by Christina J
Between taking care of kids and trying to manage your personal life, you’re often left with far less free time than you’d like. Of course, the fact that you have any free time at all is amazing in and of itself, but these minimal stretches of open schedule space are often far too short to really get much done. Fortunately, there are a lot of really great DIY interior decorating projects that you can finish in between all the running around. Here are just a few of the best ones:
Collage Desktop
Your desktop surfaces are great places for the kids to work, but the kids aren’t always so respectful of them. Protect wooden furniture by sticking a piece of clear acrylic plastic on top.
Measure the desk surface first. For a few dollars, you can get a matching piece of acrylic cut at a hardware store. Bring it home, put it on top of the desk, and slide your favorite photos underneath. You’ve got an instant collage work surface that is kid-resistant to boot.
Cereal Box Stencils
Decorating rooms can be expensive, but not if you reuse your trash. Ask your kids to draw simple outlines of their favorite animal shapes on some flattened cereal box cardboard. Then use a hobby knife to cut the shapes out a few times. The leftover holes make great stencils that you can use to decorate the wall borders around rooms. These work even better if you hold them in place with painter’s tape.
Window Gardens
This is a great project for kids who are interested in science, and it’s a great way to liven up your interior with some greenery. Take a 2-liter soda bottle, and cut off the bottom. Poke a few holes around the cut edge and flip the bottle upside down. Take some string or yarn and thread it through the holes so that you can hang the upside-down bottle section from a hook or screw mounted in the window frame. This will allow the bottle to get sun without interference from cats or other pets.
Place a small scrap piece of cloth or a paper towel in the very bottom of the inverted bottle. Next, put some styrofoam packing peanuts in the bottom of the bottle filling up about a third of the height. Fill the rest up with potting soil, stopping about an inch short of the edge to minimize spilling. Plant your favorite houseplant seeds in the soil and water them as needed. If you ever water too much, you can unscrew the bottle cap and drain it out, and the shape of the soda bottle makes it easy to cut the side open and transplant the plant when it gets too big.
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