Making Over: The "Kitchen"

Ok so we technically don't HAVE a kitchen, but we miss having one so we are making one. A mini one. It's very european of us! That's it, lets make this sound super classy...

Anyway, since I don't have counters yet, I decided to make over this metal...wall...thingy... what's this thing even called? seriously. I dunno but it's cute, i like the industrial look.  It used to hold a junk drawer assortment of crap. Now, it's life will be more meaningful as a container for silverware. 

To make the labels a little more fun, I decorated them. It's nothing that takes a tutorial, it's pieces of card stock paper cut to dimensions that will fit the slot. Then decorated in the colors I am using for the "kitchen."

I put the napkins in with the knives because the kitten would shred them if they are lower. 

So now they are knapkins (HA! because of the "k" label on the box, get it??oh I chuckle to myself...)

Magnetic Chalkboard Wall for Grandma

As you know, it's my job to take care of my very lovely grandma.  She is pretty amazing. And as I am sure most of you can attest, family have their "things" such as certain foods they all grew up (Aunt Linda's Sourdough Biscuits, Grandma's Beans, my Mom's Roast Ribs) with or certain made-up/augmented holidays (like St. Crispin's Day...yeah I'll tell ya later...). One particular staple everyone on my mom's side of the family grew up seeing was my grandmother's picture board. At the top of it was the senior photo of every one of her 11 children and then it progressed down to more recent pictures accumulated through the years showing the family tree growing on into grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. Grandma is going to be 90 this year and she'll tell you herself that her hands don't work like they used to. Tacks are out of the question, especially with her blood thinners. Wouldn't it be nice if she could use magnets instead? And wouldn't it be nice if she didn't have to reach up so high to put up those pictures? And she needs the chalk board handy too....

Wait whoa what?! there's a crafting need??? like i'm not gonna take that on. A plan was born. let the make-over begin.

{Grandma's Photo Wall}

Just the magnetic primer so far

Putting up the Senior Pictures of her eleven children at the top

Button Tacks

Twine for clipping the photos to, like clothes on a line

Fun Magnets

Botton Tacks for Grandma's Wall Make-Over

There is a fairly large make-over I am undertaking with my Grandma's kitchen. Here is a fun little idea I had while developing the end project! Enjoy :)

Take Grandma's Old Tacks

And Some of Her Old Buttons

And Glue

Put them together and let them dry

What a cute vintage tack!

Use them...

In all kinds of ways <3

Gma's Kitchen ReOrg: Spices

You should have seen Grandma's face light up when I told her I was going to make refillable kitchen containers so that we could buy more things in bulk. I think it made her day! It's the little things...

So, because finishing the downstairs...ish...wasn't enough, I have decided to take on the kitchen we share with Grandma. A part of this is self serving, I cannot fit the things i want to fit into the pantry downstairs until i move kitchen things currently in it upstairs. We plan to be here a while, at least a year, so I'd like to.... i dunno.... use my snazzy kitchen gadgets in the next year. And not break a sweat going up and down all the time. Grandma is ok with it. Commence reorganization!

It's going to have to be in baby steps. There's just too much to take on to simply move things over and make an empty shelf for us. I have to take Grandma's needs into consideration too, and one thing she likes to do is buy in bulk. However, she loses track of things at times. Or buys it simply because it's on sale. 

(Hence the 5 pounds of sugar.)

I want to respect this method (it's not hard, I am all for buying in bulk and getting things cheaper, not to mention wasting less plastic by not buying bottles),  AND also admit that because I am not used to it, I will not be able to manage this all in my head. To accommodate this, I plan to make an inventory list. Before I can do that, I have to figure out what's in the kitchen. Besides 5 pounds of sugar :) 

As I set about this, I found there were multiple bottles of the same thing. Not to mention I have some of the same spices and there is no sense in not combining them. I also have these beautiful blue vitamin bottles that i cleaned up to use for the wedding, just empty and doing nothing. Hmmmmmm... I see spice jars in their future....

I gathered up supplies:

For some reason, my black ink wasn't being very....black....so I used a black fine point sharpie to help it along. Then I set about combining everything, labeling bottles as I filled them with their destinies.

They came out pretty cute! I like the messy typewriter look of the letters. Its the book nerd in me :) My only qualm is that you can see the glue on the bottle, because I was trying to seal off the label. My husband says it makes it look more "rustic."

/eyeroll 

yeah...He's cute when he's trying to keep me from getting all perfectionist. :) I am pretty sure I can sand it down though....