Habitat for Humanity ReStore My Heart

Habitat for Humanity is a wonderful organization as we all know.  My husband and I have had the pleasure of volunteering for them on a few different occasions and recommend it to everyone.  In addition to building homes all over the world, Habitat also has retail building stores called ReStores.  ReStores sell "reusable and surplus building materials to the public" at unbeatable prices.  Have you ever been to a ReStore?  Well, I went for the first time today and I am still in a ReStore daze.  It was truly wonderful!

The isles are lined with really high quality building materials: kitchen cabinets, mirrors, plumbing materials, lighting, shutters and more.  See for yourself...

Two isles of every kind of door you could image, many with the casing and ready to install!

A huge pile of kitchen cabinet fronts in every shape, size and finish!

An entire room worth of laminate flooring, in great shape, for $200!

And windows, windows and more windows!

So what did I buy...nothing.  HA, you didn't believe that for a minute did you!  I went in search of inspiration for a master bedroom headboard which I did not find, but I did stumble upon a plan (well the start of a plan anyways) for the feature wall in our family room.  I can't divulge to much because honestly the plan is going to change 5 times before we settle on something, but I can show you what I went home with for a grand total of $25!

5 cabinet doors. $2 a piece for the small ones and $10 for the large one.

4 pieces of beautifully aged molding at $1 each.  (No, I am not making up these prices!)

And 8 porcelain knobs, 50 cents each!

Not only are the prices great, the volunteers are extremely nice and helpful, you are recycling instead of sending things to the landfills AND all the money goes to Habitat for Humanity.  It just doesn't get any better than this!  So check out the website and see if there is a ReStore in your area, please!

An Art Area For My Little Girl

The art area for my daughter is complete and may I say, lovely!  If you have been following me along the way (here,  here and don't forget here) you already know that my sun room formerly looked like this.

Inspirational right!  OK, maybe not but it did inspire me to create this...

The perfect area for my daughter to create!  Now, along the way I have filled you in on my trip to IKEA, where I found the rug, easel and this great craft storage.

And as you can see we did eventually get the table we wanted (without the broken pieces).  But the one thing I have not shown you along the way is the fabric banner.  Don't you just love it!

Want to know how I made it?  Well, I am going to tell you anyways :)  It was simple, as my projects always are, and it didn't take many supplies.

You will need some fabric (scraps from other projects are fine or buy 1/4 squares at the fabric store), glue (I just used good old Elmer's), sharp scissors (thank you to my sister-in-law for my amazing scissors), and some kind of rope or ribbon.  You will also see I found a cut-out pattern at  http://www.sew4home.com/ which made this even simpler!  

To get started you will want to iron your fabric and then fold it in half.  Place the pattern at the top of the fabric, wide side of the triangle at the folded edge.   

Cut out as many pennants as you will need to fill the length of your rope.  In my case it was 8.  Next open the folded fabric and lay the rope just below the fold line.  Put some glue, not to much, just below the rope.  Lay the fabric back over the rope and press down so the glue sticks.

Continue this same process for each pennant. Let it dry over night and you are done!  Now, rumor has it you can also do this with a sewing machine but that would mean you would have to have a sewing machine (I do not) and know how to use it (I do not).  But my version worked just fine...so there!

So now that my May project is complete (hey, it is only June 8th) I need a new project.  What did you say...paint the dining room?  No, I am actually really enjoying all the paint samples on the walls.  Maybe it is the new look for Summer ;)

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