Lego Manual Notebook

I don't know about you guys, but around here, Lego is big! Lego's everywhere and it seems that every time I vacuum I pick up lots of little Lego's before the vacuum sucks them away or the vacuum does actually suck them away and then the fun begins, picking through the dust and crap the vacuum sucked up looking for those little Lego's.

If Lego's are laying around, then the manuals are as well. After all, if you aren't building with your imagination (which happens alot, kids come up with some awesome buildings and vehicles!) then the manuals are out being used. The manuals are tough to keep neat if you ask me, I have tried putting them in tubs with the Lego's that go with the manual and somehow they never seem to make it back into the correct tub and the pages begin to wrinkle and if you want to be able to build it correctly you more than likely need the manual (at least for the more complex sets). Which got me thinking that I needed to come up with a way to make organizing these manuals an easy and simple process.


My solution:

 

 

A 3-Ring Binder (with the clear plastic pocket on the front/back & side), Lego Logos (from a Lego box) and some cute American Crafts paper. I cut the paper to fit in the front of the binder and a small slender piece for the spine of the notebook. I glued the Lego logo to the middle of both papers.

 



I slid both papers into the notebook, added some plastic page protectors and inserted all the manuals into the page protectors. (I made sure to put sets together  and inserted at least 2 manuals into each protector, one for the front and one for the back of the protector)

 

For this notebook, I used 25 page protectors and all but 4 are filled and I believe I will have to upgrade to a larger ring binder....

 

 

I have to say that it has worked out well, so far. If it continues to work well and the boys keep the manuals in the binder then, I may organize it more by adding sections and labels to be more specific and make it easier to find a particular manual, for example: a section for trucks, police, homes, fire, etc. and alphabetize them. 

 

 

 

Also, I am considering a new method for the Lego's as well, should I keep all sets separate or separate the Lego's out by color and have a bin for each color? Do you guys have a method for sorting/storing Lego's?

 

Linking up to Design, Dining & Diapers Organization Week

 

 



Halloween Wreath

Yeah, I know that Halloween is still over a month away, but I just wanted to get everything ready so when Oct. 1st arrived, all I had to do was take my fall wreath down and replace it with this one.

To make my wreath, I began by recycling this grapevine wreath, I just removed all the flowers, twigs, etc. and since the grapevine wreath was still in good shape, I decided to use it again this year as the base for my Halloween wreath. I spray painted the wreath with gloss black spray paint (love it!).

 

After the wreath was dry, I gathered a few items, paint, plastic Halloween goodies and black duck tape.



Here is a close up of the paint I used, Martha Stewart glitter craft paint from Michaels (love that stuff!) and orange acrylic paint I picked up at Wal-Mart a while back.

I painted several spiders, a bat and a skeleton and left to dry.

For the "Boo To You" I used Hemp Cord from Wal-Mart as the string to hold the banner together and made the flags out of the black duck tape. I folded the tape over the cord and cut a V into the bottom of the flag. I used my Cricut to cut the letters, then glued the letters onto the duck tape and tied the banner onto my wreath.

I knew that my wreath still needed a little something, so I used more of the Hemp Cord, this time in white and made a spider web. I cut the cord into lengths that I wanted and placed them into the shape of a spider web on top of wax paper, then used a paint brush and painted regular school glue on the cord to hold the web shape together. After it dried I peeled it off the wax paper and hot glued it onto my wreath.

After placing the web on the wreath I filled in spaces with the painted Halloween spiders and bats.

 

 The completed project:

 

 

 

 

Linking up: ItsyBitsyPaperBlog 2012 Wickedly Creative Halloween Ideas Linky Party, TatertotsandJello & BrassyApple

 



Fall Dining Room Table



Simple fall decor for our dining room. Fall flowers, leaves and pumpkins.  The burlap runner, I made sometime last year, it was my first sewing project with my new sewing machine that my husband got me for Christmas (the year before). The flowers in the urn came from Target a few years ago and the vine of leaves came from Hobby Lobby last year.

The pumpkins came from Wal-Mart last year made my Better Homes and Gardens (it was a box of assorted pumpkins). The bronze pumpkins you see in the photo above and below were Dollar Store pumpkins that I spray painted bronze and after they dried I spray painted a coat of glitter spray on top to add a little shimmer.

I love looking around my home, seeing fall decor,smelling the apple pie baking in the oven, which was eaten devoured before I could snap a photo. Now if we could just get some cooler temps to make it "feel" like fall.

Stay tuned...more fall decor to come!

Painted/Stained Desk

Remember this desk from a post a while back? A cute find! The perfect size for our little one.
As you can see, it was red and need a little bit of TLC.

So my handy, handsome husband removed the top, he had the fantastic idea of removing the top and replacing it with wood we could stain to the shade of our choice. The top was a mess.

After my husband removed the top, I sanded the desk and began to paint. I had to paint about 4 coats of paint to get the dark color that I wanted. My original plan was to use spray paint but I knew that it would take alot of cans so I bought a quart of paint instead. I thought the color was going to be darker but overall the color has grown on me.

I bought a piece of stain grade wood at our local hardware store and they cut it to the size I needed, my husband stained the wood, added a coat of polyurethane and he put the top on the desk and we were finished!

The knobs on the drawers are not my first choice and I will be on the look out for what I have in mind, but until then, these work just fine. The chair was purchased at a local antique shop, it is an old school wooded chair that was spray painted gloss black. (I love gloss black!)

