Upcycling: plastic food and cleaning product containers

Last week, I showed you some of the ways I have used tin cans to organize and decorate. Now, I'm going to show you some of the ways we re-use plastic food containers.

We have upcycled cottage cheese containers to plant small plants.

We also have covered them with paper and used them to store things, just like the cans. I use a oaoer-covered Chlorox wipes container to hold Boxtops for Education in my classroom.

Recently, I got an even better idea. I had an old Chlorox wipes container in my kitchen that I had saved for one reason or another. I decided it would make a great headband holder for the baby's room, but I wasn't sure exactly how I wanted to do it. I started by wrapping the can in pretty paper.

Then, I found a dollar store candleholder and attached it to the bottom of the can with some Locktite super glue to give it some height. I added some pretty ribbon to the top and bottom of the can.

I had a pretty cute little headband stand then :) What do you think?

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

DIY'ing with upcycled "garbage": tin cans

One man's junk is another man's treasure. We go through a lot of cans at our house, and while we usually throw them away or recycle them, it recently occurred to me just how many things we could do with the cans. I decided that it would be a good idea to see what I could do with those cans.

1. DIY storage:
Put some pretty scrapbook or contact paper on those cans and use them for storage. I use the black and white cans in my crafting cabinet to hold scissors, Sharpies and paint pens, and even a contact paper-covered Oatmeal can for storing pipe cleaners.

2. Turn them into decor!

I found these great printable vintage can labels on Pinterest, and I printed several of them off on our printer. Wrap them around your cans and you've got some "antique" cans you can display! I am going to ask the cafeteria at my school if they'll give me one of the large cans so I can wrap a pretty label around it and use it as a vase.

How pretty would the pumpkin can be with some light pink flowers in it?

3.Candle holders/tea lights

 I didn't do this one, but I may try it soon- I'd love to make these tea light holders for our porch this coming summer!

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Here is another similar idea: 

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4. Seasonal decor: 

I didn't make this one either, but I'd like to. Here are some cute seasonal craft ideas you can make from tin cans. 

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And how cool is this advent calendar? 

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Have you made any neat things with tin cans? 

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

DIY Friday: Verse of the Week board

I love chalkboards. I think they are so much fun and I wanted one in the house so bad.

I got the idea to make a "verse of the week" board for the girls' playroom when I saw this picture:

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And then I found this picture: 

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I went to Lowe's, bought a seven dollar poplar plank, a can of chalkboard paint, a brush, and created a stencil. I am almost finished cutting out the stencil, and I cannot wait to show it to you! Tune in Monday so you can see the finished product! 

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

DIY Friday follow-up: The ironstone planter that isn't.

Remember last week's post where I showed you this flower vase and talked about how I'd found it in a thrift store?

Well, two coats of primer, two coats of white spray paint, and one orange mum later, here is what I ended up with:

You'll have to excuse the crappy picture quality, as I was taking it with my cell phone. Also, I know the mum is a little big for the pot, but I do really like this planter painted white. I think I'll be using it a lot in the coming seasons. It's currently brightening up my entry way, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. 

What do you think? I think I want to go buy more mums and plant some of them outside now.

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

DIY Friday...On a Monday :)

Happy Monday to you! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We did- our daughter spent some time with her grandparents and we spent the weekend getting some things done around the house. We also went to a city south of us to do a little shopping, and then we spent the rest of the weekend with family. It was a low-key weekend, but a good one.

Do you remember this post, where I teased you guys with some pretty fall crafts? And then I asked you to guess which one I would end up making?

Well, let me confess- I made all of them, except one. But I did put in an order for my dad to make the long wood box for me sometime :)

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Here is the Wellies printable in my daughters' playroom. I thought this picture was very cute for a mudroom or kids' area. The two cute animal watercolors came from Etsy.

Here is the Mason jar with sunflowers in not one but TWO places in my house :) One is in my kitchen, and the other in our hall bath.

