Garden Makeover!

This is my grandmother's backyard (with a couple of things we bought to start the makeover)

As you can see it's a rather ambitious project. We'd really like to be able to have friends over to hang out. Our living room won't fit more than three people comfortably so this is the next option. I've already completed some things and will be posting about them over the next few weeks. 

DIY Cat Toys

Get this:

From this:

Pretty easy! All it took was this: 

Yay for fancy duct tape! 

So if you're a cat owner you know that they will play with a box whether it's fancy or not, but if you're like me then you want your living room to not look like a trash heap. In comes the duct tape.

Take a mailing box or other not so deep box and cut some holes in the top big enough to fit some little kitty toy balls.

Add the duct tape.

And the balls

Ta da! Ok actually I did this one second and so was out of tape. This other guy took up all my tape!

But kitty thoroughly enjoys it :) So yeah....like...what...$3 for the fancy tape? a $1 for a bag of kitty toy balls form the dollar store? Not too bad.

"Tea by the Sea" Photo Booth

This was so whimsical and cute :) Again, using things we had. In the past, a theme had been princesses and so there was a large wooden castle prop. My aunt painted over this to make it resemble a sand castle. It was quite fun!

"Tea by the Sea" More Decor

You're not going to believe this but I got another cold (thanks Hubby...poor guy) so this is another short entry but I hope you enjoy the pictures of the decor. Much of what we had was contributed from people's own things, was already owned by the library or was found at thrift stores and the dollar store.

"Tea by the Sea" Fundraiser

Hello, dears... After having company visit and then getting a five day flu thing, I found myself on the week of an annual fundraiser for the local library. I volunteer with the Friends of the Library and for this event I was in charge of doing some PR graphic pretty stuff and then the decorating for the event. I thought you would enjoy some photos of the event :) The theme was "Tea by the Sea" which was a mix of seaside aesthetic and Impressionist art. We had a lot of fun, every thing came together beautifully and there were plenty of compliments to go around. My next few posts will cover the different aspects of the charming ideas that made this event a success. Here are few previews:

Baking Fail: Mini Quiche

After having company in town and then getting directly knocked down with some sort of sicky-poo-ness, I am sitting here in bed with no energy to actually write something fantastic. So I bring you this funny fail of mine: Mini Quiches

Yeah...the recipe didn't specify how much to put in there other than "fill" so I did. Don't believe the lie. Hubby still ate 'em.  Not all at once of course, that would have been bad. And they freeze well too, so the fail was still a win.

Grandma Project: Lamp Shade

This will not be "pretty" but why lie to you all and make you think everything I do is all shiny and happy? It's still functional and that's pretty much all Grandma seems to care about :) Which takes the pressure off of me, thats for sure. 

Grandma's lamp shade had crumbled to bits, literally. 

And it was pretty much blinding anyone who sat nearby. 

I couldn't find a way to buy JUST the plastic shade at any nearby stores. 

So someone suggested I make one. Having never made one before, the result was something functional but kinda...janky...

I found a dish that was a similar shape of the original shade and used it for a support.

I then worked on cutting a piece of cloth the size that I wanted for the main section. I didn't care too much about the circle not being perfect because it was going to get covered anyway.

Realizing I needed more height on it, I put the whole set up on top of a vase and then a plate beneath that because the starch will drip, I imagine. 

Dipped the fabric in REALLY thick starch...probably too thick, don't think it should have chunks like that...I've never mixed starch before so how should I know. 

Drape, form and let dry

Next I took this pretty granny square (I wanted to incorporate my Grandma's talent for crochet)

I removed the flower

Dunked and draped. Had to use safety pins to get it to stay, it was pretty saturated.

I think it took at least a day and a half to dry. I also added some glue but that was a mistake, I never should have added it. It didn't make a difference and it just added a nasty whiteness to the shade. 

Then the REALLY fun part, as in not at all fun. When I went to reattach the shade, the plastic beneath began to crumble at the slightest touch. I couldn't actually screw the thing back in! So I had to bust out the duct tape. If I had forseen the issue maybe I could have gotten a color less...purple...but at least it looks good with red. 

This angle makes Grandma look like she has a lamp on her head :P which I actually didn't realize until I loaded it. Yay for tunnel vision! She likes it, it does the job. And honestly she was far more amazed that they have purple duct tape now. TA DA!