Hang Stuff Up
I am just covered up with jewelry I love. I have filtered through and gotten rid of some, but the rest is mine, and I’m not sharing. One of the downfalls of jewelry is that we rarely get to see our own; when you’re wearing it, everyone sees it but you, and the rest of the time it’s in a jewelry box, purposely tangling itself up with all your other jewelry. Well, no more! I decided to make a necklace holder, not for charms since I already have one, but for necklaces and bracelets.
I went to Home Depot and bought a pretty piece of wood that was 6 feet long, 2 inches wide, and a half inch thick. It was about $3. I measured it into 1.5 foot segments. I also bought nails, which apprently only come in boxes of 18,000 nails. Fortunately, they were about $3 also, although it was slightly embarrassing asking if Home Depot had any “prettier” nails.
Fortunately, we have a saw, and I have Hubby who protects me from my own clumsiness. Now I have 4 short boards, and all my fingers! Hooray! I marked where I wanted holes drilled in the corners to hang these up:
You can see again, my sweet Hubby does quality work. I was literally headed outside to do this myself when he saw me with the power drill. He gave me his “disapproving look”, and said “Where are you going with that?” I said “Outside. I just need to drill holes in the corners”. He sighed and took it from me, and said something about accidentally drilling through my own hand, and how he didn’t have time to drive me to the hospital today, and then he did it in about 4 minutes.
So you can see I tried to do it myself; he just has more first-hand experience with my clumsiness than anyone else on the planet, other than me, and he prefers to prevent trouble before it starts. My brain seems to be in denial about the constant injuries I inflict on myself. And Hubby. And the pets, sometimes. And friends standing nearby.
I used a measuring tape to space my nails out evenly.
I space mine 1.5 inches apart. When measuring this out, take into account what you’ll be hanging on this rack. For necklaces, fairly close together is fine. For belts or purses, not only should you get longer nails, spacing them further apart makes them easier to use.
Look! I hammered a nail in! By myself! Because Hubby wasn’t home to protect me from myself. Let’s all pretend I didn’t smash a two fingers, then swear like a sailor. Let’s also pretend I hammered that nail in securely, and it didn’t fall out when I hammered the next one in, and this did NOT happen repeatedly, like a freaking cartoon.
Finally! Success! Although it took awhile to find an angle for the picture that wouldn’t show how horrifically crooked my nails are. They appear to be doing the wave.
I spray painted it glossy black to go with the frame it will be hanging next to. There are lots of design options, though, to make it match your style and tastes.
You could glue beer tops to the end of each nail!
You could use tops from your favorite brand! Here I have several varieties of Shiner Bock. You could use all the same kind, or use only tops of similar colors, or whatever you like.
I don’t know about you, but I have buttons and pins galore at my place. You could glue some of those bad boys on there, or use ticky tac if you don’t want them on there permanently.
Here’s an idea of what this would look like with beer tops. You can see that they make the space between the nails rather small. If you were making this to hold ties, belts, scarves, or purses, you should probably space the nails out some.
Here it is, in all its sparkly glory! You can see I very cleverly hung bracelets on the left, so I still have access to the outlet.
Variations:
For kind of a country, quaint look, you could either leave the wood as is, or paint it white and sandpaper the edges a bit. You could glue buttons to the ends of the nails to “class it up”.
This one I completed as a necklace holder. I plan to make the others into a tie/belt holder for Hubby, a key/leash rack for the front door, and a scarf holder for the hall closet. For all of those I will space the nails out further than I did on this one. I definitely won’t decorate the nails on the key rack, since that will make it hard to get the keys on and off.
When you are making something like this for yourself, think about what your needs are, and plan accordingly. If you’re going to take the time to make something for yourself, you may as well make sure you’ll want to keep it. Don’t make something a specific way because you think you should, or because that’s what you’ve seen before. You can just get a piece of junk at Wal-mart if that’s your goal. Make something that will meet your needs, be nice to look at, and that you’ll be proud to show off to people.