...and here are some glass vases with fall filler- one with a large pinecone I picked from my neighbor's yard, some smaller pine cones, and some "fake-orns" (get it? haha). I need to get the rest of the stickers off the bottom of those candle sticks- I'm going to soak them in a bit.

I'm sorry you had to wait a few days for this post, but I really felt I should write something for 9-11 instead. There will be some more really fun fall craft posts in the near future.

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Fall home tour coming soon!

Today, I was supposed to be sharing our fall home tour, but we aren't quite ready yet. So, instead, I'm going to wait until we are done and I'm going to share my fall favorites right now. Mind you, these things are NOT my favorite things about the season itself, but rather some of my favorite links pertaining to fall.

I love fall for a number of reasons- the beautiful colors, football, soup for dinner, warm drinks, warm sweaters, pumpkins and cooler temperatures.

Here are five DIY fall projects that I am currently coveting. I'll be making one of them. Which one do you think it will be? Guess you'll have to wait til tomorrow to find out :)

Getting Organized: Command Centers

I've briefly talked about our command center before, but now I'm about to talk about it in depth.

The command center is completely DIY'd and we really do use it a lot. The bulletin board, which holds inspiration for me (pictures, Bible verses and quotes), is made from a large picture frame that the glass broke out of. We no longer used the frame, so I cut a piece of foam board to fit the frame and covered it in fabric. The calendar board was bought from Hobby Lobby, but the calendar is DIY'd with some line tape. Here is how our calendar looked a few months ago! 

Each week, we use the calendar to look at what bills are coming due, what other expenditures we'll have, and what important dates are coming up. The smaller red weekly calendar is where all of this information gets recorded. 

These frames hold our cleaning checklist, bill pay list (where we list what bills are due and when), the red weekly calendar, and a weekly menu board. The frames were $3 Dollar General specials and the items within the frames were made by me on the printer. 

The mail bins are just Chlorox Fresh Brush boxes covered with black canvas and adorned with mail plates.  You can read about how I made them here. We use these to organize bills that need to be paid, bills that need to clear, and bills that need to be filed. Everything else promptly goes to the shredder. 

Having this command center makes it so much easier to know what's going on in each family member's lives during the week, as well as helping us organize finances and eliminate piles of paper around the house. It's honestly one of the best things I ever did. 

Hope you'll join us next week for some financial organizing tips! Thanks for reading!

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Closet spaces revamped!

 As you know, here at Organized and Simplified, we have been trying hard to make our closet spaces more functional. So far, we have finished all the closets except my husband's and our laundry room closet. I recently completed mine.

DIY Friday, one day early

Hi all! I know you're probably getting tired of my nursery posts, so I promise you, we are almost finished.

Yesterday, I created one of the easiest DIY projects I've ever created. It started with this beautiful silver 8X10 frame I had lying around. I also had some left over vintage lace from when I created the lamp on the table beside the nursery chair.

I started by hot gluing the lace to the frame.  I put a piece of scrapbook paper in the back of the frame just to give it some color. After that, I just used some Command strips to attach it to the wall. Then, I put all of these cute little hairbows on it. I think it made a nice addition to her room! 

Linking to Stonegable, Worthing Court, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Confessions of a Plate Addict, and French Country Cottage!

Hardware store decor

No, I'm not suddenly into decorating hardware stores... but have you ever noticed hardware stores can be kind of like a treasure hunt sometimes? We have a really neat older hardware store here in town, and I love it. They sell a little bit of everything, from lumber, to gardening tools, to pet supplies, to kitchen wares. This post involves two projects I am currently working on for our dining room re-decorating project, and I wanted to share. I haven't actually completed these projects yet, so these images are from Pinterest. They are sourced, so no copywrite violations are happening here :)

First of all, we have all seen the knockoff West Elm industrial pipe curtain rods.

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DIY Fridays: Nursery table and lamp

Hi all! Due to the link party posting tomorrow, I am posting my DIY Friday one day early.

