

I DO have some great ideas thought up by other people to show you today, so let's get going!

We'll start with this fabulous idea "lightening up" old frames, mirrors and iron work from

Tidy Mom. If you're interested in lightening up, but don't want to paint everything stark white, try this technique.

Next up are these simply AMAZING cement candleholders from Censational Girl. Click on the link for directions, and dream of all of the amazing ways to add the flicker of candlelight to your decor, both outside and in!

Enjoy your Monday and meet me back here tomorrow for Trash to Treasure Tuesday!

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Sometimes life is full of irony. And God moments. Do you have those?

I think that would be what this is called. Let me explain...

Last week I learned a lesson.

Never ever ever put your wooden cutting board in the dishwasher. Even if it's really nasty.

On a totally unrelated note, I've been trying to memorize some of my favorite Bible verses, commiting to memory the words of God that I find most comforting or inspiring in times of need. EVERY DAY NEED.

I printed out a verse that I can especially relate to and have a HARD time remembering, and, after painting the broken cutting board strip, I mod podged it on. I snapped this picture last night, and was going to display this verse on my kitchen window sill above the sink.

It never made if off the kitchen counter you see it on here.

Because THIS happened about 30 minutes after I snapped the AFTER shot of my Trash to Treasure project.

Yeah. I'm thinkin' I should have that verse tattooed on my forearm, y'all. This is my sweet, sweet 7 year old son's right leg, complete with a fractured tibia from that &#*(&@^ trampoline.

He is the bravest child EVER. School starts in SIX days. I was already dreaming of my "KID FREE" hours. Oh my. For a minute there, I thought I was in charge of my life. I thought that MY plan would be reality. Do you remember that moment in the movie "Evan Almighty" where Steve Carell says "this was not part of my plans?" And Morgan Freeman, who plays God laughs?

That's me, right there. Maybe He knew that a wooden plaque on the window sill wouldn't be enough to get it through my thick skull.

Some of us need hit over the head with a baseball bat.

Care for some lemonade?

Okay everybody, I sincerely hope that your projects this week don't come with injuries and "aha" moments. Link up, I need a distraction!

REINVENTED, Reinvented

Happy happy Monday morning. School starts a week from today! Just sayin'.

I'm ready and I think the kids are too. They'll be in 10th grade, 7th grade, 5th grade and 2nd grade this year. Yeah, I'm wallowing in all of the developmental stages here. It's exhausting.

I've been thinking that since my new blog design launched a few days before we left on vacation, I never really gave you a proper tour. So, whether you actually wanted one or not, here goes.

First, of all, don't ya just LOVE the colors? My heart smiles every time I look at it. So does the rest of me.

Did you notice the "tool bar" across the top, underneath the header? Clicking on "HOME", of course will bring you to the most recent post.

If you hover over "BLOG ROLL", a list will appear of some of my favorite reads. You can just click on the title to check them out.

Under "RESOURCES", you'll find links to E-bay, Goodwill, Etsy and Craigs List. These sites are where I start when I'm looking for something specific. (Just so ya know, I put those there because I really use them, and thought you might like the option of clicking straight over. There's been no compensation or anything like that from these sites.)

If you click on "ABOUT ME", you'll have to/get to read some random facts about me. I've been scolded for not having a picture on that page, so I'm workin' on that. Just gotta lose 30 lbs and color my hair, and I'll be ready.

I guess "CONTACT ME" if pretty self-explanatory.

You'll notice that the "PLEASE VISIT OUR SPONSORS" section is pretty naked. Please contact me if you're interested in advertising your blog, on-line store, or Etsy shop. Rates are VERY reasonable, and I'd be thrilled if you'd join our little community here!

Please visit the sites under "REINVENTED RECOMMENDS", they are MUST READS.

To subscribe to REINVENTED, just click on your preferred option in the "SUBSCRIBE" box. Join me on Twitter too!

There's a "SEARCH THIS BLOG" option if you're looking for something in particular, and a REINVENTED button for you to grab for your blog!

If you love the design, and, of course you do, then click on the Eight Crazy Designs button to contact Shannon about her amazing design services.

Okay, that's it! Thanks for sticking with me through the tour. Sorry for the boring post, but those of you who read the whole thing get a bonus!

Check out this beautiful aqua blue canning jar, transformed with paint!

