Quick Tip - Peanut Butter To Get The Sticky Off

First off...let me start with a BIG FAT apology for  the serious lack of posting lately!!  I promise I am going to try and be better!!  Thanks so much for sticking with me : )

Ok, movin' on...I don't know about you, but trying to get the sticky off of stuff is enough to make me NUTS!!   I know there are a ton of different things out there to try like Windex, the hair dryer and even stuff you can buy like Goo Gone, but I had never heard of using peanut butter!

Let me back up just a little.  Awhile back my hubby brought home some of the Starbucks iced coffee things that they sell at the grocery.  I knew I had seen a bunch of different (really cute) projects that people had done using those type of bottles....

Like this...

And this...

 So I told him to keep them instead of putting them in the recycling bin.  He looked at me like I had five heads, but rinsed them out and set them aside none the less! (He's good like that!) 

When all four bottles were empty I went to pull the labels off so I could wash them and add them to my crafty stash for a rainy day.  This is when the desire to say bad words kicked in!  The labels came off pretty easy...all the sticky residue they left behind, not so much!!  I tried everything I could think of...windex, hot soapy water and I even used one of those fabulous Pampered Chef scrapers and nothing worked!!  I couldn't find the Goo Gone at Walmart so I was stuck (no pun intended)! 

A week or so later my mom came for a visit.  I shared my dilemma with her and she decided to "google it"!  Why didn't I think of that?!  She got a list of the standard answers, but then one really stood out...peanut butter...rub it on, let it sit, wash it off and done.  We were both totally skeptical, but intrigued at that same time. 

Here is one of the bottles BPB (before peanut butter).  It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but the cloudy area in the middle is all the left over sticky!

I only did one bottle to start with because, honestly, I just didn't think it would work and I didn't want to waste perfectly good peanut butter!  I just spooned out a small scoop of it and smeared it all around the bottle with my hands.  Which, by the way, feels really gross!  Then I let it sit for about 5 - 10 minutes.  After that I rinsed the bottle with warm soapy watter (be careful, those suckers get slippery!) and to my utter amazement it actually worked!!!!

Here's a cleaned bottle (right) next to a sticky bottle (left).  I know, right, you're totally blown away! Ok, that might be a bit much, but I was pretty excited about it.  A couple of the bottles I did have to give a little extra elbow grease when I was washing to get every little bit of the stubborn sticky off, but for the most part it really did work like a charm! 

So, now you need to go buy something with a big fat sticker on it so you can try this out!!  Let me know how it works for you guys!! 

Oh, I almost forgot...if you like the look of the Starbucks bottles but don't want to deal with the sticky at all head over to Aldi!  They sell their own version of the iced coffees in the exact same bottle style, except their labels are shrink wrapped on instead of glued so they just peel off and are ready to go!  One more reason to LOVE Aldi!!

Happy 4th of July

You have to love a nation that celebrates its

independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, 

tanks, and soldiers...but with family picnics where kids

throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from

happiness.  You may think you have overeaten,

but it is patriotism.

-Erma Bombeck 

4 for the 4th...Some fun ideas to help you celebrate:

Who doesn't love rice krispy treats?!  You can find the recipe for these over at Lil' Luna.

My little people still aren't big fans of the big fireworks because of the noise, but they LOVE sparklies  (aka sparklers).  I can wait to try this idea to keep the sparks from hitting their hands!

I don't know about you, but my kiddos would love this!!  Would be a neat experiment to do with the kids too!  The drink with the highest sugar content stays on the bottom.  You can find a lot of different blog posts about making these, but this is where I found this one.

I'm really hoping to get a good picture of all of us so I make a page like this on from The Pink Room! 

So go out and enjoy your day!! Stay safe, stay cool and make lots of great memories!!

 

Celebrate Summer - Teacher Gift

Just a quick post to share a super easy (and pretty cheap) end of the year teacher gift that they will LOVE!  I found this idea on Pinterest several months ago and thought, I would love to get that if I was a teacher! 

Here's my version.  I didn't do the sunscreen, just the magazine, towel and candy. 

The towels were around $5 bucks each.  I got Better Homes and Gardens for the magazine, but saw a couple other choices Walmart that would have worked great and were only about $2.  The boxes of candy also came from Walmart and were only 98 cents a box!

Here are a couple of links to some super cute tags you can print off use with this gift:

http://www.4shared.com/office/MHgXjTb9/Teacher_Summer_Tag.html?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0By004Xzl_7yUdnBuamxQeHdsMjQ/edit?pli=1

I ended up making my own tags mostly because of the 3 printers in my house, 2 of them are out of color ink and the other one has never made it out of the box.  It also gave me an excuse to play with some more washi tape : )

So there you have it...cheap, easy and super cute!!  The teachers will love it because it's actually usable!  And on a side note, does anyone else out there think it's crazy how fast kids grow up?! 