Survive the Heat
One of my friends on Facebook, Katherine Fan, who took these magnificent pictures of Hubby and me, posted a quandry that made me think. In her home, her bedroom catches all the afternoon heat, and ends up sweltering. If she was to turn the thermostat down to make her room bearable, it would freeze out the other occupants of the house, and cost a ton.
Mine and Hubby’s bedroom has a similar issue, so of course, being the helpful person I always am, I offered her a couple of solutions. These can work for that one room in the house or apartment that never seems to cool off, or, like Hubby and I experienced, if the AC dies and you have to wait for a repairman until the next day.
Fans are always great for cooling you off. We have a ceiling fan, but an additional box fan can be really useful in especially hot areas. You can amp up your box fan by placing something cold, like a jug of frozen water, in front of it. Rinse out a used coke bottle or milk jug, fill it with water, and put it in the freezer. Place it on a plate (to catch condensation) in front of the fan, and let the cool air blow over you.
If you are horrifically hot and desperate, like the night Hubby and I spent waiting for the repairman, you can keep an ice pack on your head or neck. It can make a big difference, especially when it’s over 100 degrees outside, consistently, and with no end in sight.
Curtains can make a HUGE difference. We have these really gorgeous red silk sheets my Dad got somewhere, and I wanted to use them as curtains. Silk and sunlight don’t mix well, however, and they wouldn’t block much light. I hung up one full-size white sheet, folded in half, over each window. The white fabric reflects a ton of heat and light, and will protect the silk. Just hanging these up alone made a huge difference in the temperature of the room.
I have been crafty since time began (in the 80’s), and I converted these shirts to curtains somewhere around six years ago. Instead of using this method with the curtain clips, I sewed loops of ribbon to one end of each sheet. I measured out the loops ahead of time to make sure they were all equal, and spaced them about 4 inches apart. This shows how I sewed it along the back:
And you can see on the front there is only a small hint of the sewing I did. These bad boys have been hanging up for 6 years with no problems, and they still look great.
Here’s the finished product!
I even put up a curtain-hold-back-thing. I put it up high so I can put the curtains out of the way without rearranging the top of the curtains. I hate having to spread it back out and make sure it’s all even and everything.
My sis, Beans, had these tie backs laying around and didn’t want them. They totally match our decor!
The whole project took me maybe 30 minutes, and cost me ZERO dollars. I got a new look and a cooler room with little effort and for free! You know I love it!
Frame Revamp
I have tons of things I would love to frame and hang up around the house, but not enough frames or wall space. When I was cleaning, I found not only an awesome picture that will go great in my kitchen, but a frame it would fit in! The frame was beat up, and the wrong color, so I decided to remedy that. You will need:
plus a paint brush and a sheet of white paper big enough to fill the frame. I dusted the frame first; it had been in storage awhile, and I wanted the paint to adhere properly. I took everything out of it, including the glass, which I was washed, and put aside to dry. I glopped the black paint directly onto the frame, and started painting.
Here you can see the difference between the before and after colors. It’s important to use long, smooth brush strokes so it looks professional. You want it to keep that satiny finish so no one notices you painted it yourself. Since the image I want to use is too small for the frame, I need a sheet of plain white paper to go behind it. I used the frame backing to measure where to trim the paper. By putting it in one corner, I only have to cut two sides of the paper. If I had set the cardboard down in the middle, I would have to trim all the way around, which also increases the chances of making a mistake.
I reassembled my frame with my new artwork (which came from a magazine), and it’s now hanging gloriously in my kitchen. I love how it turned out! Keep your eye out for nice frames at thrift stores, no matter what color they are, and you can fix them up however you like. Spray painting the frame would have been an option as well, but it is just so hatefully hot outside, I opted for a project I could complete sitting inside with a cool beverage.
More Thrift Store Treasures
I admit, I like weird things. For instance, when I saw this neon yellow, blue and pink T-Rex at the thrift store, I had to have it.
As well as a bunch of his friends. They also needed a place of honor in my home, where you couldn’t fail to marvel at them.
So now they are on a little black shelf (also from a thrift store) above the TV. I think the lighting from the lamp next to them makes them look truly terrifying. If I could have a human-sized version of this T-Rex in my living room I would be ecstatic. I am completely enamored of my new collection, and I can’t wait to add to it!
