Plantation Shutter to Corner Cabinet

This random treasure of a plantation shutter was discovered at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore several months ago. I had no idea what I would do with it, I just liked it and it was $2.  So even if  I tossed it, no biggie.  I finally decided that it would make nice doors to a corner cabinet/table.  With the assistance of my lovely power-tool saavy husband, we made this in about an hour and a half.  Hubby cut 2 pieces of "nice" plywood (it wasn't what I expected when he said plywood) the same length & width of the shutters.  He already had the wood from another project he did.  We joined the 2 plywood sides with screws at a 90 degree angle.  The shutters already had a hinge on one side, so we joined the shutters to the plywood with the pre-existing hinge. He cut the top & bottom pieces, each extending about a half inch over the soon-to-be cabinet sides.  I sanded and routered the edges of the top & bottom pieces to give them a little curve.  Then I pained them an off-white color.

I don't know how well it shows up in my pictures, but there was a little knob and latch on one side of the shutters.  While they aren't really functional, I thought they added to the look, so I spray painted them a brushed bronze & put them back on.  We are planning to add a shelf or 2 to the inside, so I didn't bother painting the inside yet.  I also need to get a magnetic latch so the door will be secure when I shut it. Overall, for starting some stuff that we had laying around, I think we ended up with a pretty nice corner cabinet for our bathroom.  It conceals the ugly stuff, like extra TP & cleaning supplies.  Total cost of this project: $2 plantation shutters, $3 for a sample size of flat ivory paint, I'm going to guess $10 for the plywood, power-tool know-how from my hubby (free!).  Bonus for the quality time spent building something with a loved one.  :-)

Spiral Topiaries aka Whoville Trees

Twas a few days after Christmas and all the stuff was on sale.  I found these lovely 4 feet tall topiary Christmas trees and decided that I needed some topiaries for other seasons, too!  I wanted spiral trees, about 4 feet high.  I found just that online for $300/each and I wanted 2.  Do you think I bought them?  Nope, I made them.  These were fairly time-consuming, but what they took up in time, they lacked in cost and they look amazing in our entry way.

 I found this really long stick in my yard, about 9 feet.  Don't ask me how you get a stick that long in one piece, I call it a sign that I needed to make these bad boys.  I broke said stick in half.  If you don't have enormous sticks in your yard, just go buy a $2 dowel rod, which is also 4 feet long (usually).  I ordered these very Roman-looking plastic flower pots from Amazon.  They were $9/each.  Great price, and where else can you find flower pots in December? A pretty pot will add a lot to the look of this project. Conveniently, Amazon packed these pots in massive amounts of brown packing paper, in sections about 20 feet long.  Originally, I was going to buy newspaper for this project, but the fine folks in the packaging department must have had their crystal ball out and read my mind, saving me that step and a few bucks.  I took large gauge craft wire (the biggest I could find) and put it in the center of several layers of packing paper.  The wire and paper were about 8-9 feet long at this point.  You are eventually going to curl the paper around your stick, so it needs to be approximately double the length of your stick to look right.  The craft wire helps the paper maintain shape & makes it a little more sturdy than it would be once you spiral it- thus get the biggest stuff you can find that is still flexible. I wanted the top of my topiary to be thinner & the bottom thicker, like a real tree, so I had only a few layers of paper at the top, adding more as I went down.  I wound the paper around the craft wire and secured it with masking tape.  It sounds more complicated than it actually is, but you can crunch the paper down tighter in the areas you want smaller and fluff it out where you want it bigger.  I attached what was at this point 'paper cones' about 5 inches from the top to the top of the stick with more masking tape.  Then I spray painted the paper cones green, just so the paper wouldn't show through. Try to keep the sticks (or dowel rods) brown for a more authentic look. It is ok if you try this and they look awful at this step.  Mine certainly did.

I bought 13 bags of green Spanish moss at Walmart for $2.50/bag.  I had some left over, but I'll use it for another project.  The moss was in clumps, so I stretched out the clumps best I could without tearing them apart and glued to the paper cones with hot glue.  This took a LOT of hot glue.  Surprisingly, the moss stayed very well.  I thought I was going to have trouble with it falling off, but not so.  After I had every inch of paper cone covered, in what was at this point, 'moss cone,' I filled up my plastic flower pots with plaster ($8 pail, enough for both flower pots) and stuck my sticks in the center.  Make sure your stick is straight up.  A crooked stick makes for a crooked topiary.  Luckily the plaster hardened within 5 minutes, so I didn't have too long to stand there waiting for it to do it's thing.  

