My Macklemore Challenge

I've been absentee for awhile.  Sorry!

Anyhow, today at Young House Love, they're having a thrift store challenge.  You're supposed to take a $20 to a thrift store and see what you can score with it.  Here's my take!

Madi and I hit up our local thrift store last Friday to get this thing done.  She wouldn't cooperate for pictures, probably because she didn't want to be seen with me sans makeup.  She's 19 months old, and I'm already subjecting the poor child to public humiliation.  : )

 Here's what we scored for $2:

This thing is HUGE.  The inside of the frame is 2' X 3'.  I knew I wanted to spray paint the frame ORB, but I didn't know at first what I wanted to put inside the frame, so I hit up Pinterest and found this:

Source: etsy.com via Kelli on Pinterest

It's for sale on Etsy for $16.  I liked it a lot, but it was only an 8X10.  And, like I said, it was $16.  So of course, I tried to DIY.  First, I tried using Microsoft Word.  What a joke!  Then I pulled up GIMP (a free but not very intuitive image editing/generating software) and played around for a while.  Once I finally figured out how to manipulate text, I was able to put this together pretty easily:

It's not perfect, but it's good enough for us, for now.  And if it's good enough for you too, feel free to take it/print it/enjoy it.  Especially if you give me credit.  Or money.  Money is even better.

Anyway, blown up as big as it is on our wall, I can see imperfections (like how "protects", "trusts", and "perseveres" don't line up perfectly on the left side *shudder*) that would probably put me in the loony bin if I let them, so I try to only look at it from at least five feet away.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had it printed by Shutterfly for $8.64 after a $20 discount that came in our latest box of diapers, and was shocked at how quickly it arrived.

After spray painting the frame, I used the original "art" board to make a mat.  I just cut a rectangle out of the middle about a half-inch smaller both ways so there would be room to attach the poster on the back. 

Normally I love crisp white mats, but since the word art was printed on plain white paper and used a very plain font, I thought it needed some interest.  So I covered it in some fabric I had laying around from Madison's 52 week photo project.

I ran out of painters tape halfway through (I would have used something cheaper if I had it on hand, but I wanted to finish before Madison woke up that morning), so I switched to electrical tape, which was a complete pain in the boat to work with.

Thar she blows!  And yes, that is a fat joke.  This thing is HUGE.  I hung it to be centered behind our love seat/on the hallway. 

We are still in dire need of art for over the couch, but I've got plans.  For Patrick.  (Oh honey, did you really think I was going to let you watch the Superbowl?)  JK.  He can work on it during half time.  : )

So the total cost for this sucker was around $11.  I'll take it!

Happy flippin' Friday!
-Kelli

PS- I linked at these blogs:

young house love 

Work of (he)Art

After seeing a blog post over here about edible finger paint, I decided to give it a shot for Madison.  I found a recipe on Pinterest (where else?), gathered all necessary ingredients (corn starch and food coloring), and got started.

 Source: theimaginationtree.com via Kelli on Pinterest

I thought it would be fun to make her first project a Valentine for her daddy.  Yes, I am posting this a week late, thankyouverymuch. If I had it to do all over again, I'd quarter the recipe.  See the jar on the left in the picture below?  Yeah, that's the extra paint.  Right now it's in the fridge, just begging for someone to mistake it for mayonnaise.  I thought I'd try it later to see if it works as leftovers.  I'll keep you posted on that one.

I decided to go with just two colors, mostly because I only cleaned two baby food containers for the project.  Of course we did pink, because who makes a Valentine without a little pink?  I wanted to do pink and red, but I'm pretty sure we would have needed about a gallon of food coloring to turn that little jar red, so I settled for pink and blue.

Since I figured that "Happy Valentines Day!  We need to replace seven stained kitchen tiles!"  would make for a less than romantic greeting when Pat got home, I protected the kitchen floor by taping down a cut up gift bag and some newspaper.  I also prepped her "canvas" by taping out a border and a heart on a sheet of scrapbook paper.  If I had it to do over again, I'd definitely use something a little sturdier, like cardstock. 

I wasn't sure how Madison would react to the new texture.  I made the paint during her nap and kept it refrigerated, which not only chilled the paint, but also thickened it to almost a play-doh consistency.  The only thing I was sure about was that she'd taste test it at some point.  Here she is 0.003 seconds after touching the paint for the first time:

I guess it was good, because she decided to go for the source.  You know how when you're taking pictures and only looking through the camera at an event, and there's a little bit of a lag-time?  Maybe that's just me.  Anyway, I looked up from the camera to see this:

  With a little coaxing grabbing her pudgy little hand and scraping it across the paper, she started her "painting". 

