DIY – Page 9 – Dust Bunnies and Dog Toys

A Quick Revamp

Published on February 8, 2016February 10, 2016 by JennaLeave a comment

Aloha! It’s been quiet around the blog the last few weeks because the hubs and I had a little get away to Hawaii! It was an amazing trip and I’ll be sharing information on all that we did while there in the next few days once I get a chance to sort through the masses of photos I took. Until then here’s a quick little upcycle project I did a while back and never shared (hence the lack of snow in the before photo!).

I bought this wooden wall art at a furniture store when we first moved to the mainland about three years ago. I was drawn to the details of the carved wood and always liked it but it blended in with the wall color at the new house too much for my liking so it languished in the “not sure where to put this pile”. Before

A quick coat of chalk spray paint from Michaels and a little distressing took it from pretty basic to awesome rustic!

Now it looks like something you’d see on HGTV’s Fixer Upper! Although I really love the new look, I don’t have a spot for it in the house any more so I’ve got it set aside for the next bazaar and will post it on the local décor buy/sell page in the meantime. Hopefully someone else will have the perfect home for it and snag it up.

DIY Bird Feeders

Published on December 30, 2015 by JennaLeave a comment

While I had a few days off around Christmas I finally tackled a little project I’d been wanting to do for a while, creating a few more bird feeders for the yard. I had seen spiral copper feeders online and loved the simple design, so I did a quick search on Pinterest to find a tutorial and gave it a try. I used small copper tubing, which is typically used for the water line on newer refrigerators. It’s a soft metal so it bends very easily. The tutorials I found suggested using a rolling pin to get the circular shape, but we don’t have one so I used a soda can instead.

I wasn’t able to get pictures during the process due to needing both hands and the hubs being busy with another project, but it’s really as simple as placing the beginning of the tubing against the can and pressing gently as you turn the can toward the tubing. Once I had a spiral tall enough I snipped the tubing with wire cutters to make a clean end and wrapped that around the can as well to complete the final loop. After I removed the can from the spiral I pulled the top loop up so it was perpendicular to the rest of the spirals so I’d have somewhere to hang the feeder from. I stretched the spiral out a bit to make spaces between the loops and once I was happy with how that was looking, I curled the bottom loop a bit tighter so it could act as a stopper at the end. I had enough tubing left over to make a second as well. Here’s they arebefore I filled them.

I filled them with apples and hung them outside on the hooks where my hanging baskets go during the summer. I haven’t seen any of the wildlife visit them yet, but it might take them a while to investigate and learn this new food source. I’m considering making more of these for my Etsy shop, but am not sure if they would be big sellers or I they would ship well so I might post them on a few of the local buy/sell pages and see if they get any traction there first.

I continued my DIY feeder making roll with this simple S hook orange feeder. The hubs drilled a hole in a piece of drift wood from my stash and I positioned it where I thought it would work best as a perch then added a bit of hot glue to keep it in place. We could have just made the hole smaller to begin with so the perch would fit snuggly but I didn’t want to risk breaking it when maneuvering it on the hook. I cut an orange in half and just stabbed it onto the end of the hook. The hubs enjoyed cleaning up the other half of the orange so it didn’t go to waste.

This one hasn’t had any visitors either from what I’ve seen, but I’ll leave it up for a while to see if the birds and squirrels find it just like it did for the peanut ring feeder which I filled while I was at it. This continues to be a huge draw for both squirrels and birds so I might just let it run empty to encourage them to explore the other new feeders. If I still don’t see any traffic at them in a few weeks I might switch to using homemade suet balls or blocks instead of fruit and see if that’s more appealing to our neighborhood’s critters.

I picked up this store bought feeder several weeks ago and placed it farther down the fence from the peanut feeder so the smaller birds would have somewhere to eat when the squirrel is devouring the peanuts. The perch is on a spring that can be adjusted to different tensions for different sized birds and pulls down over the openings if there is too much weight, such as a squirrel, which was the main selling point for me. Plus I like the bright red, barn style too! I’m still playing with the different spring settings to see which works best for our area’s flock since it didn’t come with instructions or info other than the price tag, but I have seen groups of chickadees sitting on the ledge and pecking at seeds so it must be appropriately set for them. And because it has such a large reservoir, it hasn’t needed filling since I put it up so it’s perfect for the far area of the yard where we don’t often go.

