Starbucks Cups to Earrings? Sure, Why Not?

About a month ago, I received a text from my brother.  It read, "Guess we are going to have some upcycled stuff at our house soon."  My twelve year old niece, Mikayala, was visiting him and wanted to do a project...a surprise project.  So the first place she looked for ideas was MY blog.  This was a proud day indeed!  My first familial convert, another dumpster diver in family.  The project that she picked was my most popular post to date, How to Make a Soup Can Herb Garden:

Not too shabby, eh? She used a power drill and everything to complete her project!  Proud. Day. In. Deed.  So this week, when she suggested that the design on her Starbucks cup would make for a cute pair of heart shaped earrings, I said "OK! Let's do it."  AND, "Let's make a video tutorial while we're at it."

We made quite a few pairs of these earrings in both heart and star shapes and they ranged in difficulty level from, "so easy a 5 year old could do 'em" to "okay, an adult could wear these too."  Here are a couple:

I hope you'll swing by my YouTube channel to see how we made these and show a little love to Mikayla for her YouTube debut!  After all, she did do her nails for you! :)

How To Make a Butterfly Feeder from Thrifted Stuff

My Mother's Day Patio Makeover included lots of fun little feeders for birds and butterflies.  Mom loves Hummingbirds so, of course, I added one of my wine bottle hummingbird feeders to the mix:

And tucked away in the same photo is a small butterfly feeder made from a thrifted salad plate and a glass sundae dish.

If you'd like a closer look at the butterfly feeder or want to know how to make one of your own, you can check out this YouTube video or even jump back to a post I wrote last year on how to make a bird bath.  It's the same concept.  And so is this bird seed feeder.  I simply glued a large ceramic candle holder to a fancy flower pot and viola! we have ourselves a colorful bird (and squirrel) seed feeder.

It really doesn't take much to add some color to your gardens, not to mention functional art.  So head out to the thrift store and then pick up some silicone...and get busy.  Make some for your mom and then make some for you.  Everyone needs a beautiful song in the garden, don't they?

A Mother's Day Patio Redo

Last weekend I surprised my mom with a Mother's Day patio makeover. I think you'll agree it was a pretty sad state of affairs before I got my hands on it.  This was pretty much all the patio consisted of:

Pretty sad, right?  The patio furniture all stacked up in the corner was in desperate need of a cleaning.  There was also a broken down old hummingbird feeder (with nectar from last season none-the-less), a worn out bird seed feeder and a colorless child's chair that my 5'4" niece used to sit in...years ago.  With everything that my parents are up to they haven't had the time to put into the yard and patio spaces.  So, for Mother's Day, I added some life to the patio.

Here is the after:

And, I added a little bird garden over here:

This is mom's favorite space because when she raises the bedroom blinds in the morning this is what she sees.  Here are a few more closeups, I'll show you how I did each of these projects over the next couple of weeks.

A cleaned and refinished patio set - almost like new, a planter made from a Bundt pan, and a large planter with an upcyled seed feeder.

A little seating area that includes a couple of refinished chairs that were rusting out in the yard, a table made of pallets and a planter made from a chandelier.

Oh so many projects and oh so little time.  Can't wait to share these DIY project specifics with you!

An Upcycled Tabletop Fire Feature

If you're following me on Pinterest then you've likely seen this DIY project from Curbly.com pinned to my boards:

It's cute, right?  I pinned it so I could come up with an upcycled version....and I did.  Here it is:

I swear it's lit, but it's really hard to see in the daylight!

This was SO easy and the only thing I bought was the fuel.  Here's what you need and what to do:

...it's that easy!

Here's how it's upcyled:

1.  I had this vase left over from a party that I threw years ago in my former life as a Volunteer Manager.  I would have liked a taller one, but the one I had broke in my last move and you know me...use what you have!  If you don't have one, you can thrift for a buck a two and they are the thick heavy ones!

2.  The glass rocks I've had for at least 7 years and have used them to decorate around candles as well as in flower vases.

The fuel that I bought (at Party City) had a closed lid with a wick which made adding the rocks super easy.  Just toss everything in the vase and light the wick.  Easy Peasy!

Here's a pretty crappy indoor picture to show you that does actually have a flame: