DIY

Storage for Homeschool Supplies You’ll Love

We are in the middle of a kitchen reno after moving and everything is getting a face lift, including my table box that my husband made me a few years ago. Now instead of beat up painted jars that were catch all jars, I have pretty painted jars that are storage for homeschool supplies.

Storage for Homeschool Supplies You’ll Love

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This was a simple up-cycle, reuse project. We have an eat-in kitchen and the dining room table is where we do the majority of our lessons. I have a warm, inviting pale pale yellow with white wainscot on the walls, with grey cupboards. I wanted to use more grey at the eat-in side of the kitchen and this was the perfect place to do it.

What I used:

old jars – I used tall salsa jars
paint – color of your choice
twine

What you need:

hot glue gun
hot glue gun sticks
paint brush
plastic flowers of you choice – I got mine from the Dollarama.

What I did to make these decorative storage jars:

I painted my jars outside because the day was perfect, nice and sunny warm, making the paint dry fast. Painting on glass, in my experience, is not easy. I did I quick coat over each of the four jars and let it dry. I did not paint the very top where I was going to be gluing the twine.

The next coat I cheated a bit on, I only painted down as far as I needed, to where the box would hide the rest. I just did a quick and let it dry until the next day.

Using my hot glue gun I wrapped and glued the twine around the top of jar. My finger tips were sore by the time I finished all four jars.

Storage for Homeschool Supplies

I knew I wanted to use these jars to store our school supplies. Things like pencils, scissors, glue sticks, erasers, etc. But I didn’t want it to look ugly so I picked up fluffy, plastic flowers that would cover that covered the tops of the jars.

We cut them down to size so they fit perfectly in the jars. The pencils are holding one flower up, but that is because they are new and my kids haven’t had a chance to use them all yet. That flower will be sitting right in no time.

Updating a Fridge on A Budget – Painting Our Fridge

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

I think homeschoolers know how to make a budget work pretty well, and how to make things work on that budget. Often homeschoolers are one-income families, and one a budget. That one income budget is why our fridge got an updated, painted look instead of buying a new one, or even newer one. Updating a fridge on a budget is the easiest update I’ve done in our house yet.

Updating a Fridge on A Budget

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After almost eight years away from our house, renting it during that time, we moved back. I did not want to move back but I knew it was right for our family at this time. It’s a small three bedroom bungalow, not big enough for us, and a tiny home in comparison to our last two houses.

I could have cried when I walked in. People did not respect it (or us) in the time we were gone. With the elbow grease cleaning done, most of the unpacking done, it was time to start getting stuff done.

Fridge Update Instead of Buying New

Why did I choose to do this instead of buying new? Two reasons. My budget said I could buy a new dishwasher (which I didn’t know didn’t work) or a new fridge. The fridge still works, and inside, looks great. the dishwasher even with a new part was going to need more parts to make it usable everyday.

I could have left it rusted, but, I don’t love this house, and having one big ugly thing sitting in my kitchen which normally my favorite room of a house, was not helping. It just felt unclean even though I knew it was clean.

The Before:

Updating a Fridge on A Budget - Painting Our Fridge before

I spent a total of $20 on supplies, but I definitely could have gotten away with a much smaller can of paint had I had more options and wanted to, or could have, shopped around. But $17 for a can of paint that can be be used on other projects is still about $500-700 less than a new fridge. I will say if I could do this over, I would have bought a small roller instead of using a paint brush.

I followed the directions on the can of rust paint, and lightly sanded the surfaces. It looked better and cleaner with just that.

The first coat made it look so good. I could have left it at that to be honest but wanted to make sure the rust was completely covered.

The second coat followed 3 days later, because I forgot to go back to it.

I also used some old black paint I had bought for a different project forever ago and did a quick coat of paint over the brown handles.

The After:

Updating a Fridge on A Budget - Painting Our Fridge after - clean white fridge

Is it perfect? Nope. But I feel a lot better with it now. It looks as good on the outside as it does on the inside. Someday we’ll upgrade, but for now I’m happy with this. I never thought I’d be painting an appliance.

DIY Bath Bombs Without Citric Acid

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

Science can be full of fun reactions in the kitchen, or in this case in the bathtub! We all love relaxing in the tub, or in the case of my younger children, playing in the tub. What could be more fun that fizzing color in the bath tub that smell good too? We love making and using these bath bombs.

How to Make Bath Bombs Without Citric Acid

*This post contains affiliate links, see out disclosure policy for more information.*

We spent some time last week making bath bombs without citric acid, just using what we had in the house already.

We tried out four different bath bombs recipes, all four are without citric acid because trying to find it in our small town lead to very high prices that I didn’t want to pay.

The internet was full of ideas that we took and ran with, making our own. There are four of us that made bath bombs, each of us using and making a different recipe to test and enjoy.

The first two recipes used cream of tartar, which is suppose to be a good substitute for citric acid, but at least in Canada, can be a little more pricey than you might want to spend, and not everyone has it in their cupboard.

