Condo Blues: kitsch
Showing posts with label kitsch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitsch. Show all posts

Thursday, September 17, 2015

10 Amazing Pirate Ship Beds

Ahoy ye matey!

In honor ‘o International Talk Like a Pirate Day I be roundin’ up a bevvy of pirate décor for ye children be they wee pirate lads or wee pirate lasses. Yaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr!

 10 Incredible Pirate Ship Beds
Pin for later ya scurvy dog! 


</end pirate voice mode>

I’m using International Talk Like a Pirate Day as a big fat crazy excuse to dive head first into my Pinterest boards (follow me @condobues on Pinterest pretty please?) and share with you 10 of the most spine twinging, shiver me timbers and blow me down pirate ship kids beds that will make you the coolest parent on planet earth.

Or if you can fit one into your master bedroom, make your inner pirate child happy.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

How to Make a Lucky Buckeye Zipper Pull


Ohio President William Henry Harrison introduced the United State to our state tree, the buckeye, and Ohioans have been nuts ever since. Not only is the buckeye the state tree and state nut but they are also the Ohio State University mascot. Many people carry a buckeye in their pocket or purse for luck, especially during football season.

Other people craft with buckeyes to show state or school pride or, in more practical terms, do something with all of the nuts falling from a buckeye tree in their yard!



  Pin this idea for later!

I figure why not put the two together and craft an Ohio State Buckeye zipper pull you can wear on your coat to the game or use as a key chain. That way you have your lucky buckeye with you 24/7.

I’m using mine as a backpack charm so Husband and I can tell which one of our identical backpacks is mine.

Quick and Easy Ohio State Buckeye Key Chain, Zipper Pull, or Backpack Charm

Thursday, September 3, 2015

5 End of Summer Projects and Adventures

Just as our unseasonably cold and soggy summer finally gets around to acting  like a normal clear and blazing hot summer the season is officially over with Labor Day weekend. Ohio weather is certainly an adventure!

That’s not to say, Husband and I have not had our share of projects and adventures in between thunderstorms. Since most of them are tidbits rather than full blown blog post I figure why not wrap up the summer with a wrap up of our summer fun?




After spending a little over a year driving past it and silently sending the place “build it faster” vibes

Sunday, August 23, 2015

Whimsical and Recycled DIY Flamingo Garden Decor

I have a weird love hate relationship with outdoor garden décor and yard art. I’d love to add a few whimsical pieces to my garden for color that doesn’t die (like our landscaping always does.) The problem is I hate for my garden tchotchkes to be the same as everyone else.


Pin me!

I’ve been looking on and off for unusual garden decorations all summer. I found a few to poke fun at like the free range garden Yeti we found in Amish country but nothing we really wanted in our yard full time. Or in the case of Sasquatch and lawn gnomes, something which is commonly stolen because it is ridiculous.

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

DIY: How to Decorate and Paint Earphones

Back to School season is a great time to buy office supplies.  It is also a tempting a time. Sometimes the logical The Greenest Thing is What You Already Own side of my brain and the computer IT geek I Don’t Care This One is So Much Cooler Than What I Have side of my brain do battle. Well, not  exactly battle but more like I end up buying something cute that’s not on my shopping list just because it is a cuter version of what I already have.

Now in the case of something small like earphones, the purchase won’t break the bank or anything like that but it will clutter up my house. Especially when I found several pairs of very good ear buds while cleaning and organizing my desk. It was a good surprise because I can keep a pair in my gym and dance bag, in my purse, my desk, etc.

 Keep reading for my step by step painted earphone tutorial!

So why am I tempted in the store while staring at a rack of cheapola 5 dollar ear buds that probably sound worse than the good ones I love and use?

I’ll tell you why. The cheapie headphones are in pretty and cute colors. The spendy and great sounding earphones are plain Jane black.

How to Make Cute Earphones

Thursday, July 23, 2015

7 Back to School Craft Projects


I always think of Back to School season as an unofficial New Year's Day. It is full of new possibilities and new school clothes, shoes, and supplies. My parents bought me new consumable school supplies like pens, pencils, and notebooks but for the big stuff like lunchboxes, binders, and backpacks they had a One and Done policy. I had to take care of it because I wasn't going to get another for the following school year if I trashed it that year.