Hopefully all of these options will make the birds stick around come spring, so they can keep the mosquito population in check allowing us to enjoy the deck more. If you have any tips on how to attract birds to new feeders or suggestions for feeder styles that work best I’d love to hear them!

DIY Moose Mount

Published on December 29, 2015December 29, 2015 by JennaLeave a comment

Today I’m sharing a recent DIY project the hubs helped me create as part of the games for my employer’s company holiday party. The company is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary this year so we had a theme of ‘silver winter.’ We wanted to try having some games that people could do before dinner was served and I came up with the idea of a moose head ring toss. I found this resin moose head on Amazon, which the company purchased for around $20 after we used some gift certificates from a vendor we work with.

Much to the hubs dismay, I spray painted him white. Sometimes he just can’t see my vision. 😉 Once we had the moose head ready we purchased the wood, screws and metal strips to make the mounting board. We laid everything out in the garage for a dry run before putting it together.

The first step was staining the wood, which was precut whiteboard. I had planned to use pallet wood but ran out of time to disassemble the pallets I had. Luckily these were the right size and at around $5/board they didn’t break the bank.

Here’s the moose head, sans antlers, on the stained boards. I love the contrast and rustic feel!

The next step was adding the metal brackets on either side to hold the boards together. The hubs convinced me it was cheaper to buy a long solid piece of metal, so he cut it to size and drilled the holes for the screws.

The hubs and Stoli look so thrilled to show off the finished project don’t they?! At the party we set the board on a table on top of a white fur throw with the back propped up against the wall so players could attempt the ring toss.

And now that the party is over and the company has no use for it any longer it’s become a focal point in our guest room!

As I was prepping the images for this post I realized that when we hung the board at the house it’s actually upside down, which makes the moose sit a little higher than it did in the “finished” picture. I might eventually correct that but since it’s not that noticeable that’s pretty low on the priority level.

I think I’ll dress him up a bit next holiday season with a scarf or fur wrap, like I’ve seen many other bloggers do since I plan to decorate more throughout the house with small touches. I’d love to hear what you think of our latest project and how it looks in our rustic Alaskan guest bedroom!

Making a Little Faux Tree New Again

Published on December 24, 2015 by Jenna1 Comment

Happy Christmas Eve! I have one last Christmas project to share and it’s the revamp of this sad little faux tree. It used to be my holiday tree in the entry way, but I decided to give up that tradition this year in favor of spending time on more important things like spending time with my hubby and kiddos.

This little skinny tree had definitely seen better days. It had moved from Virginia to Alaska and then from Kodiak to Anchorage and finally Wasilla, so it was looking pretty tired. Since it came apart in two pieces I decided to make each portion a smaller mini tree for use around the holidays.

TreeOriginal

The bottom section was glued very securely in the base – trust me I tried to remove it and I’m pretty sure it would survive an explosion intact. So rather than fight it I just wrapped the container in burlap, tucked the ends over the top of the urn and tied it with some pretty twine from the boots I’d bought at a consignment sale. One down, one to go.

BurlapFinished

Now I needed a base for the top portion of the tree, which had a metal stump that had once attached into the base of the tree. I remembered I had this wooden box in my stash and thought it would work perfectly. This had been the container for a gift basket my office had received last year and originally came as unfinished wood with the sender’s logo carved on one side and this pretty snowflake on the other.

BoxStained

Although the snowflake was cute I didn’t want to see the company’s logo so I needed a way to cover it up. I considered adding metal pieces with decorative tacks, paint stick shiplap and other methods, but then had a light bulb moment when I realized that the burlap webbing I had a small section of was just tall enough to cover both the logo and snowflake!

BoxWrapped

I filled the box with some Styrofoam from some packaging I was about to discard, shoved the metal stump into that and wrapped the webbing around the box, securing it with a bit of hot glue where the two ends met. It was looking pretty good, but I wanted to cover up the white sytrofoam so I pulled some crinkle paper stuffing out of my filler stash and tucked it around the base. I literally had just enough!

