Happy Easter! Cheap and Cheerful Kitchen Facelift!

It snowed today. It snowed yesterday. I'm looking at pictures from friends who are posting flower photos from their yards. Last year this was one of those places where spring sprung! I remember taking a friend out for her birthday lunch and we ate outside! In Wisconsin! Northern Wisconsin! Not this year. Now we are reduced to hoping the ice on the lakes will be out by the opening of fishing season!

I need spring! Color! Something!

Here is a little quick post on a cheap little kitchen facelift project. Not my idea. I saw my daughter do this to her university apartment at Princeton Seminary. The residents were not allowed to paint. Even though the buildings were so old, filled with mold and going to be demolished the following year ....no one was allowed to paint. Go figure.
Needing a bright spot of color and visual interest she cleverly put scrapbook paper on the walls. It looked great. I've been copying her idea for several years. Easy to do and easy to change.
Three supplies are needed. You need scrapbook paper. Get a few extra sheets to take the pressure off on the slight chance you make a cutting error. The paper is adhered to the wall with sticky tack or any type of poster gummy tack that you can use and reuse. It does not hurt the paint and is easily removed. Even though I change my paper every year, I am using the same sticky tack.
Here are a few pictures of my kitchen. It cost me about ten dollars and took an hour. I covered the switch plates but that is not a must do and would take more time.

Clothespin Soup!

There is lots of fiber in this soup!

We are crafting up some clothespin dolls for the Ethiopian children to make. I didn't want these dolls to be lily white and thought a little color would be nice.

I experimented with coffee, (which was in bags) and tea (which is loose and was the good PJ tips brand). So the opposite of what the pictures would have you believe. Two minutes in the bath achieved a nice color. The tea was darker and the better color. It did take three days for the pins to completely dry. If I lived somewhere warm and could have put them in the fresh air and sunshine it would have been a much quicker drying process.

I'm now busy cutting out a thousand frocks for these little guys. Takes me back to the old days of Kinder Art here at our library where my neighbor Pam and I would craft it up for the community once a summer with our kids. How I wish you were next door right now Pam!

So faces or no faces on these little men? Thoughts?

     This is the coffee bath.

     This is the tea bath.  Mmmmmm, the kitchen smelled like the coffee shop!

Coffee dye on the bottom pin.  Tea on the top pin.

   Fabric is cut in 2" by 6" strips.  Fold strip in half and cut a small vertical slit for head.  One pipe cleaner makes the arms and the belt.  I didn't like the twist tie belt on the left.  We often use embroidery floss for the belt but that involves tying....and  the sheer number of kids who would be needing help made the pipe cleaner a better option.