Repurposed Old Window ~ Turned ~ Necklace Hanger

Thank you, Pinterest! I've seen several versions of this on Pinterest which inspired me to do my own. All of my jewelry has a nice home... except my necklaces. They have a drawer. Necklaces don't belong in a drawer. When you can actually find one to wear, it's so tangled with others that you end up going necklace-less.

My husband and I got permission to grab some old wood and stuff from a property that has an old house, barn, milk barn, and shed on it. They are all falling down. The house basically has no floor anymore, and it is dangerous to go in. We did, however, find some broken windows sitting on what is left of the floor. I grabbed them and took them home.

This is what the window looked like when I got it home:

Gross, right? It had nests all over it, chipped paint, one in tact window, one broken window, and one completely missing window, springs sticking out the sides, and filth galore. I strapped on the face mask and gloves, cleaned it up, scrubbed it down, sanded the loose paint, and took out the glass.

Then I painted it brown, nailed a bunch of nails an inch apart from each other, put a couple of picture hangers on the back, hung it on my wall, and draped my necklaces from it.

And there you have it! I spent absolutely no money on this necklace hanger! I used paint I had in my arsenal, nails I found in my old toolbox from about 5 or 6 years ago, and picture hangers I had in the same toolbox.

Barn Wood Buffet

My husband and I have been inspired by Pinterest. We see projects made from trash, and our imagination runs wild. I have always been a trash-to-treasure kind of person, but I never got into big things. All of mine were small hand crafts. Now that I got my husband (the one of us who owns a gazillion tools) hooked on Pinterest, we've been brainstorming together. We're trying to get our rustic-style house fixed up to put on the market so we can move closer to his son's school, and we've been doing many odd jobs ourselves. If you don't have a neatly laid out furniture arrangement, though, the house is just not going to show as good. So... we decided to take that matter into our own hands, too. Since we can't afford to go out and buy all new furniture, we're making it. We located a barn that was falling down. We searched until we figured out who owned it, contacted the owners, and got permission to take some of the wood.

We got the wood (and one sheet of rusted tin) to our house and stared at it for a long time trying to figure out what to make.

We came up with the idea, my husband drew it out and figured the measurements, and we began building.

Clearly, he's so good to patiently teach me what to do, and he not only allows but encourages me to use his tools.

We used new wood to supplement the old barn wood. We wanted the inside to be solid and sturdy with the new wood, and we wanted to save the old wood for the part that would be seen.

After getting the face and frame built, we cut old boards for the sides.

We took it down off the sawhorses to put the top on it. The boards we used for the top had other boards nailed into it that we had to remove so it would fit. We wanted to keep the look of the old rusty nails, though, so we cut each of them off on the other side.

We used a pocket jig to attach the frame of the doors together. Before attaching the boards, though, we used a router to cut a slot to hold the tin.

I used tin snips to cut out the tin, brushed it down with a wire brush, and sealed in the rust with spray polyurethane. Tim then attached the doors to the unit.

Drawers and I don't get along, so he built all the drawers and installed them.

I cut the tin for them, routed the area of the tin, attached the tin to the drawer fronts, and installed the pulls that I got 50% off at Hobby Lobby. He then put the fronts on the drawers.

And.... Voila!

We got it moved inside and put a few items on it. You can see some of the fresh cut edges. We'll have to weather them to make them match the rest of the wood, but we were so eager to get it inside that we decided we could do that once it was in.

You may recognize those shelves above it from a previous post. We placed it in our breakfast/dining area under those shelves, added a shelf inside each side of cabinet of the buffet, and filled it with all our small appliances that were cluttering up the kitchen. It's amazing what a difference it makes in our kitchen/dining area. 

All toll, we spend about $35-$40 dollars on this piece. It could easily sell for $800 or more. It took a lot of time to build, but we definitely had quite a bonding experience through it. We will without a doubt be building more barn wood furniture together!

Stay tuned for our new/old barn door dining table that we are in the process of building.....

Valentine's Day: Decorative Jar

Today's Valentine's Day craft is a simple one that I did last year for my stepson's school Valentine's Day party. One other mom and I were the party planners for all the class parties, so we had a blast coming up with decorations and crafts. We had heart shaped suckers for all the kids. They were going to be used for a craft (that I will post later) toward the end of the party. I thought it would be cute to use them as decorations until they were needed for the craft. I took one of my spaghetti jars from my stash, added some cute Valentine's scrapbook paper, edged it with ribbon, and placed the suckers inside. I wish I would've gotten a better picture that day, but this is the best I have. You get the idea, though.

Valentine's Day: Wreath

For the last full week of January, it's time to move on to some Valentine's Day crafts. I've had my Valentine's decorations up since I took down my Christmas ones. If you don't have them yet, though, now is the time to get going.

