Catching Up

Wow!  It’s been a long time since I posted, but I have been working away on a few projects, even if I haven't been blogging.

Remember these little trays?  I finally got to work on them.  The idea was born out of two problems in our house.

1. 100 little coats and jackets:2 coat racks at adult height.  This ratio is way off!  We had 2 hooks at toddler height at first, but they ripped those off in no time.

2. 4 hours of preschool a week = 1000 pieces of paper, crafts, homework, bible stories, etc.   Emptying out Jacob’s “pack-pack”, you’d think he was a full time high school student.  I’m not even adding the things they bring home from church!

Our refrigerator gets buried, and if I try to throw anything away I have to be sneaky because Jake gets deeply offended if we toss his projects.  One time I wasn’t thinking and I threw away a few things without burying them in the trash, and Jacob saw it, pulled it out, and came and got in my face and said, “Why did you throw this away?”  Ooops!

So I was thinking of getting two old picture frames and making them into two coat hook/paper holder type things, one for each kid.  But when I saw the trays, I knew I could make something out of them so I grabbed them.  After a month or so of doing nothing, I dove in.

First I spray painted them with some spray paint I found in our garage.

 I didn't mind that the red paint didn't completely cover the flower design because I knew it would be covered by the chalk board.  I went to buy chalk board paint, but found these handy little self adhesive chalk board sheets that I just stuck on.  I already had the magnet clips, thanks to the bag-o-junk I bought the same day as the trays. 

Boom. Done.  Well, not quite....I still have a couple of things to do.  I need to attach the coat hooks, and I discovered that the legs on the back are going to need to come off (I was trying to preserve them) in order for the trays to be hung.  Then it will be done!

I’ve also been busy baking away.  I tried a new cupcake recipe, but they were only so so.  If you want to check out the recipe for this Browned Butter Cupcake you can find it here.

Here's a picture of mine:

The best cookies we have had in awhile came from one of my favorite blogs, Brown Eyed Baker.  The recipes on here are almost always perfect. These are incredibly easy, and were sooooo good!  As always, I threw in some other things I had on hand (like nuts) but the basic recipe is great too.

Have a great day!