DIY Egg Carton Fire Starters for Camping, Fireplace, and More

We are officially moved into the camper and out of our old house. This is our second week of camping bliss. Yes...I am lying. It has been...edited version...an adventure! We borrowed the camper from a sweet cousin, but it had not been used in a while, and it had a few problems. First there was a hose leak, and we didn't have water inside for about 4 days. Then we found a gas leak, and we did not have hot water for another 3 days. 7 1/2 months pregnant (A 5 year old, 3 year old, and a husband) without water or without hot water is NOT paradise. At least they have started building our new house. I am pretty sure this will lead to some funny stories years from now but I might be lacking a little humor at this point! (I'm laughing thinking about it though)

In the meantime, I made some really cool fire starters.

 

 

I have to say I learn so much from my patients. One of the best parts of my job as a nurse is talking to people. I meet the most interesting patients that I have to credit for teaching me a wide variety of things. One day, I had a patient that was a retired firefighter. I am not sure how we got on the topic, but we began discussing fires and ways to make fire starters. He explained to me this simple process for making homemade fire starters out of candle wax, sawdust, and cardboard egg cartons.

 

My husband was very skeptical the first time I used one of these little homemade fire starters. I placed one under the logs of our fire pit, and lit it on fire. Within minutes, even with quite a strong wind, our fire was ablaze. I made a quick believer out of him! I have to admit...I was quite amazed myself at the power of one little egg carton fire starter.

 

Supplies:

Old candles

Old pot

Tin can

Clamp

Sawdust

Egg cartons (cardboard)

 

 

Step 1: Fill egg cartons with sawdust 

 

 

Step 2: Melt old candle wax. I rigged a pot of boiling water with a clamp and a tin can to melt the wax in.

 

Step 3: Pour the candle wax in each egg carton compartment.

 

 

Step 4: When the wax is cool, tear apart each section, to create an individual fire starter.

 

Trust me...these things are amazing. It takes only 1 to start your average fire!

 

 

 

 

Fairy Land Little Girl Gift

Welcome to the magical and mystical fairy land! I made this little village a month ago for a birthday party gift for a sweet little girl. Apparently, fairies are the rage right now. I wouldn't know...I have two little boys. However, it ended up that my boys had just as much fun playing with it! This would be an awesome little DIY present for a little girl for Christmas.

 

 

I have to admit I had a LOT of fun making this little fairy village. I would have loved this as a little girl. I really enjoy toys that encourage a child's natural curiosity and imagination. This project is amazing for creative play.

 

Supplies:

 

Bird houses

Paint

Moss

Dirt

Artificial flowers and leaves

Twigs and branches

String or Yarn

Hot Glue

 

Directions:

 

I started transforming my bird houses to fairy houses first. I bought two of them at Michael's, and stumbled upon the other one at a garage sale. My husband helped enlarge the naturally small bird entry to fit a fairy instead.

 

 

 

Next, I began painting the fairy houses.

 

 

I hot glued leaves on to one of the homes to make it a bit more woodsy in appearance.

 

I set it up on a table to get my design layout. Small stumps cut from a dead tree branch served as a path. A stripped off portion of a tree became a bridge. Small logs were fashioned into outdoor benches.

 

In order to create the fairy land back drop, I drilled a small hole in some small pieces of wood. I was able to glue my fake trees (leaves) into them to stand upright.

 

I glued moss on the garage sale bird house find to help camouflage it into the fairy woods.

 

My 2 year old could hardly stand it as the fairy village was being transformed. He began to play with the miniature fairies as he walked them along the path to their homes.

 

The longer I built, the more ideas came to mind. I was able to carefully drill two holes in a small branch, tie yarn through the holes, and set up a swing for the lovely ladies.

 

Come and swing a spell!

 

Ta Da!  Welcome! Here is my new home. It even has a flower pot with flowers outside the front door.

 

My husband helped make a box with some landscape timbers and plywood. I used real dirt in the bottom with fake moss on top. It truly was magical as the burlap pennant sign reads. 

 

 

Oops. I almost forgot to mention the ladder. Another stick and yarn creation!