BoxWrapped&Filled

And here it is all done! I think they turned out pretty darn cute for being a totally $0 project! I paired each with a reindeer and placed them in the guest room and foster room for the season. I didn’t even decorate them so they can stay put through the winter. 🙂

BoxFinished

And because I just can’t not share one more, here’s a cute little lamp post I revamped. I bought it at a thrift store for $4 back in the summer and set it aside to redo for my holiday bazaar booth. I forgot to take before pictures, but envision it as unfinished wood, with some 1980’s Christmas appliques at the top and a beat up garland around the post. I removed the garland, sanded down the appliques and painted the whole thing in ORB. Then I distressed the edges of the lantern and added a simple bow with greenery to the lantern base with a screw. And here’s the finished result.

Post

Although it didn’t sell at this year’s bazaar I’ll store it away as inventory for next year since it never hurts to get a head start and I plan to market pieces earlier next year on my Etsy shop and crafting Facebook page.

I’ll be taking it easy tomorrow, Skyping with family back home while enjoying the day with my fur babies and the hubs, so I wish you a very Merry Christmas and will share more projects next week!

DIY Birch Candles

Published on December 19, 2015 by Jenna1 Comment

Thanks to Pinterest inspiration, the hubs recently made several of these amazing birch candles for decor at my recent company holiday party. We used a couple of trees from our property that had died but hadn’t come down yet. He cut them at various lengths and used a special drill bit to carve the hole at the top for the candles. He did burn through several drill bits to get the whole lot done but other than that he said they were relatively simple to make.

We grouped them in trios at the party inside of white wicker wreathes as centerpieces on the tables which drew compliments from employees and the venue staff who said they were nicer than anything they ever offer! Now that the party is over I’m using some of them on our dining room table with a faux evergreen wreath I picked up for a few bucks at the Dollar Zone.

It looked pretty good, but a little plain so I added some pine cones and feathers to give it a finished look. It works with my classic rustic Christmas decor and will transition into the new year afterwards without lifting a finger, which is exactly what I need these days.

We’re less than a week from Christmas and I’m finally getting the house decorated, but it’s better late than never. I’ll share more of my holiday decor next week, including how I used more of these beauties on the mantel, so stay tuned! 🙂

Simple & Elegant Fall Centerpieces

Published on November 17, 2015 by JennaLeave a comment

Today I thought I’d share a simple centerpiece I created for a recent work event. I wanted something fall themed for this particular event, but hoped the elements I chose would pull double duty for our upcoming holiday party so it needed to be able to transition into winter.

The venue provided the silver lanterns, so I added a birch round, pinecone, pheasant feather and mini pumpkin to compliment. Some of the birch pieces were thicker than others so I set the lantern next to the birch for those so they didn’t impede the view of the presentation being given.

We also had some small signs on the tables with factoids about the subject matter, which we put in small silver place card holders. Although I can’t share the factoids, here’s a blank card to give you an idea of how they fit in with the centerpieces.

I was able to do all 7 tables for around $100 which was pretty minimal. They were just enough for this business luncheon event once the rest of the table was set, and next month I’ll reuse the pine cones, birch pieces and feathers for our “silver winter” themed holiday party! Low cost and multipurpose, that’s my kind of décor! 🙂

DIY Industrial Vintage Laundry Dry Rack

Published on November 13, 2015November 13, 2015 by Jenna5 Comments

Today I’m sharing another industrial pipe project the hubs recently did for me – a dry rack in the laundry room. I often have sweaters and tops that need to be dried flat, but since I don’t have a space to do that I usually hang those items on a folding dry rack over a vent in the adjacent dining room. Unfortunately the hubs like his jeans to air dry and are often occupying the folding rack when I need to dry sweaters so my solution was a permanent rack in the laundry room over the sink.

I originally asked for a bar straight across but the hubs determined that in order to get the best stability we’d have to place the bar higher than I originally thought so he created a small drop down in the design to compensate for the higher spot. Luckily, I’m pretty tall and can reach the hanger up to catch the rod with the hook easily, so the height is no problem for me.

As you can see I’ve already put it to good use. It does infringe on Luna’s eating space a bit, but I think she secretly likes hiding behind the clothes when the rack has several items on it and as long as she can see out the window she’s a happy camper and I’m happy to have a space that functions and looks awesome. Thanks honey! 🙂

Shared on Knick of Time’s Vintage Inspiration Party!

