Home Maid Simple

Tag: crafts

DIY Clarinet Lamp
Music lovers will love this tutorial for a DIY Clarinet Lamp. Make a matching pair to really stick out in your music room. This post contains affiliate links and I will receive compensation if you click on and make a purchase.

Last summer Mark took an old Clarinet we had and mounted it on some particle board, then threaded a lamp cord through it. He left it as is, and as much as I loved the idea, I kept telling myself I would update the lamp to look a bit nicer.

Finally this month, I made the time. Finding the right lampshade was half the battle, but once that was found, I knew that not only would this be a Clarinet Lamp…it would also be a stage for some little Musicians we’ve had laying around the house.

We went through a number of lampshades before finding the right one. I believe this one above was #2. It was just a little too small for the overall feel though. I couldn’t wait for the right lampshade before I started updating it, so out came some paint, and I gave that base a new look.

I was worried about the particle board showing through, and taking in too much paint, so I gave it 3 coats before calling it good. I’m still debating putting a chalkboard layer over it – what do you think??

I went back to our local thrift store to see if I could find a better shade, and this time, they had it! A nice square, to offset all the circles going on, and that’s when it hit, that this was going to be a stage.

Some stencils quickly made using Picmonkey, a razor, and some white paint, made a simple, anyone can do it, musical shade. I used scrapbook glue dots to hold the stencil on the shade.

There are obviously some extra bumps of paint, but I think it just adds a nice rough look to the shade. Plus, from far away, you can’t even tell.

Time for the final touch, the little Musicians – aren’t these just awesome?!

DIY Clarinet Lamp

What you’ll need:
- Old Clarinet
- Screws
- Circular particle board base
- black paint
- lampshade
- light bulbs – I prefer GE LED Bulbs
- lamp kit
Drill a hole through the center of the base. Carve out a section for the lamp cord to lay safely under the base. Paint your base black…or any color you prefer. Thread your lamp wire through the clarinet, and the base. Attach the clarinet to the base using 2-3 screws. Add a light bulb, and shade. Plug in, and enjoy some musical ambiance.
May 27, 2014
Joy in the Home

A couple weeks ago I was feeling on top of the world. There was just this high optimism for life and everything in it. As I got into bed one night, the word hit me

JOY

I was feeling an immense amount of Joy, and for no particular reason other than I am healthy, I have 4 healthy kids, a wonderful husband, extended family that is amazing, a roof over our head and food in the cupboards.

Can life really be any more simple than those things? Those are the things that truly bring us joy. So I decided I wanted to display this Joy in my home. I knew I wouldn’t always be feeling so upbeat, but if I could create a constant reminder for myself to have Joy, then the down days wouldn’t have to be so bad.

I had this idea to create a sign that read JOY, and then next to it have some of my favorite family pictures displayed. Before I even had a chance to come up with my own design, I found myself at a workshop with Steffany and Melanie from the blog Find it Make it Love it. I was so thrilled when the craft they shared fit into my JOY vision.

So of course, I picked up all my supplies right after the workshop and set to work making their IKEA candle dish turned picture frame. Once I had the kids at school, and Prince L sleeping it was just me and Princess R. I set her to work with a new tracing book we bought, and I got started on my crafting. Picking a picture of each of the kids was extremely difficult! Either they were too close to their face, or too far away. I finally had my decisions, though.I did my cut outs slightly different, only because I’m very visual, and don’t trust myself completely – so I used the scrap from the circle cut out to trace my pictures.

Princess R was pretty distraught when I cut off Prince L’s feet, and she started taking off with all the pictures of her. I guess she was worried I was going to ruin all the pretty pictures. Once it was all done though, she thought they were pretty nice.

The large candle dish turned chalkboard was perfect for my new word – JOY. Mark kindly jumped in here and added his artistic talents to the sign. Just another little joy found in spending time with my husband.

Everything has a meaning on his design, but at the moment all I can remember is the stars represent our 4 children and our biggest joy. He’s got such talent.

