Jenn Tries...

(All links as affiliated. So if you like it please buy it. The blog gets a little kickback at no expense to you) My favorite item I bought (and learned to use!) during 2016 is my Crock Pot . It was my first appliance I bought and really started to use last year. Its the appliance that helped me get into cooking. (And yes I realize its not really cooking!). And really I could go on and on about how much I love much crock pot! However my one complaint is that when I bought it, Target only have plain silver ones left. (I was hoping for the honeycomb pattern one linked above!). So I settled and I was content with the silver one. Until towards the end of the year, I stumbled upon a project to give a crock pot a chalkboard makeover. I knew I had to do it. The Project Give the Crock Pot A Chalkboard Makover Instructions from One Good Thing by Jillee Results So before I began, I used an alcohol pad to clean the the outside and then used painters tape to seal off the ...

While I was working on our salt dough ornaments , I ran across this: Photo from  One Beautiful Home Blog And I fell in love with the project. And I knew that it would be the perfect way to start a (hopefully!) new Christmas tradition of family ornaments. So while I normally post about decor projects on wednesday and this is not really a decor projet. I thought it would be a great way to show off our new family ornament The Project Make a Christmas Tree Family Ornament Results (All links are affiliated. So if you like or need it please use the links provided. The blog gets a kickback with no charge to you!) So there are no instructions on how to make a ornament exactly like the Cunninghams, I just made our out of left over salt dough and the Christmas tree cookie cutter I have. Next I went around and got everybody's thumb prints. (Which was easier said than done. All the boys, even Mike, gave me trouble.) And then I put the hole in the top to...

Every since October I've been obsessed with reusing food containers. And currently I've been trying to repurpose jars mainly for my bathroom vanity The Project Turn A Jelly Jar Into A Lotion Dispenser I tried to figure it out on my own, but here's the list of  Mason Jar Soap Dispensers  instructions from Pinterest. Results So for my lotion container I decided to reuse a Polaner jelly jar and a nearly empty Vaseline lotion bottle. (I liked that the pump didn't have a screw top... which I now know wouldn't have really mattered). First step is still the same. Create a hole in the center (or nearly center of your lid) I actually had Mike help me with this part. He has a bit for hit drill that's made for metal that he used. (Afterwards he let me know that it really wasn't meant for aluminium). But you easily use a screwdriver and then wire cutters to make the circle.  Just make sure you pound down the edges using a hammer or the ...

I swear I have such bad project ADD that Its no wonder that nothing gets finished around my house before I'm moving on to the next place. I'm just hoping that if I can fix a little something in every room, that I'll eventually transform the whole house. It just might take a whole lot longer than it probably should, but I'm okay with that.  So with that being said I'm moving on to a small project that should hopefully at a little color and decoration to my bathroom vanity. The Project Decorate Bathroom Jars inspiration from  A Kailo Chic Life Results Luckily I don't have that many jars in my bathroom yet. I just have a jar with my home made coconut oil face scrub and an empty jar which I plan to put plain coconut oil in at some point. (At some point I'd like to get around to making lotion and soap for my bathroom, but for now I still have store bought varieties). For my jars I decided to reuse old jelly jars. So the first step was to ...

I'm not sure the first time I heard about angels leaving coins for humans. Actual that's a lie. I do remember. It happened while I was watching TV. (I normally watch trashy shows, just so i don't have to think while I'm watching. So don't judge me on what I watch I was watching Hollywood Medium and Tori Spelling was on. She was talking about how her younger daughter kept finding coins around her house. Apparently this was a sign from above that somebody was looking out for her. And then I heard it again last year while watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians (again please don't judge what I watch. Its fantastic to just put on and get work done around the house to!) and in this particular episode they were in Armenia visiting what would have been their family house and Khloe found a coin with a bird on it. Apparently before their father died they had asked him to come back as a bird, so they knew he was watching out for them. And I never really bought into ...

Over the course of my amateur decorating career, I've learned that sometimes the littlest things you can do make the biggest difference. So while I was looking for a new idea to decorate the house, I decided to look no further than my desk. I got my desk when my great aunt died and I'm not sure when she got it or how long she had it for, but they definitely don't make desks like this anymore. So I'm always a little hesitant to do anything to it. But I definitely knew it needed a little pop of color. So I decided the best way to add a pop of color to my desk was to put in some shelf (drawer!) liners. The Project: Try Out Shelf Liners Results You can obviously buy shelf liners (here's the list sold on amazon alone) and then all you have to do is stick it in your drawer and cut off the access. That is probably the easiest and most cost effective way to decorate with shelf liners. I, however, found K&Company paper rolls on super clearan...

So way back in January I decided my big January project was going to be organizing my desk. And well I gave it my best shot and made some progress (not a whole lot, but some). So sometime last month while I was deciding what projects I wanted to work on, I decided maybe it was time that I finally finish up at least my office wall. For the record it used to look like this: As you can see I have it about half way to where I think it should be. And I just kind of left like that for a while. But doing this blog has inspired me to start finishing all these projects I've got in the works. And I wanted to start with my office wall/ family command center. The Project Finish Up The Command Center/ Office Wall And before I start talking about my command center I want to share a few photos of what I'm aiming to achieve with my command center. Inspiration: Overall I would like my command center to look something like this: From  One Creative Housew...

I was looking through all my pins on Pinterest the other day, trying to find my next project to work on and this birthday artwork project seemed to jump out at me: Way back in March of 2012, Julia from  551 east , let her two year old paint on a canvas for his birthday.  The caption under my pin mentioned taping a number on the canvas and then letting your child paint. That way you can peel off the number afterwards and have artwork that shows how old they were when they made it. And I just loved the idea so much and with Lion's birthday was creeping up, I knew this would be a fun project to do with him.  I really wish I had found this when Blue was turning one, but I'm glad that I can do this for Lion. (And make Blue his own canvas to paint on too!) Experiment Have the kids paint some birthday number artwork Results I used two  14x11 canvases because I had a couple of spare ones laying around. (The size of your canvas doesn't really matter. I j...

Update 7/20/16: The instant I posted I knew it just wasn't right. I somehow turned painting on chalkboard paint into a full on project, which it really isn't. Its just a fun decoration idea. So I decided to rewrite it as such! This week I wanted add another topic to the blog. For a while now I've just been copycat crafting and writing if I thought it was a good idea or not. So I decided to try my hand at decorating ideas from Pinterest. I am in way an interior designer, but I know what I like and I know what Mike likes, and I want to make the effort to decorate our house and I encourage you to try it too. So to kick off this segment, I thought I would try out chalkboard paint. I've loved the idea of chalkboard paint for a while now. (I mean who doesn't like coloring with chalk?). And when Jessica Simpson posted this picture to her Instagram (Photo from Jessica Simpson's Instagram ) I knew I wanted to try to recreate something similar in my house (an...