Find directions here.

Enjoy your day!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner

Happy Friday!

We have a winner in the FAMOUS Home Depot Gift Card Giveaway!

I call it famous, 'cuz I've never had 108 comments on a post before!

The Random Number Generator picked #62! Amanda at Imperfectly Beautiful!

(I tried that silly Random Number Generator thingy several times, and tried to place the widget in this post, but everytime I did it picked a different number! So I went with the first number it gave me.)

Anyway, enough about my incompetentness.

Amanda, send me your mailing address, girl!

I'm off to finish the school clothes, shoes and supplies shopping for four kids. Please say a prayer, I'll be broke by the end of the day. Send food too.

Out Of The Box Storage Ideas

Can I see a show of hands from those of you who have trouble finding ATTRACTIVE storage options for your home?

Whoa. I knew there would be a LOT, but I had no idea there were THAT many of us.

Discount stores are literally PACKED with plastic bins. Great for kids rooms, toys and inside the closet or basement, but not exactly stylish for those items that need to be stored OUT IN THE OPEN, where you can grab and go.

Then there's baskets. Great for storage, both concealed and on display. Is it possible, though, to have TOO MANY baskets on display? I'm thinkin' my family room might be a good example of the answer to that. YES. YES. YES.

So what are the alternatives? What if your decor leans toward the contemporary, with clean lines and minimal clutter?

Thank goodness Better Homes and Gardens has plenty of ideas for us.

Check out your local flea market for options.

An old heating grate to store reading materials? Wow. How cool would this be in an industrial look? Do you live in a loft space? Then you NEED one of these. I might hang one on the bathroom wall. You know, so that the reading materials are close by when we NEED them. Ahem.




Okay, I'll admit I'm not sure what this is, actually, except that it's great office storage, or perfect for that homework station for the kids.

Store your letter writing/bill paying supplies in a bird cage right on the kitchen counter. No more excuses when the Visa payment is late. Uh, maybe that's just me.

I think I might be more in love with the color of this shutter than the storage idea. I would keep party invitations and other small notices here that I need to save. "Cuz my kids have REALLY active social lives.

Keep your scrapbooking or gift wrapping supplies in a vintage suitcase. A couple of these stacked up as an occasional table and you've got stylish storage that fuctions as furniture!

Speaking of furniture, these storage crates are arranged as a coffee table. Just think of all the Wii remotes and nunchuks you could store in here!

Screen door storage. Very cool, and talk about easily accessible, "store it where you need it" storage!

Think out of the, um, BOX!

(all picture are from bhg.com)

A Trash to Treasure Giveaway!

Good morning everyone. Since I'm so busy priming my bathroom walls (and if I'm not, you'll never know...;)), today's TRASH TO TREASURE TUESDAY is dedicated to helping YOU with your projects.

LOOKIE what I have for you! Today I'm giving away a $25 Home Depot Gift card, to one lucky reader. Do you know how many cans of spray paint you can buy with 25 bucks? Let's see...

Quite a few!!

Did you know that Home Depot will sell you scrap pieces of trim from other people's projects? Just go back to the area where they cut trim to size for customers. and rummage through the scraps. These are great for homemade signs, or to make frames.

How do you win? Just leave a comment on this post for one entry.

If you link up a project for TRASH TO TREASURE TUESDAY, please leave me a second comment, and you'll get a second entry!

Tweet about the giveaway on Twitter and receive a third entry (provided you leave me another comment to let me know!)

Blog about the giveaway on your blog, and receive a forth entry! (again, please leave a comment to let me know)

So...if you do all four of these things, you'll be leaving four comments and get four entries!

Now it's time to link up those projects! Please be sure to link back to REINVENTED in your posts. If you're not sure how to do that, e-mail me and I'd be glad to help. (reinventedkb@gmail.com)

Enjoy your Tuesday! there's only 13 days until school starts...

REINVENTION CONVENTION

Happy Saturday everyone. I hope you've found some fabulous garage sales to check out today, or maybe you've planned a trip to the Goodwill store?

Forgive me for my one track mind, that's just how I roll.

I've got a couple of great projects to share with you from the past couple of weeks.

First, this monogrammed tin can from Evie S. Is that not fabulous? What a cool container for your newly organized homework supplies.

