Vintage Book Letters

Hey All! Is everyone gearing up for Christmas? We are but aren't. I'm so ready for the holiday but I still have shopping to do! Ack!!

In the meantime instead of getting things done around the house... I've been trying to get some items into the shop for last minute Christmas shoppers. You have most likely seen these before:

Similar ones were sold at Anthropologie and other specialty stores this season. They are super cool but were super expensive (to me at least). I knew it was a project I could tackle myself. 

Deep In The Heart of Texas

You probably know by now that I hail from Louisiana, I went to LSU, and love all things Cajun. But you may not know that I did a lot of growing up in Houston, TX. And you probably don't know that my youngest sister lived most of her life in Houston and even though she now goes to LSU herself her heart belongs to Texas. So when she asked me to make her some Texas wall art I wasn't surprised. A little heart broken but not surprised.

She wanted something rustic, with colors that matched her room, and was in the shape of Texas. Soooo....

DIY Mod Plant Stand from a Stool!

Hey Friends! I'm here with my first official project of 2013. Whoo!

If you read up on Monday you may remember this guy I picked up at a local furniture auction:

A sad little stool that was likely headed for the burn pile before I bid $5 on it and took it home. I have actually been looking for a little stool for a while. My plans were to cut it up so I'm glad I got this one for cheap.

Cutting Up- DIY Style

Did everyone have a fantastic weekend? We had some rain and hail here in OK but luckily it didn't last long and we were able to get outside and enjoy the Fall weather. And my LSU Tigers won so it was good times all around.

I was also able to get some rare wood shop time in. If you remember I posted a few weeks ago about scoring some scrap wood from the shop. 

Scrap-Tastic!

This past weekend I finally made it back to the wood shop after a several week absence. It's been tough getting over there with a new baby and their new limited hours. But this weekend the Hubs volunteered his time and I took advantage.

I mainly went to continue work on our dining table. It's been slow going but I finally made some visible progress. If you follow me on Twitter you would have seen this picture:

That my friends would be a nails removed, sanded down, glued up panel basketball flooring that will soon be one section of my future dining table! Yay!!

While I was at the wood shop I noticed in the scrap pile some pieces of wood that were of interest to me.

I liked how the wood is already cut down into strips and thought I could glue it up in a similar fashion to my dining table top. My specific idea is to make a cutting board. Similar to this one:

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And while I was digging through the scrap pile I decided that there is no such thing as scrap wood. You can pretty much always use leftover pieces to create something. So here's a little round up of fun scrap wood projects:

Make some fun and unique napkin rings:

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IPhone Holder anyone?

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The ever popular and easy Tea Light Holder:

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And you may need to save up your scraps for a while or score a really big haul for this one but wow- this bed would be cool to make!

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Again can we say "Wow!"? This would be one awesome dining table.

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And this is an interesting application for scrap wood. Here is it used on a desk front but it would be cool on a wall as well!

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So now that your wheels are turning with all the cool stuff you can do with leftover wood let's get scrappin!!

Convex Mirror DIY

Happy Wednesday Everyone!!! Today I have a quick and easy DIY for you. 


I had a pair of small convex mirrors forever. I found them at a thrift shop back in college for $1 each- thinking one day I'd make some sort of frame for them I bought them. But inspiration never came. They sat in my craft box for years.


Then I saw this from Worthing Court Blog. 

So Simple! So Stylish! So Easy! Why didn't I think of this?


I went to Lowe's and found the ceiling medallions I needed. I bought 2 small ones for $7 each instead of the large.

Once I opened my ceiling medallion I realized my mirror was to small for the hole, so I decided to cut a piece of fiber board (Lying around from another project I have yet to start.) using my jig saw and use it as a backing to glue my mirror to. I traced the size of the circle then cut it out a little bit larger than my pen mark so I'd be able to glue it to the back of the medallion.

I didn't mind that it wasn't cut perfectly since I was glueing it to the back of the medallion.

Once it was cut out I glued it on to the back using Gorilla Glue for wood, stone, and metal and let it dry. 

Once that had dried I use a semi gloss white spray paint to paint the whole thing. Though I did learn not to leave my projects lying around or else some one (The Con-Man...) will come by and step right on top of it. Oops... had to do this one all over again!

The final step was gluing my mirrors onto the medallion using the same super glue and done! My mirrors were not the same truck mirrors as in my inspiration project; they had flat backs so there was no prep work to be done. Lucky me!