Looking back, it was a great green lesson about taking care of what you have so it will last. It was also a lesson in creativity. Sometimes I jazzed up last year's school supplies makes them feel bright, shiny, and new for the new school year with a craft project like my washi tape USB Flash drive.

 Them: "Hey, where did you get that cool Flash drive?!" Me: "Oh, I made it."

When you want to be crafty for Back to School season it helps to start early. Especially if you have a student going back to college since most college start before summer officially ends.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Tiny Treehouse House Tour

 Tiny houses are all the rage. They are cute, twee, and have a ridiculously small carbon footprint.

What could be better?

How about a tiny house built in a tree that's a little B and B? That was originally built to be a tiny tree house brewery until the owners converted it into a rental cabin?


 I am completely smitten with the gorgeous arched stained glass window!
Photo courtesy of The Mohicans.


Wednesday, July 1, 2015

12 Favorite Summer Craft Projects

Summer is in full swing. I am loving it! Warm summer days are excellent DIY and craft project weather. Here are a few of my favorite summer craft projects that are not only clever but useful too!


Pin me!

DIY Personalized Insulated Wine Glass Tumblers –  Fun and reusable!

Sunday, June 21, 2015

CREATE: Vintage Jewelry and Burlap Letters

I have a big, fat, crazy love for vintage jewelry. I always surf the jewelry section when I’m in a consignment or thrift store just to drool over what I call Grandma Jewelry- the glitz rhinestone stuff.


When Husband and I played nobles at our local renaissance fictional I finally had a reason to buy some. Renaissance rich people love to wear their jewels but as two real life people acting in a 10 acre field, I didn’t want to spend much on it. Why? The pile of orphan earrings in our costume jewelry box from losing them while performing is the answer to that question.

I hung onto them to either make over into a prop or for crafting. From time to time, I cleaned out my everyday costume jewelry box and added pieces to the Some Day My Project Will Come Pile.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

25 of the Best Ways to Reuse Old Pill Bottles

Husband and I are relatively healthy people but every once and awhile we get sick enough to require prescription medicine. More often than not the medicine comes comes in a plastic bottle that aren’t always recyclable.

I really hate tossing something like that into the trash and sending it to a landfill to sit on a mountain of garbage for a thousand years.



Pin this post to get organized!


Sunday, May 31, 2015

How to Make an Easy Cargo Net Car Organizer

I have a bunch of junk in my trunk.

The trunk of my car, people. Not my badonka donk! Although truthfully….oh never mind.

The biggest mess maker is the stash of reusable shopping bags we keep in the car. They slosh out of the big shopping bag that is supposed to contain them and into everything else in the trunk.

How to make a cargo net car organizer
Pin this tutorial for later!

The last straw was when the mess hid a container of orange juice that popped out of a grocery bag and it sat in a hot car for several days. I still have nightmares about the stench that followed. So. Evil. Horrible. BAD.
Most car organizers I found are not made for sedans, only SUVs. Besides we don’t want a shopping bag and stuff organizer that doesn’t allow us to fold the back seat down. This is mostly an issue during the summer when I’m hauling color guard equipment back and forth to practice.  The flags don’t fit in the trunk unless I fold the seat down.


Would you believe this is what my trunk looks like when it is neat? Sad. I know.

 Dollar Store Cargo Net Car Organizer Tutorial


I gave Lisa my idea to hang her shopping bag organizer on the side of the car trunk instead of the back. She came up with using laundry bags because the mesh is small enough to contain the most important thing in our car (besides snacks) my Frisbee and tennis ball for the dog park!


You will need:

Mesh laundry bag - This mesh laundry bag is similar to the one I used  

Fabric - I used a fat quarter of fabric

Interfacing

Scissors

Large grommet kit (I used this grommet kit from Dritz)

Iron and Ironing board

Thread

Straight pins

Sewing machine

Magnet hooks (I buy my magnetic hooks here)

Hook and loop tape 

A canine project manger – Try to find one who doesn’t sleep on the job.


 
I am not sleeping on the job! My eyes are open!