Coconut Bath Bombs

What you need:

1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup epsom salt – we used coconut scented
1 cup baking soda
4 tbsp cream of tartar
2 1/2 tbsp coconut oil
water (in a spray bottle)
essential oil – optional

How to make them:

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix in coconut oil. Spritz with the water, making sure to mix well in between sprays.

Pack as tightly as possible, and let sit for at least 5 hours before removing from your mold or mini muffin tins.

Let sit for a few days before putting into a jar for storage or before wrapping to gift.

This recipe was the only one that didn’t fizz a lot, it dissolved nicely in the water, and I enjoyed it. This one might be more for the moms.

Small Batch Bath Bombs

What you need:

2 tbsp baking soda
1/2 tbsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp lavender epsom salts
1/2 tsp almond oil
3/4 tsp water
food color – optional

How to make them:

Mix dry ingredients together in one bowl, mix wet ingredients together in another bowl.

Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry, making sure to continuously whisk to prevent a reaction in the bowl.

Pack as tightly as possible, and let sit for at least 5 hours before removing from your mold or mini muffin tins.

Let sit for a few days before putting into a jar for storage or before wrapping to gift.

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Lemon Juice Bath Bombs

What you need:

1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
food color – optional
essential oils – optional

How to make them:

Mix together the baking soda and coconut oil, if adding essential oils, do so now.

Put your lemon juice into a small spray bottle.

Spray the baking soda mixture once, stir, spray once, stir until you get a clumpy mixture that is slightly wet.

Pack as tightly as possible, and let sit for at least 5 hours before removing from your mold or mini muffin tins.

Let sit for a few days before putting into a jar for storage or before wrapping to gift.

DIY bath bomb recipes - 2 bath bombs sitting on tub edge

Epsom Salt Bath Bombs

What you need:

1/2 cup baking soda
1/2 cup epsom salt – we used coconut scented
equal parts water and lemon juice
food color – optional

How to make them:

Mix together your Epsom salt and baking soda, and spray equal parts lemon juice and (colored) water into your mixture, making sure to mix well in between each spray.

Stirring while we sprayed the liquid in helped to prevent a reaction.

Pack as tightly as possible, and let sit for at least 5 hours before removing from your mold or mini muffin tins.

Let sit for a few days before putting into a jar for storage or before wrapping to gift.

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Amazon Moms Bath Bomb Options

I know that we aren’t all into making things such as bath bombs, and normally I’m not, I want to be, but I tend to worry about the mess, about the cost and such. I tried, and we all had fun doing it, and enjoying the end product.

There is the option to buy them premade:

Or maybe you want to try making them, but want to have everything need in one kit:

Garden Stakes Arts and Crafts

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

We are into the the thick of garden planning and soon planting, like this weekend if I get other garden work and prep finished. While my kids love the idea of a garden and getting on snack on it, they avoid the real work, and stick to the craft side of things like making garden stakes.

But since I love knowing what we planted where, garden stakes are quite important, and they can look great too.

Garden Stakes Arts and Crafts

*This post contains affiliate links, see my disclosure policy for more information.*

Wooden Spoons

Our main garden stake this year is going to be this wooden spoons that we painted. I picked up 3 packages of 3 at our local dollar store, taped off the handle and let them paint the spoon top. You don’t have to buy new wooden spoons for this, please don’t think that’s what I’m saying just because I did. Grab some old ones out of your cupboard and use those instead. Use a permanent marker to write on them.

Paint Sticks

I don’t actually use the paint sticks that they hand out when you buy paint, mainly because I use it right away and it doesn’t need more than a quick shaking. You can use paint sticks just like the wooden spoons, paint (or don’t if you don’t want to) an use a permanent marker to write on them.

Rocks

Do your kids love painting rocks like mine? Pick out a few good sized rocks, let them paint them and then use either another (black) paint to write/spell out the vegetable name. Make sure to use a paint that will stand up to the weather. I really like the FolkArt Acrylic Paint, it paints great and really stands up to the Saskatchewan weather.

How do you mark your plant rows? Or don’t you? We didn’t last year and spent some time playing the “what’s this?” guessing game..

St. Patrick’s Day Crafts for Kids

by Ashley Mullen Leave a Comment

I love that St. Patrick’s Day is the holiday in March this year. It means that we can turn everything green and rainbow in our house. I found that Easter will over shadow it if Easter is in March, but not this year! Do you do anything for St. Patrick’s Day?

St. Patrick's Day Crafts for Kids melted colored crayons

I have included some craft, simple, crafts here. Crafts that your kids of all ages can easily do. Plus I included a couple that we’re recipes because I want to make them right now! Those gummies are awesome, and my kids are going to love them.

*I haven’t forgotten about the Amazon Prime kind of moms either though… because they speak to my heart, I just placed an order yesterday in fact.