After letting her get a good amount of pink on the paper, I had her swap to blue.

 Before she applied it to her masterpiece, she had to do some quality control:

 The finished piece.  See how lumpy the paint turned out?  I added extra cornstarch while mixing it, because it seemed thin.  I think next time I'll stick with the recipe.

Next time, I'll also have a bath ready and waiting.  Painting is messy work!

 Of course Madison's artwork merited a spot on the frame wall, so up it went!  We made a few other changes since you saw it last.  Once I get it all the way I want it, I'll do one big post. 

 I was in a huge rush to get off to our Valentine's date when I was framing this, so I did a horrible job and made it all wrinkly.  At the time, I planned to fix it once we got home.  That was seven days ago, and I haven't touched it...oops!  Oh, and I mentioned that next time I'd use cardstock or some more suitable surface for the painting.  This is why:

See the white spot in the left ventricle?  That's where the painters tape tore away the wet surface of the paper.  Again, oops!

I'm kind of nervous to see how the painting ages.  Have you ever used cornstarch paint?  Should I expect some sort of mold or pest problem a few months down the road?

-Kelli

Good Riddance to Bad Sallies

I promise the title will make more sense by the time you've finished reading this post.

House fever is getting pretty bad here at Casa Philpot.  I've been spending at least half an hour a day finding the "perfect" next house for us.  The only problem with that strategy is that once I find the perfect house, I'll be forced to watch it get sold to someone who actually prepared themselves to buy a house instead of just looking for a house, and that will be no fun at all.

See, the first step in us getting a new house should be to get as much $$$ as possible for the one we already own.  Now that we've filed our taxes, and are expecting a refund for the first time in four years (self employment + not filing quarterly taxes + procrastination = a really stressful April 14th), we're trying to finish everything in the house that we can do with the materials we already have.  Once we get our refund, we'll use that to help with putting on a new roof.  Actually, the refund won't be very useful for putting on a new roof...refunds don't have arms.  But refunds can buy arms.  Well, technically in America, it's now illegal to buy arms or the people to which they are attached, so we'll just have to rent some arms.  Hopefully, our refund will also buy us some shingles and miscellaneous roofing materials.  Maybe if we ask it nicely.

 Anyway, I'm pretty sure the point I was trying to make is this: right now, Patrick and I are trying to accomplish everything we can without spending any money.  One of the things I'm trying to finish is the wall of frames.  This is how it looked when I first "finished" it for the Pinterest Challenge:

Then, while touching up the paint in the hallway (something I didn't post about because I can't think of many things more boring than paint touch ups), I accidentally knocked the iron scrolly thing off the wall.  Okay, I'm gonna be referencing the "scrolly thing" way too much to continue using that phrase; it shall be henceforth known as Sally. Sally used to hang by two finishing nails that had to line up perfectly with two teensy holes on her back.  The first time I hung Sally(see, this is much more fun already), I almost stopped in the middle so I could go Google some useful curse words to interject during the hanging process.  I finally got her on the wall, albeit a bit crooked, and planned to let her stay that way for all eternity, or until the house sold, whichever came first.

Not only did I knock Sally off the wall, I also bent one of the nails, as you can see in the next picture.  At this point, I was regretting my previous decision not to Google an appropriate profanity; I really could have used one.

 The funny thing is, by the time Patrick got home from work that evening, the frames sans Sally were kind of floating my boat better than they ever did before she fell down.

To tell you the truth, I don't remember how or why Sally ever became part of the frame wall arrangement.  She's not a frame, she's not rectangular, and she's not even particularly pretty!  (Sorry, Sally.  I'm sure you're a nice girl and all...)  I guess maybe segregation has its place after all.  Wow.  In one post, I've managed to mention both slavery and segregation.  I assure you that when it comes to real people, Sally excluded, I oppose both.

What do you think?  Has Sally outstayed her welcome?  Do you name inanimate objects in your home?  What do you have planned for your tax refund, or are you getting a refund this year?

-Kelli

PS-This makes day two that I've misspelled my name.  Yesterday was "Kelly", today was "Klli".  I wonder which typos I didn't catch?  Never mind... I'd really rather not know.