As you know, the husband and I have been feverishly working on our baby girl's nursery. Although she'll be arriving in November, I am going back to work in two weeks and we are trying to get it finished before I go back. So far, we've painted, bought bedding, bought (but not hung) art for the walls, and unpacked and put away all the baby clothes and gear. Last week, my super handy daddy came over and built a closet organizer shelf for her closet.

That being said, I found a very cute black turned leg end table at Homegoods. It was on sale and appeared to be well-made.

 The nursery furniture is all white and the table was black, so I figured I could paint it and make it match.  I put three coats of semi gloss white paint onto the table, and I'm pretty happy with the end result.

DIY Fridays: A Shabby Chic Lampshade

We have begun working on Baby Girl Boone's nursery, which right now, looks a bit like this:

We are getting ready to start painting in there soon, so it's kind of a hot mess. OK, it's definitely a hot mess. I want the finished product to have a shabby chic theme, so I have been working hard to secure or make items for the room. I purchased a gorgeous handmade quilt from Etsy, which I love! It really does look like a vintage quilt and there are so many beautiful colors in it. I can't wait to show it to you. 

I wanted a lampshade with rosettes, similar to this one:

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I quickly went to our local big box store and bought a plain cream colored drum shade for $5.00. I also bought five rolls of this ribbon: 

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I hot glued the ribbon to the shade, making sure not to let any gaps form. I didn't want the shade to be visible through the lamp shade at all. When I finished, here is what I ended up with: 

Since the nursery is in the shape that it is currently in, I am staging this lamp in my oldest daughter's room. I kind of like it there- I may have to make a smaller one for her vanity :)

Thanks for stopping by! I'll post another DIY Friday project next week. 

A quick and easy DIY: dresser tray

I am a bit obsessed with trays. I have a silver serving tray in our bathroom to corral our glass canisters. I also have a wooden tray in our kitchen with a grain sack print, an apothecary jar and some spring decor. 

Reveal: Emorie's Big Girl Room

We have been working on my sweet girl's "big girl room" for over a year. What started out as the "junk room" actually morphed into a cute little room. When we first moved in, we stashed everything we didn't want to deal with in that room and shut the door.

My kiddo is outgrowing her nursery and when we got pregnant with our second baby, we really started to work on the room. We miscarried, but we talked up her big girl room so much, we had to keep creating it. We've finished the room aside from buying her an area rug.

Spring Crafts for Kids: "Foot birds"

I found the cutest little Spring craft for my kiddo on Pinterest this week! It came from a website called "C.R.A.F.T.: Creating Really Awesome Free Things!" This website contains massive amounts of cute activities for kiddos, and the title contains three of my favorite things: creative, awesome, and free!

Spring crafts: DIY bird's nests

Bird's nests are a big part of my spring decorating. I really like including natural elements in my decor. While I have several bird boxes and trees around my house, I'm not too keen on the idea of taking a real bird's nest and bringing it in to the house. I wouldn't want any bird parasites to hitch a ride and come into the house.

"Antique" tool bin

Most of us can't afford a lot of real antiques. This leaves us no choice but to get creative, and get creative we shall.

I recently found these cute toolboxes in the "outdoor" section of a local dollar store. Two of them came home with me.

DIY: "Grain sack" wall art

I love antique grain sacks. 

                      

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Emorie's big girl room: DIY art work

You may have seen my last post, in which I stenciled the back of my kiddo's bookshelf in her big girl room.

As I said before, I tried to first stencil on poster board that I cut to fit the backs of her shelf. Whenever I finished, the result was way too pink. 

I couldn't let all that time and effort go to waste. We had a big, blank wall in her room, beside where I put the book shelf. I trimmed down the painted poster board and popped it in some frames with mats. I also printed off some clipart from the computer to go with it. I really like the results, don't you? 

A Christmas DIY: Gettin' in on the sweater trend.

The sweater trend is huge right now. Christmas decor with a Christmas sweater theme is everywhere.