Thursday, February 23, 2012
Footed Candle Holder - St. Patricks Day
So now that I have created these footed candle holders and two are on my island with my holiday apothecary jars, I've decided to include them in the holiday theme changes. For St. Patricks Day, I changed the candles to white and filled the bottom with green sugar.
Dollar store and Bath & Bodyworks footed candle holder
Well recently I bought some candles from Bath & Bodyworks for $1, which included the glass holder and a candle in a plastic holder. It wasn't something I would ever set out, since it is too small and too simple. Of course, they smelled so good and were marked down to be so inexpensive, I couldn't pass them up.
Why not add a glass candlestick to the bottom to make them something nicer to set out. Love the results! This is the one I set out on Valentines. Next year I'm adding candy hearts.
St. Patricks Day Apothecary Jars
Here's my latest holiday update to my apothecary jar set...St. Patrick's Day. I couldn't come up with a three letter word to do, so I used clovers. These are foam clover coasters from Dollar Tree. I doubled them up, then cut out the centers. I continued with the foil confetti inside (green this time obviously, one bag from the Dollar Tree). The ribbon I found for $1 at JoAnns. It has glittery clovers on it so it was a much use : )
My set isn't available at kirklands anymore, but here's a set from amazon that is a good deal and looks very pretty
Sunday, February 12, 2012
My next dollar store apothecary jar
I had another plain covered jar, so I had to create another apothecary jar. I'm thinking this one might need a handle, but it looks much better than it did. I did take off the rubber seal to clean out the lid, since it was foggy or dirty inside. I left it off, too, because I thought it looked better that way. I had the jar but got the glass candlestick from the Dollar Tree again. I'm loving these :)
Monday, February 6, 2012
Turn an open cabinet into a plate rack
I have a strange open cabinet in my kitchen over my built-in microwave. The previous owner had cook books in it, and it looked messy. You can never have enough storage, so I thought what can I display that would look neat but be functional. Well, my enormous dinner plates wouldn't even fit in my other cabinets laying flat, so where better to put them but in here.
If you've ever seen a plate rack its bascially two sticks that help stand them up. I had eight plates, so I needed 14 pieces of dowel (7 across, 2 deep). I moved the adjustable shelf up to the point where the plate would fit standing up, then measured the height to figure out how much doweling I would need. I headed to Home Depot and bought the 3 foot pieces of 1/2" wood dowels, making sure I had enough to make enough pieces. I added 1" to the height I measured to allow for the insertion of the dowel 1/2" into the top and bottom of the opening.
I cut all of my pieces and started measuring for the drill holes. I took the shelf out and measured it from side to side (26-1/2"). Since I had seven 1/2" dowles across, I subtracted the width of all of those (3-1/2") to determine the amount of space between all of the dowels. I then divided by eight to figure out the width between each dowel (for me that number was 3-1/4"). I took that number and added 1/4" (half of the dowel width). That gave me the center point to drill for the first dowel. From that dot I measured 3-3/4" for remaining six points (3-1/4" plus the last half of the previous dowel and the first half of the next dowel). I repeated the dots for the back row. For me I put the rows 5-1/2" from the back and front (the depth is 17"). I know its seems like its getting complicated so here's a diagram.
It's really simple, that's just how my brain worked it out. You may be better at measuring the whole thing, dividing by eight then just winging it (I don't think if they were 1/4" off here or there anyone would notice). Since the shelf was the top, I repeated the marking on the bottom with the same measurements.
Before I started drilling, I placed the shelf, then used one of the cut dowels to make sure my dots where in the right place. I then used a 3/4" wide drill bit to drill about a 1/2" into the wood (you can mark that spot with tape on your drill bit if you want to). I would also recommend only drilling one hole (top and bottom to get the idea of how its going before you do the whole thing). Once you are happy with the first, finish them off. Lastly place all of the dowels.
There may be some that are tight or too tall, just have sandpaper handy to deal with any problems as they arise. I did not glue these. They fit snuggly so they don't move, and they were thin enough that they just "bent" into place (meaning I didn't have to try to lower a shelf onto 14 sticks and try to line them up.
This would also be a neat project in a cabinet with glass doors as well. Hope this helps get you motivated to try it. I love it and we use the plates everyday (as you can see since one is currently not in there : )
If you've ever seen a plate rack its bascially two sticks that help stand them up. I had eight plates, so I needed 14 pieces of dowel (7 across, 2 deep). I moved the adjustable shelf up to the point where the plate would fit standing up, then measured the height to figure out how much doweling I would need. I headed to Home Depot and bought the 3 foot pieces of 1/2" wood dowels, making sure I had enough to make enough pieces. I added 1" to the height I measured to allow for the insertion of the dowel 1/2" into the top and bottom of the opening.
I cut all of my pieces and started measuring for the drill holes. I took the shelf out and measured it from side to side (26-1/2"). Since I had seven 1/2" dowles across, I subtracted the width of all of those (3-1/2") to determine the amount of space between all of the dowels. I then divided by eight to figure out the width between each dowel (for me that number was 3-1/4"). I took that number and added 1/4" (half of the dowel width). That gave me the center point to drill for the first dowel. From that dot I measured 3-3/4" for remaining six points (3-1/4" plus the last half of the previous dowel and the first half of the next dowel). I repeated the dots for the back row. For me I put the rows 5-1/2" from the back and front (the depth is 17"). I know its seems like its getting complicated so here's a diagram.
It's really simple, that's just how my brain worked it out. You may be better at measuring the whole thing, dividing by eight then just winging it (I don't think if they were 1/4" off here or there anyone would notice). Since the shelf was the top, I repeated the marking on the bottom with the same measurements.
