How to Clean a Peanut Butter Jar

Random blog post for me? Mayhaps. But I'll tell you what - I get most of my protein from peanut butter and this stuff is a big part of my daily routine. (I'm not a vegetarian, but meat is not my favorite thing to eat.) Between David and me, we probably consume one 16-oz jar of peanut butter every week - and that leaves us with a TON of used peanut butter jars.

Whether you need to clean out your peanut butter jars for recycling or for reusing, there's a way to do it that will leave your sponge much less... peanut buttery. Am I the only one who hates getting my sponge covered in wet, soapy peanut butter? Yuck.

Well have NO freakin' fear, y'all. I'm here to help you de-pee-bee (eh? eh?) your glass jars so you can use them for whatever your little heart desires. Massive disclaimer:  David is the one who taught me this trick! He's the most clever boy in the entire world. #DontArgue.

Step 1: Use your peanut butter. Like... all of it. Till the jar is as empty as it can be without you licking it clean. Because how would you get your tongue in there anyway? I mean, come on. If you could fit your tongue into every crevice of a peanut butter jar, there'd be no need for this instructional blog post to exist. You'd just clean it with your tongue. NEVER WASTE PEANUT BUTTER. EVER.

Step 2: Squirt one pump of dishwashing soap into your empty jar.

Step 3: Fill your jar halfway with hot water. You'll probably notice that the soap bubbles up and over the lid a bit. That's ok. Just make sure that it's only about half-full of water.

Step 4: This is the interesting step that you might not have thought of before... Place a small teaspoon into the jar and close the lid.

Step 5: SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. SHAKE YOUR BOOTAAAY PEANUT BUTTER JAR. Like, seriously shake the shit out of that thing. Turn it into a dance or upper body exercise if you must.

The teaspoon acts like the tiny agitator ball inside a can of spray paint (or a nail polish bottle, if we're making it more relevant to my more typical blog posts). The spoon helps to mix up the soapy contents of the jar and scrapes along the sides of the container to remove the stubborn peanut butter remnants that normally you'd have to scrub off with your sponge. Your precious, precious sponge.

Once you've shaken your jar in every different direction (to get the spoon into as many crevices and crannies as possible), then you can either let it sit in the warm water for awhile and repeat, or unscrew your lid, dump out the contents and rinse it out.

I haven't even rinsed this one out yet and it's already pretty spotless:

So now that you have a clean glass jar - what are you going to do with it?

We usually move about once a year, on average, so I've learned a thing or two about packing up a house. One of the worst parts of a home to pack up is the kitchen. UGH. CITY. So many heavy/breaky things - none of which fit well into boxes. For that reason, we're notttt fans of buying a bunch of glassware from a store and then needing to "deal with it" come moving time. With all of the peanut butter we consume from glass jars, it occurred to us early on that we should just use these empty jars as our glassware. Not only does it save us from needing to purchase glasses, but we also a) don't have to worry when one of them breaks (since we basically acquire a new glass every week) and b) get to have handy screw-on lids for all of our glasses, in case we want to take our beverages to-go!

But that's not the only good reason to have a bunch of clean glass jars around. Here's another way I use glass jars AND holiday lights... which is especially relevant now that we're into February, hmm? Bet your husband/boyfriend is getting pretty close to fed up that your holiday decorations/Christmas trees are still up, eh ladies? Time to transition those lights from "holiday" lights to "BABE, let's leave these in our bedroom year-round!" lights:

Read all about that project here. It's a popular one!

Do you have the same issues that I do with soapy peanut butter sponges?

Do you have an exciting/creative use for your empty glass jars? I'd love to hear it!

Did you enter my nail polish giveaway? There are still a couple of days left!

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DIY Artwork: House-Warming/Birthday Collage

When my good friend Kara moved in with her boyfriend over the summer, I knew I wanted to do something in the form of a "house-warming" gift for her. The fact that her birthday coincided relatively with her move was just a doubly good reason to make something special for her new space. So I discreetly tricked her into describing for me the color scheme of her new living room (it's way over in Massachusetts, so it's not like I could pop in for a casual investigative visit), and got started picking out some pieces that I could use to construct a collage for her.