 

Here is fairy land as a bird's eye view. It looks so welcoming that even I would love to go stay for the weekend. Lol! Another sweet friend saw this creation in the works and has already nicely requested one for her daughter's birthday next week. I better get to work and fast!

 

I Love You Because...Mirror with Dry Erase Marker

I have been inspired by Pinterest once again. I saw some cut out signs with I love you because. I have had a mirror that I picked up at a garage sale for 50 cents laying around my storage building. It was finally time to do something with it! With Valentine's Day around the corner, I thought this would be the perfect decor. And besides, my 3 year old informed me today, that we just did not have enough Valentine's decorations out. I think I have created a holiday monster. Lol!

 

Here is the ugly gold mirror I started with...

I taped it off and spray painted it with glossy black paint. Oops. I forgot to take a picture of this step. Then, I finally tried some of the precious little flowers I see on blogs everywhere. I found a great tutorial. The pictures were so amazing, and the steps so clear, that I made my first rosettes (rolled flowers)!

I found this awesome tutorial at My Sparkle. Check out her blog here.

Here are my first five attempts. The rolled flowers were easier to make then I anticipated. I can't believe I waited this long. Just remember, they don't have to be perfect. Imperfection adds to the creative unique look in my opinion. I just hot glued my little rosettes to the mirror. The last step was adding the saying, I love you because... I sure wish I had a fancy machine, but I just used some stickers.

I think the hardest part was taking the pictures to share with you. It is sooo hard to get a good picture of a mirror without some crazy reflection! I set a dry erase marker out, and I can't wait to write some love notes to my family on the mirror.

Valentine Banner and My New Dining Room Table (Booth)

It has been forever now since my husband and I started our project of a new dining room table. If you have been following for that long, we got an old booth from my brother-in-law....along with a few additional hundred guests. I will explain in a minute. My husband worked hard building a new frame and we kept the original cushioned seats. It fit perfectly in a nook in our dining room and became our new dinner table. I love it! Especially with three windows surrounding it. We live in the country, and we have an amazing view of the pasture, 100 year old barn, and animals.

It reminds me of the booth in our little camper. It is so cozy that we find ourselves doing crafts there, playing games, and of course eating meals together. It is my new favorite spot in the house! Oh, and about those few hundred visitors this booth started with...(original post)

Bees!! Swarms of bees came out the second day we had the booth in our driveway...and I was stung. Hence, the reason my husband built a whole new base. When we opened the old one up it had honey oozing and dripping everywhere.

Today, we made a little Valentine banner to hang around our dinner table. It is a wonder I ever get anything done with my two little helpers. Notice my youngest is stepping all over our project. Ha! Super helpful.

I started by cutting triangles out of beige burlap. Then I cut out hearts, x's, and o's out of red fabrics. We adhered them with craft glue and glued them to a ribbon.

It was such a fast and easy no-sew Valentine project to add some zing to our dining room. What are you all working on?

Handmade Christmas: Lego Table and Stable

Well, just as I was afraid of, my oldest son is not happy does not believe that Christmas is over. I told him today, and he said, "No Mom it is not!" I guess denial his one of the stages of grief. Ha!I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas or holiday season! Ours was wonderful...but quite hectic. I am glad the actual "Christmas Day" is over and we can go back to just enjoying the holiday season. Our house looks like Santa's sleigh crashed inside. (Mayhem) I hope Santa has good sleigh insurance because it is a complete disaster. I am not quite sure where I am going to put all of our new treasures. This is the before picture...

I started a tradition when my sons were born, of making one present for each for Christmas. Last year, I made a fire station (click here) and an I Spy Quilt.

This year I decided on a Lego table for my oldest and a horse stable for my little one. My mom found a little pink table at a garage sale for me for $4 and I spray painted it red. I miraculously found two Lego boards at another garage sale for $2 each. I hot glued the Lego bases down to the table and for under ten dollars...

As you can tell, I am a garage sale junkie, because I hate to pay full price for things. I found this stable at another garage sale for $3. With a little red and black paint and some horses, this little stable was transformed. My 21 month old adored it. He loves anything to do with cows and horses right now.