DIY Industrial Cart Bed

Published on November 10, 2015November 12, 2015 by JennaLeave a comment

Remember this cool metal cart I shared last month? Well the hubs has worked his magic and converted it to the coolest bed for our foster room! I don’t have step-by-step instructions since he worked on this while I was working on other projects, but you can see the basic design in the picture below.

He also built a trundle frame based on a plan I found on Pinterest that rolls right underneath so we have the ability to take in siblings if needed. Both the trundle and the bed are super sturdy so there’s no worries about having a kiddo and all of the dogs on there together, which I can envision happening.

Here it is all dressed! And because we went with a simple day bed style it should be simple and easy to teach kids how to make the bed and keep things tidy. It’s also a great new place for Luna to explore as you see below.

We still need to get a mattress for the trundle frame and figure out a desk and nightstand for either side of the bed, but I think this room is finally starting to come together!

Shared on Knick of Time’s Vintage Inspiration Party!

DIY Measuring Cup Storage

Published on October 13, 2015October 25, 2015 by Jenna5 Comments

I’ve been meaning to do this project for some time now and finally checked it off the list this past weekend while the hubs was sleeping of a cold and I needed something quiet to work on. Our stacked measuring cups always seemed to be in the way in the cabinet, so I decided it was time they found a different home, one that didn’t cause extra effort when grabbing things in the cabinet. Since there was a little extra room on both sides of the spice rack the hubs installed on the pantry door and that’s often what we’re measuring with these cups I figured that was a logical spot for them. A few small hooks on either side of the spice rack was all I needed.

The hooks screwed right in, although I did create a pilot hole with a finishing nail and hammer to get things started. I placed each cup as I went so I could eyeball how much space to leave between it and the next.

Here’s how the first side looked a few minutes later. All but one of the set fit on this side.

So I put the remaining cup on the other side with our odd duck extra from an old set that is handy to keep around.

Unfortunately the way they were hanging you couldn’t see the measurements with out taking them off the hook. A metallic sharpie marker took care of that problem. We’ll see how well it holds up to the washer, but I’m thinking it should be ok since they will have plenty of time to cure and dry before they go in for a spin.

It might take a bit to get used to the sound they make as they sway against the wood when you open and close the pantry door, but I’m fine with that when it comes with improved organization. Simple, inexpensive and efficient. That’s my kind of project!

Shared on Tatertots & Jello’s Link Party Palooza.

More Gallery Wall Additions

Published on October 8, 2015October 14, 2015 by JennaLeave a comment

If you’ve been around the blog for a little while you know I’m slowly curating our gallery wall around the TV in the Family Room. Today I’m sharing a few recent additions I added over the weekend. The first is a rustic mirror I got from Michaels for free thanks to a great BOGO sale when I purchased the frame for my whale breach collage. It originally came with a rope hanger attached to the sides, which I liked but not in this grouping. So I removed it and will re-use it on another project I hope to wrap up this weekend.

MirrorClose

The whitewash creates a weathered patina that immediately drew me to the piece. I placed the mirror on the side near the fireplace where it can reflect natural light from the windows. I think it also helps balance some of the bigger items in the whole collection and I love that the round shape breaks up all the square corners.

I also added this lovely rusty cross votive holder I scored on the local buy/sell page for $15. I had planned to use it on the deck, but didn’t want to constantly be emptying the votive holder when it rains, so I decided to find it a spot inside and am in love with it here. Next to it I added a freebie frame I got on the same Michaels BOGO order. I filled it with a free chalkboard printable I found online. I might change the chalkboard print seasonally, but I like that this one can transition from season to season if I opt not to. Plus I love the simplicity and thought behind the quote. 🙂

I plan to DIY a long narrow Alaskan themed sign to fill the space just above the cross and chalkboard print and a shorter narrow piece to fill the space between the fireplace switch and the stone, but it might be a while before those happen. I also have a piece of family history on the hub’s side that I want to add under the metal 7, but need to figure out how to make sure it’s secure because it’s pretty darn heavy. Stay tuned to see how this space continues to evolve!

Shared on Knick of Time’s Vintage Inspiration Party #209!