DIY Upholster Coffee Table/ Ottoman

Ok so this post and the next few I make are little bit different than what I usually post with. This is more of a DIY. A lot has changed over the course of almost 2 years in writing this blog. I became separated and moved Jackson and I from Miami to the panhandle of Florida where I am originally from.  With this move most of my stuff went into storage because I didn’t know what was gonna happen. Well once I finally figured it out and saved money, we moved into a new place. With out anything!  Well thankfully my mom had been keeping my old dining table that we had in Okinawa. This thing was extremely scratched and well honestly had seen better days. So what do I do know I need a ottoman/ coffee table and don’t have the extra money, I make it!  That’s what we do in this family. If you can’t afford something you make it, or if you just don’t want to get rid of something, repurpose it!

So here is how it went!

I went over to my Uncles workshop and had him help me cut down the legs.  Since it was a bar height table, we had to cut a good bit. Please make your own measurements depending on the height of the ottoman you want. I could still cut another 4 inches off mine, but I have began to like having my feet elevated.

BTW I LOVE POWER TOOLS!

 

This how the table looked after we cut it down and put it all together. It’s huge!

 

 

 

 

Next I laid an egg crate on top (twin worked for me, doing this as inexpensive as possible) You can add multiple layers, but I didn’t need it to cushy so it worked for me.

 

Next get your fabric and staple on one side.  Once you get your one side stapled stretch the fabric across tightly and staple. Do the same for the remaining sides.   I got my fabric from Joann’s and fell in love instantly. It’s a linen blend and feels amazing. 

 

TADAA!!!   I love this thing. Jackson even uses it as a play table which is ok by me too.  Extra seating, play space, prop your feet up and coffee table all in one!

 

 

Price for it all this:

Dining table – Free (already had)

Twin Egg crate – Target $5

Fabric – Joann’s 3 yards $32 ( used coupons and hit the right sale)

Staple gun w/ staples – $20

Total- $57 for a brand new ottoman!

Handy Helper – Toothpaste

Toothpaste is becoming a miracle helper in my house. People always think they have a secret object to fix almost anything. I am sure there are thousands of uses out there. But here is a list of uses for toothpaste.. and not just for freshening breath! So far the best kind of toothpaste we have found that works best is the white Crest paste (not the gel)

 

1.) Bug Bites!

Yes! Bug bites! Summer is upon us and in Florida mosquitos are out in full force!  Mosquitos are nasty boogers and they  love Jackson.  I always feel so bad for him when he gets bit. Even if we spray him down, dryer sheets help, but he doesn’t want to keep them in his pockets.  Get a dab of toothpaste on each bite and it immediately relieves the itch and removes the redness.

2.) Burns!

Burns as in from the oven, grill, or curling iron. Anything else you might be a klutz with and burn yourself on, if you are anything like me.  Apply a light layer on the burn immediately.  Let this 1st layer dry and then gently wipe it off.  Reapply the 2nd layer. Toothpaste removes the sting and the swelling. If you allow it to set it on the burn for at least 2 hours (the combination of both applications)  your burn will no longer be tender t touch, no scaring either!

3.) Remove crayon marks on walls!

Gotta love kids and drawing on the walls.  Rub a small dab of toothpaste on a washcloth and rub it on the marks.  Make sure to wash it off with warm water though!

4.) Deodorize Hands!

Have you cooked onions or garlic before and you can’t get the smell off your hands and the stainless steel trick isn’t working for you.. try washing your hands with toothpaste. Toothpaste helps with bad breath so why not smelly hands?

5.) Jewelry

Be careful when doing this one. To polish up stones take a small dab of toothpaste and an old toothbrush and go to work polishing. Rinse with warm water.  Cleans up rather well!

6.) Zits!

Yes, toothpaste works on zits as well. Dab it on and go to bed!  It dries the zit out. Isn’t that just nice?

7.) Fill small holes in the walls.

Again just a dab on a small hole ( thumbtack size) and let it dry. Sand and repaint.

 

 

 

Happy Summer and I hope that these tips help!

Put me on a canvas!

To put pictures on canvas is expensive… or so we thought.  There is an easier way than buying the canvases from some online printing store…  DO IT YOURSELF!

Supplies needed: 

Blank canvas

A printed picture same size of the canvas.

Mod Podge

Foam Brush

 

Here’s How:

Step 1: Gather your supplies

 

 

Step 2:

Place a layer of Mod Podge on the canvas. Then gently place your photograph on top of the canvas.

