Lindsay's Sweet World: Projects

Showing posts with label Projects. Show all posts

Monday, March 13, 2023

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Keepsake Book for Your Kiddos

*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

When Pinterest first came out years and years ago, I hopped right on board and obsessed over all of the clever things that I found on there. The very first “Pinterest project” that I did was to implement these Oh, the Places You’ll Go! Keepsake books for each of our kiddos, and I’m still going strong on the project, so I thought I’d share it with you since it makes such a fun keepsake.

The book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is a fabulous book by the one and only Dr. Seuss, and it offers some incredible life advice for kids and adults alike. It makes for the perfect backdrop for this project because of its wisdom and encouragement.

This project is super simple – so simple that it almost seemed silly to dedicate an entire blog post to it – but I figured I’d write about it anyway because we love this idea so much.

For this project, all you need to do is buy one copy of Oh the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss for each of your kiddos, and then at the end of each school year, have their teachers sign it. Then you can gift it to them at their high school graduation, and they can go back and read all of the sweet comments from everyone who cared for them throughout the years.

I purchased our books as each of our kiddos was born, and therefore, I was able to get not only their elementary school teachers to sign them, but their daycare givers to sign them as well. Every single person who has cared for our babies from birth to their current ages has signed their books, and I cannot even tell you how much these books mean to me.

I don’t let the kids read them yet – they don’t even know that these exist – and I’m hoping to keep it a surprise until their high school graduations.

So how do I have the teachers sign them without the kiddos knowing? Well, it was easy peasy when they were small. In daycare, I just carried the books to school at the end of the year and I handed them to the teachers directly, I explained what they were all about, and then I left them with the teachers to sign at their leisure. Then we just picked them up when we picked the kids up from school.

In elementary school, I email the teachers, tell them that I am going to be sending the book in, and I put it in a sealed manila envelope with the teacher’s name on it. The kids know to give the package to their teachers, but they don’t know what’s inside, so it works nicely. The teachers then sign the book at their leisure, and then they send it back in the manila envelope in our child’s backpack.

Now that Jacob’s in middle school it’s going to be a bit more challenging because he has multiple teachers, but I’m sure I’ll probably do something similar – email the teachers, send the book in an envelope, and then have Jacob bring it home in the envelope.

We always leave the books with the teachers for as long as they need so they don’t feel rushed, and their messages never disappoint. Every single one of them has taken the time to write a detailed, thoughtful message, and I have cherished reading every single one.

When we get the books back, I always doublecheck to make sure that all of the teachers did, in fact, sign them, and then I make sure to label the grade and school year by their note if the teachers didn’t already do that themselves. That way everything is clearly labeled so there’s no message that gets lost in the shuffle.

And that’s it! I plan to give each of the kids their books on high school graduation day, and between the wisdom and encouragement written in the book along with their personalized messages from everyone who cared for them throughout the years, I hope it’s a keepsake that they cherish forever.

Monday, June 27, 2022

House Project… Come Follow Along!

Today’s blog post was supposed to be part two of our beach trip, but we got started on a major house project and blogging got pushed to the side.

Our little LEGO collector is finally getting the LEGO museum of his dreams, so we’ve been hard at work getting everything put together and installed in his room. We made tons of progress this weekend getting everything moved out of his room, dusting and vacuuming everything, putting together all of the new pieces, and getting most of it installed.

This week, we’ll be finishing up with installation and then doing the very best part – decluttering and organizing all the things! :o)

Since I don’t have a real blog post for you today, come on over to Instagram and follow along with us! And if you missed any of my stories from when we started on Saturday, you can see everything in the highlight in my Instagram bio called “LEGO Shelves.”

Finally, it wouldn’t be a blog post without pictures, so here are a few before photos of Jacob’s room…

And what it looks like in process! EEK! So much new storage!

Happy Monday, y’all!