Make it:

1. Remove the drawstring from the laundry bag. I cut the end off with a pair of scissors.

2. Use the scissors to cut a horizontal side open from the closed end of the bag to the open end of the bag.

3. Measure the circumference of the horizontal opening in the laundry bag and add 2 inches to that measurement for a seam allowance.

4. Use this measurement to measure and cut a piece of fabric and interfacing that is that long and 4 inches wide.

5. Fold the rough lengthwise edges of the fabric right side (the pretty part) to wrong side (the back of the fabric) in and iron them into place to make smooth edges to your banding.

6. Fold the banding wrong sides together and iron it into place. This will be the banding for the top of your cargo net trunk organizer.

7. Use the straight pins to pin the banding around the top of the open mesh bag.  Use the sewing machine to sew the top and the bottom of the band into place.

I used a zig zag stitch because I forgot to reset my sewing machine back to a straight stitch after a previous project and I figured why not? You can use a straight stitch too.

8. Pin the raw open end of the laundry bag closed. Use the sewing machine to sew the bag closed.


You should use a straight stitch to make this seam.

9. Set two grommets (also called eyelets) into the band of the bag using the grommet tool that comes with the grommets. Read my tutorial How to install grommets if your kit doe not come with clear instructions.



10. Sew a piece of the hook side of hook and loop tape to the back side of the fabric band. This will help keep your trunk organizer in place and against the carpeted wall of your car trunk.

Warning: This will not be strong enough to keep the organizer full of stuff attached to the side of your car trunk. Guess how I know? That’s why we need Step 11.

11. Attach the magnet hooks to the metal sides of your trunk, hang the cargo net up, and get that organize that junk in your trunk!


This is such an easy way to organize the stuff in our car and make sure it stays put! I made two net car organizers for each side of our trunk. One cargo net keeps our reusable shopping bags organized. The other cargo net keeps our picnic blanket, Frisbee and toys, and car seat covers from sliding all and hiding fetid orange juice containers for days on end.

 
Easy organization. Love that!

The net organizers are easy to remove if we need extra room in the trunk for a trip or when I buy something big at the home improvement store.

How do you keep your car organized?


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Friday, May 29, 2015

18 of the Best Father's Day Gifts for Dad!

I asked Husband for cool and usual Father's Day gift ideas we can either buy or DIY and give to our Dads for Father's Day.

I never should have asked. I had to stop Husband after he added a box of live ferrets to his long, humorous, and wildly inappropriate list of gifts for the men in our life.

Besides everyone knows a box of ferrets is more of a Christmas gift idea, not a Father's Day gift idea,  obviously.


Pin this post!


After some quality Pinterest and Internet time, I found some unique Father's Day gift ideas that are a step beyond the World's Greatest Dad coffee mug type of gift.

Not that Dad doesn't deserve a World's Greatest anything gift, mind you. It's just that you can give him a Father's Day mug only once. After that, you need to come up with another awesome gift for the following year.

I created a Father's Day gift guide with my gift suggestions and posted it on my food blog Lazy Budget Chef. Click the link for great ideas and save the box of ferrets for Christmas.



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Thursday, May 21, 2015

How to Make Clever Bottle Cap Placemats

I have a large bottle cap collection and it’s all my Husband’s fault. Shortly after we bought our condo and were enjoying our traditional TGIF bottle of craft beer he put the empty bottle into the recycling, looked at the cap and said, “It’s a shame we have to toss the cap. Can you make something cool out of bottle caps?”

10 years of saving bottle tops later, I have hundreds of metal bottle caps to recycle into arts and crafts.

I need new placemats and I like polka dots and penny tile. Do you know what looks like cheery polka dots and penny tile? Bottle caps!


make recycled bottlecap placemat craft
Pin this post to find my bottle cap tutorial after you collect all of the bottle tops you will need for this project!

Let’s Make Painted Bottle Cap Tile Placemats!

Sunday, May 3, 2015

14 Epic Star Wars DIY Projects

Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you!

When Star Wars came out, it was the first movie to have have major toy tie ins. Some of the toys were pretty good like the action figures. Some of the toys were not so great like the flashlight light sabers. And most of the time, the toy or character thing you wanted as a kid didn’t exist so you had to make it.

