Colleen's Corner...Make A Quick Kitchen Island

Here's a long story for a kitchen island.

Colleen is my sister and partner in crime helping me with my dad. Many of you know, from past posts, that my dad lives with us. He has his own separate living area just down the hallway in our home, including his own kitchen. He is 86 years old and he is dangerous! LOL !! You know floods, fire, and uses more electricity and heat to power New York City.

For obvious reasons, he can't be left alone for long periods of time. When hubby and I took the girls to Disney World over Christmas vacation, I had to arrange for someone to stay with him every minute. Two of my brothers and my nephew would come from out of state to be with him for the beginning of the week and my sister would have the last 2 days. However, mother nature kicked in and a whopping blizzard hit New England. My sister was with him the whole week all by herself...a few days at her house and the rest at mine.

Needless to say, she tried to keep busy at my house to avoid going stir crazy. She rearranged my refrigerator, played in my sewing room, cleaned dad's house, hung out with our cat Hallie upstairs for some quiet time...dad talks non stop about absolutely anything LOL!

and she built this island for my dad's kitchen.

Digging through old furniture in our basement, she found 2 side tables that are the same size and our old square coffee table.

One cabinet has doors with storage on shelves and the other has drawers.

She placed the 2 storage units back to back.

and then placed the square coffee table on top. The legs of the coffee table just unscrew to remove.

She didn't have to secure the table on top because there isn't much over hang on the sides, but you could always add "L" brackets to secure it.

There is the seam of the 2 cabinets, but it looks fine. If you were doing this for yourself, you could always cover it with bead board or wains coating to hide the seam.

What a great island...I'm sure with all that snow piling up outside, she was wishing she was on an island far, far away!

Can't thank my sister enough for all she did that week! I owe her BIG time.

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~Karen~

Colleen's Corner...Candle Recycling

I received an email from my sister Colleen and in the subject line it said...Tool Time idea??? Attached were these first 2 pictures. Colleen is my one and only sister (I have 3 brothers, but they would never send me a Tool Time idea). She's extra special to me in so many ways...oh wait sew many ways!! We're 9 years apart, but those years faded away when we both took care of our mom the years before she passed away. Now we are sounding boards for each other taking care of our dad.

She wanted this to be a Tool Time post, but she is so talented I wanted to give her a special place here on my blog. I'll be sharing more of her ideas and creations in the future too.

So welcome to Colleen's Corner...

Cute jar for storing craft sticks right?

Well, here's the before. We all have candles in jars and they don't have to be Yankee Candles either.

Remember the post I did a long time ago about recycling the wax at the bottom of the jar that the wick doesn't burn? Click here to see that post. Well, once you freeze and take out that extra wax, chip away what ever is left and then use hot water to melt the rest of the wax away. The label of the Yankee Candle is a clear sticker that peels off. You can also use Goo Off for any gumminess that's left on the outside.

and here you have it...the best, cutest, FREE storage jar for your craft room.

I also have a post coming up about how my sister made a kitchen island in my dad's kitchen in about 5 minutes...not including hauling all the furniture up from my basement. Poor thing was trapped with my dad at our house for a week during the blizzard while we were away in Disney World! She doesn't drink, but I'm pretty sure she had her fair share of wine that week. LOL

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See you soon,

~Karen~