DIY Postcards

You may have noticed there's an uptick in postcards being sent lately. They are one of the ways you can reach your elected officials and go through less security since postcards aren't in a closed envelope. However, buying postcards can be a bit tricky. I tried ordering some blank ones online, but realized quickly they are more expensive than I wanted to spend especially when you factor in postage stamps.

So, I decided to make my own. Postcards are basically just heavier paper cut to a certain size. I've seen some creative ideas on Pinterest using cereal boxes. However, I wanted more room to write on my postcards.

So I bought a package of card stock on Amazon. (I'm confident you could find paper local, but I live in the country and utilize Amazon Prime regularly). The paper was $12.95 for 50 sheets of 100lb extra thick white card stock. Each sheet makes 4 postcards. So for a little work I got $200.00 postcards for $12.95.

Once I had my paper in hand, I tried to print on it. My ancient printer wouldn't feed the paper. So I decided I could hand decorate the postcards instead of print on them. So, I first measured out the size of the postcards. Standard postcard size is 3.5 inches to 4.25 inches high and 6 to 6 inches long. Postcards need to be approximately 0.007 and 0.016 inches thick. Obviously thicker postcards are less likely to be eaten by the postal sortation machines.

Once I had measured everything out, I used a paper cutter to cut the the card stock into the correct size. I used a ruler to make the line on the back where you put the address . Finally I did a small decoration on the front. Something to keep in mind is the bar code sticker may go along the bottom or top (they don't always end up on the back), so you might want to move your decoration away from the edges.

 

DIY Girl Scout Cookie Booth Awning

Hello!

Any other Girl Scout moms or troop leaders out there? If you are included in this category, then you know full well why the blog hasn't been hoppin' lately. Girl Scout cookie season just wrapped up last weekend. First of all, I would like to thank all the troop leaders out there (including our troop leader Wendy) and all the cookie directors out there (including our service unit's, Penny) for what they do. These ladies basically give up two months of their time to organize cookie drop offs and cookie booths, and lend entire portions of their houses for storing cookies. Cookie sales for Girl Scouts do more than just raise money for troops, they also teach girls valuable lessons about goal setting, managing money, running a business and in my daughter's case, teach her how to interact with the community in a professional coherent manner. Her confidence with public speaking improved with basically every door we knocked on.

So, one of the staples of cookie season is a cookie booth. If you do one search on Pinterest, you will see some booths that are pretty darn sweet. Kudos to those moms. With the little one and  a 100 other things to finish, I don't have time for that. However, I did have time to make an awning for our cookie booth. The plan in my head is every year to do something to add to the booth so we can reuse the pieces year after year. So this year it's an awning and maybe next year it's a durable sign. Maybe we get crazy and the girls can hang some sort of giant cardboard decoration from it.

Making this awning is actually really simple and even if you don't have a DIY bone in your body, you can make this is just an hour or so. It's fairly inexpensive and you can reuse it year after year.

The supplies I used for this project were PVC pipes, Quikrete (just one bag), two buckets and various connections for the pipes. I also bought some colored duct tape to cover the pipes so they wouldn't be white, but that's completely optional.

For the pipes, I bought the lengths I needed so I didn't have to cut anything.  If you're willing to cut some pipes, you're probably going to save some money buying longer pieces. I also made mine with several smaller pipes rather than one long pipe, so it would be easy to transport and store. So, the sides are made up of 3- 2 foot long pipes (I used 1 3/4 diameter pipe). The top is one solid piece of 6 foot long pipe. I then bought the various connectors needed to keep everything together.

Once I bought everything, I covered everything in duct tape being careful not to tape where the connectors would fit on the pipe (otherwise the pipe wouldn't find inside them). The last step was to dump some Quikrete into a bucket, put one of the side PVC pipes in the bucket and adding some water in. Once you have added the water, take a moment to make sure the PVC pipe is standing straight up and not leaning to one side (you can tape around it to keep it from leaning if you need to) After everything is dried, the awning is ready to go!

While we used this for a cookie booth, there are many other possibilities. You could keep with the selling theme and use this for a lemonade stand. Or you could use it to create a stage with a curtain, photo backdrop..really anything that would require you to hang something.

Kitchen Island Before & After

Good Morning!

I finally finished painting and caulking the support beams on each side of our island and thought it was a good time to reveal the finished island. Other than a bit of trim to finish up (I'm slowly but surely making my way around the room) and some trim on our plank ceiling, the dining room/kitchen/living room is fully remodeled. Sure, there's some changes we want to make down the line (replacing the banister, a garage/mudroom addition, and french doors in the dining room out to a new deck), but the main ugly parts are fully gone. To see individual tutorials and more before & after pictures, click on the "Ugly House Renovation" label on the right hand side of the screen or click here.

So, let's take a walk down memory lane to what our house looked like in all its 1979 glory when we first moved in.

And Now...

Pretty great huh? It's so much brighter in our house now. Here's the progression so you can see how we ended up here. 

We trimmed out each vertical support with pre-primed white boards and lattice trim pieces. Once my husband had them nailed around the 2 x 4 supports, I wood filled each nail hole and caulked everything to make the trim nice and clean. Everything got many coats of white paint to complete the look.

I have individual posts for much of what we've done (Click here for the collection of Ugly House posts), but here's a quick run down. First we removed everything from the kitchen (cabinets, countertops, that red back splash, sink, soffet) and replaced with subway tile, Ikea cabinets, butcher block countertops (that I stained and finished) and an apron front sink. After that, we painted everything including the pantry door and stair railings. New doors throughout the upstairs. The wall came down, new lights were added/changed, floors were removed, new island built, horizontal beam wrapped in barn wood and vertical supports wrapped in trim, drywall patched up, ceiling covered in plank and new floors installed throughout the upstairs. Final step is putting new taller trim throughout the upstairs and trim around the ceiling.