Once your plaster is set with your stick firmly in place, spiral your moss cone around your stick.  Voila, you now have a spiral topiary tree.  I love these guys.  My husband calls them Whoville trees.  I guess they do look a little like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.  And they only cost me $55 to make 2 of them.  So we can eat this week AND have pretty decor.  Break out the Who Hash!

Spring Wreath on the Cheap

Seems like all I'm doing here is posting about stuff you can make for your windows & doors.  There really is more than that.  I made this Spring wreath using pipe insulation curled into a circle and taped at the ends.  This stuff is under $2 for 4 feet of it.  I cut it to about 2 & 1/2 feet long for a wreath form about 18 inches in diameter.  I'm guessing here, I didn't really measure...  I wrapped green strips of construction paper around the insulation, because it melts when you try to hot glue anything to it.  I used 2 bags of green Spanish moss ($2.50/bag).  I took the moss out in clumps, trying not to separate it too much & glued it to the construction paper.  The moss make a really nice setting for whatever you want to add to it. Once I had it all covered in moss, I glued on some faux easter eggs & wound a ribbon around it.  I think it would also look good with some dried flowers, a bird nest, or really anything you want to stick in there.  The pipe insulation & Spanish moss totaled $7.  The ribbon was about a dollar & the eggs were about $2.  So there's a $10 spring wreath!

More window coverings...

liner cut to fit blind skeleton

After making the faux roman shades for our living room, I decided to keep going with that trend for our bedroom windows.  We painted our bedroom a very calm shade of turquoise that matches almost no other color, so picking out fabric that would blend was a task... I finally found some very pretty, but a pain-in-the- *edit* to work with crushed taffeta. I wanted something a little more billowy for these window treatments.  I liked the folds that the faux shades made when they were pulled up, but I wanted them when they were down, too.  I did the skeleton of these shades the same way as the others (you can find that  here) using black out liner fabric- my real job requires some late sleeping & the sun likes to blaze in my face at 6am...  Cut the liner to fit, then cut the outer fabric about an inch wider on each side, but added 50% to the length for my fluffy folds.

outer fabric- little wider, lot longer

pinning them together to make folds

Next, I started pinning the 2 fabrics together, pretty side out.  There isn't a pretty side to the liner, so one less thing to worry about.  My windows are about 56 inches long, so I made hash marks every 8 inches down the length of the liner. 

hash marks- where to sew the folds

 I made a fold, sort of billowing out the fabric, tucked it under and pinned the fold to the hash marks to know where to sew the liner to the pretty side.  I did this 7 times for 7 folds.  Then when I had it all pinned, sewed the liner straight across with the folds pinned.  Or, as you can see in the photos, not so straight across, but the way the fabric fell, you couldn't tell it was sewn sloppily. Since I used slippery, crushed taffeta that you can't get wet, I could not use fabric glue to attach the two because the glue would show through.  However, you could if you used a sturdier fabric, which I recommend.  I personally never want to sew taffeta again.

After attaching the pretty side to the liner, I glued the back to the skeleton blinds just like the other faux roman shades I made.  I glued the blind part right on the stitch line- well, where the stitch was straight, anyway.  Again, I used some random stuff I found around the house to weight down the plastic to the fabric as the glue did its thing.  After giving it a whole hour to dry, hung it up, and taaaaaada!  LOVE.  Again, sorry for my bad photos, I swear it looks better in person.

shade down

shade up.  previously mentioned blazing sun.

 Total cost: $7/yard taffeta.  I used about 3 yards per window.  $5/yard black out liner.  I used a little under 2 yards per window.   Plastic mini blinds- $4.  So, per window it was about $35.

To Hang Your Pretty Drapes With...

