Getting ready for Christmas around here, and a DIY

 

We were planning on getting a living tree for Christmas this year, so that we could keep it for a couple of years, and then plant it.

But it turns out that the smallest ones we looked at were $50 and then my mom offered us their old tree for FREE it kind of just worked out that we snagged the free tree.

Their old tree is an artificial 7.5 foot some kind of coniferous looking beast, which in their place totally works, but in our apartment would loom.  Menacingly.

So I just set up the top half and it worked great!

We are working on the No Touching of the ornaments with Sonny.

He really wants to touch them all.  All the time.

We're working on it.

And something else, totally unrelated to the holidays, is this bed railing that I built for his toddler bed.

He's got a convertable crib/bed from ikea and about 4 months ago I think, we decided it was time for him to loose the railing and be able to climb out on his own.

I think it was the getting up at 5 am yelling at us to let him out so he could play that got us thinking about it.

But we couldn't order the ikea railing, that was a beautiful $15 whole dollars online due to warehouse something or others, and I wasn't in a position to drive over for an item less than $20.

That would be crazy.

So I checked out a couple DIYs that I saw on pinterest and made this!

 The felt furniture pads keep the railing from damaging the bedframe, and also help snug the brackets up to make it more secure.

 It's great because it just slides right on, and he can climb out on his own in the morning.

And then in the morning we just slide it under his bed.

We tried the pool noodle wrapped in a towel for a while, but it took up a lot of his sleeping real estate, so this is a better option for him.  

Plus he's a roller.

Before we sorted this out he rolled out of bed a few times.  Never woke up, but would have FLIPPED OUT if he woke up on the floor.

Plus the first night he rolled out, I am not even sure how he managed it, but he got himself rolled out of the bed, turned around and pressed up against the heater.

In, like, an hour.

No roll outs with this baby!

I got everything from the Home Depot, spent maybe $30, and once my father in law helped me cut the corners off the board it took a whopping 20 minutes to put together.

Now I have plans to build shelves for the bathroom!

Heck yeah I do!

DIY Sandwichboard "It's nice to be Handy"

 

It was on my list for Ursa that I would try to save money as much as I could.  Since this was the first time I have tried anything like this, I was SUPER CHARGED to do everything myself.

And I knew right away that I was going to build sandwich boards.  

I mean, it's just two pieces of wood!

So a couple of weeks before the event, Sonny and I went out adventuring with the stroller (YES THE STROLLER!  Why the heck would I need a CAR for something like this??  This is my cross to bear I am afraid... a can do attitude without the forethought to MEASURE the width of the stroller to see if my plans would even work.)  It literally didn't even occur to me until I watched the nice guy from the Do It Center carrying the freshly cut boards back over to me.

They definitely weren't fitting under the stroller like I had flippantly pictured it.

But that's cool.  Sonny and I are adaptable and it was a nice day.

So off came the stroller seat, down it went into the lower basket, the GIANT, super heavy boards were loaded on top and Sonny got carried, CARRIED IN MY ARMS because he didn't want to walk and hold my hand as we walked the two blocks to the bus stop.

It actually wasn't that bad.  But I was really happy to sit down on that bus.

But I digress!

Putting the sandwich boards together was a snap!

I picked up a set of hinges, tiny screws with wide heads (because the screws that came with the hinges were too long and would have pushed through to the front of the Sammie Board (that's what I'm calling it now, for your records), some short lengths of chain to secure the sides while we were out too.

 

 

I laid the boards out JUST LIKE THIS and literally just screwed the hinges in about 3 inches from either side.

 This was my super high tech system to attach the chains, because these boards are NOT lightweight and it was a little tricky while I sorted it out in my head/in real life how I was going to line up the chain and screw it in at the same time.

I used a power drill for all of this too.
Let's not get too crazy.

Both sides got a couple of coats of chalkboard paint and VOILA!!

 

Handmade, DIY Sammie Boards at a fraction of the cost.

I think all in all I spent one hour and $40 on this.

Plus I bought enough wood et al to make ANOTHER ONE!!