Junk Bonanza 2011 - a sneak peek

Hey Twin Citians!  Did you know that the 2011 Junk Bonanza is going on as we speak in Shakopee, Minnesota? I didn't, at least not until yesterday when my mom, who saw news coverage of it, reminded me!  So, we made some last second plans, which were set in stone late last night, to attend this morning.

We came...we saw...we left just in time for my boys' naps.  (Which left us with maybe an hour or a little more of actually looking at stuff, after you subtract the time we spent letting them burn energy on the playground.)  But, I did manage to take lots of photos again this year and made my one purchase, which I'll share with you next week! 

In the meantime, here are a few photos to whet your appetites....

I love that this show not only sells really awesome upcycled items, but it also caters to people like me who are looking for interesting found objects to upcycle myself....

...all over the Junk Bonanza are bins and bins of little objects just begging to be used in some cool project...

...vintage and retro and antique, oh my!

Are 'ya drooling yet?  I always have to limit the amount of cash in my pocket at this because it doesn't last long. Next week I'll post some of the cool recycled and upcycled finds as well as my own personal purchase!  Stay tuned!

What to Do with Doilies?

Woah, it's been a crazy busy summer and fall for my face painting business, so I blame that on my absence from blogging!  However, I recently got addicted to Pinterest and have found some really fun things.  This post is all Pinterest finds!

I bought a few a couple years back from a fund raiser for an animal rescue place...really beautiful hand made doilies for just $1 each.  Being a crocheter, I can really appreciate the work that goes into them. But, people just don't put them around their house much anymore.  So, what to do to bring 'em out of the attic and into the 21st century?  Here are some fun ideas!

Check out this gorgeous doily lamp!

This cute baby mobile uses paper doilies, although you could put some fabric stiffener in real doilies and make a better lasting one.

Another idea for paper doilies, unless you want to dye your real ones...but a fun idea for the fall season!

These luminaries are really pretty, and you can re-use some mason jars at the same time!

I always find these embroidery hoops at thrift stores...here's a great idea to pair them with doilies for some pretty wall art!

I think this table runner is a great way to showcase special doilies that may have been passed down or hand made from your grandparents or great grandparents!

Drop-Side Cribs: Immobilize? Repurpose? Recycle?

I held a garage sale last week, and two days before our sale, it was declared officially illegal to re-sell or even donate a drop-sided crib.  Of course, this being our "done having babies" sale, I had a nice drop-side crib all ready to sell.  It now leans against the side of our garage, awaiting it's fate.  Let's just say I'm glad I only paid $30 for it at a garage sale, so I'm not out much cash.

If you have a drop-sided crib that you'd like to keep using, you can get an immobilizer kit that does just that...immobilizes the sides, making it safe to keep using.  For cribs manufactured from 2000-2009, many manufacturers are offering these kits for free.  If your crib manufacturer is not on the list, you can purchase one online as well for $10.

However, if you're like me and you're done having babies (unless God has other plans), and can't sell your crib or donate it, what do you do with it? 

The first thoughts that came to my mind were to make some kind of giant tomato cage or trellis for vines. My husband's idea was to chop it to bits and roast marshmallows over it in one of our outdoor fire pits. My neighbor suggested I see if a local antique shop would like to use it to display antique dolls in.

I did a little web surfing and came across this great post at "Easy Frugal Living" full of ideas to repurpose old cribs into useful items like benches, photo display boards, and even wall art...

"Vintage No. 35" has a great idea to use the springs as a jewelry display stand:

"Upcycle" also posted many great ideas, including a really cool craft station, a cart, a work bench, and a hutch to name just a few...

You can Google "repurpose crib" and find many other great ideas out there, but these are the first few that caught my eye.  I'd love to hear your ideas if you can think of anything else...we really don't have room for our big, white, drop-side crib in our house but if I can find some cool way to re-use it before my hubby takes his chainsaw to it, it would make a fun tutorial post!!  ;-)

Recycled Planter Roundup!

What's greener than upcycling something? Why, planting something green IN that something, of course!!

It's that time of year when plants are springing up all over the place.  Well, we're lagging behind a bit here in MN after a winter of record breaking snowfall, but that makes us appreciate the greener things in life all the more. 

Since moving into our new home, which is landscaped with beautiful perennials everywhere I look, I have LOVED watching our new yard reveal itself.  I'm also excited to plant some stuff, now that our yard isn't all shade. With so much landscaping already done though, it's hard to find places to plant things. So, I have been inspiring myself with some fun recycled planter ideas online, as a way that I can still plant things elsewhere...on the deck, the patio, along the sidewalk, etc.  Here are a few fun recycled planter ideas that caught my eye! 

Check out this cool recycled barrel planter over at Design Sponge. Makes me wish I had a barrel to recycle!

Here's a cool little urban garden in London, where they've turned old 55 gallon drums and plywood into planters with built in seating.

Even old tires can be turned into pretty cool giant planters.

This recycled chandelier is just WAY too cool.  That's it...I'm putting old chandeliers on my garage sale and thrift store shopping list!!

How about an old book?  This is super cool.  I'm thinking, if you used a book about gardening, all the better.  I wonder if you couldn't stack several of these to make a larger "pot."  This would be such a neat gift for a teacher, or a housewarming gift for a book lover.