 

Step 3:

Add a layer of Mod Podge on top of the photograph. Make sure to get the edges. Once the 1st layer is dried, add a second. It will dry clear. When you add your Mod Podge brush it on in the same direction.

It will dry clear when done.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of the dried product. Will be updated.

 

 

1 year!

 

Well today The Adventures of Action Jackson blog turned 1 year old!  Thank you to everyone who comes and reads on all the activities we do.  We hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas is you celebrate. Jackson’s birthday is also Christmas day so we get to celebrate his awesomeness with a lot of presents.  He turned a might 4 years old!

You can also keep up with us on Facebook.   See everyone in the new year!

Gobble! Gobble! Shake Your Tail Feathers!

I haven’t posted anything in a few weeks so it was about time we did a craft.  Finally getting settled enough to bring the crafts out and have some fun. Today was glitter explosion! I don’t know what I would do without our craft tray I got many months ago. It keeps 90% of all the glitter in the tray, rather find that 10% around the house rather than all of it!

While going through my craft supplies I found a couple of old hand prints I had cut out of Jackson’s a few months ago (I’m guessing I really don’t remember when I cut them out). Since Thanksgiving is the next holiday we will celebrate I figured I might as well turn those hand prints into some turkeys!

 

What you need:

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Paper towel tube
• Glitter
• Glue 

Step 1:  Make your handprints

Trace your child’s hand and cut it out on the construction paper. Sorry I don’t have pictures of this step since it was already done. 

Step 2:  Glue

Place glue all over the hand prints, one at a time since it tends to dry fast in a thin layer.  We used clear school glue. 

Step 3:  GLITTER!!!! 

You can decorate any time you want, but we used glitter. Gold, copper, silver, blue, green, and purple is what we used.

 

 

Step 4:  DRY

Allow your turkeys to dry other wise the fingers will bend.

Step 5: Cut your tube

Cut your card board tube from 1 1/2 inch – 3 inches. Depending on how many turkeys you are doing.

 

Step 6: Glue the Turkeys! 

Glue your turkeys on to your tubes. The bottom should stand to the bottom of the tube so that it is standing straight.

 

 

We added some  sequins as eyes. Over all I think they came out pretty cute and Jackson really enjoyed playing with glitter.  These would be great for Thanksgiving as place card holders or decorations.

 

Have fun making yours and send pictures if you want!

Thrifty Halloween Decorations

It’s a few days away from Halloween! This is one of my favorite holidays!  While I would love to decorate the outside of my house like all my neighbors, we just don’t have the money for that. Plus I like decorations very inexpensive! OR FREE!

This week we have made outdoor lanterns for the sidewalk and we have made spooky silhouettes for Jackson’s windows.  Both were made with items from around the house!

We will start with the silhouettes. Sorry I didn’t take pictures of the process since it was super simple. All we did was use Contact Paper. Yup that is it!  I heard you can even use Press N Seal paper too. For us all we had to do was draw on the back side of the contact paper our spooky shapes and cut it out!  We made ghost, pumpkins and bats.  Once you cut it out gently peel the backing off and stick it to your windows! That is it. How super simple!  At night just have a light shining through the back of the curtains so people from the street can see your spookiness!

Spooky Outdoor Lanterns

Yes another easy and (cheap) project. I collect everything, jars mostly, but my craft room is full of random stuff. Thankfully I had several jars for this project.

What you need:

•     Empty clean jar
•     Tissue paper ( green, orange, white) We actually used orange crepe paper (streamers) for the pumpkin. 
•     Mod Podge
•     Scissors, paint brush
•     Black construction paper
•     Black duct tape

You might want a paper plate or something to rest your jar on while you work. 

Take you a section of tissue paper ( like a quarter of a sheet) and cut it in to strips. You will be placing them vertical on the jar, make sure they are long enough.

Take your jar and start brushing on the Mod Podge.

Once you get your jar covered ( or you can work in sections)  start laying your strips of tissue paper. After each strip laid coat a layer of mod podge on top and repeat until the how jar is covered.

Once your Jar is covered with Mod Podge  draw a face on your black construction paper and cut it out.  Finally Mod Podge it on your jar as well.

Next take your black duct tape and tape around the mouth of the jar.

 

Just let dry and your are all done. Drop a tea light or a battery operated tea light inside and let it light you walkway!

Where do I live?

