Pieces by Polly: kitchen

Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Tips and Tricks for a $0 Kitchen Makeover

A lot of us are thinking about getting more organized. After all the extra clutter of Christmas decorations we're all craving a more organized house. I hope you'll like some of the little tips and tricks I came up with...but first I wanted to give you the punchline...

...Take a good hard look at how you're using your space in your biggest problem area. You might not need to buy anything to create more space if you just use the space you have in a better way.

Last week I cleaned my kitchen...really cleaned it...so much so that seriously this qualifies as a kitchen make-over, even though nothing new was installed, painted, nailed, etc. Our kitchen has never looked this good since the day we moved in.

I have never been an impeccable house keeper...and with three kids running around the house and a tiny kitchen...well it's not always pretty.

To our kitchen's credit though...for a tiny kitchen it really does have a lot of storage and is pretty well designed. Hubby's parents gave us a new mixer for Christmas, so I knew we had to make room for it...

but where...

...when our kitchen counters look like this...

Some days our counters look better than this...some days they look worse.

Sadly, I didn't even take a "BEFORE" picture of the most transformed corner because I didn't intend on doing anything with it when I started rearranging things.

Something had to give...because I really wanted to use that mixer (which I've still be too scared to use...but I think I might go back some bread when I'm finished writing this post.)

So here's a little of what I did...

Fresh Red in my Kitchen...

I know I'm not the only one who's excited spring is here...or at least on it's way. All of a sudden I'm in the mood to make my kitchen more springy.

It's been a while since I've added any red to the kitchen. I've got a bread box that has been sitting nearly finished in the garage all winter...and it's sitting there still. I'm hoping it will warm up enough to really start working in the garage again soon. In the mean time though, I found this bright little wire basket on my Goodwill hunt yesterday. I also brought home a basket of strawberries, and picked just one of the tulips that have bloomed in our front yard this week. (It's destined for a science lesson on part of a flower in a day or two.)

Another recent addition is this little charmer. My friend Lisa sent me some scent melts from her shop Lily and Oak to try a while ago. We'd been experimenting with them by just heating them in a pan of water, but we're loving them so much, I decided to go ahead and order a scent melts warmer from her. I went for red since I figured it would spend most of it's time in our kitchen.

It's made itself right at home next to our Little Red Shelf, the dishclothes from my mom, and the fabric covered cans holding my measuring spoons.

And of course we had to get a new scent out and try it right away. This week we've been enjoying English Garden (available by itself or in the Scent Melts Sampler Pack.) It brings a nice springy scent into the house...since our tulips are beautiful but not very aromatic.

And the kids are facinated with the melting wax...

...so it's a good thing it never gets hot enough to burn them.

(I can always tell when Firecracker has been sneaky and touched her finger to the melted wax because next time she walks by, she smells delightful :)

If you'd like to try some of Lisa's scent melts or other products for free, she's having a giveway on Facebook. You can enter to win a $10 gift certificate plus free shipping for any of her products.

Lily and Oak is also the perfect place to start your Mother's Day shopping. Lisa will have gift baskets in her shop soon, so be sure to check back. Or if your mom isn't into scent melts, Lisa has an amazing selection of pendant necklaces and beautiful tile magnets (you know...in case your mom needs something other than the magnet from the dry cleaners or local pizza place to hold up your kids' art work).

And I'm hoping to add some more red to the kitchen throughout the summer. I bought two 10 packs of strawberry starts at Home Depot...so I guess you know what I'll be busy doing as you're reading this.

What are you doing to welcome spring into your home?

Friday, January 7, 2011

Kitchenware with Creative Wrapping - Great Gift Ideas

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I'm in the process of adding some red touches to my kitchen. This is my first attempt at really "decorating" a room.

So I was super excited to find this under the tree.

My mom wrapped my gift up in some red dishtowels and kept it all together with a red ribbon and little embroidery floss ties.

Fabric Covered Cans - More Red for My Kitchen

Okay, there's nothing brilliant here today...but here's a super easy idea to add some custom counter containers to your kitchen without buying anything (provided you've got some fabric and mod podge laying around).

Now my execution of this project is not perfect. Maybe sometime I'll re-make them...but probably not. Hopefully you can learn from my mistakes.

Apple Fractions - Book and Activity

A while ago Christianne on Little Page Turners mentioned a book called Apple Fractions by Jerry Pallotta. With all the apples in the house, I was excited to see that our library DID have the book. How else are we going to turn our kids into math nerds like their parents than read fun math books?!? (Okay, there are other things at our house to help them on their way to being math nerds...but I'm always game for a good children's book.)

