PVC Pipe Sensory Table

Now I really shouldn't take all the credit for this because I saw a picture on Pinterest and sent it to my husband. Two days later I came home and my daughter had a cool new sensory table. I will admit however that it was my ingenious idea to spray paint it pink.....oh and I did the painting :) Being a special education teacher it was really great to see how easy it was to make such a great inexpensive replica of something that almost every early childhood classroom has.

Update: April 14th, 2018: My 10 month old son now gets to enjoy his sister's water table. My husband my make me paint it blue though lol. 

What you need:

• PVC pipe (four 5ft poles)
• 4 PVC caps
• 8 PVC T connectors
• 4 PVC corner connectors
• PVC pipe cutters 
• 1 can of spray paint
• 1 storage bin (should be long and rather shallow)
• sharpie

1. My husband based the dimensions of the table around the actual storage bin. He did point out that the printed dimensions of the bin should not be used as they were not accurate. So you will need to measure the bin yourself in order to plan for the rest of table. It is also good to take into consideration how tall the child or children you are making the table for are.
2. Using a sharpie mark the PVC pipes based on the measurements you took and then cut out the necessary pieces. Besides the 4 pieces of pipe to make the top frame, the rest of the pieces will be rather short and with therefore require connectors to join them together,
3. Use the corner connectors at the top of the table (one in each corner), 1 T connector below each corner connector, 4 T connectors underneath where the storage bin will go, and 1 cap on the bottom of each leg of the table.
4. Spray paint the table outside and allow adequate time for it to dry.
5. Fill up the storage bin with water, sand, or any other sensory item and then watch your little one have a BLAST!

Partial Burlap Wreath

Apparently burlap is in style, so I figured I should jump on the bandwagon. This was my first attempt at using it to make a door wreath. I wasn't very adventurous as I only did a partial one lol

What you need:

• roll of burlap
• a great wreath (medium)
• wooden letter
• spray paint (your choice of color)
• flowers
• beaded accents
• hot glue
• staple gun
• 4 wooden skewers (yup the kind you grill with lol)
• twine
• safety pin
• scissors

1. Spray paint the front and sides of your wooden letter, then set it to the side so it can dry.
2. Tie about 2-3 feet of twine to the base of a safety pin. Tie the other end of the twine to the bottom right corner of the beginning of the burlap. Loop the safety pin in and out in a zigzag fashion pulling the safety pin tightly to scrunch the burlap. Continue this pattern until you have enough gathered burlap to cover half of your wreath. Once you have enough remove the safety pin and tie a knot with the twine securing the gathered burlap.
3. Hot glue the burlap onto the wreath from the top middle to the bottom middle.
4. Insert two skewers into the wreath about mid way on the left side. Position your wooden letter so that the skewers line up at the top of the letter. Flip the wreath over and secure the wooden letter to the skewers using a staple gun. I stapled the letter to the skewers in 3 separate place to ensure it was sturdy. Repeat this process again for the bottom of the letter. Trim any of the skewers that stick out on the left side of the wreath with scissors. 
5. Using floral pliers clip 3 flowers (you could do more) and hot glue them onto the wreath. I glued them in the center, left center, and bottom center. Glue your beaded accents around each flower.
6. Lastly, use scissors to snip any stray pieces of the the wreath. Sometimes twigs and branches hang in the oddest places. Then hook the wreath onto a wreath holder and you door will look fabulous. 

Chalkboard Posters

So if you are on Pinterest then you know the big thing is Chalkboard Posters these days. To date I've created two: one for my daughter's 1st birthday and the other was for a family member's upcoming college graduation.

What you need:

• a computer (duh lol)
• Paint.net or PhotoShop
• Chalkboard Image (download below)
• Various Fonts (see links below)

Chalkboard Image

Chalkboard Fonts

1. Browse through the chalkboard fonts and download the ones you plan to use. Once the file downloads on your computer you must open it, click on the font name, then click install. The font will then automatically populate in any font drop down menu on your computer
2. Save the chalkboard image down below. Then open the chalkboard image in either paint.net or Photoshop.
3. Change the image size to that of the size of the poster you are making. I did 24x36.
4. You will need create layers for each word/phrase you add to your board. This can be achieved by clicking "Layer" and "New Layer". It is important to note that you cannot edit a layer in paint.net once you move on to a new layer. You can however edit layers in Photoshop.
5. Once you have completed your poster save it as either a jpeg or a .PNS file.
6. I always uses Staples.com to print my poster because they seem to have the unique 24x36 size. It usually runs about $29.99, but recently they ran a promotion where the poster was only $10. You could also check places like Shutterfly, Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS out.
7. For my daughter's birthday party I covered a project board with fabric and attached the poster using double sided sticky table (picture below). You however can display it anyway you would like :)

Menu Board

Make meal planning and grocery shopping a little easier with this simple project.