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Easy DIY Giant Gold-Framed Bulletin Board for Under $30 + Bulletin Board Inspiration

*This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Last week, I revealed my quiet time space in my office, and today I’m revealing my office bulletin board! One of my first projects when I first started blogging was a massive DIY bulletin board. (You can see the original post here but please don’t judge my horrible fabric choice and bad photography. Haha.) When refreshing my office last year, I knew I wanted to keep the bulletin board, but I wanted to class it up a little bit to match the overall aesthetic in the room after the refresh.

My inspiration was this gold-framed bulletin board from Pottery Barn… absolutely stunning. I couldn’t bring myself to buy their actual board, though, because that is a hefty price tag for a bulletin board. Plus, it wasn’t big enough anyway.

Job one was to recover my existing board and get rid of that busy black and white fabric that I’ve had on it for the last few years. I found some simple light khaki fabric at Walmart and I knew it was perfect… now the actual items pinned to the board can shine!

Creating the gold frame was going to be a little bit harder, but I knew there had to be an economical way to do it. All it took was a few minutes of browsing the lumber department at Lowe’s and I had my solution – quarter round! Ready for the instructions?

Materials

1 sheet of soundboard, cut to the size you need (a 4 ft. x 8 ft. sheet is only $9.00 at Lowe’s and they will cut it for free)

1.5 yards of linen fabric (I found mine at Walmart and it was only $7.00, but Amazon has this one that looks identical)

2 pieces of 1/2-in. x 8 ft. pine unfinished quarter round, cut to the size of your frame (only $4.48/each at Lowe’s)

Metallic Gold Spray Paint (I like this one from Amazon and it’s just $3.96)

Staple Gun to attach the fabric to the board (this one is highly rated)

4 Long, sturdy screws to hang the board (something similar to these)
Drill (we have this one and love it)

Command Strips to hang the frame (I love these)

Step One

Iron the fabric if it has wrinkles. I know nobody likes to iron, but you’ll regret it if you don’t and then it’s all wrinkled after you hang it.

Step Two

Lay the fabric face down on the floor and lay the soundboard down on top of it. My soundboard had a black side and a light brown side, so I tested the push pins on both sides to see which side worked the best. The push pins seemed to go into both sides equally as smooth, so it doesn’t matter which side you lay down on the fabric. I laid mine light brown side down.

Step Three

Use a staple gun (or a hot glue gun if you don’t have a staple gun) and tack all of the edges down to the back of the board. Be sure to taper the corners so they fold under smoothly and don’t bulge. Be sure to pull the fabric nice and tight as you staple so it stays even across the front of the board.

Step Four

To hang, you’ll need a drill, four very long screws, and someone strong to hold the board up while you attach it to the wall. Brian held my board exactly in place where I wanted it to hang while I drilled the holes. I drilled straight through the fabric and the board and then used the screws to attach it to the wall. It doesn’t really matter where on the board you drill because you can cover the screws with whatever you pin to the board. Keep in mind when you’re drilling, the fabric may pucker a little, so be careful.

Step Five

You should have four pieces that make up the frame (one for each side of the board). Spray paint all four pieces with the metallic gold paint and let them dry.

Step Six

Once the framing is dry, use Command Strips to hang them individually around the board. This means that the frame won’t actually be attached to the board… instead, it just appears to be attached. That’s how we’re able to do this project so cheap! Trust me, I looked into doing a custom frame job and you don’t even want to know how much it costs!! It would have been hundreds of dollars, and I just wasn’t willing to spend that much on a bulletin board.

Inspiration

I just love having the board over my desk to hang special mementos and other random things that made me happy. I face this wall while I work, sometimes for 6-7 hours a day, so I definitely wanted it to be pretty and inspiring and filled with things that bring me joy. Some of the items I have displayed on my board are as follows:

- Artwork that the kids have made for me over the years

- My blog logo

- Decals, stickers, and patches of some of my favorite things (my alma mater, Dave Matthews Band, University of Georgia)

- Inspirational quotes

- “Hey, y’all” – my signature greeting! :o)

- WWJD – a little reminder to be my best self (and also a throwback to my junior high days when everyone wore those bracelets… anybody else?)

- Special mementos (our wedding invitation, Jacob’s and Olivia’s birth announcements, an ultrasound picture of the baby we lost and a note from my best friend during that hard time afterward, etc.)

