DIY: "You make my heart soar"

Recall that earlier this week I had about ten hours on a snow day to keep my kid's entertained?  (read here). 

We headed to pinterest and decided to tackle these Airplane Favors:

The supplies needed for these Valentine's Day favors, included:

•  Smarties
• Life Savors
• Rubber Bands
• Stick Gum
• Red Ribbon + Printed Tags ("You make my heart soar")

 

We learned a few tips along the way. 

 

For one, the rubber bands need to be just the right size or the airplane won't hold it's Smarties base in place.  It's very hard to tell how big these are from the photo, but these ended up being just right.  (About 1.5" in diameter when not stretched)

And two, the stick gum we selected wasn't hard enough and so it would bend when we attempted to put the rubber band ends around it.  I cut a small strip of cardboard from the back of the construction paper booklet and this solved the problem! (We used the cardboard underneath the gum). 

1. Getting started, wheels up!

Thread the rubber band through 2 life savers. 

2. The wings

Pull the two ends of the rubber band up around the life savers (almost like straps on a purse).  Place cardboard in between the loops and then the gum. 

Turn cardboard and gum so they are sitting flat across the 'wheels.'

 

3.  Copter Base

Slightly lift the 'wings' up so you can slip the Smarties underneath.

 

 

Adjust and tie note to end of airplane stating "You make my heart soar" (not pictured)

And then, if you're like us, you repeat this 22 more times for each kid in class!

Do you help your kid's make their class Valentine's?  What ideas have you done? 

Visit more DIY Projects here. 

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Arek airplane favors, Crafts, DIY, Invites, kids, Valentine's Day

A Simple Add-On Helps Turn Any Flat Surface Into A Table: The Floyd Leg.

UPDATE: Congratulations to Kyle and Alex, the Floyd Leg has been fully funded via Kickstarter as of about 16 hours ago!



So, what is it?

It's so simple, it's a wonder no one has created this before now. The Floyd Leg is like a C-clamp with a long, tapered, powder-coated steel attached leg. A tool that gives you the framework to take be the creator of your own furniture by utilizing wood slabs, signs, old doors, art, reclaimed materials or found objects (basically anything flat) that can serve as a surface.






The easy-to-attach legs emerged from a personal need combined with curiosity. Living a rather nomadic lifestyle with work and school took designer Kyle Hoff to several different cities in which he found himself buying (and ultimately) discarding furniture repeatedly. He then decided that he'd like a work desk which was was easy to pack up and move around, without sacrificing aesthetic appeal or requiring any building expertise.




Kyle met future partner Alex O'Dell while designing and building out a workspace in the North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. The building itself was formerly an auto garage.



With this history in mind, their philosophy was a minimal use of materials in order to contrast the new with the old.

above: Kyle Hoff and Alex O'Dell

After completion of the space, the Floyd Legs became their next project with these same values in mind: simple, useful, adaptive. They see the legs as a tool for people to be inventive with their furniture and reflective of their lives —without needing the skills and expertise to build from scratch.



The name Floyd harkens back to the name of Hoff's father, grandfather, and great grandfather, all steel mill workers. In the same spirit of local manufacturing, he and partner Alex O'Dell have established partnerships with local machine shops to produce the legs.

Specifications
The Floyd Leg is available in two different lengths and two different colors. Black or white powder-coated in 29” table height and a 16” coffee table height. They are produced in Detroit and made with American steel.

The legs are best suited to medium and light uses (the suggested weight to support is 75 lbs or less). However, the weight is less important as the size of the material you use. For these reasons they recommend uses such as desks, coffee tables, foyer tables, planting tables, etc. But they wouldn't recommend things that require larger surfaces and heavy interaction such as dining/dinner tables since there is no cross bracing.

The Floyd Leg has raised well over their initial goal of $18,000 on Kickstarter (as of February 4th they'd raised $214,871) and they intend to modify the prototype model with a larger clamping area on the fastener, ultimately making the leg stronger and easier to use. Rather than the small foot that is currently on the end of the fastener, the new model will have a 1.5" diameter foot for a better connection.



Kyle and Alex are both University of Michigan grads and designers based out of Detroit. They met while building out a workspace in a former auto-garage in the North Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. The approach utilized a minimal set of materials in order to contrast the old with the new. After the completion of the workspace, Alex joined Kyle in the launching of Floyd. Much like the reuse of the auto garage — Floyd is a framework for the re-imagining of existing resources.

•The Floyd Leg website
•The Floyd Leg on Kickstarter

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Arek building materials, coffee tables, designer tools, DIY, furniture, home decor, industrial design, interior decor, steel and wood furniture, table, tables

Valentine's Day DIY Favors

 It was about 9am...a mere hour into the snow day.  My precious little kids had still managed to wake up at 6am.  By this time, they'd eaten breakfast, watched four episodes of 'Dog With a Blog', sneaked in forty minutes of game time on the kindle, gotten into three knock down drag out fights and played out in the snow. 

And here we sat.  With  h-o-u-r-s  of endless *quality* time in front of us. 

So I did what any insane mama would do.  I bundled those lil kiddos up to their ears in snow gear and loaded them into the car.  We trekked through six inches of snow and headed to the DOLLAR STORE!

Crafts galore!  We loaded up on a ton of supplies with Valentine's Day themes.  Over the next several days, I will share our DIY activities. 