Before I started drilling, I placed the shelf, then used one of the cut dowels to make sure my dots where in the right place. I then used a 3/4" wide drill bit to drill about a 1/2" into the wood (you can mark that spot with tape on your drill bit if you want to). I would also recommend only drilling one hole (top and bottom to get the idea of how its going before you do the whole thing). Once you are happy with the first, finish them off. Lastly place all of the dowels.
There may be some that are tight or too tall, just have sandpaper handy to deal with any problems as they arise. I did not glue these. They fit snuggly so they don't move, and they were thin enough that they just "bent" into place (meaning I didn't have to try to lower a shelf onto 14 sticks and try to line them up.
This would also be a neat project in a cabinet with glass doors as well. Hope this helps get you motivated to try it. I love it and we use the plates everyday (as you can see since one is currently not in there : )
Dollar store apothecary jar
OK, here's another pinterest inspiration. Saw a pin from someone that showed a girl at a dollar store making a $2 apothocary jar out of a glass jar with a lid and a glass candle stick. So simple. All you do it hot glue the candle stick to the bottom of the glass jar. Here's the after shot.
I actually had several old glass jars with lids that were just too little and plain to put out anymore, so I stored them away with bath products in them. You can probably find them at the dollar store or thrift stores, too. Here it is, ready to display, filled with shells form a previous vacation.
Can't wait to display it. It's amazing what adding the "foot" does for this plain boring glass container.
Thanks for yet another great idea my Pinterest friends. I'll post the others as I complete them (only bought one to see if I liked it first). Might be cleaning out the glass candlesticks at Dollar Tree today.
AFTER
And here it is before I put the foot on it.
I actually had several old glass jars with lids that were just too little and plain to put out anymore, so I stored them away with bath products in them. You can probably find them at the dollar store or thrift stores, too. Here it is, ready to display, filled with shells form a previous vacation.
Can't wait to display it. It's amazing what adding the "foot" does for this plain boring glass container.
Thanks for yet another great idea my Pinterest friends. I'll post the others as I complete them (only bought one to see if I liked it first). Might be cleaning out the glass candlesticks at Dollar Tree today.
Cute and easy valentines box idea
This is my older daughter's Valentine's Day box for fourth grade that is getting its third use this year by my younger daughter. Super simple.
We took a boot box (we have learned from experience that you need a larger box with a larger hole if you don't want it to get ruined : ) and cut a hole in the top. We were lucky that ours was plain and cutting the hole took off the only lettering on the box. If you have logos and lettering, just decoupage plain paper over them first before you move to the next step.
We decoupaged different colors of tissue paper on it. We had light pink, hot pink, lime green, pink/white zebra, and purple/pink/white striped (all left overs from gifts given to my girls). We used a glue stick to stick it all down (as my daughter had to be the one to do it). She decided to cut the tissue into circles first, but you could do much easier squares or triangles, too.
Next we wanted to add detail, so I used some lime green ribbon from a gift reuse as well and "faux" wrapped the box with it. We still needed to be able to open the box, so we layed it across the box, then taped it just under the outside part of the box. The ribbon is not actually glued to the box so it can be taken off and reused later.
Where the ribbons crossed we wanted a detail, so we added a flower. We had this from one of our flower pen projects (probably picked a bouquet of fake flowers up from the dollar store). It sat up too high on the box, so I made a quick "filler" bow out of some balloon ribbon I have (you know wrap it around your hand like 25 times, tie it in the middle of the circle with a piece of ribbon or a twist tie, then "fluff" it to look like a messy bow). We hot glued that onto the box, then the flower onto that.
For her name, we used a letter we already had in her room for the first letter, then did bottle caps for the rest (printing the colored circles inside for the rest of the letters). You could use all bottle caps or letter stickers on paper instead of printing.
For patch up this year (my older daughter's name is longer and her first letter was larger). I used some pieces of the tissue that had wrapped around the inside of the box during the decoupageing to do repair where the bottle caps and larger first letter had torn the paper underneath when removed. You could just use more tissue if you had it, but I didn't have a color that matched.
Hope the idea inspires : )
We took a boot box (we have learned from experience that you need a larger box with a larger hole if you don't want it to get ruined : ) and cut a hole in the top. We were lucky that ours was plain and cutting the hole took off the only lettering on the box. If you have logos and lettering, just decoupage plain paper over them first before you move to the next step.
We decoupaged different colors of tissue paper on it. We had light pink, hot pink, lime green, pink/white zebra, and purple/pink/white striped (all left overs from gifts given to my girls). We used a glue stick to stick it all down (as my daughter had to be the one to do it). She decided to cut the tissue into circles first, but you could do much easier squares or triangles, too.
Next we wanted to add detail, so I used some lime green ribbon from a gift reuse as well and "faux" wrapped the box with it. We still needed to be able to open the box, so we layed it across the box, then taped it just under the outside part of the box. The ribbon is not actually glued to the box so it can be taken off and reused later.
Where the ribbons crossed we wanted a detail, so we added a flower. We had this from one of our flower pen projects (probably picked a bouquet of fake flowers up from the dollar store). It sat up too high on the box, so I made a quick "filler" bow out of some balloon ribbon I have (you know wrap it around your hand like 25 times, tie it in the middle of the circle with a piece of ribbon or a twist tie, then "fluff" it to look like a messy bow). We hot glued that onto the box, then the flower onto that.
For her name, we used a letter we already had in her room for the first letter, then did bottle caps for the rest (printing the colored circles inside for the rest of the letters). You could use all bottle caps or letter stickers on paper instead of printing.
For patch up this year (my older daughter's name is longer and her first letter was larger). I used some pieces of the tissue that had wrapped around the inside of the box during the decoupageing to do repair where the bottle caps and larger first letter had torn the paper underneath when removed. You could just use more tissue if you had it, but I didn't have a color that matched.
Hope the idea inspires : )
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