Once we had these hung above the desk, I realized just what a mess I had allowed this space to become. So not only did doing something crafty add a nice touch to our wall, it also spurred me to get some extra cleaning done, booyah! I feel I can be much more productive in this space now instead of feeling overwhelmed.

What brings you JOY?

March 24, 2014
National Crafting Month Giveaway
*This is a sponsored post. All opinions are my own*

Did you know March is National Crafting Month?! I did not know that, but I have been feeling a little surge of craftiness this week. Be on the lookout next week for some fun home crafts from yours truly.

To celebrate national Crafting month, Kiwi Crate has teamed up with Highlights Magazine and YoYo.com to giveaway a dream craft room for your kids!

To enter the contest click the picture above, and fill out the contest form.

Contest runs until March 31st

Dream Craftroom Giveaway includes
- Annual subscription to Highlights/High Five magazine
- Annual Subscription to Kiwi Crate
- $200 worth of arts and crafts supplies from Kiwi Crate
- $60 worth of Craft organization supplies from Highlights
- A Kidcraft table & chairset from YoYo.com
For Christmas we bought Princess R a Kiwi Crate subscription. I am in love with these crates we get each month! It helps her and I get a little more crafty, and gives us a specific activity to do together while sisters are at school and baby brother is napping.

We had a lot of fun making the window clings in the December crate, and Mark enjoyed helping her put together the xylophone and jingle bells in the January Music crate.

If a monthly subscription isn’t your thing, or you want more than one box a month, Kiwi Crate has partnered up with Target to create some exclusive crates to be sold in Target stores. They are also giving away a $250 Target Giftcard!

What have you been crafting lately?
March 5, 2014
14 Crafty Ways to Reuse Pie Pans

The holidays bring my favorite dessert – pie! What do you do when you find yourself with a stack of pie pans though? These 14 ideas are sure to inspire you to reuse pie pans in a myriad of ways.

Thanksgiving is upon is! Family, football, Macy’s Parade, and Food. Lots of Food. Which will usually equate to lots of trash as well. Styrofoam cups, paper plates, cans, napkins, and pie pans. So many pie pans!

Did you know about 50 million pumpkin pies are eaten at Thanksgiving? (source) That is a lot of pumpkin pie, and I highly doubt that even half of those are made at home in a reusable pie plate. Add to that fact, that some people out there just don’t like Pumpkin pie – raising my hand – so then we’ve got apple pie, cherry pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, and my personal favorite cheesecake!

I’ve talked recently about how we can reduce our waste by buying products in cartons, but what are we going to do with these pie pans? Lucky for you, I’ve been brainstorming, and have a pretty awesome list to reuse pie pans.

14 Crafty ways to Reuse Pie Pans after Thanksgiving

Garden Stones. Fill with cement, and add sparkly things like bead
s for a bright garden stone. These make great Grandparent gifts too.

Bake more pies. I think this is pretty obvious. Also a great way to make pies for neighbors or potlucks without worrying about getting your dish back.

Kids Crafts. Things like a bird feeder, addition to a costume (think tin man), a mask, Frisbee, boat, the uses are endless here.

Sensory Play. Have you seen sensory play pins? Something like this Frozen Sensory bin could easily be recreated in a pie tin.

Pet Bowls for on the go. Keep one or two in the car, for travelling with pets. Fill with water for a quick drink on the go

Make a Veggie Basket for the grill. (Source)

Store leftovers. If you get the tins with the lids, save those lids and use the tin and lid to store leftovers, or to keep your husbands dinner warm if he has a late night (or wife if she’s the one working)

Husbands lunchbox. Again hang onto the lids, and send your spouse to work with a meal in a tin.

Recreate Cafe Rio favorites at home. If you’ve never been to Cafe Rio, this might not make sense. You get a huge burrito, with beans and rice on the side, all served in what looks similar to a pie pan, but with higher sides. Save some money and recreate these favorites at home. I suggest trying this Cafe Rio Sweet Pork

Recycle. If you’d rather not keep them around the house, then please recycle them. Give them to a crafty friend, or put in your recycling bin

Christmas Ornaments. I found this fun idea over on Thrifty Fun. It would be easy to recreate with kids.

