DIY: Upcycled Laundry Hamper to Jewelry Organizer

I don't have a beautiful laundry room.  I envy those who have an actual room where you can hide your dirty and clean laundry.  I, on the other hand, have a laundry closet.  The washer and dryer are hidden behind two doors.  No frills.  I do have a wired shelf above them for extra storage.  One day, I want to update it with another shelf and maybe a cabinet.  I even have a Pinterest board for my future Laundry Closet ideas.

In the meantime, we have two laundry hampers to help sort and hide the clothes neatly.  One in our bathroom and one in the kid's hallway.

Recently, (actually it's been about 3 months ago) our laundry hamper died.  The screws broke that hold it together.  Poor thing, there was no hope in repairing it.  I loved the bottom wire rack and decided to keep it in the bathroom next to the shower.  Why next to the shower?  I couldn't think of where else to keep it.  The garage is full of other things for future DIY projects and I didn't want to forget about it by placing it in the black hole a.k.a. garage.   

My husband ignores my hoarding until it gets out of control.  Thankfully, I decided to use it before he decided it was in the way.  Initially, I thought about turning it into a burlap wreath like this.

But I'd have to cut the wire with a wire cutter and frankly, that seemed a little daunting.

Then I saw this jewelry organizer and thought, bingo!  I can use my fancy-schmancy wire rack and hang all my $5 Paparazzi jewelry instead of it cluttering up my dresser.

This is how I made mine:

DIY Jewelry Organizer
wire rack - free
length of ribbon - free
sheetrock screw
s-hooks $1.50 per pack of 4 (5 packs)
jewelry

Find a place you like on your wall that would be appropriate for said jewelry organizer.

Tie ribbon at the top of the rack to create a hanger.

Screw the screw into the wall where you want to hang it.

Hang the rack from the ribbon on the screw.

Hang the s-hooks on the rack and hang the necklaces and bracelets on the s-hooks.

When you buy Paparazzi necklaces, you receive a free pair of matching fishhook earrings.  So I hung all of those on the rack too.  It turned out adorable and I am so happy about it.  My jewelry is neatly hung up, no worrying about it becoming tangled or mangled.

And I can actually see what I have!  And my dresser is back to being nice and neat. 

This makes my hubby happy!

Super simple!

That's it!

What kind of DIY projects are you up to?

Visit these linky parties to see how others have been crafty lately!

"Missionary" Gifts

Some dear friends are leaving to serve as "need-greaters" in Dominican Republic and in Thailand.  I wanted to make something special for them to remember where they've been and where they are going.

I found a cute idea on pinterest and figured I could make it small enough to fit in their suitcases.  I also left the glass out of the frame to avoid any breakage in flight.

After searching the Dollar Tree, we found a little picture frame with 4 photo holes.  I searched google for state outlines and country outlines and then shrunk them to fit into the holes.

Both girls have lived in Guatemala, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Georgia.  One of the girls lived in Florida and she is planning to travel to Thailand.  The other girl is traveling to D.R.   

Here's what they ended up looking like:

I used a stick pin and foam to poke holes on the outline onto linen style scrapbook paper.

Then I stitched in pretty colors for the outlines following the holes I punched through previously. (Thankfully my Momma used to be an avid cross-stitcher and has lots of different colored DMC floss to choose from.  Thanks Momma!)

Then you cut out little red hearts from felt and hot glue them onto the places they lived and served.

We also spent some time at Dollar Tree picking out essentials they might need for their trips.  We bought tylenol (off brand), ibuprofen (off brand), cold medicine (day time and night time formula in one), facial cleansing cloths, feminine wipes, wet wipes, alcohol wipes, baking soda & vinegar (to clean the bacteria off the fruit), travel bags (to fill with clothing and vacuum out the air), granola bars, peanut butter crackers, socks (for the friends in D.R.), pony tail holders, sunscreen.  Sissy made them each a card, complete with eyeglasses made out of fake silver wedding rings.

And guess what?  I didn't even take a picture of them going through the box or of the tea party or of them crying over the pictures...I was lame.   They took pictures so I'm hoping they'll email them to me before they leave. 

They really liked everything and thought it was the "kindest thing anyone has ever done for us"...Made me cry.  I'm gonna miss them girls!!!  Thankfully they left their eldest sister at home so we still have someone to come over and dance with us :) 

Enjoy!

How Does Your Garden Grow? 5/17/11

Have you purchased your copy of my new eCookbook, Sweet Creations Volume 1 "Basic Southern Cakes"?

It's only $2.99!

A few weeks ago, my dad and brother came over to take down some trees and smooth out our yard so we can continue with our DIY Landscape project.  

