Garden Grow: Plant Box

Our first new addition to the backyard! The plant box for the garden. We found a tutorial online (pretty easy, it is just a box after all) chose the paint and put it together. I wanted a bit of a shabby chic thing so I sanded down the painting (first a coat of white, then a coat of blue and then a final coat of spring green) we did and then painted it over with a clear topcoat for protection. 

This is me attempting some moss graffiti but it never worked out, the air is just too dry to keep up with here, especially during the summer. But it was worth a shot!

It's got tomatoes, peppers, brussel sprouts and cucumber in there as seedlings and then I planted the seeds of leek, carrots, basil and broccoli. I have never done this before so I am eager to see how it turns out!

Upcycling Plastic Containers

If you lived with a little old lady who was obsessed with keeping every sour cream/yogurt/margarine container (thus making EVERYTHING in the fridge look like you live on nothing but sour cream/yogurt/margarine) then you would probably start spray painting plastic containers too. 

Lets face it, she isn't going to actually stop keeping these things. And there is no amount of explaining that I can do to convince her that I would rather not because of carthinigens (however the heck you spell it) leaking into food from plastic. She can't stop me from painting the shit though, gosh dang it. (like that? trying to cut back on the swearing. nothing else was satisfying for the word "shit" there though... sorry)

Ok so this paint is pretty awesome, i have washed this containers a few times now and have yet to have a single issue with it. I would say hand wash it though, if you can. Think it's been through the dishwasher a time or two though... i am "releasing my need to control" on that one...  

The high quality lettering you see there is done with a Sharpie. Think I might rename this blog to "janky-white-trash-crafts". Come on, it's not like I have a "crickut" that I am doing schmancy stencils with. I'M POOR. Free handing and camera photos are what you get because it's what I've got. There is no point in pretending that I have the time/patience/money/space to make this look like the frickin pioneer lady.  And that's ok. If I can survive it, so can you! I believe in you!

I am doing this because people ask me "How'd you do that" and I am lazy enough that I don't want to write this three million times. Seriously people. It's efficiency. I email a link, you get an answer to your question, we're all happy little campers. And if other people get a kick out the idea, awesome. I couldn't be happier. But lets not operate under the delusion that I am ever going to be working towards being a paid professional blogger or something.  I've got other things to do. Like spray paint a bunch of plastic....

The Uber Teacup Cake Stand

I am donating this to our library, which does a tea party every year as a community thing :) Isn't it fun?? It was a pain in the you-know-what to make, i can tell you that! So many pieces....and then the glue wouldn't harden! ack! Anyway, it went from this:

Pretty fun! And with appliances spray paint you don't have to worry so much about how washable it is or food safety. win. I saw something like it on pinterest, they said it was an anthro thing (here's the link) and I am sure anthro is way better but this was fun to attempt at any rate :)

Linked to www.thethriftyhome.com

The Haunted MANsion

Yeah....I gave the party a Logo...

The bachelor pad that the husband used to live in still houses some of our dearest friends, so when one of them decided he wanted to host a Halloween party (and i spilled out ideas like a broken atm machine spills twentys) he asked me for some pointers. And so it began my first holiday brain child. 

Lucky for him I had used black and white in my wedding colors so I had a good supply of basics to help out, but there were still a lot of details to create. And that took about....I think the total is maybe $60 now... and a couple of visits to the dollar store and the goodwill outlet. If you want the ultimate cheapest junk, you have got to find you one of those, they just kind of eyeball it and offer you a price, it's incredibly fabulous if you plan to basically destroy said item anyway for some new creative purpose. But a good thrift store will do as well. 

One of my black table clothes gets a spooky make-over

We foraged the bins and found a variety of masks, material scraps and mangled pieces of costumes to use. I also snagged some hefty candlesticks and different sized frames to be painted. The dollar store was also productive, if you frequent that place you'll probably recognize some of the items. 

As a warning, i was doing this for a guy so there's not a lot of "cuteness" factor, which is really more my thing, I don't like scary movies and all that actually. However, he is more into that so I tried my best to do it :) Not gonna lie, I started to give myself some bad dreams.....and when you see this stuff you won't even know why, its not that bad but I have THAT kind of imagination, go figure. 

As you can see, I removed the glass from the frames we found (goodwill outlet) and painted the cardboard backing with some fake blood (crafts store). Then I took the plastic hand (dollar store) and stuck it on to that. I did a similar effect for the fake heart (dollar store) and the alien mask above (goodwill outlet). Its kind of like a body parts gallery....? *SHUDDER* but the guys loved it! So macabre ftw.   

 

A collage of artwork for a big blank wall

Also, you simply cannot go wrong with a whole lot of black tulle and spider webs. Those are you background basics. Cut the tulle up to get a worn look, whether its a stand alone or a layered material. I coupled the tulle with a the garlands of skulls (dollar store) to hang on the chandelier for a good first impression when people come in the door. 

Tiered Cake Stand

So here is my first post about a craft, oh so awesome, but not exactly an original idea. My wedding was almost entirely DIY (it was a little hectic) but I had a lot of fun with it and those who do DIY projects themselves were the most appreciative of the more awesome results. One that got the most attention was the multi-tiered cake stand, which is actually a twist on this sweet idea from Design*Sponge. The basic summary is this: take a vase, take a plate, take some proper glue and put them together! Design*Sponge explains more so check that out for more.

So Step One: Check out instructions at Design*Sponge

Step Two: Go Higher
 I decided to get adventurous and make more than one tier because I had limited table space and lots of food to put out. The tricky part that i didn't really want to deal with was making the colors match. SO instead of looking for pieces that match in color, i just looked for unique shapes that fit the need. When I got home, I played around with them like puzzle pieces till they went together in a way that functioned and looked good.

Step Three: Painting
Before gluing anything, I painted all the pieces and let them dry for a few days. (Nice view, yeah? Its not mine, it's my friends)

Nice view, yeah? Its not mine, it's my friends

Step Four: Glue
I used Epoxy glue and took my time, gluing plate to vase as instructed. Once those pieces were dry i glued them to another set to make the multiple tier. I did not think ahead and take a picture. It was helpful to have a second person to stabilize as the glue dried but not necessary.  The trickiest part is making sure they lined up properly. I was going to just eye ball it but that is tricky so we measured and drew intersecting lines with a pencil on the lower part of the plate to determine the middle.

Step Five: Countertop Paint
Now if you were wondering about food safety back in Step Two here is were I address your fears. There are couple of different options. First, you can use doilies or only put lined food, like cupcakes, on the stand.  Second, you could coat the paint with a food safe sealer like these guys would do for painting a countertop. Third, you could buy countertop paint from the hardware store, like I did. It was fate that brought us together since i just kind of found it one day while hopping at Home Depot. Yay! It would serve my purpose (you can't use doilies under wet fruit, you just can't). I left it white, which wasn't ideal but i was doing so many colors it would have been more expensive to buy and color multiple cans of the stuff. And white was one of my colors so it worked out :) Here is the end result:

TA DA!!

Since the white really stood out, i tried to incorporate some design to blend it a little, like the stripes, dots etc.

 I did do one other that I got away with not painting because it was all from milk glass items:

So there you have it, those five tiers probably cost me....$30? They were a blast to make too! I got all kind of messy :) go try it out!

Oh! and i came across this awesome stand too whilst browsing and while I wasn't going rustic, I thought this was just beautiful