Key and wallet Holder. This one is so simple. Just set the pan on your counter, and request everyone leave their wallet, keys, sunglasses, and other pocket junk in the tin. It will keep your counters looking cleaner, and no one will lose their keys.

Screw holder in the garage. Attach multiple magnets to the back of the pie pan. Hang on your garage wall. Whenever you have a loose screw, or nail, or bolt, with no place to put it, toss it into the pan, and it will stick to the magnets. Great garage storage idea from Mark!

French toast. This is a tip I actually shared a few years ago, and what inspired me to think further outside the box. I use pie tins (make sure they have no holes) and their lids to soak my french toast in before cooking it up. They can be washed and reused over and over and over again.

How will you reuse pie pans this year?

November 27, 2013
What is Craftsy?

*The following post contains affiliate links. Thanks for reading Home Maid Simple*

You may have seen this ad on my sidebar, or heard me mention Craftsy before. Spellcheck likes to tell me it’s no such word, but it could mean the escape to knowledge and learning that is practical in your life today!

What is Craftsy?

Craftsy is a worldwide craft community offering online classes. It also has a patterns marketplace where independent designers can sell their patterns; a supplies shop with great deals on yarn, fabric, and class kits; and a projects section where members share pictures of their latest craft successes. With over two million members and counting, Craftsy has something for just about everyone, in categories ranging from quilting, sewing, knitting, painting, photography, cooking, and more.

Recently Craftsy has added a wishlist to your profile, so you can add classes you’d like to take to a quick to find list. It would be perfect to share with anyone wondering what you want for the holidays!

Behind the Scenes: The Making of a Craftsy Class

Before filming even begins, hours and hours are spent determining what content will be covered in each class, and how to best teach specific techniques to the camera. Instructors work with an instructional designer to create an in-depth outline of each lesson, and decide how to best prepare props or “step-outs” that show what your project should like at different steps. Instead of a scripted class, instructors follow their outlines on camera to create an authentic and engaging teaching experience.

Most Craftsy classes are filmed in one of five Craftsy studios in Denver, CO, assuring that every part of the production process goes off without a hitch. They fly in instructors from all over the world to spend several days filming, then spend several weeks turning hours of footage into a two to three hour class experience that has been watched, rewatched, and reviewed by industry experts. The final result is an HD-quality video that takes you in-depth into specific topics in any given craft category- from cooking and fine art to sewing and knitting.

I’ve really enjoyed the flow of my 2 current classes Vegetable Gardening and Croissants Class. If I recall from the first video, the gardening class is actually filmed at the instructors garden, not in a classroom. It makes it more personal, and I felt easier to understand.

What IS the Craftsy experience?

Craftsy classes are designed to have all the benefits of an in-person class, with none of the drawbacks. Available online and on-demand, you always have world-class instructors at the tip of your fingers. You can retake the class as many times as you want, and the 30-second repeat feature allows you to watch the same section over and over again until you get every technique just right.

Watching a Craftsy class is like having a first-row seat with some of the best instructors in the world. Even better, classes have a 100% money-back guarantee.

Try online learning today with a free mini-class from Craftsy! Choose from 23 Free Craftsy Classes ranging from drawing and painting to sewing and quilting, from knitting to cake decorating and more.

November 19, 2013
DIY Steampunk Hats

Around the beginning of October we got a Wedding Announcement for my friend and old college roommate. It was one of the most unique announcements/invites I’ve ever seen. With an I spy game scattered around it, and a link to a website that had more information on the reception.

Steampunk. The theme was steampunk, and they were asking all their guests to come dressed up. Oh I was so excited! Mark has been getting into Anime shows that feature some Steampunk the last few years, and I love any reason to make something crafty. So we headed to Hobby Lobby and picked up a couple supplies.