I need more skulls in my wardrobe
These shoes were blank, and I decided I would not let that stand. Skulls? Hell yes. You need shoes with a large enough blank area to paint on, shirt paints, and a paint brush. If your shirt paints are older, like mine, you may need a safety pin and paper towels to clean out the nozzle.
I drew the outline on with the shirt paint first, and then filled it in with the paint brush. I did this on both shoes, let it dry completely, and then did another layer.
I made the skulls fairly small, and ended up using my safety pin to draw on the details.
I drew the bones and bow on with the actual tubes of shirt paint.
I think they came out really cute! One thing to be careful of: if you have to open one of the tubes of paint make sure there is nothing anywhere around you that you care about. In fact, put on a poncho and go outside. I opened one, and there was a casualty:
My cell phone is in the line of fire. I just let it dry and peeled it off, but it was about a foot away when I opened the paint. That shows you how large the radius of devastation can be. I’m also lucky I had newspaper down, because a ton of black paint jumped out. The phone just got grazed. But such are the risks of being crafty!
Thrift Store Treasure
The other day when my sis Beans was in town, we went thrifting. I don’t mean stop-in-at-a-goodwill thrifting, I mean hardcore, forget-to-eat-all-day thrifting. We stumbled across this plastic candle holder that I instantly loved. I was painted a spatter blue, which was okay, but not ideal. It was also starting to chip. I got Hubby to spray paint it with white primer for me, but I forgot to take a “before” picture. Once I whined and moaned enough to get him to do it for me, I didn’t want to interrupt him for the pic.
So this is after the white primer is on there. I’m hoping that will allow my glorious paint to stick much better than the previous. I actually washed it before he painted it also. I had some gorgeous blue paint around from when we redid our coffee table and a small shelf, so I decided to use that. I know it will match, plus having small amounts of the same color around the room makes it look like I actually PLANNED the design. Try not to laugh too hard, it’s possible. I could plan stuff.
I did one coat of paint, let dry completely, and then did another coat of paint. I let it dry overnight, then had Hubby spray it with a clear coat:
You probably can’t read it there, but the important part to me is that it says “Non-Yellowing”. Many of the other products I’ve found say on the label that they cause things to yellow, and I hate that. I went through all the work of painting this a specific color, not a slightly yellower shade. So Hubby did one coat, then let it dry overnight, then I braved the can and did a second coat today, and let it dry completely.
Now it’s hung up with another thrift store find:
I’m calling her Death Nun. I was so excited when I found her, I snatched her off the shelf and looked around to make sure I wasn’t going to have to fight for her. I know she looks like just regular Death, but when you see the back it looks much more like a nun’s habit, or whatever Virgin Mary is always wearing. Plus Death Nun sounds cooler.
You can see a tiny bit of the ticky tac I used to secure her on there. Meh, I’ll get Hubby to fix it when he gets home. I just love the shapes of the candle holder, and I think Death Nun has a lot more visual impact than a boring candle would have. Oh yeah, and Death Nun was a dollar. The candle holder probably about the same (it was from the $1.39 per pound thrift store).
I LOVE THIS THING!!
Halloween!
I am a HUGE fan of Halloween. Hubby and I have been planning our costumes all year. I’m starting to decorate, and of course, I love home-made and cheap stuff. So here we go with a Halloween themed project!
I already have a framed antique picture from the 1800’s that’s pretty creepy looking, so I decided to make more decorations in that vein. I have a faux antique frame, a mat from another frame, and an old creepy picture from a magazine.
I measured the mat to the frame, traced and trimmed it. I centered it to trim it, in case I want to use it for a future project. I also tried to fit it into the frame before painting it, and ended up having to trim it again so it would fit.
I painted the mat black with regular acrylic paint. I let it dry thoroughly. I then put the magazine picture into the frame, then pinned it in with the mat and the backing of the frame.
Creepy, right?? I had to move it, because Hubby was at work, it got dark, and it was sitting on the couch staring at me. It will be somewhere prominent for Halloween!
My Attempts at Cleverness 