What you need:

• Elmer's foam/cork board
• 3/4 yard of fabric 
• Ribbon
• 7 clothespins
• Small container of some sort
• Paper
• Laminator (I got mine for $30 at Walmart)
• Hot glue gun
• Command hook or strip

Red Striped Background

1. I created the days of the week tags, Menu title, Shopping List, and meals tag in Microsoft Office. I Googled "striped background" images, saved the image, and then I use the image to to fill the shape I was using in Microsoft Office. Once the background appeared in the shape I inserted another shape on top and filled it with text (ex. Monday). You really have to play around with this step to get exactly what you are looking for. You can also google different fonts on Pinterest, download them and use them to create your labels. The font I used for my board was called "whatever it takes" and the title of my board (menu) was "return to sender". Lastly, I printed all of the tags and labels onto cardstock and laminated them.
2. Next I covered the foam/cork board with fabric using a hot glue gun. I also glued on one piece of ribbon vertically about 2-3 inches off the left side of the board. I then glued the days of the week tags onto 7 clothespins and then glued the clothespins onto the yellow ribbon. Make sure to the glue the pins so that the mouth of the pin opens up to the right.
3. As you can see in the picture about I have my shopping list above the container that holds my menu items. You can take the time to measure where you would like these items to go, but I honestly just eyeballed it. I did the same with the title (Menu).
4. Lastly, attach your board to a wall or door in your kitchen using a command hook or strip.

Here is my menu for this past week. Gosh I love this thing!!

Diaper Cake

I was very fortunate to have not one but TWO diaper cakes at each of my showers for my youngest daughter. I fell in love with them and couldn't wait to have a "reason" to make one myself lol. Well one of my sorority sisters had a baby shower this past February and it was my time to get my DIY fix lol. As with most of my projects I will say that although making a diaper cake is fairly simple it requires a lot of time and patience.

What you will need:

• 70-80 diapers 
• Hot glue gun
• Thick ribbon and a spool of thinner ribbon
• Package of Shredded Paper
• 16in Cake Plate
• Pack of white rubber bands (used my daughter's silly bands lol)
• Topper of your choice
• Paper Towel Roll
• White yarn

1. Roll each diaper so no print is showing and secure with rubber band (this takes the most time). Once they are all rolled set them to the side until step 3.
2. Secure the paper towel roll to the center of the cake plate with hot glue
3. Arrange rolled diapers onto the cake plate for form your base. I left about 1/2 inch from the edge of the plate. The number of diapers you use all depends on how wide/tall your cake will be. Secure the base in place by tying yarn around the base. Repeat these steps to create the next two layers.
4. Use hot glue to adhere the thicker of the two ribbons around the center of each layer of diapers. Then adhere the thinner ribbon on top of the thicker ribbon as pictured above. You can also make bows from either of the two types of ribbon and secure them to the front of each layer. I also made a little name tag in Microsoft Word to put on the front of the cake.
5. Hot glue the shredded paper around the base of the the diaper cake. Secure shredded paper on top of layers 2 and 3 by simply tucking it carefully into various diapers. DO NOT hot glue it to the diapers.
6. Using push pins attach you topper (I used a bear here) to the top of your cake.

Upholstered Headboard

So my husband and I purchased a new king mattress when we moved from North Carolina to Maryland. We wanted a nice big upholstered headboard, but the prices at the furniture stores were ridiculous. We decided that we would make our own, as I had made two by myself in the past. I will mention that although this task is fairly simple it does require patience and time.

What you need:

• Particleboard (you chose your dimensions based on the size of your bed)
• Upholstery (enough to cover your board)
• Batting (from any fabric store)
• Twine
• Button Maker Kit & Buttons (based on how many you want)
• Foam (you choose your thickness)
• Spray Adhesive
• Drill
• Upholstery need
• Staple Gun
• Ruler
• Picture mount (I got mine from Lowes and it hold up to 100lbs)

1. Have Lowes or Home Depot cut your particleboard based on the dimensions you chose.
2. Using a measuring tape, mark where you would like your buttons to go on your board. I did two rows where the top had 3 buttons and the bottom row had 4 buttons. Use the drill to create the holes where your buttons will go.
3. Lay your foam onto your board and by sections adhere it to the board using the adhesive spray. Make sure you leave a little foam to hang off all 4 ends. Once the foam is secured on the front use the staple gun to staple the excess foam to the back of the board.
4. Cover the front of the board with batting and secure it by stapling the excess to the back of the board.
5. Lay your upholstery onto a smooth flat surface and place your board on top of it. Be sure the side with the staples is facing you.
6. Carefully pull the excess fabric to the back of the board and secure with the staple gun. Try to get the fabric as tight as possible to avoid the fabric sagging on the front of the board.
7. Follow the directions on the button kid to make your desired number of buttons. Once the buttons are complete used an upholstery needle and twine to loop put each button in its hole. When secure the button/twine to the back of the board, try to pull really hard and to give the area around the bottom a puckered book. Once you are satisfied with the look of the button and the area around it, secure it to the back of the board using a staple gun. Repeat this process until all button are securely attached.
8. So at this point your headboard is basically complete. It should look tight and everything should be securely attached to the back of the board with staples.
9. The last thing you need to do is secure your headboard to the wall behind your bed. Using a tape measure, mark on your wall where you would like to hang your headboard and subsequently the wall mount. Follow the directions on the picture mount to securely attach it to the wall and then attach the other bracket to the back of your board. Lastly attach the board onto the corresponding bracket on the wall.