Want pretty curtain rods, but don't want to drop a lot of cash on them?  Make 'em!  For this project, I got electrical conduit tubing at Home Depot.  Whenever I go there, I find a flock of folks with orange name tags that will literally walk you to wherever whatever you want is.  Or maybe I just look lost every time I go?  ECT- $1.98 for 10 feet of it, so you can make a really long curtain rod, or the really nice folks at your local hardware store will cut it for you, so you can make more!  My windows were 36 inches wide, so I had them cut my rods 39 inches long.  I don't know why I picked that number, I just did.  You could also use wooden dowel rods.  However, they were $2 for 4 feet, so the ECT was the more frugal choice.  And it is sturdier, so if you have heavier curtains, you don't have to worry about sag.  I also picked up curtain brackets.

I spent the most on the finials- $10/pair.  I just LOVED these, but for my next curtain rods, I'm going to saw off parts of old stair spindles.  You could also use shatterproof Christmas ornaments (or non-shatterproof if you are careful and brave).  I have also seen some nice drawer pulls that could serve as small finials.  But I like mine BIG!

I attached the finial to my ECT by whittling down a wine cork, screwing the finial into the cork, slapping some glue on it and inserting it into the tubing.  Then I had to pull it off to get my curtain on there later, so don't glue it til AFTER you're done and have curtains on it.  Or if you whittle the cork just right, you don't need to glue at all.

Finials attached to ECT pre-painting

best stuff ever. 

Get out your favorite color spray paint!  For room these were going in, I thought brushed nickel would look nice.  I found hammered-look rustoleum goodness-in-a-can. This is expensive.  I think it was about $7-8 for this can of spray paint.  But I can use it again on something else.  The "metal look" spray paints are not cheap, but what it lacks in frugality, it makes up for in ease of use & results!

I also spray painted the screws and brackets the same color.  Tip for spray painting screws- shove the ends into a plastic cup!  It keeps them from rolling and the tops (which are all that really matter anyway) are easily accessible, thus evenly coated.

I put 2 coats of spray paint on the rods and finials, 1 coat on the rest of it.  I didn't prime anything.  I don't believe in priming, it just delays my results.  I'm sure one day that will come back to bite me...

Bad angle makes curtain rod look off-center. It's not :)

On the wall.  I can't tell they were home made.  Total cost:  I am only going to say $1 for the spray paint, because I can do several more projects with this, so I won't apply the total cost of the can to these curtain rods.  Wine Cork- already had it.  ECT $2 (for 10 feet, I made 3 curtain rods for those 2 bucks).  Brackets & screws $2, finials $10.  $15 custom curtain rod.  Would be much cheaper with different finials.  Or you could do no finials at all.  That's the beautiful thing of doing it yourself, YOU get to design it however you want.

Door Decor: February Frills

I never thought I'd be "that girl" who would have seasonal decor for EVERY season.  But we all evolve into something we never thought we would.  I'm ok with evolving into festive as long as it stops there...

For this project, I started with the base of the V-day wreath-  Plumbing insulation! (I think that's what you call it, anyway) Rounded into a circle and duct taped (step 1).  This was a dollar and some change a la Home Depot.  I had looked at various craft stores for "real" wreath forms and couldn't do better on the price.  Plus, you can cut this to make it whatever size you want.

Step 2: I had some burgundy fabric that I bought to practice sewing when I got my sewing machine.  It was cheap and so scratchy I'd never use it for anything.  I think it was about $2/yard.  I used less than 1/2 yard for this.  I cut it into long strips about 2 inches wide and wrapped it around the plumbing insulation wreath form.  Secured by hot glue, of course.  Foam does not like hot glue, so you may want to use fabric glue or some other kind of adhesive.  I melted a few areas of foam.  You can't see it because it is covered by fabric.

Step 3: I cut my leftover long strips down to about 4-5 inches long.  I folded them accordion style, fanned them out and glued them onto the fabric all the way around the circle.


Step 4: I glued on faux flowers (see how to make these here) I added beads to the center of the flowers to embellish a bit.  Not that you can see them unless you're literally 2 feet in front of it.


On the door!  It isn't too "Valentiney" so I think I can get by with leaving it up there til at least the first week or so of March!  Total cost of this project: $3.  A buck and change for the wreath form, $1 for fabric, and a few cents for the hot glue.  I don't like the way the wreath doesn't really fit the wreath hook, so I think I'm going to add a white ribbon to the back and hang it from the ribbon instead.  Again, sorry for the poor lighting in the photos.  Picture-taking is one area of life that I'm clueless about and seriously lacking skills...

