Crafty May Days

Rearranging objects in our home is one of my favorite past-times. In the last 3 days Telia and I have given our home decor a proverbial swirlie:

Mix Up #1 - We needed a picture frame stand to display a framed photograph of Aeden on our shelf... ...so we fashioned this sweet stand from 2 coat hangers from our front closet. A pair of wire cutting needle nose pliers coupled with a little wire and determination and "wahLLAH!": A PICTURE FRAME STAND.


















Mix Up #2 - We recently purchased a pathos (read as unkillable houseplant) for a $1.75, but needed a sweet pot to display it. I searched high and low only to find out our most suitable small white pot was being used by Telia to house our pens, pencils, scissors, phone rechargers, keys, pacifiers, receipts, etc. on our kitchen counter. Like a black hole transporting our clutter to another dimension. Not wanting to disrupt her precarious physics experiment I settled for a small clear glass vase Telia had found by our dumpster a few months ago. Problem: vase is clear and doesn't match our shelf. Solution: find left over spray paint and coat inside of the vase. It makes it look like a ceramic with a really thick clear glaze, sort of like a reverse glass painting. I am proud of the finished product.
































Mix Up #3 - I'm going to be honest. I really, really wanted to buy white frames with mats to display Telia's photography and Aeden's portraits, but funds are tight. Sometimes that is what drives me to DIY. So, after digging around in boxes I wrangled up the picture frames you see below. Originally, they were all black or brown. So I painted them with some old high gloss white the previous home owner left in the garage. Then I arranged them into a montage as pleasing to my eyes as I could make. Now we just need to take out some of those old wedding pics...




















Mix Up #4 - While in Bethel I picked up this sweet poster (International Migratory Bird Day 2009), but came home to find that I didn't have a frame to house it. Some of you who have been to our house may have already seen this, but I love to use brown paper grocery bags to make poor man picture mats. Since the poster is dark brown, and the wall is blue I figured it would work especially well in this case.


















Mix Up #5 - Telia's annual bucket garden!!! The farmers market is bustling again where we love to buy new plant starts for a dollar. Yesterday we bought a few beefsteak tomatoes, grape tomatoes, green peppers, basil, oregano and chives. Potting soil is $2 for each 40lb bag. Pickle buckets were free from Zingerman's Deli. I used a 1/4" drill bit to make about 30 holes in the bottom of each bucket for proper drainage. If you choose to make a bucket garden from pickle buckets, be sure to wash them out thoroughly. The smell CAN linger.

In addition to these mash ups we've made an awesome strawberry-rhubarb basket weave pie, returned our old expensive rug with a stylish jute rug for half the price and hung the mirror by the back door.