Fix up those old earrings

I have a few favorite pairs of earrings. Sadly, one of them was just nasty looking. My cool spiral metal earrings were in sad shape. One of the earrings was missing the fish hook finding and the other's was not silver anymore...no way I was going to put that in my ear. 

Who knew it could be so easy to make my awesome earrings usable again? 

Supplies needed:

• Sad earrings that need their fish hook finding replaced (FYI: 'findings' are the little components that make jewelry).
• a pack of fish hook earring findings (I got this pack at Joanns, but Micheals and Hobby Lobby have them too). 
• Pliers (I got these at Hobby Lobby in the Jewelry section).

Step 1: Hold the fish hook with your fingers and hold the little loop with the pliers. (notice, I am not holding it with my fingers...I needed to take the picture). 

Step 2: Slowly pull the loop apart until there is enough space for the earring to come off. (Yes, I had my amazing husband take a picture of this, since I don't have 3 hands).

Step 3: Take the earring off the old nasty fish hook finding.

Step 4: Repeat step 1 & 2 for the new fish hook finding.

Step 5: Slip earring on and close it up the loop by carefully moving the wire back into place.

I repeated steps 4 & 5 for the earring that was missing the finding.

I'm so thrilled with how they turned out and that I can wear these neat looking earrings again. Yippee! You can also do this with other style of earrings! Go look in your jewelry box and see what you can revitalize!

Spicing up our fish tank.

I did this project back in December, and thought it was high time I posted it. For Christmas, two of my girls were given fish tanks. They were SO excited!!  I was happy for them. If you know me, you know that I like things matching. I'm obsessed that everything in my kitchen is red, white, and/or blue. As excited as everyone was about getting fish, I wasn't too excited to have these tanks sitting on my counters. It isn't just the tank, there is a mess of wires and tubes also. Ugg. I HATE wires too. Here is my neat little fix for my frustrations with the tanks. 

What an awesome idea...I put scrapbook paper on the back of the tank! I had some red, white, and blue paper left over from a project, so I pulled that out and got to work.

I laid the paper on the back of the fish tank and folded it around the corners and made the best crease I could.

I then cut along the crease and taped it to the back of the tank.

Super easy, and the paper helped so much. The tanks now match my kitchen theme AND they hide the wires and tubes behind the tank...for the most part.

The fish tanks came with the blue rocks...perfect, it matches! They also came with the plants too. I'm not loving the plants because they don't match the color scheme, it drives me crazy, I just haven't looked for different plants. 

Note for the future. These lasted about two months...until my two year old started playing with the water in the tank and got the paper wet...and killed the fish. Lesson learned. Next time, I will try gluing them down with Mod Podge or something similar, so they are sealed somewhat.

Resurrection Rolls

Last week was crazy around here with some unexpected stuff. By the time Easter rolled around, I didn't have anything planned. Oops. We don't do the whole Easter bunny/basket thing. It is a day to focus on our Savior and the wonderful gift he gave to us...to live with him and our Father in Heaven again. 

Last night for family night, we made our lesson/activity/treat, those awesome resurrection rolls you've seen on Pinterest and blogland. Last year a friend we go to Church with dropped everything off for us to make these and to do the little lesson...such a neat idea. I was excited to do it this year. 

I remembered what to do from last year, but I did reference THIS blog (The Larson Lingo) just to double check and to get the meaning of the things I forgot. grab some dough, butter (melted), marshmallows, and cinnamon sugar. We just made our own cinnamon sugar...1/2 cup sugar & 1 tablespoon cinnamon. *note, the cinnamon shown below has a little different taste than normal cinnamon...I'm not too big a fan of it.

I told the kids the meaning of each item. The dough represents the clothes Jesus was buried in (or the tomb, whichever you prefer), the marshmallow represents Jesus's body, and the melted butter is the oil & the cinnamon sugar are the spices that his body was prepared with. My kids had a fun time dipping the marshmallow into the butter and then rolling it into the cinnamon. One of my girls started to use a spoon to coat the marshmallow, but quickly realized it was easier to just dunk it.

 The oven represents the tomb that Jesus was put into. I cooked our rolls as per the instructions on the dough package...375 degrees for 12 minutes. My 8 yr old son said, "it's like every 4 minutes is a day." Very smart son!

Here is the big pan of Resurrection rolls. Can you tell which 1/2 of the pan I made? Make sure your dough is completely closed up. Don't be forceful about it though. Just do the best you can, the kids will understand the lesson no matter what.

The final product. Very neat that 'Jesus' is gone...he has RISEN! The kids were fascinated with the rolls and how the marshmallow was gone. My 9 year old even said she wanted these for every birthday and holiday...haha, I think she liked them. I think the cinnamon we used made them taste a little funny, but we will for sure make these next Easter!

Easter quote board

I loved my St. Patrick's Day blessing board so much, that I wanted to do one for Easter. Well, time got away from me and the week before Easter was crazy with some unexpected family stuff, that I never got around to finishing this project. So, around 5pm on Easter day, I finished my quote board.

I started by sanding down the board and the wooded stakes. The stakes were really bad and needed quite a bit of sanding.

When I was done sanding, I wiped the wood down with a damp cloth to get the dust off. Then I was off to paint. I found a small sample of this awesome olive green color at Lowes. Samples are usually $3 I believe. I got an 8oz sample for $1.25 because it was a miss tint. <3 finding deals!

Then to paint the stakes. I chose pastel colors to keep it springy. If you choose to go with the distressed look (as mine are in the final product)...just let your kids play with them and bang them on each other and on your kitchen counter. ;)

On my Irish Blessing Board, the lettering was crooked. This time I changed it up. I printed all of the vinyl on one big sheet and I used a level to make sure it was put on straight. It was tricky, but my awesome husband helped.

A few letters didn't transfer over properly, so on Easter, I finally cut the missing letters out & put them on, used wood glue to put the stakes on and sealed the whole thing with some glossy Mod Podge. It looks great out by the front door, especially with the new door mat we got at Costco a few weeks ago. Tangent here...Costco has these awesome door mats for only $14. It's heavy duty too. Wish I could get another one for my back door. It looks SO much better than my old $10 door mat I got at Lowes almost 2 years ago.

Just so this beautiful color won't go to waste, I plan on using the back for some sort of Thanksgiving quote.