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?

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.

Adorable!

Mother’s Day Tool Giveaway with WORX Tools: 3 Winners!

One of the benefits of living in a condo is having a homeowner’s association that mows our yard. Unfortunately sometimes the lawn guys are more about doing the job quickly than accurately.   Husband and I figure it time to invest in lawn tools so we can trim and tidy up the edging the lawn service hits and misses.




Husband and I checked out the WORX 20V MaxLithium GT Trimmer/Edger/Mini-mower and it’s pretty neat. It take the place of three power lawn tools in your garage, a grass trimmer, an edger, and a mini-mower, very nice for those of us with limited tool storage space. The other feature Husband and I appreciate is the how easily the telescoping shaft adjusts to the user’s height. When it comes to yard work Husband and I trade off jobs as our schedules permit (and who gets tired of wonky edging first.)

Recycled Kitchen Cabinet and Wood Pallet Workbench

I needed a workbench in the garage. I also wanted one place to store all of my tools in my workshop. I’m low to the ground at 4’11”. It makes more sense to store my tools in my workbench than above the workbench on shelves or peg board.  

Originally my plan was to buy matching bathroom cabinets at the Habitat Restore since bathroom base cabinets aren’t as tall as kitchen cabinets.  I would finally have a work surface that is at the correct height for my size!

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Father in law said there were  two mismatched kitchen base cabinets that have been forgotten in his garage for years and offered them to me.

Change of plans. Free is good.

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.

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.

Recycled Pendant Charm Bracelet

I am in Spring Cleaning mode and nothing is safe. I cleaned and organized the garage, reorganized my closet, and tidied the drawers in my nightstand.

During my decluttering binge, I rediscovered some pendent necklaces I haven’t been wearing and my old charm bracelet.

 Pin this for later. Memory charm bracelets make thoughtful gifts!

Many of my old necklaces were gifts and have special meaning. I know I don’t need a necklace made from one of my grandfather’s tuxedo buttons to remember him but I don’t want to get rid of it either.

Refinished Retro 50’s Diner Table and Chairs

It may not be fashionable to admit this, but I kinda have a thing for theme restaurants that hang all sorts of crazy things on the walls. My dream job would be the designer who gets to hunt for and decorate with all of those forgotten treasures.
What can I say? I never met an old advertising sign I didn’t like.
You know what is even better than old advertising signs? Pairing them in your house with a dining set straight out of the 1950’s Daddy-o!

You will never believe what Morena used to replace the peeling laminate table top – fabric!
I think the bold 50’s print and takes it to the next level. Learn how she made a durable replacement table top with fabric on:

Crafts Unleashed from Consumer Crafts: How To Refinish a Table With Fabric and Resin

ycle
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How to Make Reusable Rosacea Makeup Remover Wipes

April is Rosacea Awareness Month. Although for me the horrible scars on my forehead that I shamefully hide with my bangs reminds me that every day is Rosacea Awareness Month.

You can’t cure rosacea (bummer) but you can control it and minimize breakouts and flares. The problem is that everyone who has rosacea may have different things that trigger it and it may not respond to the exact same treatment for every person who has it (another bummer.)

In my personal experience, the only way I got my disfiguring rosacea under control was with a specialist dermatologist after years of trying every home acne treatment I could find. Once my doctor got my skin cleared up with medication, we moved on to ways I can reduce my rosacea flares without meds.








Before we go any further, let me remind you that I’m not a doctor. I strongly suggest that you see a dermatologist if you have acne that never goes away or you suspect your constant red face is rosacea.

The National Rosacea Society has some good information and resources if you need them.  This isn't an ad. I find them helpful if I have a question in between doctor's appointments.

How to Make Reusable Makeup Remover Pads

I use disposable face wipes when I travel for the convenience but once I’m out I forget to buy more until the next time I go on a trip. Besides, I try to limit the amount of one time use disposables I use on a regular basis and let’s face it, wash cloths are reusable and face wipes are not.

Too bad I have a bad habit of by passing the wash cloths at night and not washing the makeup off my face before I go to bed. Why? Laziness I guess. 

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Fortunately, I found some leftover terry cloth fabric during one of my Spring decluttering and cleaning binges. I turned that into a reusable and green answer for my lazy face washing problem – reusable terry cloth makeup remove pads.

 

How to Sew Terry Cloth Makeup Remover Pads

How to Organize Your Closet and Clothes in Three Easy Questions

I am convinced bedroom closet organizers are made for tall people. If you are short forget it. You are doomed to live in messy and unorganized squalor.