And, of course, I have to end with a link back to one of my old posts where I turned a bbq grill into a planter!

Happy [creative] planting! :-)

Recycled Paper Garland: A Great Project for the Kids!

We have this sweet lady across the street who saves fliers and various pieces of scrap paper for my boys to color on.  The other day we were visiting in our cul-de-sac and she ran back in the house to bring me a stack of colorful fliers.  So, since it's raining and we're stuck inside, today I thought we'd utilize this colorful paper and make a project...paper garland!  This is a great project to recycle scrap paper including junk mail!

Supplies needed:

- Paper (colored and/or white)

- Scissors

- String or yarn

- Toothpick or skewer and some tape (or a blunt plastic tapestry needle that's safe for kids)

- Glue

- Crayons, Markers, etc

- Hole punch

- Optional extras: paper edger scissors, paper crimper, paper punch, glitter, stickers, etc...

Our stack of paper from our neighbor.  (It's all blank on one side)

So, basically we made various kinds of beads out of paper to string on our piece of yarn...

 This project is great for short little attention spans because there are many different things to do...color, cut, glue, punch, string, etc.  I started by having Sammy fill the white pages with colors. While he did that I got the string and "needle" ready...

 

I swear I use these bamboo skewers for craft projects more often than for cooking.  I cut one in half and used some masking tape to secure one end of yarn to it, and had a nice "needle" that was easy for kids to use.  On the other end I tied a bread bag tab just to keep the beads from sliding off.

Once I got that ready Sammy had a colorful piece of paper to turn into tube-shaped beads...

 

I cut it into a couple strips.

...then rolled them up the long way and glued it into a long tube.

 

 Hold the tube with the seam against the table for a few seconds for the glue to grab hold and dry a bit.

 

I did this with pieces of the colored paper too. Some of them I let the writing show to add a little graphical interest...others I rolled so the blank side showed.

Now have some fun looking through the tubes or pretending they are walrus tusks or giant straws...

 

 Next we get to play with SCISSORS!  Cut the tubes up into beads!

 ...meanwhile, Toby is having a blast tearing up my kitchen.  This is one of his favorite activities.  But, since he's still at the crayon eating stage, I let him trash the place explore while we do projects. 

 I'm not sure where you even get these things, because I found them at a garage sale, but Sammy had a blast rolling strips of paper through this paper crimping tool.  We then used the crimped paper in some of our other "beads."

Another type of bead we made was just a strip of paper folded back and fourth in a zig-zag...

 ...Then we used a hole punch to go through the whole thing. You can also easily make flat beads by cutting different shapes and punching holes in them.  We did circles, squares, triangles, and of course, fish.

Here are some of our beads. It might be helpful to you to put them in two piles...the 3-dimensional ones and the flat ones. (an opportunity for your child to learn how to sort things)  This will help with threading them, because it works best to alternate flat ones and 3-D ones.  (thus preventing smaller tubes from slipping inside the larger ones) Then you can tell your child to alternate between the two piles.

 A little tip, if you're making fish, you can easily make mouths with a hole punch only half way on the paper. ;-) Depending on your child's level of patience and attention span, they could even decorate/color each fish.  (Milk this sitting-down-being-busy thing for all you can!)

 Now you can really keep your kiddo's fingers busy with threading their beads on the string!  Sammy didn't last for all of that part so Mommy finished it up.  But I figure, hey, if I can get him to sit and work on something creative with me for even a few minutes every day, I'm doing my job!

 Don't be afraid to let your kid's creativity take over and side track from the project.  Their little heads are full of great ideas!! Sammy picked up one of his little "tube" beads and said "We can make it into a tiny little cup!"

 ...to which I replied, "That's a GREAT idea!  I'll make a handle!"  And, we made a tiny little cup.  Well, proportionally it looks more like a pitcher, but he got a kick out of it.

 

 Sipping some pretend water from our teeny tiny little cup!  Sammy had another great idea too.  When we strung a white tube between two flat squares he said, "Momma! It's a paper s'mores! Let's make paper s'mores!"  (And of course, we DID, complete with a paper fire pit to roast over, but I'll save that one for another post!)

So you see, a little side-tracking is great for the imagination! Now, back to the project at hand...

 Concentrating on stringing the beads. I think the long length of the bamboo skewer as opposed to just the end of the string made it easier to feed the string through the beads.

 We got quite a string going!

 Sammy showing off his awesome paper garland!  If you don't have the patience to make a long string, you could also do these as little vertical dangling decorations too, much like the hearts we made on Valentine's day.

 So much fun!  I hung it on the underside of our fireplace mantle, where it currently waits for Daddy to come home to see!

 There are an infinite amount of things you can do with paper. This is one project that ANYONE can do.  Feel free to go nuts on your paper decorating too...glitter them up if you want!  Heck, you can even throw in some cheerio's or dry pasta in there.  Anything with a hole in it goes. Got little girls? Make it into a necklace!

This project can so easily be adapted to go along with any holiday theme!  With Memorial day coming up, try making this with red, white and blue paper and cut some star shapes.  You'll have some one-of-a-kind decorations for your Memorial day bbq and a great conversation piece!  Put some supplies out on a little table if you have kids coming over and they can make their own to take home!

Enjoy those rainy days....Happy paper recycling! :-)