We had a wonderful Christmas. I forgot to mention, one of my three year old's favorite things, was passing out presents. My mom came up with a great idea a few years ago to label the packages with pictures, since they can not read yet. They love discovering who each present is for by the photo tag.

Happy Holidays! Did you make any special presents for your loved ones? I am always looking for new fun ideas!

Tags: DIY Lego Table, Make your own Lego Table, DIY Horse stable, Make your own horse stable, Trash to Treasure presents for kids

DIY Superhero Town

Super heroes are the latest and greatest obsession around our house. It seems like for boys there is a predictable order of toy facination. At the age of 2, my oldest started with cowboys. He then moved on to fireman, army men, and now...super heroes.

Supplies:

2x4's in various sizes

Sander (optional)

Spray paint (red, green, blue, black)

Colored tape

Directions:

1. Cut 2x4 in various lengths to create your superhero buildings. I sanded the boards and edges down.

2. Spray paint your "buildings" in different colors.

3. Cut colored tape in various sizes and adhere to "buildings." We chose to make ours different lengths and to display the "windows" in an uneven fashion. This is a comic book town.

4. Let your little one play and have fun with their new town. The great part is these blocks are stackable. Buildings can be as tall as you would like and the kids totally love knocking them all down!

Brown Paper Bag Dresser

Have you ever seen brown paper bags used for flooring? I think the faux leather look is so interesting. I have mainly wood floors in my home so I had to find somewhere else to use the amazing brown paper bag technique. I chose a piece of furniture instead.

My son needed some more storage space and this three drawer little dresser seemed beat up enough perfect.

Supplies:

Furniture

Brown Paper Bags

Modge Podge

Primer

Paint

1. Start with your brown paper bags. Tear them, crumble them, and then unwrinkle them. I cut a few with straight edges or straight corners to make it easier to place them on the drawers.

2. Cover your desired piece of furniture with Modge Podge a section at a time. Place brown paper sack pieces on one by one. Make sure to smooth each one out and modge podge over the top. ( I used a small paint brush) I was not a perfectionist on the wrinkles because I wanted some character and texture.

3. Cover the whole design again with a generous layer of Modge Podge. The first few times I used Modge Podge, I never used enough. See picture below to fully understand how much to use.

4. After the brown paper sack design dried, I used an old t-shirt to apply wood stain (MinWax) on top. You can see the difference it makes in color and shading at the bottom of the following picture.

5. Now that my drawers were complete, I moved on to the rest of the dresser. I primed the entire wooden dresser with two coats of primer.

6. I chose to spray paint it green to match my son's room. (I thought the contrast of black would have looked even better...but it would not have matched)

7. I painted my knobs and put them back on.

It turned out just perfect for his room decor. What are you going to  "brown bag"?

Chalkboard Play Table for Kids

This story starts as a lot of my craft projects do. I was driving down the road when...I found a beat up kid's table on the curb. I can picture my husband cringing when those words come out of my mouth. Lol! I do have to say he still appreciates my thrifty nature. I think he is just glad I use the small car the majority of the time for gas mileage, instead of the SUV, or a lot more "treasures" would find their way home with me. Here is my newest creation.

This is the table I found on the curb. I had to start by gluing one of the pencil legs back in place. The screw was completely stripped.

Next, I sprayed it with chalkboard paint. Two coats easily did the job. Here is a guest that decided to visit our table. Hello little butterfly.

I then cut a hole out of the center with a jigsaw and placed a plastic red bowl in the middle to hold our chalk.

 I left it removable so it would be easy to clean. The whole project took me thirty minutes and did not cost a dime! (I already had a can of chalkboard paint at home) It was well worth the time for what joy it created.

I am not sure my son will be much of an artist. He is really into endless circles right now. It reminds me of a dog chasing his tail!

However, the table has been great for practicing our numbers and letters. It would be perfect to write spelling words on for older kids. Chalk just makes everything more fun.

Parties I linked to: Click here