Or at least it feels that way to this short person.

I loved our Elfa closet system when we first installed it. Husband and I can share a closet and not fight over space. It the custom design works but we later learned it sorta doesn’t. 

What’s Better Than a Vacation? Winning a MAKEcation of Course!

I have a decent collection of tools and know how to use them but there a number of things I’d like to try but would feel more confident if someone showed me how to use say, a lathe, so I can keep my figures while working on my first project.

I can’t be the only one who feels this way about using tools, can I?

I guess not because Craftsman is holding another MAKEcation event this September Sept. 24-27 in Brooklyn, New York and will teach you how to use all sorts of tools to make really cool things. It sounds like DIY Vacation Heaven!

Last year they taught everyone how to make a wood goblet on a lathe. Learning how to use a lathe is on my Bucket List.

 

You can win a chance to go to the ultimate making vacation that will put true makers' blood, sweat and tools to the test, letting you sharpen skills and learn new ones. 

How to Clean and Disinfect a Yoga Mat Naturally

My husband and I recently joined the YMCA so I can take their fitness classes to rebuild my balance and muscles for my adult beginner ballet class.

Given my recent history of buying a new stuff for working out and eventually quitting, I’m making do with what I have until I get past my ”what have I gotten myself into? I don’t think I like this” hump. In the meantime, I’m borrowing the yoga mat Husband has to do floor exercises at home. Sharing is working well since we use it at different times. It doesn’t hurt that we aren’t cluttering our space with extra stuff either.

Although there is one teeny, tiny problem with two people sharing the same exercise mat. IT REEKS OF TWO PEOPLE WORKING OUT AND SHARING A YOGA MAT.

I became aware of our problem during my second Face Plant Piyo class.

 Pin this post to Pinterest for later! Share this tutorial with your friends!

6 Green and Frugal Things for March (and a Few That Aren’t!)

 Sometimes I post a list of little frugal things we do each month on my food blog Lazy Budget Chef and thought I’d do it today on Condo Blues. Some of these things are big, most are small. You don’t have to look to closely to see that most of them are green too!




1. Turned off the heat Saturday when it reached 60 degrees ( F) outside. Husband and I did a little dance thinking we were good to go until Fall.

15 Unique Garden Border and Edging Ideas

Now that it is officially Spring, I’m ready to start planning our landscaping. I found a bunch of clever, unusual, and some down right weird ideas for garden borders and edging one day while I was researching what to plant and where to plant it.

I thought I’d share because maybe you need new garden borders too.

Or you just like to look at garden p*rn. that’s OK too.

 Save these ideas to Pinterest for later!

21 Drought Tolerant Plants for Your Yard

You are getting excited for the Spring planting season?

Me too!

Although I am not looking forward to how much it will cost us to keep a new landscape watered all summer long.

One way to avoid a high summer water bill is to plan my new landscape with native plants. Since I often forget plants need water to grow, they should be drought tolerant too.

Since I know pretty much nothing about native or drought tolerant plants, I'm cruising over to Organizing Made Fun and reading her 21 suggestions for Going Native: Drought Tolerant Plants for Your Yard.

Check it out now and pin it for later!

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8 DIY Fire Starters

Last summer during a impromptu gathering, my friend  Tim and his neighbor Marc when out side to start a fire in the backyard fire pit.




From the kitchen, we hear unintelligible squabbling followed by:

Tim (raised voice): No, you are doing it wrong!

Marc (bellowing): Well then put on some more!

FOOM!

A HUGE fireball erupts over the fire pit!

The rest of us tumble out of the house and into the the backyard. Fortunately our friends weren’t charred crispy critters. Oh no. Instead  Tim and Marc were a safe distance away and laughing like two naughty kids playing with too much lighter fluid.

Husband turns to me and says, “THAT is why you will never have a fire ring.”

Au contraire my dear Husband, there are ways to start a fire without lighter fluid. You can start a campfire with homemade fire starters!

How to Make Fire-Starters

Make Candle Wax Warmer Melts, Tarts, and Cubes: The Complete DIY Guide!

I got a candle warmer for Christmas and fell in love with it. I use it every night after dinner to clear cooking smells from the kitchen. 

The candle warmer it is more convenient than candles because it is flameless. Unfortunately I don’t quite know  if wax cubes I melt are phthalate-free and paraffin-free. Two things I try to avoid.

Pin this tutorial for later!