Susie from Bienvenue made this wonderful... what would this be called? A "hook rack"? That doesn't sound right.
Anyway, I loooove it, those old rulers are simply divine.

Please click on the links for directions if you'd like to duplicate these unique projects.

Have a great weekend!

Party Lights

Planning a late summer party? Check out this idea to light the evening. Take attractive food cans (or plain ones), punch holes in the sides and add wire to the top. Add a tea light or other small candle and hang the lights from tree branches.

Make your summer night party glow on a budget!

Beachy Beauties

Welcome to Trash to Treasure Tuesday, the day where we ALL get to share our trashy makeover projects.

Yesterday I showed you the beachy paintings I found at last Saturday's garage sales. I found them at two separate sales, and paid six dollars for both. Last night I made a quick trip to Home Depot for more Heirloom White spray paint (how did I let myself run out?), and lightened up the frames to fit with my plan for the powder room.

Here they are now.

BE. STILL. MY. HEART. Now I REALLY love this one.

This one is DEFINITELY growing on me. The painted frame helps A LOT.

I think I've procrastinated long enough, and painted everything BUT the walls. Next up comes primer over that red. Have you read Lindsay's article on primer? Should help a lot.

Link up those projects everyone! I can't wait to "STEAL" your ideas (while giving you full credit and a hug, of course)!

Thrifty Treasures

Happy Monday everyone! I hope y'all enjoyed your weekends. I hit several garage sales on Saturday morning. The kids were at Grandma's, hubby was busy with a project and I was ON MY OWN. I'll show you what I found in a minute.

I mentioned a week or so ago that I'm planning to redo our first floor powder room. This room is right inside our front door, and is the bathroom that most of our guests use. Right now it looks like this.

The red is called "Cherry Cobbler" and is Behr paint from Home Depot. I LOVED this color on the paint chip, but even though I used a tinted primer, color is still uneven after about a million coats. And it's too dark. And I want a lighter, beachy look. And I just can't leave well enough alone...

So, I've been thinkin'. (LOOK OUT FOR THE SMOKE!) I thought I'd redo this very small room on a EVEN SMALLER budget. I haven't set a budget, but it needs to be as close to ZERO as possible. 'Cuz I just don't have the money to change rooms on a whim, who does? Somehow we have to satisfy our decorating urges without breaking the bank.

Someone should start a blog about that.

Ummm...yeah.

Remember this scrapbook paper?

This paper inspired my color choices, I love the creamy white with aqua blue and some green and brown. I already had the paper and three small matching frames (a Trash to Treasure Tuesday post), so this was my "inspiration" piece.

I also have 3/4 of a gallon of Sherwin Williams' China Doll paint, so I'm going with that color on the walls, after some more primer. China Doll is a great warm but not too yellow neutral. It will significantly lighten up the room and look great with the accent colors. AND, since I already had some, it was PERFECT.

NOW, for my garage sale finds. My mission on Saturday was to find accessories that fit my theme and colors. BOY, DID I HIT THE JACKPOT!

I BIG PUFFY HEART this painting. It's not old or anything, but the seaside scene, painted on canvas give me that vintage feeling. The colors are perfect, I'll probably just paint or fix up the frame somehow. I paid $5 for this, kind of a lot by garage sale standards, but I LOVED it.

I am not IN LOVE with this one, but the colors are right, and it's a beach scene, so I'm givin' it time to win my heart. Again, a great chunky frame. Love that, at least. And the price, $1.

I was thrilled to find ANOTHER aqua ball jar to add to my small but growing collection. ( I have three now!). This one is older, and there's a piece broken off of the lid, but I don't care, I love it anyway, and it was only a quarter. The little basket reminds me of a fisherman's basket, and it's adorable and will add texture to the bathroom, also for a quarter.

So, that's what I have so far! Some great accessories, for $6.50! Now it's time to get out the primer and the paint brush. Ugh.

I'm linking this post to Rhoda's Thrifty Treasures. Please visit Rhoda's fabulous blog and check it out!
Also linking to Make Your Monday, a new blog carnival I found at Twice Remembered!

Kitchen Homework

Do YOUR kids do their homework in the kitchen? Mine do. At least two of them are young enough to require supervision, and the other two like the snacks.

One of my goals in the next three weeks and five days (that's how much time still school starts, not that I'm counting or anything), is to organize our homework supplies and store them close to where the homework happens. That means I need to find room for the paper, crayons, pencils, scissors and glue sticks in a room already full of action. And stuff.