To start, we made these candy-filled Valentine's "thank you's" for all of the teachers and professionals in the kid's lives.  Twelve of these suckers (yes, my kids are needy and require a ton of support). 

We filled pickling mason jars with tissue paper just to pad the bottoms a bit.  With twelve of these babies, I didn't want to buy stock in M&M's and Hershey kisses. 

Filled each jar with goodies galore and topped with polka dotted tissue. 

Then used a bit of baker's twine I had left over from Ikea.  We used gift cards from Target and cut them to pint size. 

Wrote a little personal message of "thanks" onto each card.

And loaded them all back into the card board box so we can tote these off to school. 
This kept the kiddos busy for about 30 minutes (all the way up to the point of filling the jars with candy...and of course testing a few handfuls to ensure the product wasn't rotten). 

Check back soon to see how we filled the other 7 hours of the day! 

Do you make crafts for your school teachers?  Share any good ideas!  Check out more ideas on my pinterest page. 

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Arek DIY, kid crafts, Valentine's Day, Valentine's favors, Valentine's ideas

House Tour: Guest Bedroom

Back in November, I participated in the One Room Challenge as a linking participant.  For those of you that may have missed this event, this is a 6 week challenge that was created by Linda from Calling It Home .  Designers pick one room to transform within a six week period, each week revealing a bit more progress towards the final reveal. 

I posted my original final reveal photos here but I was never thrilled with the photographs because I ran right down to the final night before the reveal and ended up taking my shots at night. 

Finally, I have had a chance to photograph my guest bedroom in the daylight.

The guest room is Palm Beach Regency meets Bohemian Chic. 

This is also the room where my five year old, Vivi, sleeps so I incorporated elements of her style into the room.  I even included artwork by her and a few bohemian-style photos of her at the soccer field. 

 

 

The paint is HGTV Sherwin William's Loyal Blue and I was inspired by Emily Henderson (she painted her at home office in the same color).  I fell in love with this sailboat painting during our annual summer trip to Kennebunkport. 

The turquoise stripes on the ceiling were an evolution.  I'd originally intended to wallpaper the entire ceiling in a solid turquoise with Temp Paper temporary wallpaper.  However, this particular style was a bit thin and difficult to work with in large sheets (on the ceiling).  So, the idea morphed into stripes on the ceiling. 

The Turquoise Urchin Chandelier is by Stimulight and caused quite a stir during the challenge.  I was obsessed with it the moment I saw it and it was even more impressive hanging!

 

Herons and cranes are a theme in my bedrooms!  I love their elegance. 

The drapes are from Target with a fuchsia pom pom trim added for extra pop. 

I'm a Home Goods fanatic and many of the Vivid Hue accessories are from there.  This fuchsia chair was a major score from Home Goods along with the lips pillow.  The Ascher throw is from one of my favorite décor accessory shops in Kennebunkport called Spaces. 

 

 

This is the bathroom off of the guest bedroom.  I plan to tackle this redesign next (shhhh, don't tell my husband).  But, I want the styles to flow from one room to the next so that the bathroom is a logical extension of the guest bedroom.  Maybe I'll tackle this for the next One Room Challenge in April 2014. 

 

 

 

Before

Just a reminder of where this room started:

 

After:

 

Here is a reference to the original weekly posts.

 

Vivid Hue Home's One Room Challenge Weekly Progress Posts:
Week 1   |  Week 2    |  Week 3     |  Week 4   |  Week 5  |  Week 5 1/2  | Final Reveal

 

Sources:
Turquoise Nightstands: Parker Kennedy Living | Nail head Headboard: Ballard Designs | Brass Lamps: Home Goods |  Vintage Sailboat Painting: Antiques on Nine in Kennebunkport |  Brass Crane: Blaze and Bloom | Bed Linens: Serena & Lily | Ikat Pillow, Navy Pillow, Green & Linen Pillow: Home Goods | Bolster Pillow: Custom from Calico | Fuchsia and Orange Velvet Pillow: Blaze and Bloom, CT | Vintage Green and Turquoise Bedspread: Antiques on Farmington | Large Chevron Painting: Jennifer Moreman, One Kings Lane | Fuchsia Chair: Home Goods | Alpaca Throw: Ascher Market/ Spaces of Kennebunkport | Chinoiserie Melamine Tray on Bed: Kim Seybert | Quote Art (both): One Kings Lane | Miss Porter's Oil Painting by Dawn Lombardi of Farmington, CT |  Drapes: Target Threshold | Pom Pom Fringe on Drapes: Ichimylove on Etsy | Rhino Stool: Home Goods | Zebra Dish: C Wonder |  Turquoise Urchin Chandelier: Stimulight on Etsy |  Pink Tulip on Navy Tray: Furbish Studio | Navy Faux Wood Inlaid Tray: Home Goods | Green & White Stripe Jewelry Box: Home Goods

A tremendous thank you goes to Linda from Calling It Home for allowing over 70 additional design bloggers to participate in this challenge as linking participants.  I would encourage you to head over there to check out links to all of the linking participants that posted their final reveals.  The results are absolutely stunning. 

 

And thanks for revisiting my final reveal through "updated photographs"! 

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Arek DIY, Final Reveal Updated Photographs, guest bedroom, house tour, One Room Challenge, ORC Final Reveal