all i need in my tool kit

Fig. 1

Maybe your kid is one of those who leaves stuff alone, but ours repeatedly kept tearing the foam guards off of the safety rail on his toddler bed.

Fig. 2

When hot glue continued to fail, I found some patterned duct tape (this one is Scotch brand), et voila! The foam stayed in place until we replaced the toddler bed with a twin-sized bed earlier this week.

Fig. 3

I purchased our jogging stroller used from a kids' consignment sale. All was in working order, but the foam grip on the handle bar was the worse for wear.

Fig. 4

A little patterned duct tape, and it's not only more functional, but also easier to spot in a crowd of strollers.

I'd offer tutorials, but I think you can figure out how to operate a roll of tape. These fixes are pretty quick, look kinda cute, and prove, once again, that duct tape has a million uses. Make that a million-and-two.

Thanks for reading! 

(p.s. Scotch didn't pay me or send me freebies to use their tape or write about it; if that were ever to happen, I believe in full disclosure. My tape came from Target. Which also didn't pay me.)

thrift store finds: bike basket repair and storage

I started out with a cute wicker bike basket from the rebuilding store (Bring) and an intention to turn it into a little extra bathroom storage in our tiny bathroom. It's from the Nantucket Bike Basket Company. 

These baskets are pretty readily available through places like REI and After School if you have the money to spend. The one I bought was $3 and was sold "As-Is", which in this case meant that the caning at the back (where the basket attaches to the bike) had come loose. Someone attempted to fix it with zip ties and further ruined it by separating several rows of the wicker. You can see that separation in the photo below, after I covered it with clear duct tape.

I know that it's possible to fix these baskets by undoing the twining and caning, reinserting the wicker, and then gluing and rebinding the top, but I'm not an expert, and jobs like that require knowledge and skilled hands to make it look right. I wanted a strong repair that would look decent and use my current tools and skill set. You know: duct tape.

I used the tape to go all around the basket, just to stop any further damage from occurring and strongly hold everything together. It's not super-attractive, so I knew this wouldn't be my final step.

I used a printed coffee sack remnant to go over the tape, and used hot glue to make sure it was firmly attached to both the taped top and the wicker for a sturdy repair without vulnerable stress points.

The raveled edge is kept from fraying by being pressed into the hot glue (which is, luckily, invisible if you're really, really careful about how much you use and where it goes. And you don't use the yellow-y extra-strength glue sticks).

Just right for holding a couple of spare rolls of toilet paper up and out of the way.

This kind of repair will work on other kinds of wicker baskets, too, although I'd recommend finding someone to professionally fix really nice, heirloom-quality baskets.

Thanks for reading!

Linking up to:

The CSI Project

naptime mischief

Awhile back, I wrote about the mural I painted in my kiddo's bedroom. Here's one of the images from that post:

My guy's two-and-a-half now, and we're trying to accommodate his increasing independence. The idea of converting the crib to a toddler bed turned out to be a bad one though, so within a couple of days, we'd converted it back.

Unfortunately, one of the picture frames I'd removed from the bed's new location had left an air bubble under the paint. And, well, you can probably guess what happened from there.

All told, he peeled all the paint off of an area about eighteen inches across. He must have gotten started as soon as I'd closed the bedroom door; this wasn't the only piece of mischief he'd accomplished . . . yikes. That kid is something else.

Happily, we'd built the wall ourselves and painted it using modern paint, so lead exposure wasn't a concern here. Still, that was a bad time.

I phoned my dad for advice on fixing the wall.

His solution called for spreading joint compound over the entire area (available pre-mixed in little buckets at the hardware store), nice and thin. I let it cure for almost a week in the heat, then rolled some primer over the patch, and three coats of paint leftover from the original room painting (lucky lucky!).

Next, I pulled out my acrylic paints for repair and blended the old and new together as best I could, plus one apple.

It looks different from before . . .

but I think I actually like it better now. So far so good; the new apple hasn't tempted him yet!

So, what unexpected projects have you taken on due to your little troublemakers? Do tell!

Thanks for reading.


p.s. you can make these photos larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.


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Mop it Up Mondays