Being a candle maker, it didn’t take me long to clue in that the only difference between a candle and a wax melt is the container and a wick. Since I make non-toxic candles, I knew I could make non-toxic wax cubes too. Here’s how.

How to Make Non-Toxic Scented Wax Melt Cubes

How to Make Aluminum Can Shamrocks and Four Leaf Clovers

If you drink something from an aluminum can in my house, I probably have a hidden agenda. No, I’m not trying to fill you full of the BPA that most likely lines the can (actually I’m sorry for subjecting you to that,) 

 Pin this recycled aluminum can craft to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

Most likely it is that I bought your favorite pop and I had to buy it in a can. Or I bought the can over the bottle version so I can use the can in recycling project. Thanks for helping me out.

I have green aluminum cans in my stash. Saint Patrick’s Day is coming up. Let’s make shamrocks!

Can Your Laminate Flooring Kill You?

Last Sunday, 60 Minutes investigated Lumber Liquidators Chinese made laminate flooring for unsafe levels of formaldehyde in  Lumber Liquidators Linked to Health and Safety Violations. 




The basics of the story I linked to are this:

• 60 Minutes bought 150 boxes of laminate flooring from several Lumber Liquidators stores throughout Californian.

• 60 Minutes asked three independent labs to test the samples to see if the formaldehyde in the laminate flooring (mostly in the glue used to make the laminate) meets California’s strict formaldehyde emissions standards, called CARB 2.

• The lab results showed all of Lumber Liquidators Chinese made laminate flooring was from 6 to 7 times over the state limit and some laminate samples were up to 20 times over the state limit.

• Lumber Liquidators American made laminate flooring as well as Lumber Liquidators flooring they purchased from Lowes and Home Depot passed testing.

• 60 Minutes then purchased 31 Chinese made laminate samples from Lumber Liquidators stores in four states and sent the samples to two certified labs for formaldehyde testing.

• Both labs reported that 30 samples were over the formaldehyde limit, some as high as 13 times. 1 sample of Chinese made laminate flooring passed testinga.
• 
  

Make a Play Workbench for Your Little DIYer!

When you have a toddler, more often than not, you or Santa gives them a kitchen play set. I had one. It was a pink metal play kitchen. Fun fact: My first apartment had pink metal kitchen cabinets.

Naturally I am pro play kitchen. I am also pro make sure it looks cool because it could show up as a real kitchen later in your kid's life play kitchen.  That being the case, I am all over the upcycled furniture turned into a play kitchen.

 But do you know what every kid needs after they get a play kitchen? A play workbench! How else are they going to play fix the kitchen appliances?

I am loving this nightstand recycled into a play toddler workbench on Apartment Therapy. It is a simple DIY that any child - boy or girl - would love to pretend tinker around the playhouse.

I wish I had one as a kid!


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Luck of the Irish $1,500 Paypal Cash Giveaway!

I'm always looking for ways to thank you for being The Most Awesome Community on Planet Earth.

Unfortunately, I can't do it in person or by anonymously shoveling your driveway (especially for you Australian readers. You are having as hot a summer as we are having as cold a winter, I'd love to personally visit you to thaw out say hello) but I can thank you with a giveaway of something that always fits - cold, hard, Paypal cash. $500 dolla, dolla bills to be exact!

I'd love it if a Condo Blues reader won this giveaway!

29 Best DIY Coastal Wall Art Ideas

Anytime I need to take a breath and chill out, I close my eyes and picture a lovely Caribbean beach. It is my mental happy place. The crystal blue ocean, gentle sound of the sea, and warm beach calm me down. Daydreaming about the attentive and attractive pool boys serving me tasty Mai Tais on my personal pretend beach doesn’t hurt either. My Mind Palace. My Rules.

I can’t help but think that’s the reason why so many people like to decorate their homes in a nautical, coastal, beach style. So they can live on a pleasant, peaceful beach year round especially for those of us dealing with snow, cold, and landlocked cities.

Or you might just like that coastal style for the sake of just liking coastal style. That’s cool too.

Whatever your reasoning, beach lovers, check out this roundup of 29 Beach Crafts: Coastal DIY Wall Art by Crafts by Amanda for ideas on how to add a dash of beach style to your life on a DIY budget.




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Romantic Pink Rose Centerpiece

 Husband likes to surprise me with flowers – often. I’ve gotten decent at arranging flowers by necessity. (I know you feel sorry for me.)  A few times, people have asked me to do flowers for them, most recently for Mother and Father-in-Law’s 50th anniversary party.