- Favorite family and friends pictures (that one of Jacob holding newborn Olivia… OMG, I die.)

- A copy of my word for the year – CONNECT for 2020 (I change this out annually)

- Fun goodies from Young Living and some YL info to keep me motivated

- A calendar (I refer to it all the time, and Jacob made this one for me so it’s even more special)

- Some paint swatches from past and current projects

- Fairy lights!!!! I have these and they are a complete gamechanger! You don’t even notice them when they’re off, but when they’re on, they are just magical!!!!

- Other cute things to “pretty it up” (gold glitter dots, black and white polka dot banner, rainbow felt banner)

All of these things inspire me, motivate me, and make me so happy, and it’s just the best view to have while I work!

Stay tuned, y’all… my office refresh reveal should be up next week!

Happy Wednesday!

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Time for a link party! Blogging friends, share your post below and meet your hosts!

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Lindsay http://www.lindsayssweetworld.com/

Keri https://kerilynnsnyder.com
Holley https://beesimplyorganized.com/

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Simple & Stylish Way to Organize Hair Accessories

*This post may contain affiliate links.

Moms of little girls, raise your hands if you are constantly finding elastics, bobby pins, hair clips, and other tiny hair paraphernalia everywhere!

Goodness gracious, I always knew that a little girl would be more high maintenance than having a little boy, but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer volume of hair accessories that little girls have. (Although you would think that I would know since I am a girl.)

Olivia has been sporting hair accessories since the day she was born, and in the beginning it was pretty simple – she either wore an elastic headband or a bow. Easy peasy. To keep those in check I made this organizer to wrangle all of them, and that was sufficient for the first couple of years of her life.

However, as her hair grew longer, her hair accessory collection grew bigger and the bow organizer alone was no longer cutting it. With all of that extra hair came tiny elastics, medium elastics, bobby pins, head bands, and other various clips and hair ties, so it was time to come up with something else.

Enter this gorgeous two-tiered tray.

Some of you may remember that I was longing for a tiered-tray back at the beginning of the year, and I finally found and purchased the perfect one on Amazon with my gift cards leftover from Christmas.

Well guess what? That item that you see listed there? When you purchase it, you actually get two of them. Yes, you get two of those two-tiered trays that you see pictured. I had no clue that was the case until they showed up at my doorstep, but I sure was excited! I still can't find anything on the website that says there are two of them, so I have no clue if it was a fluke or what!

I purchased the original tray to use in our kitchen, so when I found out that I had actually received two, I knew that the second one would be perfect to use in Olivia’s room to hold her ever-growing hair accessory collection.

I knew that I wanted all of the different types of elastics and clips to be separated, so I set out to find some kind of containers to separate them.

These glass jars from Hobby Lobby ended up being the perfect fit. I found that six of them nearly fill up the bottom tier without wasting any space, and they are the perfect size to hold small things. I also like that you can see through them… that makes it easy for Olivia to see which jar to pull from since she can’t see over the tops of them. These would also be a great option.

We are currently using them to store the following:

Big elastics - we like the Goody Ouchless ones

Small elastics - we like these because her hair is so fine

Snap hair clips - we love these

Scrunchies

Elastic hair bands

Chap Stick

Yes, I know that Chap Stick isn’t a hair accessory, but she had one jar that was left empty so until we have something hair-related to put in there we are keeping her ever-growing Chap Stick collection in there. ;o)

The top tier holds her hard head bands, and it also serves as a resting place for her brush, which I also cannot rave about enough! What did we ever do without the Wet Brush?

The best part about the tray is that it is extremely versatile so we can change it up and customize it to our needs as she gets older. And when she no longer needs it for her hair accessories, she can use it for something else – makeup, trinkets, little picture frames, school supplies… the possibilities are endless!

And to see how I'm using my second tray (the one that I bought for the kitchen originally) here it is! Right now it's holding my Gulp mug (a Marshall's special), a couple of other mugs, my fake succulent, my favorite candle, and our collection of shells that the kids have brought home on all of our beach trips. Isn't it cute?