Tic-tac-toe

I have a problem with bringing things home that I think are a quick and easy fix or restyle and then they sit forlorn waiting for their turn to be transformed. I have been trying hard to either make those fixes/restyles or let them go. This little project actually was quite quick and easy once I put my mind to it, like always leaving me wondering why I hadn't done it sooner!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it would well as a mosaic paver. I just so happened to have some white tiles (rescued from a local inorganic collection) and a large concrete paver. Keeping it simple, with a 9 year old helper we just marked off a grid pattern and filled the squares with broken white tile,easy! We spray painted some little stones to use as counters and a steamer was a happy thrifted find for a few cents to keep the stones in without keeping in the rain!

It was a great meeting place in the garden over Summer with a few fierce battles taking place. If mosaic isn't your thing, perhaps this one might be more your style?

pinned

Another mum at preschool also loves Pinterest - She often asks me what I've made or done from my pins and I ask her too. The response is nearly always the same - nothing! All these grand plans and inspiration but not too much action. Often it's just about waiting for every thing to align. I saw this pin and thought what a great idea, easy enough. Glue magnets to the back of old puzzle pieces. Problem, no puzzles that I could do it with (well the kids might notice if I stole all their puzzle pieces!). So I've been patient, keeping the idea up there waiting. Then last week I found a bag of Fireman Sam puzzle pieces with no puzzle at a local thrift store $0.20c!(I've seen plenty of puzzles but they have all been complete and it seems a shame to make magnets out of them if someone will use the puzzle). So now mr A's magnet tray/board has some magnets! The perfect place for him to show off his paintings, making some room on the fridge for other things.

hammer hammer hammer!

This is another idea stolen from Pinterest. You can find the pin with a link tutorial here.This is one of a small collection of markers I made for my mother in law for her birthday. I also thought it would be good to have one in use too, rather than just give a collection of spoons. I found that little vintage ceramic pot at a local thrift store, it's nice and sunny with cute flowers on it, perfect for grey and gloomy day like today.

Spoons I found at a local thrift store, I haven't found any lovely ones like the ones in the tutorial yet, fingers crossed though! The stamping set required for the letters I got from Trademe, from this seller.

I definitely need to have a set of these in my herb garden, so I won't be given a small handful of mondo grass when I asked for chives!

butter

I've been trying hard to do some real life "pinning", one such project is - wood butter. You can find the recipe here. It's gives new life to your wooden objects and it really works! The recipe is simple enough - bees wax and mineral oil. First problem here in NZ is we don't call it mineral oil, after extensive research and lots of questions at the chemist, turns out we call it paraffin oil, or liquid paraffin. Once I knew it's "NZ" equivalent it was much easier to track down, although we don't seem to sell it in such large quantities. The bees wax I found on Trademe, there is a whole heap of choices there and I chose a yellow block type one, rather than the white little pellets, just because they seemed more like bees wax to me.

Melt the bees wax and warm the oil, mix together and your done - simple. Now I have seen other recipes around that use olive oil, but I know that olive oil goes rancid and it's not advised to use it on your wooden objects, best to spend a bit more and use paraffin oil.

It was hard to get a good picture of the result today, grey and overcast. But trust me the results are really amazing, I kind of went crazy going around looking for more things to polish! The above bowl I picked up at the Salvation army, it looked like an unfinished wood turning project. It's Rimu and it's lovely now it's all polished up.

I filled one jar with the wax and had a little left over and I dropped a few drops of lemon oil in it. I really wish I had added it to the whole batch as it really smells devine.

Ok - A little update and some details I missed. - I used "Home Essentials" brand of paraffin Liquid sold at my local chemist. You can find the Home Essentials website here. They have a list of stockists to help you locate a local store.
- I've also just spoken to a helpful man from Home Essentials and he assures me that the paraffin liquid is food safe, so the polish or "butter" is fine to use on your chopping boards and wooden spoons.
- The liquid paraffin is sold in 200ml bottles so you need to add 48g of bees wax to keep the same ratio as the American recipe. the bees wax I had was in 50g blocks so I just used one of those.