Halloween FUN!

Last year at work the girls in the Finance/Admin department decided we should do a little work Halloween party & potluck!  There was a contest for best costume, and best decorated desk.  My competitive spirit was all down for this!

I'll start with my desk decorating:

I was originally made some bloody handprint window clings out of white glue but didn't like they way they turned out, so I threw them out and ended up painting my hands with red acrylic paint and smearing them on my cubicle window (SO much fun, by the way!)

(attempt at glue window clings)

I found caution tape at the dollarstore to put all over the exterior of my cube.

Because my boss is not the type to participate, I expanded my decorating onto his cubicle too.  :)  I picked up this Styrofoam tomb stone at the dollarstore.  I had considered a chalk outline and toilet paper decorating for my boss's desk, but I didn't have time.  Maybe next year!

I made a stained bloody curtain out of what I had around the house.  I coffee stained a white piece of fabric, and then used my scrapbooking spray ink to add some "blood"

(Curtain drying in the bath tub!)

I found some severed fingers and random eyeballs and brains at the dollarstore.  I floated some things in jars of colored water (Tip: neon food coloring made for great colors here!)

Some of them I drilled holes in and put on my Christmas lights

And then some were just placed around :)

The potluck was extremely successful! People brought what they said they would, we had a good mix of things, and it was all so tasty!  Some people even got really into it!

Spider dip!

Witch fingers

Jello brain!!

Thanks for checking out my Halloween hauntings, hope you got some fun ideas for decorating and food!

I can't wait to do my desk this year! 

     

 

Toolbox Rescue!

When my dad passed away I kept a fair bit of his stuff that was either overly sentimental or useful.  Falling into the latter category was his tool box.

It however did not meet my standards for aesthetics - especially if I was going to move it to my new condo!  I had to give it a bit of a makeover!

To show you where I started, let's take a look at the original, shall we?

Not so pretty.  Very orange, very stickered!

This was my childhood contribution I'm pretty sure!  Hahahaha.

STEP 1: REMOVE THE STICKERS

When I started, I just started peeling them off.  This wasn't the best idea because they left the glue behind and I spent a lot of time goo-gone-ing them.

When I got to the really stubborn ones, I googled some solutions.  What worked for me was to heat them up with a hair dryer.  They came off really easily, glue and all.  I wished I would have done that with all of them from the beginning.

Starting to look better already!!

STEP 2: PREP

All I did was give it a good wash/wipe down with soap and water and tape off the hardware.

STEP 3: PAINT

I gave it about 2-3 coats of spray paint.  I think this is what I used (is it terrible I can't remember?!)

I also gave the inside tray a quick coat to make it all shiny and new too!

And there you have it! All ready to use in my new place!!


   
       

 

Office Re-decorating

If you've been around here for a while, you'd remember when I first got my new job I wanted to spruce up my cubicle a bit.

I had a couple posts of my cube before and then about some of the things I'd made for it here and here. 

I now present to you the new look for my cubicle.

These coasters were from tiles I'd bought at ReStore.  Except this isn't the color the tiles originally were.  They were white with grey specs.  I spray painted them and then stamped them with Staz On ink! 

Now another problem I had was that I have a lot of coil bound books (Canadian Electrical Code, and training manuals, cuz I'm cool like that!) that just don't stand nicely on a shelf.  I bought some plain magazine holders, and guess what - spray painted those too! Then I hot-glued a little scrapbooking label thing to the front!

Here's some other details that I have kicking around - magnetic spice jars for paper clips, rubber bands, etc.  magnetic Martha Stewart notepad, reed diffuser, and vase with artificial flowers for a pop of color.  The vase filler is just coffee beans.  I got them from my dad's condo after he passed away because by that time I figured they were pretty old, and so bam! perfect for vase filler!

I really like my little homey touches to my office and I hope you do too!

ReStore Fun

The other day I went to our local ReStore because I was actually looking for a light fixture for the hallway, but had fun just wandering around.

If you've never been to a Habitat for Humanity ReStore I highly recommend it.  It's a crafter's dream!

This is what I was actually looking for:

A light like this.  Unfortunately these ones were black, and I was hoping for brushed nickel.  I find that at our ReStore, because there's so much construction in our city, often you can find brand new items in boxes that were left over from condo developments, etc.

All of these get me excited for summer...

I want to put those flameless tea lights under them in the garden!

Source: theartofdoingstuff.com via Jill on Pinterest

Look at this little cupboard door

I would want to make him into something like this Flamingo Toes

File cabinets anyone?!

Look at all those fun colours!!

Definitely the place to pick up random tiles for cheap...

I want to do some sort of tiling project for outdoors!

There's also all sorts of paint

I find that my Home Depot doesn't have much for mis-tints, so this place would probably be a better bet for me!

They also have some furniture sometimes.  Check out these pieces screaming for a little love:

Wallpaper Before & After

Here's the final pictures of our painted kitchen.  We still intend to renovate the kitchen, but event the fresh paint is a huge improvement!

To see the in progress shots, click here.




























The kitchen still has a long way to go, but this made a huge difference!