Exhibit A: first and last day of school pics....

Well, even if you don't use this gift idea make sure you show some love to the teachers that loved on your kiddos this year!!  And if you homeschool, then you have my permission to go by yourself a new beach towel a magazine and some yummy treats!!!

Happy Tuesday and have a great rest of the week!!

Gone But Not Forgotten

It's been a really long time since I've been on here!  I guess I took an unintentional hiatus.  In fact it's been so long I'm not really sure where to begin.  I've got about 15 different posts rolling around in my head right now so I figured I'd start small. 

Anyone out there heard of a little thing called Pinterest?  I may or may not be addicted! So many great ideas all in one place...how could you not be addicted?!  I even created a board for projects that I have completed.  Please tell me I'm not the only one that's done that....

Anyway, here's a couple of quick things I've done in the past couple of weeks.  The first one is this super cute bunting hand towel.  I made this one for my grandmother for her birthday. 

A very quick and easy project that makes a great gift.  It's super fun hanging on the stove bar too, sorry I didn't get a pic of that.  Here's my pinspiration : )

The next project was even easier than the towel.  If you have on Pinterest at all in the last couple of months than you all about washi tape by now.  I even found my washi tape at Target. Bonus!

With my washi tape I made some twist ties!  Yes, you read that right, twist ties.  But these are way too cute for the garbage!

All you need is some washi tape and some floral wire.  If you want to make some you can check out the tutorial here.

Well that's all I've got for now.  Hopefully I've given you some pinspiration!  I've got a little Disney fun to share with too, so hopefully it won't take me another month to do that : )

Spray Paint Can Do Wonders

A while back I posted here about how I used spray paint to take my entryway light fixture from "drab to fab"!  Ok, I know that is a seriously overused phrase, but it is amazing what a difference a little brown spray paint can make!

Since I was so happy with the light I did I set my sights on a ceiling fan that I've had a serious dislike for since we moved into this house.  I've been putting off painting it because I wasn't really sure how well it would turn out.  I finally decided I was just going to bite the bullet and do it!  If it turned out awful then not big loss, it needed to be replaced anyway...but, if it turned out great then it would be a lot cheaper than replacing it.

Here's the fan before...kind of a funky shade of green.  My guess is the goal was for it to look like a patina faux finish. 

Not a big fan of the glass light covers either...  Ok, enough of the ugly! Here's the quick run down on how I did it.

When I did the light in the entry way I just used regular brown spray paint, but this time I wanted something with a nicer finish.  I was really happy with with one.  Just a recommendation though, practice before you start.  You have to make sure it goes on even.  (I got lucky that the fan is up high and you can't see the drippy parts)

I taped off the air holes so no paint got in the motor.  I also taped off the wires and the sockets for the light bulbs.  Then I laid the little pieces out on a piece of cardboard and then started spraying. 

For the hard parts (taking the fan down and then putting it back up) I had my super handy step-dad!  Oh, and about those ugly light covers...I picked out the replacements at Lowe's for about $8 each. 

It's definitely not perfect and if you look close you can see all the little drips, but I am super happy with the way it turned out.  And it made a really big impact in the room!  What do you think?  Are you ready to spray paint something? 

We've Been "Egged"

Well, My house got "egged" yesterday! 

And the culprit was one of my best friends and 2 of her kiddos!

A while back I saw this print from Eighteen 25 on Pinterest and thought it was too cute and such a fun idea.  (By the way, you can download the print FREE here)  Then I was lucky enough to have someone egg us : )

My boys LOVED this spontaneous egg hunt!  I had a heads up that this would be happening during nap time.  So when my hubby got home from a meeting I let the boys run out to meet him.  Since I knew the eggs were out there I was ready with their buckets and the camera!

  

It didn't take the boys long to realize there were treats inside the eggs! It's funny to see their different personalities come out at times like this. Big man picked up a couple of eggs and was ready to sit down and see what was inside. Little man went as fast as he could to collect as many eggs as would fit in his bucket before he was ready to call it quits. 

Can you tell that right after this picture was taken we went inside to watch the Kentucky game? 

 Hope your Saturday was as fun as ours was!  You still have time...go egg a friends house!!



More Age Blocks

I finally got a chance to make up some more age blocks!  I made 7 sets last week!! I was on a roll : )

As I was looking through the pictures of the finished blocks, and I came across this one, and it occurred to me that these would also be SUPER cute to use in a maternity photo session or just as your taking snap shots of your growing baby bump!!

Three of the sets were to fill orders for 2 sweet ladies that have patiently waiting for me to get more blocks in so I could add some cute to them : )  Thanks for your patience Bethany and Jamie!  (One of those sets was just like the set from this post, so no new pics)

The other 4 sets went in the shop today!   

Great for a girl or boy

Traditional boy set (or could be gender neutral)

Super cute and girly

Not overly girly but still feminine

Have a fantastic week!!