Melted Plastic Bead Bowl

If you are in the mood for a quick, easy, rewarding craft this is it.  I read about how to create this cute bowl on some other blogs and so today we made one.  It is super cute--and easy!  All you need is some plastic melty beads, oil and an oven-safe bowl.

Coat the bowl with oil and add the beads.  The beads will stick to the sides of the bowl with the oil.  I pressed the beads down so there was only 1 layer of beads.  We kept adding beads until most of the sides of the bowl were covered.

I preheated the oven to 250 degrees (and I could not remember what I had read about the temperature to use).  It took a good 45 minutes for the beads to melt enough but there was no smoke and no odor (like burning) in the house, so I think the low temp is the way to go.  Once the beads looked melted, but still had some of their shape, I removed the bowl.  You could let the beads melt even more and have more of an smooth bowl, but I liked the partially melted look.

It took about 5 minutes to cool and the bead bowl just slid right out of the mold.  Its really cute, not sure what we'll use if for besides decoration...

...but I did stick a few of my daughter's pig heads in it just to give you an idea.

I'm thinking it would look cute with something white inside, like the individual wrapped lifesavers my coworker has at his desk.  Or maybe in the bathroom with small white soaps?

---Adrienne

The Beach, Summer 2011

I guess this summer is over with school starting on Monday.  Our house is a whirlwind of activity with school supplies, backpacks, organizing after school activities and squeezing in our last summer to-do's.   So, goodbye to summer 2011, you were beyond hot (I'm talking temperature) but we enjoyed you nonetheless.   

xoxoxo  ---Adrienne

Teen Room Makeover

Technically our "teen" is about to turn twelve, so I guess this is a 'Tween Room Makeover'.  I started taping up the room before I snapped the before pics.  We painted, built a board-and-batten headboard, and added a mirror and cork boards.  Also added a chair for the desk area/reading nook.  Here are some before and after shots of the room, enjoy!

Before :

After:

Before (but I had started taping where the headboard would go):

After Board and Batten Headboard (and I still need more cork board square).  A side note about the cork board squares:  they only stayed on the wall for about 24 hours using those adhesive white squares that come with the cork squares, :(.  All that measuring and leveling work for nothing.

Next up we need something over the headboard.

Desk Area/Reading Nook Before:

Desk Area/Reading Nook After (note the added reading chair):

-- Adrienne

Linking:

Board and Batten Headboard

This was my first experience with anything like board and batten.  I've seen the beautiful results on fellow bloggers' sites and really wanted to try.  This was a much smaller project than attempting a whole room.  I started by taping an outline of where the headboard should go. 

I made a sketch with measurements then headed to HD for materials.  I had them cut a 1x4 for the top horizontal piece and 2 1x3's for the vertical side pieces.  I ended up getting pine instead of mdf but I think I'll get mdf in the future.  The pine was so warped in places, made it harder to work with.

We were looking and looking for the studs to hang the horizontal first board and that was a lot of fun, ha ha.  I resorted to using the "drill until you find a stud" method although I did narrow the area down some with the so-called stud finder.  Luckily, I found a stud on the 5th or 6th try and found the next right away by measuring 24 inches across.

So, we started by leveling the first horizontal 1x4 board and nailing to the studs.  I didn't use liquid nails but I plan to (really) if I ever do this again.  Then we attached the 2 side vertical pieces of 1x3, making sure there were vertically leveled.  The first went up no problem.

The second was about an inch too long, so we cut it.  I'm guessing that its the wall/floor not being level but not sure.  I'm also thinking our level horizontal board wasn't exactly perfectly level.  Both of these vertical pieces were nailed to the wall--should have been nailed and glued with liquid nails (note for next time).

I wanted to make a little ledge at the top so I used another 1x4 and a 1x2 as shown in the pic below.  At this point, everyone in the house was calling this a fireplace.  Guess the ledge threw them off. 

I used 1x2's to make the smaller squares inside the fireplace headboard.  I can't find a pic of the progress so here is one all primed and painted.  I started with the 3 long vertical pieces, evenly spaced (just take my word for this), and then I put up the smaller horizontal pieces.  I checked for level on each board and nailed to the wall (but should have nailed and glued...).

After all of the nailing and counter-sinking the nails, it was wood filler, caulking, and sanding time.  This took a while and had to be done in stages in order for the putty or caulk to dry.



Here are some after pics, all primed and painted and with some animals gracing the ledge. 

Linking:
http://www.theshabbycreekcottage.com/
http://lbratina.blogspot.com/2011/08/thrifty-thursday-126-plus-tablescape.html

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