All of us know how difficult it is to store the stuff that NEEDS to go in the kitchen, let alone find EXTRA storage.

Hmmm...I thought....HOW will I do that?

I started with paper storage. I found two of these paper storage boxes at Target. They hold hanging file folders, so I've used one folder for each color of construction paper, and one for looseleaf notebook paper. Didn't so much like the red lids, though, as I want to store these on the bottom shelf of the baker's rack in my APPLE GREEN dining room. I'm just NOT in to the "every day is Christmas" color scheme.


I had some of this fabric leftover that I had framed for "art" in the dining room.

This is what I came up with. Now the boxes will blend in with the dining room decor, and be easily accessible to the kids when they need paper. (I just used duct tape to attach the fabric to the inside of the lid, easy to change if I decide I want a red dining room!)

This seemed like a perfect time to clean out the kitchen cupboards, and after I got rid of all of the JUNK in them that I never used, I had three shelves available for storage of workbooks, folders, markers (in the basket), crayons (in the Thomas the Train tin), colored pencils (plastic container), scissors (clay pot) and highlighters (in an "upcycled" food container).I'm betting that most of us can find at least a LITTLE bit of room in a cabinet or drawer for homework supplies. Do you have a cupboard full of seasonal dishes? Maybe they could be stored somewhere else, leaving room for items you use EVERY DAY, like school supplies.

Do you have a fondue set, like me, taking up space in the cupboard when you've only used it once to BURN cheese fondue? Just sayin'. (it's in the basement now, I'll get it out when I get up my nerve again...)

These strategies for storing homework supplies in the kitchen/dining room make my life easier, while not interfering with my decor obsession, so I'm sharing them at Works for Me Wednesday at We are That Family. Check out all of the other back to school survival tips!

Also linked to Kimba's DIY Day!

Five Dollar Topiaries

WELCOME BACK TO TRASH TO TREASURE TUESDAY!

In spite of my mad urge to clean everything since we returned home from our vacation, I found time to CREATE last night, and make a big mess.

Remember these topiaries?

I looooove them, but not their Pottery Barn price. $59 for one, people!

I decided to make some. This is one of my favorite things to do. You know, find an IDEA from a glossy, beautiful and extremely tempting catalog and create a "look alike" item for MUCH less.

I started with these materials, all from the DOLLAR TREE (except for the orange thing, it's a piece of a discarded Nerf gun).

I looked for a styrofoam ball but my Dollar Tree didn't have those, so I remembered this project at Creations by Kara, and bought a kids' play ball.

Here's what I did:

1. I covered the ball with the moss, using spray adhesive


2. I removed the flowers from their stems, and attached just the blooms to the ball with hot glue. Didn't even burn my fingers this time!


3. I spray painted a clay pot I had laying around with Heirloom White and added a chalkboard label, since I can't resist the chalkboard paint.


4. I spray painted the orange thingy with Expresso Brown and hot glued it in the bottom of the pot.


5. I packed plastic grocery bags around the "stick" for extra support and covered the top with more moss.


6. Attaching the ball to the stick was a challenge. I hot glued a small square of heavy duty cardboard to the bottom of the ball and hot glued that to the top of the stick. Clear as mud?

Here's the result.

Not bad for FIVE BUCKS!

NOW IT'S YOUR TURN, LINK UP THOSE PROJECTS!

(Note for those of you having trouble loading the new blog design: I'm looking into this and will let you know what I find out!)

I'm linking this post to Kimba's DIY Thursday, one of my favorite weekly blog parties! Check out the fabulous ideas shared at A Soft Place to Land!

I'm Baaack!

Hey everyone! We're safely back home from North Carolina, and let me tell you, it was a fabulous vacation. Good weather, good food, good friends. LOTS of shells. And LOTS of mosquitos. Those I could have done without.

So, anyway, I'm home. And CLEANING. Does anyone else treat the "after vacation" week just like the week after New Year's? I feel compelled to clean and organize. Maybe it's because school starts in just FOUR SHORT WEEKS.

Does anyone else get tired of me asking you questions like we're having a REAL conversation?

TRASH TO TREASURE TUESDAY will be back tomorrow! Get those projects ready to link up!

Enjoy your evening.