Top hats, girly hats, gears, clocks, keys and compasses. I wasn’t entirely sure what the final product was going to look like, so I played around with some different set ups, before making it permanent. The top hat for Prince L was definitely going to be the easiest to put together, so I started there.

I had an old clock that the kids had ripped the hands off of. It had a cool frame, so I had tossed it into my craft bucket (finally glad I held onto some junk). I pulled the clock out, opened up the back, and took out the whole gear works. A few of the gears started falling off though, so I had to super glue them in, but it didn’t really need to work.

Once I had the gears set into the hat, I added a compass dangling from the gears. Later, and not pictured, Mark had the brilliant idea to add some ribbon around the rim of the hat. We used some 3 inch gold/brown ribbon that really brought this piece together.

Now it was onto the girls hats. We picked up some Princess style dresses from the local thrift store, in hopes they would mostly fit into the steampunk theme. I used the colors of the dresses to create a more tailored theme for the hats.

After a lot of pinterest browsing I knew I needed to start the hats with some fabric flowers. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to make these flowers, I used this one from Just Another Hang Up.

Hot glue the flowers onto your hat, and then add the different components you would like. This is how ours turned out

– Red Riding Hood: red flowers, key to grandma’s house and some gears.

– Belle: yellow flowers, clock, and gears.

– Tiana: green flowers, a metal frog, and gears.

Once all the components were glued on, I added the ribbon to fit around the heads. This I also just hot glued onto the edges of the hat. The holes in the hat helped get the glue onto both sides of the hat, so it really stuck well.

Finally I had to come up with something for me to wear. I had the clock face left from that broken clock, but it had no hands. I remedied that by using some model plane paint (something we just had laying around the house). I removed the gear casing to add some ribbon, and then placed the gear casing back on to hold the ribbon in place.

This my friends, is my new favorite dress up! Check out my earrings too! Those were extremely easy to make as well. While at Hobby Lobby I picked up some earring clips, and the string of gears. A little pliers work to unhook the gears, and re-hook them to the earring clip, and voila – new earrings! Your welcome.

So yes obviously, this was also our Halloween Costumes, but we had a fun time at the wedding reception and seeing all the other Steampunk outfits. Congrats ChaRlie on your wedding!!

Have you ever been to a themed wedding?

linked up to these Great Parties!

November 4, 2013
Earth Day Craft: Milk Jug Planter

Monday is Earth Day! I love this day to celebrate our planet, and give a little back. It’s also a great day for teaching our children. I know, I should be better about teaching them every day, but I’m not. We’re working on that though.

School days always get away from me, so I thought, hey let’s do a fun little learning crafty thing on Saturday. The girls were at first just ho humming, do we have to turn the wii off mom? attitude when I told them we were going to plant flowers. (by the way, I’m a mean mom and they only get to play wii on Saturday’s). Once I pulled out all the stuff, and had them run outside to find some rocks, their attitudes changed pretty fast.

This truly is a simple “craft” that anyone can do, with very basic supplies. You’ll want to start with an empty milk jug. Wash it out as good as you can, and then using a pair of kitchen shears (or other good scissors) cut the jug in half, just below the handle.

Step 1

While you, the adult, are handling the scissors, send your children out into the wild to find some rocks. Not too large, but not too small either (unless of course you have a gravel pit, then by all means get a bunch of tiny rocks).

Now that the dangerous scissor cutting is done, and you have a pile of rocks, layer the rocks in the bottom of the jug. I would go up about 1 inch for good drainage. You don’t want your plants sitting in too much water.

Step 2

Next cover the rocks with dirt up to the top of the jug. I used some extra seed starter I had, but you can go out and get some backyard dirt for this project too. My kids I know would love any excuse to go dig up some dirt.

Step 3

Now you’re ready to plant. I let the Princesses choose from a myriad of seeds, just because I already had them (thanks Mom!). So in our recycled milk jugs we’re growing Marigolds, Sweet Peas, and Daisies. Once the seeds are planted give them a drink of water, set out in the sun, and wait for them to grow.

