spicing up life

my handy husband made a spice rack for me for christmas last year. he's a pro at converting pallet boards and recycled wood into unique furniture pieces (like this coffee table and record stand). he even incorporated a chalk board into this piece (and if you haven't heard about my love for chalk board, look here and here and here and here). it's fantastic! unfortunately, mccormick plastic spice jars are just not cute enough to display, so i headed over to this container supply site for some cute, matchy spice jars (for a really reasonable price) and got some labels from the container store. with two moves in the span of seven months, we hadn't had a chance to put everything together until recently. i love how it turned out. have a look...

a step up

one day, we went looking for supplies to make a bookcase...and we found this great, old ladder in the $5 pile at a local antique shop. one week later, still no bookcase, but we have a sweet record stand now!

the power of a paintbrush, round two

here's round two of remedying screaming walls! (if you missed round one, see it here.)

[before]

[i have to admit, that's a pretty good red sox logo]

[KIDDING. I AM NOT A YANKEES FAN.]

[mid-primer]

[trying to redeem myself]

[done!]

the power of a paintbrush

as part of our last living situation, we agreed to do some painting (aka cover up screaming walls). check out the progress:

[PUMPED]

[before: neon green and charcoal grey]

[another angle: neon green and charcoal grey]

[mid-primer]

[another angle: mid-primer]

[after: did you feel your blood pressure go down?]

[after: the finished (calmer) product]

uncorked

do you know how many wine bottles it took to get all these corks?!? we love wine, but not THAT much, so thanks to the friends and family who have consistently donated to my stash. the K is finally complete - although i'm still taking donations for future cork projects :)

the origins of chalkboard love

you may have noticed by now that i love chalkboard paint. if you haven't, check out this and this and this to get the idea. i thought i'd tell you about the origins of my chalkboard craze. two summers ago, josh and i were in the midst of crazy wedding planning (we had just under four months to pull off a wedding). it seemed like every waking moment was fixated on planning, working through the details, shopping, making phone calls, and taking on (a few too many) projects. i had lofty aspirations of a complete d.i.y. wedding and incorporated quite a few homemade projects into my plans...without much thought to our condensed time frame. 

one of these projects included converting an old window into the menu for our reception. we made a trip to todd farm early one sunday morning in search of some key wedding decoration items (friends on the north shore, if you've never been to todd farm, you must go! it's a giant antique/flea market with great deals). i wish now that i had taken pictures of the whole event, but the short of it is that i found a rustic old red window in a pile of junk antiques for $5 and decided to make some good use out of it. josh took a hammer and smashed the life out of all the glass. then we coated a thick piece of wood with chalkboard paint and fastened it to the backside of the window. we wrote out all of the items on our (awesome) menu like this...

[photo credit: scot huber, give & take pictures]

and then we decided that the piece needed a home after the wedding too, so we mounted it in the entrance to our old apartment.

now used it for to-do lists,

love notes,

 

and important reminders.

and thus concludes round FOUR of chalkboard posts...or maybe this should be round zero since this is where it all began. enjoy, and get painting.

chic magnet

when i went to shut the fridge after grabbing some lunch the other day, a trail of photos and papers followed the door. actually, this scenario happens at least once a week. it might be because i pile three to four photos under one magnet (and let's be honest, i open and close the fridge door A LOT so there's quite a bit of turbulence for that lone magnet to endure). bottom line: i need new magnets. reality: magnets are stupidly  expensive! friends, let's be real--i'd rather spend $4.99 on a latte than on a pack of six magnets. 

creative moment: dip into my huge stash of random buttons that i've had sitting around since, oh, middle school.

 use that $4.99 to buy toxic super glue and a pack of ten plain magnets at the craft store.

glue the buttons to the magnets (and do not get any on my hand because it will take forever to come off).

 let them set for 24 hours...and voila!

now each photo/paper can have it's own magnet and will stay in place on the fridge.

cute. cheap. creative. it's how i roll.

chalkboard paint strikes again

friends, the chalkboard paint made another appearance this weekend.  if you follow my blog or know me remotely well, you know that i have a thing for chalkboard paint (see this post and this post). chalkboard paint is a cute and creative way to organize and decorate. in our apartment, certain individuals have been known to have trouble distinguishing between flour, granulated sugar, and powdered sugar in a row of five unlabeled jars containing baking goods. it's helpful that the jars are always placed in the exact same spot in descending height order on the top of the cabinet. but if i were to ever swap the sugar and flour locations, we may end up with extra pasty scones or granular non-rising pizza dough. so, i decided that our baking jars needed labels. but not real labels because in the same way that i have a thing for chalkboard paint, i have a strong thing against label makers (except in the case of organizing office supplies or filing cabinets, which is boring anyway). so i whipped out my beloved chalkboard paint and gave it a go...

naked jars begging for some adorable labeling.

 don't judge me by that lovely torn sweatshirt sleeve. it was a rainy saturday morning. what's a girl to do?

 okay, the paint kind of looks like electrical tape here, but it's much cuter with the actual chalk writing on it. if i were to go back and do it again, i'd make chalkboard circles rather than blocks. 

actually, the chalkboard blocks kind of remind me of the "censored" screening blocks, as though my naked jars had something to hide.

baking supplies with identities. success! (much better WITH the chalk, right?)

the finished product. chalkboard paint to the rescue...round THREE.