Tag: trash

Furniture

Mini chalkboard table

Jessica Smith

I saw this abandoned kid’s table on the side of the road on my way home from taking the pup to the groomer. Of course I had to stop and pick it up. It’s not all that often that I see gems on the side of the road, and when I do it’s even less often that I am able to stop and pick them up. So when I saw this table and I wasn’t on my way to work, I had no passengers and I didn’t have a car full of crap, I quickly made a U-turn to pick it up.

Chalkboard Before

 

As most things on the side of the road do, the table needed love. I gave it a good scrubbing and tightened all of the screws so it wouldn’t wobble.

Then, I removed the slide-out white board top and painted the opposite side with chalkboard paint. I figured a duel-use table would be ideal when you have small kids.

To finish the piece off, I spray painted the frame black. To me, it looks much nicer than the yellowy oak color before.

Chalkboard Desk mini

I’d much rather see this little guy in my house than it’s trash-bound alter ego.

chalboard kids table

 

Life

So many pallets…

Jessica Smith

… so little time.

Yes, that’s right. I have a total of five pallets to destroy! Woo! I have grand plans for one or two of them… AND since my pallet sign turned out so well, the hubby doesn’t seem to care too much that I brought three of them home this week and grabbed one more from our neighbor. I’m leaving the one in my office alone for a bit longer — I definitely don’t need five pallets at home (not that I need four either).

I have no idea when I’ll actually have time to work on these projects since it is getting to be holiday season, which means I am super busy. This weekend I am doing the Trash to Treasure Fair on Saturday and am (hopefully) making homemade applesauce all day on Sunday. If not, maybe I’ll get around to it sometime this week after work. Unfortunately, with the weather being chilly and it getting dark so early, it’s less exciting to be outside after work using my power tools. We’ll see though!

Next weekend is another craft fair and the hubby’s birthday. Then the weekend after that it is Thanksgiving! Like I said, we are always busy during holiday season. I doubt December will be any slower for us. We are just so darn popular ;p

TGIF! Have a great weekend!

Craft Projects

Mod Podged Candle Holders

Jessica Smith

Today I’m sharing another project I made for the upcoming Trash to Treasure Fair in November. Using pages from an old book and the remainder of my burlap fabric scraps, I turned two shot glasses that my mother-in-law’s work was going to throw away (not sure why they have shot glasses…) into adorable candle holders.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Pages of a book (or any paper) cut into little pieces
  • Mod Podge
  • Fabric
  • Hot Glue
  • Needle and Thread
  • Buttons
  • Ribbon
  • Glass

To start this project, I cut up three or four pages from an old dictionary into little pieces of paper. I had no rhyme or reason for the shape of the paper, just random shapes.

Once my paper was small enough, I started to Mod Podge it to the glass. I put a thick layer of the podge down, then placed strips of paper on top. I smoothed out the paper as I went along to remove any bubbles between the paper and the glass. Once each glass was covered, I placed a layer of podge on top.

I let the candle holders dry for a bit before adding embellishments. They weren’t dry completely, but I didn’t mind since I wanted the stuff I was adding to stick right on top.

At this point, I flipped each glass upside down and added a slim, pink ribbon around the bottom with small dabs of hot glue.

With the pink ribbon added to each glass, I set both candle holders aside to create two oversized flowers. I cut out five petals for each flower, using scraps from an earlier project.

To connect the petals, I folded each petal at the flat edge in an accordion-style fold: down, up, down, up, down.

Then, I sewed through each of the folds. Once I had stitched my way through one petal, I went on to the next, adding petals until I was out.

When all five petals were connected, I looped the needle and thread back through the first petal to finish off the flower.

With the flower complete, I selected a flashy button to add to the middle. I added it to the flower with hot glue, then hot glued each flower to a candle holder.

OHMYGOSHSOCUTE. If these don’t get snatched up at the fair, I might not be so upset.

I like how large the flowers are on the glass, the pink ribbon “leaves,” and the randomness of the dictionary scraps. These might be my favorite candle yet. Now I just need to remake them with aqua ribbon instead of pink ;p