As our children get older the more questions they have. A big one they might as is “Where do I live?”.  Jackson has recently become obsessed with space. As parents, his father and I are super proud. But it started me thinking he knows earth, he knows how to give me directions to Target or Publix, but does he really know where he lives? So I set out through Pinterest to see if there was somehow to give him a correlation between Earth and where we live. And thanks to Teach Mama, she did just that. Breaking down the sections to make it easy on kids.  You start at our house, to your street, city, state, country, continent, and planet.  She even gives you a downloadable file that has the different sized circles to make it easy.

What you need:

•  Downloadable file from Teach Momma
• Construction Paper (This is what we printed our planets off on, trimmed to size)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Whole Punch and something to hold everything together. (We used a D-ring that I was able to slide the pieces of paper in individually and then super glued it shut)

Step 1:

Print your circles out

Step 2:

Collect your print outs for each location

Step 3:

Color and decorate

Step 4:

Glue

Step 5:

Whole punch and connect.

Now that we have finished with this location, I think we will have to do one with all the planets.

Resources where we got our maps:

Street and City maps- Google Maps

Continent- www.yourchildlearns.com

Planet – Google Images

State and Country – www.50states.com

Toy Car Storage

Little boys have cars… lots of cars. Yes little girls can have a lot of cars too, I just don’t have a little girl around me.  My son has been collecting Matchbox cars since before he was a year old.  He loves them.  For a while there I think he was more obsessed with them.  Thankfully they are fairly inexpensive.  But how do you store all the cars that your child has been collecting for over 3 years?  Matchbox has a toy car sorter, but have you really seen it? It’s pretty cheaply made for how expensive it is. But also keep in mind that if a boy has Matchbox cars then chances are he will have other cars of various sizes.

So how do we store our cars?  In a tackle box. I’m not talking a child’s size tackle box, but ours has 3 levels with a big opening in the bottom for larger or oddly shaped vehicles.   We went all out. The tackle box can hold at least 100 cars! But what’s even better is that I spent $25. It’s sturdy enough that it can be carried anywhere and I don’t have to worry about it breaking and all the cars spill out everywhere!

(not all his cars are shown, this was mid cleaning)

Go Away Monster Spray!

We are at the stage of monsters. Monsters under Jackson’s bed (even though there are drawers under his bed) and in his closet (again no closet doors) are starting to go wild in an active 3 yr olds imagination. It doesn’t help when he loves Monsters Inc. We used Febreeze last night to spray the monsters last night but that was a little too strong. So we had to come up with something else…

What to do: Have a spray bottle and some essential oil (we added peppermint) and fill with water. Decorate the bottle and have your child lightly spray their room for monster’s every night.

 

 

 

 

*** Update – We have been spraying his room for a few weeks now when he goes to bed and he always tells me ” No more monsters in here!”. That is exactly what I like to hear.  I like to know that he isn’t so scared anymore, it makes mommy and daddy’s job a lot easier at night. ***

Sock Puppets

Today was craft day today with my mom’s group.  The theme was sock puppets. I don’t think Action Jackson was very interested in it after he colored on the sock. Maybe he will grow to really like his sock like he did with Mr. Pickles (his Muppet).  He usually runs around the house though with socks on his hands, which is silly since more often than not they aren’t clean.

 

Supplies:

EVERYTHING IN YOUR CRAFT ROOM! No, seriously, anything and everything works to make sock puppets, but if you need a list here you go:

• Socks
• Pom-Poms
• Google eyes
• Fabric Markers
• Beads
• Pipe Cleaners
• Buttons
• Sewing Kit
• Felt
• Yarn
• Hot glue

 

As you can see from all of our mom’s we had a lot of items!

Step 1:

Choose your sock. Slide your hand into the sock so that your fingers are where you toes go.  Open your hand at the toe of the sock and push the sock in to your palm.  This will be making the mouth.

 

 

Step 2:

Cut your felt out to the color that you would like your mouth to be. We chose green, and later cut out just enough red for a tongue.  Hot flue the felt in.

 

 

Step 3:

Decide what kind of eyes you want either the google eyes or if you want to sew on buttons. Mark and make your sock puppet see!

Step 4:

Design. Have fun with your puppets. Give it a nose, hair, scales, anything you can think of. Here is some inspiration!

 

Our lovely mom Elizabeth made a dragon for her little one.

She ended up adding her google eyes to the pom pom’s so that they stand up more!

 

Jackson’s and mine needs some help, but it was still fun making it

 

 

All of our socks!

 

No sock puppets are perfect. They are supposed to be silly and a lot of fun to make. It’s the memories made that are more important than a physical appearance.

 

I hope everyone has fun!