DIY Knife Holder

I hate stuff on my counters.  It's really hard to keep them cleaned off and organized.  It's too easy to just throw stuff down and let it sit there. 

Today while cleaning off all the stuff I had a moment of brilliance.  No Pinterest inspiration here.  Just straight out of my own head.  I knew there had to be something in my garage that I could use and make for free that would clear off my clunky knife block and give me more space.  Not much more space but at least it would be one less thing to stare at.

I went out to the garage and found a piece of wood that worked perfectly.  So here's how you can make your own knife holder for your drawers.

First, measure the width of your drawer.

Cut down a piece of wood to fit tightly in the drawer so you don't have to use any brackets to hold the wood in place.  Draw a line at the bottom of the wood so you know how far down to make your cuts.  My slots are spaced 1 inch apart.  The last slot on the right is longer for my biggest knife to fit.

Make sure your wood fits in the drawer and looks right.  Then prime and paint if you choose.

After the everything is dry put the wood back in the drawer and place your knives in the drawer. 

It's that simple and it didn't even take that long to make. 

I hope you have a great week!

LUNCH anyone?

Since we built the shelves in the kitchen I haven't been happy with what I had up there.  It just wasn't looking right to me.  So I went to my go-to place for inspiration, Pinterest. 

I found my inspiration picture very quickly.  I was looking for something easy and inexpensive.  Basically I wanted to "shop" my house and use what I already had. 

Source

 

This picture looked simple and elegant and I had pretty much everything I needed except for the artwork.  But remember, I'm doing this on the cheap so I don't want to spend anything.

I also found the picture below while doing the same search for kitchen shelves and I loved the vintage "LUNCH" sign. 

Source 

I remembered a friend gave me a piece of wood that she hadn't used and it was sitting in my garage waiting for me to find a place for it. 

So I got busy.

I sized out my letters in Microsoft Word, printed them out, cut them out, traced them on contact paper and then cut the letters out of that.  The first time I did this I wanted my board to look just like the inspiration picture. 

First, I spray painted my bottom coat black then put the letters on once the paint was dry.  Then I spray painted white on top of the letters so when I peeled off the letters the black would show through.  I got too "sand paper happy" and sanded off too much and it just didn't look right.  So I started over.

I followed the same method here.

I sanded the board back down where there was just a little bit of black left.  I spray painted a layer of white over the black then put down new letters cut out of contact paper.  Then I sprayed green over the white.  I peeled off my letters and started sanding. 

The more I sanded more black came through on the white letters.  When it comes to distressing something I'm always a little nervous to do it.  I'm afraid I'm going to go overboard and mess everything up (like I did the first time) so this go-around I was very cautious not to do that. 

This was a happy accident that turned out lovely.  Now I need to figure out what to do for art on the top shelf in the kitchen.  Sometimes I look at the sign and think it still looks too perfect but quite frankly I was tired of sanding.  So here it is all finished.

Have a great weekend!

DIY Floating Kitchen Shelves

For the 5 years we have been in our house I have always thought the space above our kitchen sink was weird. I've never known what to do with that space over the years. I've tried a few different things and didn't really like any of what I tried. Last year I put up EAT in that space and that's how it's been ever since.

Blah!

Until now! We had some left over wood from the dining room table that Matt built and I knew the solution.

Floating shelves!

There is exactly 3 feet between the two upper cabinets. So Matt cut the wood down to size. I then painted the wood the same color as our cabinets.

I measured out exactly where I wanted the shelves to go. I measured 7 inches down from the top and 7 inches up from the bottom.

We used brackets to hold the shelves in place. The arrows are pointing to the brackets. We used brackets on both shelves.

I purchased $5 worth of trim from Home Depot and Matt nailed it up. I painted the trim to match the cabinets and I painted the brackets so they wouldn't stand out.

I threw up some cook books and anything else I could find around the house and it was done.

I love these shelves and this space now. I can put all sorts of fun stuff up there for the holidays or different times of the year.

In case you want to see a close up of the little quote block here it is. I found the quote on Pinterest. I made my own pretty version and just glued it to a square scrap piece of wood.

I thought it was a very fitting quote for our family.

Have a great week!

A quick tip

Cleaning my oven is not fun. If I would just do it after it has cooled my life would be so much easier. I got in a cleaning mood and finally scrubbed all the gunk and junk off my oven. I have a smooth surface oven and I discovered the best way to clean it. I thought I would pass along a helpful tip if you don't already have a great solution.

Here's my oven in all its glorious filth.

Sad! Horrible! My mother would be horrified! She raised me better than that!


This is my secret ingredient. What is it? Baking soda!! Cover the top of your oven with it and let it sit for a few minutes. I'm not sure how much it helps to let it sit but I tell myself by letting it sit, that's when the magic happens!! I usually let it soak in for about 5-10 minutes.

Then I take my sponge and start scrubbing. Depending on how much gunk you have on there you may have to really put some "elbow grease" into scrubbing. But it's worth the work in the end. I use the rough side of my sponge. It doesn't scratch my oven either.
After scrubbing just a little this is what the first burner looks like. A million times better!


Keep going because when you're finished you will be able to see your reflection. Ta da!!

What do you think? It looks brand new again. I do use window cleaner to polish the oven up to a pretty shine. This makes me happy! My total time spent cleaning this was about 20 minutes. Well worth it too!

If only....

I've always longed for a nice table setting. I would love to change out the table settings from season to season. But I don't have a dining room table since that room is the toy room. I would love for my kitchen table to have a nice setting to it. Nothing fancy even. Something simple like this would work.

I bought the placemats, lemons, glasses and plates at the Dollar Tree. Don't those lemons look so real?? Love that!! I love the blue, white, and yellow together. This is cute for summer!

There is no way I can have this even. Not with my two boys!

So this is what my table looks like for now. At least until my kids are older.

Not quite the same look or effect I was going for. Oh well....

Eat!

I have empty space between my cabinets in the kitchen. It's right above the sink and this space is very annoying. I've never been sure what to put there. Over at Craftomaniac she created a burlap EAT sign. I loved it so I made my own recently.

I don't have the fancy Silhouette vinyl machine so I had to do it the ghetto way! I bought three 4 x 6 frames from the Dollar Tree and spray painted them flat black. At Hobby Lobby I found burlap scrapbook paper and cut it to fit the frame. In Microsoft Word I found the font I liked and printed out the letters. Very carefully I cut each letter out and glued them on the paper. Easy! Then, I was finally able to find the right color of burlap at Hobby Lobby after Christmas and cut out the straps to hang the frames with. I looked for a fancy rod like in the original picture but I couldn't find one so I had to settle for a small $5 curtain rod from Target. It works I guess. So there it is!

Let's eat!

Ideas from the fridge

When was the last time that you went shopping for decorating ideas in your refrigerator? Probably never, right? I can say I have done it and will probably do it again. Have you ever noticed the jars that food comes in? Some of them are really pretty and we just throw them out with the garbage. So the other day I purchased jute from Hobby Lobby and I had an idea. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I love it!! So I took my applesauce jar that started out like this:

And after about 10 minutes of twisting I made this:

Then I took this pretty jar and did the same thing.

I'm not sure if I like them up there or not. Maybe I'll put some sort of flowers/greeny stuff in the pitcher. What do you think? Be honest...it won't hurt my feelings. The more I look at it the more it does seem blank up there or that something is missing. I would love ideas! Either way, I love how they turned out and these cute jars will find a home somewhere.