By luck I bought the flowers for their centerpieces from ProFlowers because they were having a rose sale. That’s when I clued in that ProFlowers sells flowers you can arrange any way you want.

Need a DIY fresh flower Valentine’s Day, wedding, anniversary, or party centerpiece? Keep reading I’ll teach you how I made this one!

18 Unique DIY Floors to Inspire You

 I’m still not sure if or what I want to do with our master bedroom floor as I plan our water damage remodels. Carpet? Hardwood? Or something else?




Since I am a nontraditional gal, who likes to build, decorate, and renovate with nontraditional materials, maybe one of these fabulous non traditional flooring ideas I put in this roundup might be the one? Let’s go idea shopping!


DIY Geometric  Wood Flooring For $80! – Vintage Revivals. She made and installed this floor for a vintage camper. It would be a stunning floor in any room of a house.



How To Glitter A Concrete Floor – Crafty Chica. A floor as sparkly and bright as Kathy’s personality.

6 Smart Strategies to Organize a Garage and Workshop

Our garage and workshop was an unorganized mess!  I put the organize the garage project off for long time because I was overwhelmed by the clutter. Where do I start? Ack!

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By accident or design (I’m going to go with by design because it sounds like I had a plan all along instead of a make it up as I go along series of happy accidents) I broke my big garage organization project into several smaller, less overwhelming projects.

Guess what? Three days later (I had a lot of stuff to deal with) I had an organized workshop I can use without tripping over anything. I discovered some things I thought were working weren’t and why. I made changes according my needs and organization style. My garage is now neat and stays that way.

Yay!

This method worked so well on helping my clear my garage clutter madness that I’m using it to organize other parts of my house. You can too!

20 Warm Winter DIY Clothes We Love

Trying to buy warm winter clothing and accessories after Christmas is difficult because all of the stores are selling bathing suits!

Which is great if you live somewhere warm enough to wear a bathing suit during the winter.
For the rest of us, if we want warm winter clothes it’s recycling and DIY or die freezing time!

 Save these ideas to your Pinterest boards for later! Share them with your friends!

20 DIY Must Haves to Keep You Warm This Winter

Dog Coats and Boots for Dogs Who Hate Wearing Clothes

Lacey, our snow warrior princess loves to romp and play in the snow. Her dachshund side goes into overdrive. She investigates every little foot print, crack, or hole in the snow when she goes outside and take care of business.

Being part Cavalier King Charles Spaniel means her natural fur dog coat is longer than a barley there dachshund’s but Lacey doesn't last very long in low winter temperatures, nor should she when the temperatures are so dangerously low.

Girlfriend needs a winter dog coat.




Too bad my dog hates to wear a dog coat.

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.

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

Organize Your Garage in Three Easy Questions

I make most DIY projects harder or take 10 times longer because I have to hunt for stuff in the jumble of crap the tool shelves eventually become in my garage. It needs to change.

Welcome to my nightmare.

It’s time to face the fact that while tool storage shelves work for some people, they aren’t working for me. I have tons of garage organization ideas on my Pinterest boards (follow Condo Blues on Pinterest, pretty please?)

I have even more people telling me I should create/build/buy garage organizers like the kind they like.  I appreciate the helpful suggestions. But  I have some of those suggested organizers and they aren’t working for me right now.

I need to learn how to determine how to organize my workshop and garage according to my habits and organizing style first before I go crazy installing the slat wall of my dreams or whatever.
 

How to Make a Garage and Workshop Organization Plan with Three Simple Questions

17 Resources that will Motivate You to Declutter and Organize

 Pin this list of ideas to your Pinterest boards for later! Share it with your friends!

Winter is a great time to get organized. Since most of us are stuck inside because of the snow and the cold and a little restless, why not use that energy to clean and organize the post Christmas carnage in my craft room, right?

Small Space Industrial Open Pantry Yay or Nay?

A worn valve on our water heater flooded the utility, laundry, and kitchen after Husband started the dishwasher on Christmas Eve Eve morning.

Husband shut the water heater off while I called plumbers. Apparently plumbers are crazy busy with smart people who have plumbers do pre-emptive work on their pipes before overloading their plumbing with guests, cooking, and cold weather. It was a Festivus miracle I found a plumber during regular business hours that day!

That didn’t make my cranky feeling go way as I mopped the rest of the water, hoped we didn’t need to buy a replacement water heater (fortunately we just needed to replace a valve – whew!), and pulled a mountain of chaos out of the utility room so the plumber could find the water heater had room to work.