Now all of those Star War maker kids are grown up. They share the Star Wars movies with their children and play with the cool new Star Wars toys they didn’t have when we were kids. But the coolest thing of all is those maker kid grew up and are still making epic Star Wars DIY projects. Some for their kids but mostly for themselves.

14 Epic Star Wars DIY Project Roundup


May the Fourth Be With You: 14 Star Wars DIY Décor Projects


Tuesday, April 28, 2015

How to Make Aluminum Can Coasters

I have another aluminum can craft for you today! Today’s tutorial is for round soda pop can coasters.

diy beer can coasters
 Aluminum can coasters a fun handmade gift!

Husband and I often work at our computer desks with a coffee mugs or water glasses in front of us. Anything on the desk is fair game to be used as a coaster because we don’t want to ruin our wood desktops. As you can imagine, that doesn't always work well because spilling things is my superpower. Paper envelopes pulled from the recycling bin make lackluster and sometimes soggy coasters.

Let’s fix that.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

18 Awesome Playhouses You Have to See to Believe!

I think one of the best thing about being a parent is being able to build your child a playhouse or tree fort. Sure, you can buy your kid  one of those  little plastic huts at the toy store and call it a playhouse. But why when there are so many crazy fun and unusual playhouses out there to build instead?

18 unusual playhouses
Pin this post for inspiration!


How fun is this little crooked house on  A Place Imagined? A former Disney artist built this whimsical fairy playhouse from found materials.


wimsical playhouse
Adorable!

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Our Wedding Story

Once upon a time, because that’s how stories start, a dashing man and lovely lady were married 18 years ago on this very day.

bridal party
This is my favorite picture of our Elizabethan bridal party because is was impromptu. We were walking to the cars after the photo session and the photographer yelled “STOP!” and took this photo. A copy hung in his shop. I should also mention that the gazebo in on the grounds of a mental hospital. Somehow that seems fitting!
 
The man is still dashing. I call him Husband. He says the lady is still lovely. He calls her Lisa.
Husband and I met as new performers at the Ohio Renaissance Festival. I can still show you the spot on the grounds when the thought flashed through my head that I was going to marry him. I quickly pushed it out of my head thinking it was a result of being a single Maid of Honor in a recent family wedding.

I was wrong.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

DIY Glass Bead Valentine’s Day Wreath

I’m doing something different this winter. I get a case of the blues most winters after I put away our Christmas décor. The inside of the house is almost as colorless as the overcast gray winter days outside and will stay that way until everything starts blooming in the spring.

I’m trying something new and adding a bit of color to the house by decorating for Valentine’s Day.
I found a metal heart shaped wreath form at Joann’s. I used that as my inspiration and with a little upcycled fabric and a whole bunch of glass vase fillers (also called glass craft rounds) I made a heart shaped Valentine’s Day wreath.

Glass bead Valentines day heart wreath
Even better the metal wreath form is sturdier and less likely to break than the not so eco friendly foam wreath forms. Yay!

How to Make a Heart Shaped Valentine’s Day Wreath

Monday, December 29, 2014

My 10 Best DIY Projects of 2014

Wow, 2014 was a great year for Condo Blues! I made a lot of changes behind the scenes to bring you the best projects and content possible. My hard work paid off because more of you have stopped by to my virtual home to say hello.

top 10 DIY projects of 2014

 
Let’s look at the 10 most popular posts on Condo Blues in 2014!

Monday, December 22, 2014

42 Homemade Christmas Gift Tags

I like wrapping a pretty gifts for Christmas. I keep a box of gift boxes and bags I reuse every year and another box of wrapping paper and things like silk flowers, fabric ribbon, and bows I recycle into clever gift toppers for the Christmas gifts I need to ship.

  42 handmade printable gift tags r


For the gifts I deliver in person, I made gift wrapping easier on myself by using the reusable cloth gift bags I sewed from my historical costuming scrap stash. I still get the pretty and fancy look I like but with a time and sanity saving green twist because I reuse my homemade gift bags year after year.


I sewed my cloth gift bags as a post- Christmas cabin fever project and used them the following year. Read my homemade cloth gift bag tutorial here.

With all of the attention I pay to buying meaningful gifts and their fancy wrappings, I’m ashamed to say I have long history of phoning it in when it comes to Christmas gift tags.