Cardboard Letter decor (for free!)

I saw this idea online and have been wanting to do it for a while. Here is where I found this idea. She does a tutorial as well.

So all I did, was google the letter P. I found one that was just an outline. I printed it out. I didn't want to print a solid P, and waste a bunch of ink. I sized it a bit before I printed it to make it big. I didn't want it too huge, but figured the size of a piece of paper was a good size for where I wanted it.

Then I took a cereal box, cut it open and traced the P on the back, two times, and then cut them out. 

Then, I took the sides of the cereal box, and cut them to be about an 1 1/2 inches wide. I started taping it to the bottom of the P, to make the middle of the P. 

It was a little tricky, making the cardboard bend, but it got better as I went.

I then taped the second P on top of the outline I had.

In hindsight, I should have started with the top P to tape the middle to, and then added the bottom P last, instead of doing the top P last.

I noticed the P kind of bends ever so slightly, because the top P was harder to tape and make fit. I would have rather the bottom P not fit as well, so it wouldn't show.

Now, you are left with a cardboard P!

Next, I did a paper mache'. I had never done this, but it was really easy. You just take flour and water, a 2:1 ratio, and rip newspaper. I actually did phone book pages, since they are a little thinner than newspaper. Dip it in the mixture and spread it over the P. They lady's tutorial said to do it at an angle,  and to overlap a lot.

Let it dry 24 hours. 

I painted it the same blue as my TV stand.

If you look close, it has an aged, crackled look. That was just from the paper mache'. From far away you can't see it. I'm debating on glazing it to make the lines stand out. Not sure yet, if I will do that. 

I need to put something else on this shelf, to compliment my P. Maybe a candle or something...

Overall, a fairly easy project. And it was FREE! I had all materials already on hand. Most people do and the only thing you may not have is paint. You could easily use acrylic paint for $1 a bottle. 

Having fun with a Food Dehydrator

In my efforts to continue to keep up with our food storage, which is on and off again, I found out about the benefits of a food dehydrator. I decided that I REALLY wanted one. The main reason being, that we don't eat a lot of processed food. A lot of stuff that has a long shelf life, isn't always the best for you. We try to eat fresh fruit and vegetables. You can get canned fruits and veggies, but you miss a lot of nutrients and there is often added sodium and sugar. A dehydrator became a great solution for us to have food that we actually eat on a regular basis, stored in our food storage and have a healthy option, as well.

Dan got some extra income from classroom size overages. We put most of it in savings, and used some of it for things we wanted...like a dehydrator! I struggled with which one to get. I could have gotten a fairly cheap one and it probably would have worked fine. Or go for a nicer, more quality one. I decided to go for the gold and get a nicer one. From my research and in talking to people, you want to get one where the air flow is vertical, not going from bottom to top. You want one where the air goes from the back, where it can blow across the food evenly and have a better and even dehydration.

I got the Exaclibur 3500, five tray. I ordered it online from Harvest Essentials, though you can get it on Amazon, or other sites as well. You can get bigger ones with more trays, but I couldn't see myself needing to use 9 trays at a time. Right now the 5 tray one is working great for me. I usually use 3-4 trays, depending on what I'm doing.

Dehydrating is great and it's also a space saver! I did 3 pounds of carrots last week. Here is a picture of some carrots cut up (I forgot to take one myself).

Here they are after! They got so tiny!

This is 3 pounds of carrots. They all fit in a small ziploc bag!

Last Christmas, my brother got us a food saver, where you can seal your food in bags, to preserve them. This is an excellent way to preserve dried food. It vacuums seals it, thus protecting it from oxygen. I've read that dried food, if stored properly, can last up to 15 years!

So far I've done (in orders as you see them) carrots, strawberries, mangoes, apples, and peaches.

I did at least 5 lbs of strawberries, at least 12 mangoes, 10 apples, and 10 apples. These REALLY condense, especially with the food saver sucking out all the air. I've also done pineapple and tomatoes, but don't have enough to put in a bag yet.

I'm trying to take advantage of all the summer time fruits that I can get for cheap. I just got some nectarines yesterday for 33 cents a pound! 

Most stuff takes around 10 hours. It's great because I'll cut everything up before I go to bed, plug it in, it's about as loud as a box fan. Let it go all night and the food is usually done in the morning when I wake up. That way I don't have to hear a loud fan all day when I'm awake.

So far I am really enjoying my dehydrator. I still have A LOT more to do. But slow and steady wins the race, right? Haha.

I still need to experiment with rehydrating food and cooking with it, etc. For now though, my goal is to just build a up a large stockpile of dried foods.

Oh AND did I mention you can make your own fruit leathers (fruit roll ups) and beef jerky with a dehydrator? Yes, you can. I've made two fruit leathers and the kids absolutely LOVED them. I need to make more for my storage.

Homemade bead board frames

So many many moons ago, I saw a really cute idea, I believe on Pinterst. As soon as I saw it, I wanted to make it.


This is it:

So cute! This lady made all these bead board frames then attached them to the rod with ribbon. Sounds simple, right? Wellll, yeah. Here is the link to her blog, along with directions of what she did. 


I knew I could make this. I had a large section of beadboard left over from when I redid a bookshelf for Anna's room. 


I actually had a piece this size. I cut the piece into three pieces. 

I cut out a piece of paper to be the opening, traced around it, then started to cut. This bead board is actually like an extremely thick cardboard/pressboard. I had to take a utility knife and score out the middle piece. This took a long time. Like, longer than it should have. I think the blade was dull. And I have issues with my hand and gripping something for a prolonged time, so this took a few months to actually finish. As usual, my projects take FOREVER from start to finish.

I finally got out all the middle pieces and was left with this. 

The next step was to add some thickness to the frame. I took some extra MDF wood I used for the bathrooms and had Dan cut them to about 1/2 an inch thick. I got kind of sloppy here, because I was thinking the sides weren't really going to show. And I didn't plan ahead very well, with the placement of them, so they some of them don't look the best on the sides.

Next, was to put a smaller frame around the opening of the bead board frame, to cover the raw edges. This too, took a while. I bought some cheap, cheap trim at Lowes, then used my miter saw to angle them. Used wood glue and clamps to glue them in place, then filled in the corners with putty. 

Now, they were FINALLY done! Did I mention I started this project at the end of December and just got them up on the wall last week? 

When we were in Utah, we did family portraits with Dan's family. They sent me a CD of the pictures and I printed off a few to put in here. I got the background paper at Michaels, as well as the ribbon. I just hot glued the ribbon to the back of the frames.

The rod, is actually a curtain rod I got a few years ago at a garage sale for a few bucks. It was silver, and I spray painted it black. I had to go to Lowes to get the metal holders to attach the rod to the wall.

Overall, this was a pretty cheap project. It was probably about $10-12 total for everything.

Soon, I think I'll get the saying, "the most important things in life, aren't things," in vinyl to put above it.