I couldn't do much, but I did take pictures and move some branches, stumps and rocks around.  

I took a few pictures of the day:

My brother letting the kids move the bucket and dig in the dirt.

  Boo-Boo loves to play in the dirt...it's all over his face too!!!

My dad working on his chainsaw so he could "limb up" the fallen oak. 

As you can see, that big oak had to come down or it was liable to fall on our house in a bad storm.  Looks like the carpenter ants love it so much, they killed it by eating it from the inside.  

Have a great week!

This post has been linked to:

• Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage
• Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer

How Does Your Garden Grow? 4/12/11

Our carrots have sprouted!  Yeah!!!

We also found a couple of volunteer veggies:

I think we have a couple of cucumbers...maybe a squash too?

We also have a few Black Eyed Susans coming back from last year:

Look at the lettuces...they are so beautiful!  

 

My brother and Dad put together my herb garden...only it is way bigger than I wanted.  I can't wait to get some yummy herbs planted in there.

Here are some of my other little flowers blooming...

Souvenir de la Malmaison (the most fragrant rose in my garden)

Nelly Moser clematis 

 Japanese Irises

I have buds on my knock out roses and my peonies.  Hopefully they'll bloom really pretty and I can get a couple of pictures of them.  

We are working on our own "DIY Backyard Project".  Remember the sketch I shared with you guys?  Well, we purchased 5 Leyland Cypress (for $5 each) and planted them along the property line.  My husband also found some curved edgers on craigslist for FREE!  I was so happy.  They aren't perfect, but they look good.  After we get some pine straw in the beds, I think it's going to look really good.  

This post has been linked to:

• Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage
• Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer
• Fertilizer Friday - Flaunt those Flowers at Tootsie Time
• Grow Eat Save at $5 Dollar Dinners
• Grow Cook Eat at Good Life Eats

DIY Landscaping: Phase 1

I've been a little afraid to post about our yard.  For fear we may give up, as we have so many times before.  When we moved into our home 8-1/2 years ago, we planted a few shrubs and I planted some woodland plants and flowers.  But we never really landscaped.  My husband seeded the front yard and grass grew for a while, but now the weeds have taken over.  It truly is the most unsightly yard.  Secretly, I was hoping my neighbors would submit our yard to the DIY Channel to get a free backyard make-over! 

Well, I live in the real world, and those kind of fairy-tale endings don't really happen in my neck of the woods.  So a few weeks ago, I sat down and drew out what I'd like our yard to look like.  My dream yard.  I have always wanted a fire pit. Not just an ordinary fire pit, more like an outdoor fireplace.  I've been pulling pictures from magazines for YEARS.  I've purchased some doodads that I'd like to decorate with way back when I was working in Savannah.  I can't really remember the first place I saw an outdoor living space, but when I did, I knew I wanted something like it in our yard.  

The thing that stands in our way is money.  It always is.  I have several established bushes and flowers I will be able to divide and transplant when the time comes, so that will defray some of the expense.  In the end, I figure with a lot of hard word, lots of sweat (which I totally hate and detest beyond words), a little inspiration and a lot of free stuff from freecycle and craigslist, we might be able to finish the yard of my dreams.

So far, we've been taking a few hours each morning and raking up the yard, moving dried leaves to a huge pile to recycle later into compost.  We've been pulling weeds and tree seedlings (are those called saplings?) from our hundred year old oak trees.  We deal with baby oak trees every year.  The roots can go as deep as 2 feet on just a little 6" seedling (sapling?).  

I've taken a length of twine and attached it to some rebar to help sculpt rounded beds around the house.  I used a shovel and dug up the ground to help create the edging I was looking for.  I've been scouring craigslist and freecycle for free bricks so I can place them as the edger and hopefully prevent the weeds from jumping over into the flower beds.  I'm still looking for free bricks.  

Since our yard is very wooded and there is no real possibility of true grass growing under the trees, I decided we'd go with spreading Monkey Grass (a.k.a. Lilyturf, Liriope).  There are a couple of different varieties and we wanted the spreading kind so it will fill in like grass.  My brother and dad did some work for a friend whose backyard was completely taken over by this stuff.  They offered to them and now I have a 5 gallon bucket full of it.  We're just waiting for some free fill dirt and then my brother can bring over his Bobcat to smooth out the yard, so I can plant it.  

I was inspired by a garden at Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia.  Also, there was a garden featured on HGTV from Douglasville, Georgia.  The owner is Suzanne Hudson and her garden has been featured in many magazines including Southern Living.  

Eventually I hope to share the final results with you.  For now, you'll have to make do with my chicken scratch drawings.  

This post has been linked to:

• Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage
• Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Daydreamer
• DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land