Painted Saw

Painted Saw

Yardsale Lovers Listen up! Here is a project that's perfect for one of the little treasures you can find at a yardsale. My husband loves tools! What man doesn't? For this reason, I have 1 1/2 buildings on my property that are full of tools, all kinds of tools. Yet, when we go yardsaleing he is always ready to buy more.

One thing my husband likes to buy are old hand saws, maybe he likes the history. The problem is that we have too many saws now.

One thing you can do to turn that old saw into something new, is to paint the saw. I don't mean paint it brown, or blue, I mean paint a landscape on it, or paint an abstract painting, paint a self portrait. I opted for the landscape, mainly because I can't draw and trees are really easy to paint. Since saws are medal, you need to make sure it's not rusted and don't forget to prime the blade before you paint.

Now I love the saws as much as he does, and what a great gift!

Let Me Be "Blunt"

Let Me Be "Blunt"

My boss loves to smoke those huge Blunts (he prefers the Grape ones). Every time he opens one of the plastic containers, he looks at me and says "There has to be something you can do with these containers". I took that as a challenge!

In honor of the great amount of snow we have received here in the Mid-West, I came up with this great project.

I call this "Three Happy Snowmen". The snow men were made from the plastic containers that the Blunt Cigars come in, the feet, under the bottom, is the caps off the containers. The hats and scarves are made from scrap material.

The only thing you have to remember is that the containers are plastic, it's very hard to paint plastic. Heres what I did...

I lightly sanded the container, to allow it to accept the paint, then I used primer to coat the whole thing, including the caps. It will take several coats of primer before the whole thing is coated. Paint it any way you like from this point.

If you make one, I would like to see it, please leave a comment with a link to your project.

Pool Shark Etched Mirror

Pool Shark Etched Mirror

If your husband or wife is anything like mine, then you have to contend with a pool playing fenam. What do you get for someone like that? I have the perfect gift idea. Etching glass is really pretty simple. All you need is a great picture and an etching tool. Once you've etched the picture onto your mirror, spray the back with the paint of your choice, then frame it.

This particular frame was made from left over snap-together flooring. Recycling is so easy and can be done with just about anything.

Harley Shelf

Harley Shelf

My brother-In-Law moved home after many-many years of living in Las Vegas. He has a fondness for all things Harley. When he needed a shelf for all his stuff, he came to my husband and I for help. After a long thought process, my husband came up with this shelf. The whole thing was made from recycled wood, and some old paint we had laying around the workshop. All in all the whole project cost maybe $3.00. My Brother-In-Law loves his new Harley addition and we feel like we did something good for the environment.

Reader's Digest Revamp

Reader's Digest Revamp

If you're like the rest of us, you have millions of magazines laying around the house. I have no idea what to do with the old magazines that I buy, but I don't want to throw them away either. I have a great way to use up those old reader's Digest magazines that would make a great gift.

Take the magazine and open it to the middle. Glue the pages together on each side of the book, making sure to roll a couple of the corners up. Once the glue is dry, paint the book gold, and attach a poem or romantic saying. If you put it on a book stand, it looks great and best of all you have done your part in the recycling game.

Bread Dough Clay

Bread Dough "Clay"

Don't throw away that stale bread, turn it into a masterpiece!
If you take a piece of stale white bread, take the crust off i and tear it into small pieces, then add a tablespoon of white glue to it, you can have a pretty great clay of sorts.
When you're mixing the glue into the bread, it looks pretty gooey and sticky, but if you keep mixing, it gets more solid and clay like, at this point you can add a few drops of paint to change the color. You can make just about anything with this clay that you can make with any other clay. Give it a try, if nothing else, you've learned a new craft technique.

You Did WHAT? With that Headboard!

You Did What, With That Headboard?

Don’t throw away that old headboard! Turn it into a shelf. My husband is the type of person who loves to drive the neighborhood looking for treasures. You have no idea what he brings home. Every time citing his favorite saying, “This could come in handy one day”. Unfortunately that day could be years from now. What’s a woman to do? Turn that trash to treasure.

This wonderful shelf used to be a headboard! Every part of the original headboard was used (in fact that is how we determined the size). The only thing we added were dowels for decoration & support, then I painted it. The decoration in the middle was original to the headboard; I just painted it to enhance it.