My first Valentine craft is a wreath. I did this with a wire heart shaped wreath base. I added the layer of red ribbon first, using flower ties at each loop. Once I got that completed all the way around I did the black layer. Next was the zebra ribbon. I used wire ribbon so it would be easier to shape the way I wanted. Again, I used flower ties all the way around. I bought the "LOVE" as pre-cut unfinished wood at Hobby Lobby. I painted the red and black, but it looked too plain for me. So I added the extra designs to it. The picture in the "O" is one of our engagement pictures from a few years ago. I thought it was pretty fitting. I debated on how to attach the LOVE sign to the wreath, but I finally ended up using black jewelry wire. Finally, I added the ribbon to hang it from above.

Organizing: Kitchen Storage Boxes

This is another project that I did using unfinished craft wood from Hobby Lobby, but if I did it again I would have my husband make the boxes. These were quick and easy creations, but they far beat the cardboard boxes that each of these items are packaged in at the store. I painted them to match my accent colors, added a little ribbon, and cut three layers of letters out of cardstock with my Cricut. Stacking three layers on top of each other gave them a more 3-D look.

Organizing / Home Decor: Hanging Box Shelves

The next project for my husband was a set of shelves that I saw in a book and wanted. I love a contemporary look, but our house is rustic. So we thought these shelves would be a good mix. I failed to take pics of this project along the way like I did with the laundry room cabinets. Lesson learned. But at least you can see the final. I'm still working on getting them decorated.

He used 3/4 inch birch plywood for these shelves. One 4' x 8' sheet did the entire thing. He used 1/4 inch plywood for the backs of each box. He ironed edge banding onto all the edges to give them a more completed look. Then he stained them and applied polyurethane. I wish I had pictures of how he hung them, because he had to really engineer it up. Those suckers are heavy! They are hung in three separate sections.

Organizing: Laundry Room Cabinets

One of the problems with our house is lack of storage. We are planning to put our house on the market in the spring, so we are trying to create some good storage areas to add to the appeal. Plus, I tend to be a little ocd. Messes stress me out. My husband got some new tools for Christmas, and he couldn't wait to use them. It took several days because the doctors are trying to teach him to pace himself better so he doesn't knock himself down for several days in a row. Otherwise this could probably be done in a day. But I couldn't be more proud of him for how they turned out.

Here was the "Before." I wanted to scream every time I walked in here.

He started with base:

Then he added bracing for support around the middle:

Awww.... Isn't my hubby handsome????

Here is me pretending to do something while wearing my new pink toolbelt that I LOVE!!! 

After getting the middle braces, he added the shelves and the top support: 

Next came the face frame: 

Here it is from a straight-forward angle:

Next he painted the frame:

And finally he added the doors that he built and painted in the garage. (I didn't realize that bottom drawer to the dryer was open when I took this):

The final close-up:

Organizing: Coffee Container Boxes

My craft post yesterday showed the containers I made to store my coffee. Today I'm showing the boxes I made to house my coffee jars. I bought these boxes in the unfinished craft wood section at Hobby Lobby during a week they were on sale, but if I made them again I would just have my husband build them. I painted the inside and trim with the colors I use as my main accent colors in our great room. Then I decoupaged scrapbook paper onto the outside. I'm still working to perfect my decoupage technique as it is an artform, and I do not have enough experience with it. But I did the best I could. Then I took a sponge applicator and dabbed brown paint onto the edges in an attempt to make each side fade into it's edge. I hung them on the wall and placed my coffee jars in them. Bonus... the top one hides our thermostat.

From the side you hardly even notice the thermostat. It used to stick out on that wall like a sore thumb.

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Notice on the decaf jars I flip-flopped the colors. That way we don't mistakingly grab the wrong one and end up staying awake all night. I recently got a new Cricut cartridge that has coffee on it, so I will add a coffee dye cut under the words "decaf coffee" to complete the look.

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Here is a close-up of the sides and edges:

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Organizing: Coffee Containers

Hi, my name is Whitney, and I am a coffee addict.

Yes, it's true. My education is in exercise science and kinesiology, and I have an addiction to coffee. Not just coffee... coffee with cream and sugar. For the most part, we use organic coffee beans that we grind ourselves (although I do like Dunkin Donuts coffee from time to time). I sweeten my coffee with organic evaporated cane juice, and I cream it up with a bit of organic 2% milk from grass fed and finished cows. Better? This particular post is for my craft section of the site, though, so that's enough talk about the nutrition side.

I get tired of the ugly bags of coffee sitting around. If there's one thing I don't like in the kitchen, it's some of the ugly packaging that food comes in (or in the case of organic coffee, the brown bag you put it in when you buy it in bulk at Whole Foods, Fresh Market, or straight from a farmer). There's no point in throwing away (or taking to the recycle bin) jars you got from store bought items. You can always use them for something, and I ALWAYS do. I never, ever get rid of them! These coffee containers came from spaghetti jars. I used scrapbook paper, ribbon, and letter stickers to give my coffee some cute containers worthy of setting out for all to see. Bonus... it keeps your coffee fresh for much longer!

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