I hung them in our bedroom. 

I'm glad I finally was able to use these mirrors I've been carting around with me. Do you buy materials for projects and don't always get started on them right away?

Rustic Wood Wall Art - Part 1

The last project I have to complete for Con-Man's new Big-Boy room is some wall art. There is a large wall with nothing on it that is screaming for some personality.

I was stuck for a while but inspiration came from this image from Pottery Barn Kids:

I really like the simplicity of the wood anchor. And I thought it would be a nice tie in with Con-Man's vintage desk. Since his room is "Transportation Theme" I thought a car instead of an anchor would be cool.

To get started I scavenged some pallets from the back of an old warehouse and set out to take it apart.

I used a circular saw to cut my pieces off. I've found that trying to pull the boards out with a crow bar is pretty tough; and since I didn't need the full length of the wood this works well. I've also seen people use a Sawz All to cut through the nails if you did need a full board.

Once I got all my pieces cut off I had to even them out. The circular saw was not very accurate. I took the shortest board and traced it to get the measurement for the rest of them. Then used a jig saw to cut them down.

Since the wood is from old pallets I sanded my boards down some to get rod of any splinters, rough edges and dirt. 

Now that I have all my pieces prepped and ready, my next question is how to decorate them? I'm debating on trying to cut out a race car silhouette like the anchor in my inspiration or try to paint it on the wood like this art work was done:

I'm hesitant about cutting the silhouette because my art work is 3 separate pieces instead of 2; how will I attach all my boards together after I cut out the middle? I'm also worried about painting something and having it not come out looking all that great.

See the final product here!!

What do you think? What would you do?

DIY Salvaged Mirror

Oh Monday- you come to quickly. I can't complain to much thought because we had a very full weekend. A rare miracle happened here in Altus, Ok over the weekend; almost a rare as seeing a unicorn. Wait; those don't exist and having a date night with a The Hubs hardly ever exists either so I guess it's partly true. 


We actually had 2 date nights! Con-Man's M.D.O. group had parents night Friday so we caught a movie. We watched Safe Room (I wanted to see The Vow but the Hubs wasn't interested, but watching Ryan Reynolds was fine too...)

Hello!!!!

And then on Saturday we went to the first Annual Altus Chocolate Festival! This is a big deal for our small town- they've never done anything like this before.

We managed to score free tickets and I devoured way to much chocolate. Definitely hit the gym Sunday and going again today! It was a nice Pre- Valentines treat though.

Anyway- lets get to what you really came here for. Check out this cool circle mirror that I made!

Would you believe me if I told you the frame started out as this:

A rusty steel ring from one of our planters. It had come loose and I thought it looked neat- a nice patina of rusty and worn smooth. I yanked it off and got to work. 

First I had to make it usable. I needed some kind flat hanger that I could attach plywood to my steel ring. I found these, they seemed sturdy enough but had a lip on them, so I used the cutting wheel of Dremel to cut the lip off.

Voila Flat hangers! Sometimes they just don't make what you need at the hardware store so you have to invent your own stuff...

Then the fun part- welding! I welded the hangers onto my steel ring.

The next step was to cut a piece of plywood that would fit inside my ring. I had half a sheet of 3/4" ply lying around so I traced a circle and cut it out with my jig saw.

Like my "workbench"?

I had a little trouble with this part, the ring itself had a slight slant inward and turns out it's not a perfect circle. So I had to finagle my plywood a bit to get it to slide in. But in the end it fit and I screwed it in place.

Thankfully one mirror and glass place here in town said they could cut a circle to fit. I called the one other place and they said they didn't cut mirror or circles- what gives? They adhered it to the plywood for me and my mirror was complete!

I love it because it's unique. It had a modern flare but the rustiness makes it kind of natural and relaxed feeling. And the overall cost wasn't to bad- $40 for the mirror to be cut and glued. The clip/hangers were $4 for all. The ring was free!

Have you ever used a material for something other than it's original purpose? 

Linking Here

Doggie Bookcase How to

 

A few people asked for more information about the Doggie Bookcase I made for Con-Man. I uploaded the templates I drew so you can print them out. Just click on the images to download them:
  
Template 1

Template 2

There are 2 templates to print; one for the front half of the dog and the other is for the back half. They will each print on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. Just cut each end out and tape the two sheets of paper together.


Once you download them and cut them out follow the instructions from the previous post (see link below). Good luck!


Doggie Bookcase