Since putting ours outside, the Princesses have been checking on them every few hours, to see if they’ve come up yet. So far the idea hasn’t worn off, and they haven’t lost their patience. I just have to continue to explain that it takes a few days for them to grow.

Next on our spring crafty list – A Fairy House!

April 22, 2013
Keepsake Krochet {2012 Holiday Gift Guide}

I love finding hand made gifts to give family. I wish I could be the one making them, but there are some talents I lack. I mean, we can’t all do everything; what a boring world it would be if we could.
So whenever I can I like to support crafters in their talent.

I’ve tried crocheting, and I just can’t do it. Maybe one day I’ll find someone patient enough to teach me, but until then I enjoy browsing the amazing creations from people like Maggie Knorr of Keepsake Krochet. She has some beautiful afghans, totes and jewelry – all crocheted. I’m going to turn it over to Maggie now to tell you a little more about herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My name is Maggie Knorr and I’ve been crocheting for about five years, but I’ve been familiar with it for most of my life. My grandmother was constantly crocheting things and frequently it was things for me. She made me three dresses as I grew up and also an afghan that I didn’t receive until I went to college. She kept it in her cedar chest and let me look at it occasionally. She did teach me the basics of crochet, but never how to read a pattern, so crocheting long pieces of something got kind of boring. I never really showed any more interest. Then, in 2005 I came across the prayer shawl ministry online and thought it was neat. I decided to try to make a shawl. I was following a pattern, but my one edge kept growing. I went over to my grandmother’s to find out what I was doing wrong. She told me I was picking up stitches. I asked how to fix it, and she said, “Count.” Well, a row was 109 stitches long and I wasn’t going to count that every row, so I put it aside again.

Four years later I came across something called Tunisian Crochet, and this is where you use a long crochet hook to cast on and cast off stitches to make a row — kind of like a mix of knitting and crochet. I figured if all the stitches were on the hook it would be easier to count, so I gave it a try and picked it up just like that. After about a year of making things in Tunisian Crochet I got brave enough to try traditional crochet again. By this time my grandmother had passed away, so I went to a yarn shop and the lady helped me learn to read a pattern and I have just run with it since then. I enjoy making throws and shawls because they don’t take a long time to make and it’s like giving someone a hug that they can use any time they want to. Crocheting has become an important part of my life. I feel I help enrich other’s lives by providing lovingly made quality items and gives me a connection to my grandmother even though she’s no longer with me.

I also enjoy reading, writing, journaling, cross stitching and letterboxing. I’m extremely proud of my son who is pursuing his black belt in karate and my hubby who is a staff sergeant in the WV National Guard.

I could see many teen girls and moms wearing these beaded chokers. They would make a great stocking stuffer. Plus they’re affordable for a hand crafted item.

Connect with Maggie on Facebook

Shop Keepsake Krochet

Win It!

Enter to win our choice of tote from the 2012 Holiday Gift Giveaway

December 5, 2012
Craftsy Online Classes On Sale
Have you ever wanted to learn something crafty, but don’t have the time? There have been so many classes I’ve wanted to take, to enrich my life, and learn something fun and new. As a mom, though, I can’t always get away for those things, or they cost too much, or I don’t live close enough to anything.

Recently the local college was having a Reupholstery Class. I so wanted to do that, but we had just moved here, and were still trying to get settled.

So, I introduce to you, Craftsy! The online classes for all things crafty. They have everything from sewing to cooking. And from what I can tell, they are not just basic skills, they come very specialized to what you want.

For example, you can take a
After browsing them for days, I think I’ve finally settled on taking a Vegetable Gardening Class. Should definitely help us with our new garden next spring!

BLACK FRIDAY to CYBER MONDAY

All Classes ONLY $19.99
November 23, 2012
My wee lil’ Pirates {Wordless Wednesday}

It be International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

I’ve never seen my kids so excited as when I started saying Ahoy, Avast and Land Lubber this morning. I’ve got 3 Princesses, but don’t let them fool you. They be Pirates at heart.

Ye may start callin’ me Cap’n Mom now. Princess C has already taken to it.

September 19, 2012