To create a collage, I first figure out my color scheme. Kara told me that her new living room was filled with beiges, browns, blues and aquas - which sounded fab to me. I love a good aqua/beige scheme myself. In addition to those hues, throwing in a pop or two of a bright natural green seemed like a good idea. And so I began flipping through my stash of magazines and pulling out pages that had colors/textures that tickled my fancy.

.  the colors duke! the colorssss!  .
.  (triple bonus points if you get the reference)  .

Once I'd collected a stack of potential pieces, I got to work tearing and cutting them and then arranging them onto an 11x14 piece of poster board. I neglected to take enough pictures during this step... oops. #BadBlogger.

Here, I've finally finished arranging the pieces - but now comes the task of glueing them all down:

 

.  top half  .

.  bottom half  .

Here is the piece finished - glued, trimmed and framed:

And Kara even sent me a picture of how it looks in her new apartment:

.  WHAT A SPECTACULAR VASE  .
.  ("vase" pronounced very dramatically like "vaahhhhhhhze")  .

What sorts of arts 'n crafts projects have you been getting into? Do you like to make presents for your friends and family too?

Check out more collages to get your creative juices flowing ~> here!

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{Linking with Craft Frenzy Friday}

Turning Shirts into Pillow Covers

An embarrassingly long time ago, I posted a thrift shop haul with a couple of button-up shirts from the 4th Ave Salvation Army and coyly teased that I was going to be undertaking a project with them soon.

Well that was over 2 months ago, sooo.... the actual definition of the word "soon" can go eff itself.

The important thing is that we're here together now with this project that I finally completed - turning a couple of thrifted button up shirts into small pillow covers. Best part:  No sewing skills or sewing machine needed!

When I saw this floral shirt on the rack in Salvay earlier this summer, its bright blue coloring and seemingly unworn print really stood out to me. Knowing that the shape and fit were nottt cute for actually wearing (it even had shoulder pads, for god's sake), it struck me as a perfect shirt to grab and use as a pillowcase for one of the two Ikea pillows that were back at my apartment, waiting to be covered.

Then I spotted the striped top and it was just bright and new-looking enough to convince me that it would be a good buddy for the floral shirt. Thus, my two future pillow covers were purchased and brought home to..... chill for a couple of months until I finally got around to doing anything with them.

Here's what I used to turn my shirts into pillow covers:

- two kråkris pillows from Ikea ($1.99 each)

- two complementing button-up shirts from Salvation Army ($5.99 each)

- fabric glue (I used Aleene's Fabric Fusion, 2 pens in a package for $5.99 from Michael's)

- scissors

- ruler (optional)

- pins (optional)

I ended up making each pillow cover differently - you learn as you go, after all! Or I do anyway, since I was almost entirely wingin' it. #IDoWhatIWant. Here's how I made the first one:

Step 1: Separate the bottom half of the shirt from the sleeves/collar half of the shirt by cutting across from about armpit-to-armpit. You can use your ruler here if you want to make sure your lines are extra straight, but they don't really have to be. Depending on the size of your pillow, you may need to cut higher up on the shirt to include more of the "chest/upper back" area. Unbuttoned, this will leave you with a long rectangle of fabric:

Step 2: Fold over and glue all four of the rectangle's rough edges to form pretty hems:

Step 3: Once all 4 sides of your rectangle have prettier hems, spread the fabric out length-wise - patterned side down/hem sides up - and lay your pillow into the center. Fold the left side's hem over the pillow, lining the button holes up in the center of the pillow:

You can pin the top and bottom hems together if you'd like - it may make the next glueing step easier or less messy for you:

Step 4: From here (focusing for now on just the left half of the fabric), pipe a line of fabric glue onto the bottom hem of the side that's closest to you, and then press the top and bottom hems together to seal the layers. Repeat this on the side of the pillow that's further from you. This should leave the entire left half of your pillow sealed into the case (as sort-of shown in the picture below Step 3).

Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 and 4 with the right side of your pillowcase fabric - making sure that your buttons line up with your button holes in the center of the pillow. 

And voila! Now you've essentially glued your pillow INTO your pillowcase, with the ability to unbutton the fabric to take the pillow out if you ever want to re-cover it or wash your pillowcase.

So that's how I did the first one... but I found a slightly easier way to make the second one. So I do hope you've read this far ;)

Step 1: With your shirt still buttoned, lay out your shirt flat, buttons side up. Cut across the chest of the shirt through both layers, approximately armpit to armpit. Keep the shirt buttoned together for all of the following steps.