Door Decor- Snowflake!

To make this pretty winter door decor, I baked and spray painted several pine cones white.  I cut out a snowflake shape from a big cardboard box.  I spray painted my cardboard snowflake and glued the pine cones down.  And voila!  It was too heavy for the cardboard to support.  My husband, handy guy that he is, said he could cut that pattern out for me with plywood and I could glue my cardboard to it.  So that's what we did!  If you don't have a husband, plywood, or saw, you could easily get the same effect by attaching a few of those paint stirring sticks (free at your local hardware store) together with wood glue.  Which is what I would have done had it not been for the hubs.  We hung it on the door and it lasted a week before the outdoor elements blew the pine cones off.  I guess glue doesn't hold up too well when it is freezing outside, plus there isn't a lot of surface area for the pine cone parts to touch the base.  So, I rubber banded the pine cones on and that seems to be working better.  The rubber bands slide nicely through the sticky-outty parts of the pine cone toward the center, so you can't see them. I also thought about tying them on with small gauge wire for a more lasting effect.  I don't know if the rubber bands will hold up through the summer heat in the attic without getting all crusty and breaking.  I'll let you know next January.

This cost me absolutely nothing.  Pine cones were free.  I already had spraypaint, glue, rubber bands.  Hubby had the hardware & plywood.

Mini Blind + Fabric = Roman Shade

When we moved in to our home, we already had a living room furniture set.  It happens to be the same color as our walls.  Our walls happen to be really really tall, so they will probably always be exactly the color that they are right now.  I have been trying to think of ways to add some pops of color so that our living room furniture & walls don't melt into each other and form a big beige blob.  We have a ton of windows, so I thought I'd add some color to those with roman shades.  Then I saw the prices for custom roman shades and said no-thank-you to that.  Then I thought I could just make them myself.  So here goes nothing...

I purchased mini blinds- yes I PURCHASED those ugly cheap looking vinyl mini blinds for $3-5/each at Home Depot.  I could have gotten a dowel rod and some string and tangled myself up trying to make these from scratch, but I figured using mini blinds as the skeleton would be simpler.  And I've heard of a lot of other DIY-ers doing this.  After we hung them to make sure they fit (ok, my husband hung them and I supervised) I took them right back down.

Step 1: Once you have your mini blinds, order enough fabric to cover them.  I ordered mine from Fabric.com.  I highly recommend this website, as they have great prices, good customer service and free shipping on orders over $35.  Spread out your fabric and lay your blinds stretched out on top of them.  Cut your fabric around the edges of your blinds.  I left an extra inch and a half around all the edges to hem them. If you don't have a sewing machine, just use iron activated hem adhesive, also available at Fabric.com or whatever craft store is nearby.  I happen to have a sewing machine that I rarely use, so it makes me feel like it wasn't a waste of money when I'm able to hem things.  Because that's about all I can do with it...

Blinds on fabric- photo taken after ladder stings were cut

Hemmed fabric with skeleton blinds on top

Step 2: Cut the ladder strings off the blinds.  These are the flimsier strings on either side and above and below the vinyl blind parts.  Don't cut the thick center cord that actually raises the blinds up and down.  If you do accidentally cut it, no big deal.  Just knot it back together.  Once you have all your ladder strings cut, slide off all the vinyl pieces, except the few you use as your shade-fold pieces.

adjusting pull cord length at bottom piece of blinds

Step 3: Figure out how many times you want your shade to fold and how big you want your folds to be.  My windows were 70 inches long, so I made my shades to have 7 folds 10 inches apart.  I saved 7 of the vinyl pieces and left them on.  You can really do any number you want and space them out however you like.  If you're not sure, leave more vinyl pieces on than you need.  They are really easy to cut off if you don't need them.  Not so easy to put another one on if you decide later you want another fold or 2.  If you need to shorten your blinds, this is easily done by taking the plug out of the very bottom part of the shade, adjusting the pull cord to the correct length, and replacing the plug.  I made hash marks with a ball point pen on the left and right side of my fabric (pretty side down, dull side up) exactly 10 inches apart to show me where to glue the vinyl pieces to make my folds.

Gluing!

