Design on a Dime...puzzles

So it's no secret that I'm not a decorator. With limited free time and money it is just not on the top of my to-do list. Aaron and I like a clean and organized home that's functional and welcoming but having everything look like a Martha Stuart magazine just isn't on our priority list or in my talents. Maybe someday. That said, if Mark Brunetz from Clean House offered to come decorate our house for free I would NOT turn him down!

Anyways- we moved Mateo to his new room last June around his birthday and I really hadn't put much on the walls. Since my 2 1/2 year old is obsessed with putting together jigsaw puzzles at the moment, I decided to glue together some of his 24 piece puzzles and hang them up like posters.

Mateo's little work table that has become his "puzzle table".

I found some modge podge in the basement and glued the puzzles together over some wax paper on a cookie sheet. I did need to crack the window!


The modge podge glue gives it a nice glossy finish and I used used a small paintbrush that I had in my teaching supplies....though a bigger one would have been easier. My bottle of modge podge had a price tag of $5 and I barely made a dent in it. Once the front dried I also did the back. Not for looks but just for stability. "Puzzle glue" is the same thing.

My mom gave me the idea of gluing thin wood on the back so one Saturday morning Aaron and Mateo took a "man field trip" to the hard wood store and found some perforated board that would be suitable. It cost $6 for a large sheet and he only used about a third of the board for four puzzles.
This is what the back looked like. The board will keep it from warping. I have glued large puzzles together before and it's always hard to find a frame the right size- so this was a good alternative. Aaron used gorilla glue to attach the board to the puzzle and some tiny nails to attach the "self leveling picture hanger" (that metal thing with the ridges ;)

Clifford!

Mickey Mouse!

Cars!

Winnie the Pooh

So now Mateo has 4 "Puzzle Posters" on his wall that he put together himself and have some of his favorite characters. And it cost just a few dollars plus the puzzles themselves.

Design on a Dime...repurposing a calendar

So those of you that know me well and have been to my house know that decorating is not my biggest strenth. You'll know this by the remaining mostly-empty walls that still exist in our home after almost 3 years. Can I blame it on having two babies since we moved in here? Maybe. I love organized, clean, efficient....but I'm not always motivated to decorate. Seems expensive...and I sometimes wonder what the purpose is or if it's functional.

Well this weekend my mom and dad were here to visit (can you say DATE NIGHT!!?? We got to leave the house. By ourselves. For like 2 hours.). My mom helped me with a couple mini projects for Alex' room that I have been wanting to do but just haven't.

I decorated his room with some of the animals from the Suzy's Zoo theme- the giraffe, the bunny, the bear, and the duck. I love those creatures and though not everyone agrees that they're unisex...I think they're adorable. He's just a baby. I'm the one that sees the stuff anyways haha. Here are a couple of pics:
Last year I found a Suzy's Zoo calendar in the Dollar Bins at Target.... so of course I snatched it up. I wasn't even pregnant yet but I love Suzy Zoo. This calendar had been hanging in Alex' room all year and since the pics are so cute I thought I could just string them along the wall to decorate. I picked my six favorite, found some string, and taped them up. Didn't cost me anything. It sure is fun to look at and fills up that huge empty wall in Alex' room. I'm sure you could do this with any calendar or magazine picture you came across. And most people have string or yarn laying around somewhere!

The other thing we added (in place of the calendar) was an old small bulletin board that was collecting dust in our basement. I found a scrap of yellow fabric in my stash of remnants. I also found some Suzy's Zoo border strips that I had in with my teaching stuff. Easy way to display some cute pics of my boys (I just need to print some now!)
'Til next time,
Thrifty Chica