Step 2: Separate the front of the shirt from the back of the shirt by cutting upwards along both of the side seams.  

Step 3: Create pretty hems on all four sides of both your top and bottom pieces of fabric by folding over the edges and glueing them with your fabric glue. Check as you go to make sure you're not making your fabric too small to cover your pillow!

Step 4: Lay out the bottom half of the shirt, patterned side down, and place your pillow into the center. Now lay the top half of the shirt atop your pillow, patterned side up, and make sure your buttons are straight down the center of the pillow.

Step 5: Begin glueing all the edges together, until your pillow is once again glued into the fabric with the ability to unbutton the fabric to remove the pillow. I took breaks between glueing each side, to give the glue time to dry and strengthen.

And there you have it! A totally bootleg but effective way to make your own pillow covers using some button up shirts!

So now when you see a shirt with pretty fabric or a cool pattern, but a terrible cut/fit, you can totally buy it and make your pillow wear it instead. Hoozah!

Have you ever made your own pillow cover? Are there any shirts you've been eyeing at thrift stores that would be great for this project? Let me know if you give it a try ~> you can tweet me a picture at @akaBailey!

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{Linking up at Funday Monday, Tell Us Tuesday, Craft Frenzy Friday,  The DIY'ers, That DIY Party, and What I Learned Wednesdays}

Pinterest Project Update: Empty Frames as Wall Art

A couple months ago I posted my interpretation of a Pinterest project - empty picture frames hung as wall art. It was a super simple idea that takes mere minutes of work (plus paint drying time) - just find picture frames with interesting textures, paint them all one color (white), and hang them together in a cluster on a wall.

I started off with 3 frames and recently upped my game to include 2 more frames. I thought I'd share the update so you can see what it's looking like now.

Here were the two additional frames I bought and painted...

After several coats of white spray paint and a few nails hammered into a wall, they finished off the wall of frames nicely:

.  close up of the deets  .

I don't think I'll be adding more frames to this now - seems like it's got enough going on.  A perfect way to spruce up a random corner of our bedroom!

Here's what it looked like when there were just 3 frames:

Have you tried this out yet in your own home? Tweet me a picture at @akaBailey!

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{Linking up with That DIY Party and Start @ Home's Furniture & Paint Party}

Great Use for a Leftover Frame: Sunglasses Holder!

I know I said that there would be a few days with no blogs from me, since my sister is here visiting me in Vancouver. But she is taking a nap right now and this is just a quickie post!

Remember when I put up some empty frames as wall decorations a few weeks ago? In that blog I mentioned that I'd purchased 5 frames, with only 3 of them making it up onto the wall. As for the other two frames that I'd purchased and painted for the project, one of them didn't take the paint well (it turned pink somehow) and the other just didn't really look "right" with the other frames.

This is the one that just didn't look right with the others:

And since I'd already gone through the trouble of paying for it, removing all the insane retro picture backing, cleaning it, and painting it, I figured it should be kept around until I found another use for it.

Here's my "other" use:

I doubt you have any questions at all about how this was achieved, so I won't insult you by posting any instructions. I hope you find this useful!!

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Refreshing a Thrift Store Mirror

In a recent Thrift Store Finds blog, I showed you this little sun mirror that I bought. It was only $2.99 and it had "refresh me!!" written all over it:

I knew just the place for it - we've had this glaring empty spot on one of our walls for about 5 months now. It needed something. Real bad. Get a look at this:

.  oy  .

But before my little sun mirror could be put up onto the wall, I wanted to give it some fresh paint to make it look a little more cohesive with the other things that were in that area of our wall. Also, I hate the color gold.

Here's a step-by-step of how I gave this mirror a face-lift:

.  start off with a clean mirror  .

.  cover and tape off the glass  .

.  spray paint entire mirror with 3-4 coats of white paint.
.  let dry completely between coats!  .

.  paint all the small rays blue  .
.  add some blue paint around the inner ring  .

.  paint the inner edge of inner ring  .

.  remove tape while paint is still a little wet  .

.  fin  .

I hope you enjoyed this little project. I'm becoming pretty into the idea of painting things white to give them a super clean and crisp feel. Are you refreshing any old or thrifted finds with a coat of paint this spring?


Linking up with Paint Party from Start At Home!