Step 4: Line up your vinyl pieces with your hash marks and glue them on with fabric glue.  Make sure you're gluing the dull side. Mine were not perfectly straight, but close enough.  There's a little room for fluff since this part is going to fold anyway, and when it "accordions" you won't be able to see each individual fold & all its imperfections.  Try not to get glue on the pull strings.

Yep, that's a bag of sugar, flower, and various canned goods.

 I enlisted the help of some kitchen items to weigh down the vinyl to the glue.  I glued the convex side to the fabric and left the concave part facing up so there would be more surface area for my glue to stick to.   I left it to dry several hours.  Ok 2 hours.  I couldn't wait to see how they turned out.

Tada!  Finished project!  Grand total cost: $16 on mini blinds, $5 fabric glue, $20/yard fabric... comes to about $35/window.  If you found less expensive fabric, you could do this for WAY less.  But I loved the color and the pattern and knew when I saw it that it was "the one."  I think it is worth it, try ordering custom shades for less than that!  I do need to put a liner on this, because it is on my patio door any you can see the ugly vinyl pieces from outside.  To do this, you'd just have to cut & hem the liner & glue it on the same way. 

Oscar & Anna love the new shades!

shades down

shades up

Kissing Balls

I'd like to preface this post by saying I did NOT name these things.  Had I they would be called something completely different.  Anyhing would sound better than "kissing balls"...  Anyway, I saw these pretty little shiny fancy decoration thingies at Crate and Barrel in a much smaller version.  I decided I wanted bigger ones to hang on my windows, but couldn't find them anywhere, so I had to make them! I collected the pine cones from my mother-in-law's yard.  Any time you do anything with pine cones, you should bake them first to make sure you don't have bugs in your project!  About 20 minutes at 250 degrees should get rid of the critters.   After they were baked, I spray painted the pine cones burgundy and gold, thew some glitter on them and stuck them to my ball.  I bought 4 inch spheres of florist foam & cut them in half so they would sit flat on my window glass.  Of course, if you were hanging these from the ceiling or somewhere it would be seen from all sides, you would not need to cut it.  All I did was take a big kitchen knife and slice down the center.  I also spray painted the foam so the green wouldn't show through the gaps between the ornaments and pine cones.
.
I bought some small (1 & 2 inch) round Christmas ornaments at (where else) Dollar Tree.  I wanted a monochromatic color scheme, but you could mix in any colors.  And if you can't find the colors you want... 2 words: spray paint.  I spray paint everything.

Get your hot glue gun and start sticking your stuff to your foam! I started at the top center and made my way down on all sides.  When I was done, I fixed the ribbon to the foam with floral pins.  I can't tie a pretty bow to save my life, so that is probably what I spent the most time on.  Completed project- 8 inches diameter.  Cost: $4.  FYI, the 3 inch ones at C&B were $8.  Our doggy, Anna, wanted to say, "Hi!" so she walked into the picture.

Here is the red kissing ball, hung from a doorknob.  The lighting was too bright in front of the window, so those photos didn't turn out too well. Not that any of these photos are superb, coming from my iPhone camera and all...  Maybe when I'm done with all my DIY stuff, I'll work on photography skills :)

Faux (but you wouldn't know) Flowers

I have been wanting to make some fabric flowers for a scarf, but at the moment I'm working on a wreath for Valentine's Day.  Wreath post to come later.  For now, here's how to make the flowers.  Cut out several different size circles of "silky" fabric.  It tends to burn & melt very easily.  I'm not sure if other fabric types will work. And clearly my circles are not exactly circular, but I thought it made my flowers look more "real."

Hold your fabric about an inch above the flame of a lit candle and rotate it.  As it gets hot, it will curl up toward your hand.  Be careful not to burn your fingers.  If your flower catches on fire (mine did several times), just blow it out.  You can remove the burned part if you want, but I left the burn on mine because I thought it looked a little more authentic.  The edges of real flowers tend to brown after a few days...  In the background are my ugly mini blinds that will soon be converted into a roman shade.  I'll post that, too.  Later.  Also, apologies for the bad lighting in the photos.  It was getting dark and I was pretending it was 1872 and I had to work by candlelight.  Or maybe I was just too lazy to turn on a light.

When you've melted the edges of all your circles, stack them on top of each other and secure them with a few stitches.  You can add beads to the center for extra embellishment.  You could also glue these together. And now they are ready for whatever you want to use them for!