Cleaning Kitchen Hardware

More than a month ago I debuted my kitchen cabinet makeover.

Please, please.  Hold the applause.

In that post I droned on and on about those sad and nasty cabinets, but believe me when I say that the hardware was pretty gross, too. Years of grime coated each handle and hid any hint of color beneath it.  I couldn’t bring myself to put the old handles on the pretty new face of those cabinets.  That’d be like using a dirty towel after showering. Why bother?

My inner domestic goddess wanted to buy new hardware that glistened.  But the public defender in me reminded the goddess that we’re on renters on a budget and metaphorically slapped some sense into her.

After some research, I created my own cleaning recipe based on what I had on hand.  I filled the sink with hot water, some ammonia and a bit of ordinary dish soap.  (Open the windows or risk building evacuation!)  I soaked a few handles in the solution and  scrubbed them one by one with a toothbrush from the dollar store.  Look at how you can actually see chunks of the grime peel away.

Click on the picture to get a full screen shot of the kind of progress I made here.  It reminded me of streams of seaweed falling off the handles.

Look at the difference! Not bad, eh?  They are now worthy of my beautiful cabinets.  And both my inner public defender and domestic goddess are satisfied that we found a thrifty way to make them feel like new!

A Pinterest-Inspired Christmas Gift

Oh, Pinterest.  How you build me up and break me down.  So many ideas that will never be accomplished.

I suspect this is the first thing I’ve actually made from Pinterest.  I loved it.

My inspiration came from here.

A Little Paint Goes A Long Way

This blog has been neglected lately while my life has changed a bit.  Although I’m now single and an apartment dweller, my DIY tasks will not go to the wayside.  In fact, I think DIYing in an apartment is more challenging since I have to work within the restrictions set by the owner.  (No painted walls, no demolition, etc.)

One improvement I negotiated with my lease was to paint the kitchen cabinets.  My new apartment is a.w.e.s.o.m.e overall, but the kitchen just made me sad.  It was a dark, dreary place to be.  Here it is before:

The mahogany floors are gorgeous but combined with the outdated, dark cabinets it was just too depressing.

A coat of primer and two or three coats of semi-gloss white paint later, and the kitchen is officially bright and cheery.

Such a drastic improvement, no? A lighter color was also beneficial because the kitchen is the smallest place in the house.  It feels much larger now.

Stay tuned to see how I took the cabinet hardware from grimy to glowing!

DIY Car Seat Canopy

My BFF needed one of these handy car seat canopies and recruited me for the job.

Isn’t the fabric fantastic? She happens to have an excellent sense of style.

I’m not really sure how I made it.  Divine intervention, perhaps? At any rate, I relied on these blog posts so give them some love: Make It Do, Do It Yourself Divas, Mo Momma, and Sawdust and Paper Scraps.

DIY Yoda costume

One of the reasons I learned to sew was to create simple items that seemed so expensive to buy.  This weekend was a perfect time to put my skills to use.  My niece needed some ears for her Yoda costume.  A few stitches later and this is what we had.

Happy Halloween!

Easy Onesie with Freezer Paper Stencil

All of the hip bloggers have been using freezer paper as stencils these days to spruce up kids’ clothing. (Well guess what? I’m hip!)  I followed this tutorial a la MADE and – let’s be honest – you should too.  As you’re collecting your materials, note that this tutorial uses freezer paper – not wax paper.  (Apparently there’s a difference, the details of which I’m not all that interested in.)

The first – and most difficult – task is cutting your desired image out of the freezer paper.  I used an xacto knife and a kitchen cutting board to cut out the shape of Utah and a little heart.  Place the image under the freezer paper with the shiny side down.  Read: You’ll be drawing on the dull side.

Second, iron your freezer paper stencil to the cotton with the shiny side down.  Pay extra attention to the edges of your image because you don’t want your fabric paint to leak outside the stencil. (I put cardboard inside the onesie to separate the layers just for peace of mind.)

Third, use your permanent fabric paint to fill the inside of the stencil.  Follow the instructions on the bottle for drying times.

Finally, when the paint is dry remove the freezer paper and reveal your design!

I like it enough from afar but I thought up close it looked kind of clumpy.  It looks like, well, paint.  And I wonder if after it washes if there will be cracks in the image.

When it comes right down to it I must not have been too worried about it because I still gave it away to my BFF’s new baby.  (The kids grow out of those things so darn fast anyway, right?)

DIY Doily-Inspired Tote Bag

This easy little tote bag would be great for a DIY Christmas gift.  I made it for my Grandma’s birthday based on the instruction at this tutorial.  You can buy these plain canvas totes from the craft store.  But if you’re feeling ambitious, there are about one zillion tote bag tutorials online.  (See, for example, here and here.)

First, spray the back of a doily with spray adhesive and position about 1/4 of the doily on the tote.

If you think to yourself, “well some extra glue won’t hurt,” you’re wrong.  It will hurt.  Do not indulge the instinct to spray glue all over the place.  An even layer is more than sufficient.  If you use too much glue you’ll get a sticky mess like this when you peel off the doily.

(This was my first attempt.  I started to use tweezers to pull up the doily but even that proved fruitless.  Luckily these canvas tote bags came in sets of threes.)

Second, paint over the doily with fabric paint and let dry.

Next, add your monogram.  The easiest way is to trace with pencil and then paint it in by hand.  That freaks me out.  So I used the freezer paper stencil method, which I will post about tomorrow.  Here’s the finished product:

Any DIY Christmas gifts up your sleeve?

Embroidery Wedding Gift

I haven’t been embroidering much lately but this was my first project back in the swing of things.

Dinosaur Hoodie

For my nephew’s first birthday I made him a dinosaur hoodie inspired by the tutorial found here.

Rawr!

I was a little nervous sewing with felt but the tutorial was super easy to follow.  I used a plain hoodie from Wal-Mart that cost about $8.  (The hood lining was orange so that’s how I picked the color for the scales.)

First, make triangles along the crease of your felt pieces.

Then pin the pieces along the center line of the back of the hoodie and up the center of the hood.  Sew down the center line.

Hint: Don’t panic when disaster strikes.

Now that the triangles are sewn to the hoodie, pin them together to make scales.

Sew along the edges of the felt triangles to secure the scales in place.

Lastly, prance around in your hoodie to make all your cousins jealous.

No. 28: Can Something

Given the number of tomatoes Doug grows in his yard, one of my 30 Before 30 items was to can some of them. Since I don’t usually just eat tomatoes, I really hoped I could can some in a spaghetti sauce or salsa.  Lucky for me, my sister-in-law had a spaghetti sauce recipe and a lot of motivation.  It was my first time canning anything (and let’s be honest I just did as I was told) so I really don’t know what we did or why.  So here is my pictorial story of canning:

Who wants spaghetti?