Here is a look at the top of the desk, it turned out so well!



I like how the desk looks with the contrasting top and our little one loves his new desk!

One more look, shall we?

Painting furniture is one way to instantly change the way your piece looks and it is so simple! We have painted several pieces in our home, but my first color choice is always, gloss black! So you can say that I am changing things up a bit and trying a little color!

Linking up to Liz Marie Blog.

Fall Wreath

 

 

This fall wreath turned out so cute! I am excited about cooler temps and pumpkins and even though it is still about 90 degrees here, I just could not resist hanging this on our door.

 

 

I started with a few items that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. (Love Hobby Lobby!)



When shopping, I just picked up a few things that I liked, still not sure exactly how I was going to put my wreath together. When I got home I had some left over burlap and I used it to cover the straw wreath. I cut strips and wrapped them around the wreath and hot glued the strips.

Then I started just placing items on the wreath. I decided not to use the pumpkins/gourds and just used the ribbon and leaves.

I made 2 bows out of the ribbon(just like you would make a bow to put on a Christmas gift)and I used the string from the pumpkin package to tie my bows together. Wanting to use more ribbon, I cut strips and stacked them together and then spread them out, like I was making a star. Then added some triangle burlap pieces to the top of the star in a random pattern to my liking and then finished it off with a P. I hot glued all the bows to the wreath and added my leaves and I was finished!

 

One more look at the finished product!

 

Link up to:

Tatertots and Jello

 

Itsy Bitsy Paper

 

 

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DIY Wall Art-Boy Bedroom

For a while now, I have had the urge to redo R's room. On one wall, there is a large map and the color of his room is navy blue. It was not hard to come up with a theme--travel, adventure, water. I was not really wanting to go all nautical, but more like pieces that could be about more than one idea.

So I began looking for wall art for the area above the bed. I wanted something sorta big but not too overwhelming. I was not able to find anything that I liked so I thought that I could just come up with something on my own. I bought 2 16 x 20 canvas and went to work.

My first thought was that I would just make the canvas a solid color and have one word across the canvas.
This is what it looked like (sorry the photo is so dark, this is where all things messy with paint happen in our home and the lighting is not good).

 

And I HATED it! I used oil based red paint to paint the letters on and I was like  "what am I going to do now?". So it sat, for like a couple of weeks till I finally thought of something! Since the theme is travel, adventure; I thought about a map art with a twist. :)

 



I picked up a map at Target and found a quote online that I loved and thought that the combination would be perfect for his room.

As a test to see if the quote would fit on my canvas I cut out the letters in plain cardstock with my Cricut and laid them out to see how it would look.

Awesome! They all fit and my vision of the finished product rocked in my head so I kept going!

I had to paint over the word DISCOVER (and that word was not a good choice in the beginning because my husband too one look at it and said "Disc Over". I was not able to get that out of my head and to be honest that was the first thing I thought when I looked at it too!) Anyway 2 coats of Kilz later and this is what it looked like

As you can see the red was still visible. So I had to come up with a background first and so I used a color that we had left over from another room so I thought that I would use it instead of buying more paint. I painted the canvas with 2 coats of the leftover light brown paint.  And let it dry.

In the meantime, I got my map and cut out sections that I wanted to use and with my Cricut, I cut out each letter. Again.

After all the letters were cut and the paint was dried, the letters were arranged in order on the canvas, it looked like this

Side Note: I used old picture frames (from an idea that I have not tackled yet) under my canvas to elevate it so it would not be laying directly on my table and allowed the paint and later the glue to dry on the sides.
After all the letters were arranged to my liking, I glued all the letters down one by one with Mod Podge (LOVE that stuff!). Then when all the letters were glued down I went back over both with another layer of Mod Podge, it gave it a glossy look which I love!

And the finished product:

What do you think? 

Although it took a while to figure out what I was going to do, but when I did, it all came together nicely!

Mountain Getaway

One little trip we wanted to take before school started was a trip to the mountains. With boys it is a must to go to a theme park with a train therefore, we decided on Tweetsie. 

 

 

 

And of course the train stopped for a little gun fight with a little humor involved.

 

 

 

They have lots of activities for kids of all ages.

 





The activities most enjoyed were: go carts, gem/gold mining, carnival rides and the chair lifts.
In the nearby town of Boone, NC you find lots of unique shops and antique stores and some great restaurants. The ones we tried were, The Dan'l Boone Inn and Our Daily Bread. Both are good. If you are looking for country cooking, family style, Dan'l Boone is the way you should go. If you prefer organic, fresh food, variety of beers and very good atmosphere Our Daily Bread is the way to go. Enjoyed both, however I liked Our Daily Bread better because I left feeling comfortable with myself and knowing I consumed a healthy meal. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Dan'l Boone too but when I left, I felt like I had eaten till I could not put another thing in my mouth and I had that feeling like my belly stuck out like a pregnant lady!

Riding in back roads of the country where we came upon this

Calming and not another person around, which gave us a little time to explore

Blowing Rock, NC also has charm that just makes you want to walk the streets and visit every store you pass. Great shops, antique stores, and great restaurants.

While riding the back roads we came across a country store and bought this

I am so excited to get this painted, it will be perfect for our little man. I will show you the finished product once we get it completed. I am off to get paint samples tomorrow, ready to get going on this one!

It was a good trip minus the whining, complaining and constant talking from our kids. But, I guess that all falls into the category of parenthood.