Firecracker loved the book. The elves are cute and fun to look at. There is also a lot of information about apples and their varieties...also perfect for a Washingtonian family. This is definitely going on my list of books I would like to own because it teachs about fractions in such a fun and straightforward way...and it's got something for kids at all different levels of understanding. Firecracker understood some of it, but she'll understand even more as her math skills improve.

We did two activities on two different days to go with this book. First we did some apple stamping to make some decorative napkins (a great way to to learning-time into gift-making-time).

Then we also cut some apples up into our own fractions and played with them for some hands-on illustrations.

Firecracker insisted that we drawn dotted lines before we cut because that's what they showed in the book.

And perhaps the most fun part of the lesson was stealing all the apple fractions.

Monday, November 1, 2010

More Red for My Kitchen - Painted Bowl

Am I the only one who's a relieved to have Halloween over? Don't get me wrong, we had fun with Halloween. (You can see our Incredible Halloween Costume here or scroll down to the next post.) I'm been itching to get started on Christmas gift prep, and I just don't feel like I can do that before Halloween. Of course one of the tricky things about crafty Christmas gifts and blogging is that you can't really show a lot of the stuff you're working on before Christmas...bummer! But I've got some things to show you that I made last Christmas, as well as some other random projects I've already done (or will be doing) that aren't gift related.

So for today, I've got my new red bowl to show you. I rescued this from the trash several years ago when we still lived in student housing.

I just liked the look of it, but I've been hesistent to actually use it very much because...you know...it's wood and came from the trash and the surface inside was a little scratched up. Then I got the idea to paint it. I used the same red paint that I used for my Little Red Shelf (glossy acrylic paint). I roughed up the wood first with sand paper, added a coat of primer, and then two coats of the red paint.

Now it's perfect for for breadsticks, muffins, garlic bread, or whatever. I do like the bowl with some pretty cloth napkins...which I'll have details for you about soon...maybe tomorrow.

And it makes me happy seeing it peaking out of my cupboard.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

The Little Red Shelf

I know you've probably all been thinking that this is turning more into a preschool/kids' art blog...but I'm still working on lots of other projects as well. I'm trying to focus on crafts that will help us get a little more organized and "moved-in."

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the first red revamp in my kitchen.

Tada...The Little Red Shelf

I put off some of these because I was a little afraid to pick "a color" for the kitchen. I wanted things to feel like they went together but was a little afraid to commit. I actually went to Home Depot paint section a couple times over the last few months and left without buying any paint because I was just too intimidated by all the options. I finally decided to be a bit of a copy cat of my super cool sister Katie who blogs over at Notes from a Very Red Kitchen. What can I say? She has good taste. (On a side note, Katie reminded us Tuesday, that there are only 10 weeks until Christmas. YIKES! And she has a super simple and brilliant idea for a baby scarf/neck warmer up today.)

Anyway, I finally settled on red because I already had a few red kitchen utensils and hot pads and things. I've also seen plenty of red kitchenware out there, so I figured it would be an easy color to coordinate with in the future.

No tutorial for this project...cause let's be honest...I don't really know much about painting things "right," and there are definitely mistakes if you could see this in person. Maybe this will give someone else an idea for cutting down counter clutter, though. I painted it with primer and then two coats of glossy acrylic craft paint ('cause that didn't require me to buy something from Home Depot paint dept.)

I found the little shelf at Goodwill, along with a couple others that still need painting. I remember having a similar one in my room when I was a girl...so I don't know...maybe these are kind of dated. That might be why there always seems to be one at thrift stores I go to. (I picked another one up today) I really like how this looks with the bold color against the neutral walls. I also like how it can hold all the little things I use all the time that tend to clutter up the counter, so it keeps them easy to find and creates more space in our small kitchen. (Our kitchen is tiny, although thankfully well designed with a surprising amount of cupboard space.)

In fact I like it so much, I'm trying to decide if I should put one above our dining table to hold all the little things that always seem to be cluttering up the table and maybe a picture frame or two. Hubby is not convinced. I have a longer one that would work pretty well, although it has the typical hearts cut out of it, which I think might look a bit more dated than the one in the kitchen without the cutout.

So, my question for all of you...what do you think? Would it be too cheesy to put one of these with the cut out hearsts up above our dining room table?

Also...I thought about putting some lettering on this, but couldn't think of any brilliant phrases. Any suggestions?

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