How to Drill a Hole in Glass...or Ceramic

I have such a bad habit of "forgetting" to blog during the summer months.  There's just so much to do, so many projects just a waitin' to be completed!  But I'm taking a breather, albeit a brief breather, to share a quickie how-to video that you can find on my YouTube channel.

Okay, so this project isn't exactly upcycled.  But once you know how to drill a hole in glass there are so many things that you can upcycle.  Not the least of which is my ever-popular Booze Bottle Bird Feeders...which by the way I will be showing you how to make next time.  Here's a sneak peek.

It's not that hard to drill a hole in glass IF you know the right way to do it and in my video, I not only show you how but I also show you how NOT to drill a hole in glass.  So gather up your supplies and meet me over on YouTube for the full instructions (and a little humor as you watch me screw up right before your very eyes).  Here's what you'll need:

• A glass or ceramic vessel of your choosing
• Diamond Hole Saw or, for those of you with far more patience than I....a Glass & Tile Drill Bit)
• Hand Drill or better yet, a Drill Press if you have it
• A tub of water just large enough to submerge your glass/ceramic vessel into
• And don't forget the Safety Glasses!

Four Upcycled Creations That are for the Birds!

Baby season is upon us....for birds and other creatures who call your yard home it is anyway.  Wouldn't it be nice to offer a helping hand to all those new little families?  Especially if you can add some whimsy to your yard and garden for not a lot of cash at the same time.  Check out these four super quick, cheap and upcycled pieces that grace my garden:

Just have to have one?  You will not believe how incredibly simple each one of these is to make!

1.  Seed Feeder made from a thrifted bud vase, plate and planter
2.  Hummingbird Feeder made from a wine bottle
3.  Bird Bath made from a thrifted plant pot and a decorative bowl
4.  Nest Box made from a thrifted tea kettle and a piece of pallet wood

Most of these projects required not much more than silicone adhesive to complete and are a snap to make!

Which one will you make?

How to Make a Strawberry Pot from a Kitty Litter Bucket

If you've been a follower of my blog for any length of time, you know that I love a good Kitty Litter Bucket upcycle!  Who remembers my Kitty Litter Bucket Garden Helper?

Or my Kitty Litter Bucket Toy Sorter:

Well today, I have a new one...a strawberry pot.  

And, of course, I had to add a little hint (grow babies, grow!).  Yes, there's a tutorial for carving rocks, too:

So, how did I make my strawberry pot you ask.  Well, of course I made a video tutorial for it but here are the instructions:

1.  Using a Hole Saw,make holes in the sides of your kitty litter bucket.  In a smaller Tidy Cats litter bucket I can comfortably fit 3 holes in the narrow side and four on the wider side.  In the larger bucket I like 4 and 5 holes.

2.  Prepare and paint the outside surface of the litter bucket.

3.  Fit a piece of landscapers fabric (or old window screen) to the inside of your bucket and make an X-shaped opening in the fabric everywhere you drilled a hole.

4.  Fill the bottom of your bucket with a nutrient rich soil/compost mixture to the first row of holes and then insert a strawberry plant into each opening.

5.  Add more soil to the second row and add more plants, then to the third row...

6.  Add a few plants to the top of your bucket and place in a sunny location.

7.  Enjoy your strawberries!

So tell me, how do you reuse your kitty litter buckets?

How to Make Garden Edging From Pallet Wood

I was pretty tickled with the way this rustic garden edging turned out.  I was even more tickled that I made it from pallet wood and soda bottles!

I made this garden edging as part of a mailbox makeover for my parents 44th wedding anniversary. Be sure to check out the before and after if you missed it. I used wide strips of 2-litter soda bottles to connect 4-plank sections of pallet fencing.  Nine inch lengths of metal dowels were inserted into two planks of each section and hammered into the ground.  It really was as easy as that, you can check out my YouTube channel to see the full tutorial.

Wondering if you have the tools to complete the job?  Here are some that I think would be helpful.

Disclaimer:  While this post contains affiliate links, these are the products that I have previously purchased and regularly use in my craft room.  I do not receive compensation for my opinion, however, I do receive a few pennies commission if you decide to purchase these products through Amazon. More pennies equals more tutorials, thank you for your support!

A Mailbox Makeover

Not to rub it in for all of my neighbors to the North, but I planted flowers nearly two weeks ago.  Yep, blooming, colorful spring flowers.  It was part of a desperately needed makeover to my parents mailbox area.  It was their 44th wedding anniversary gift.  Check out this before shot:

Now keep in mind, everything is still a bit scraggly because it's not quite Spring yet.  In the summer time that Jasmine is robust with bright yellow flowers.  However, it's all too much.  It's overgrown and (God love him) my dad "prunes" with a weed wacker. So, I knew that no matter what else I did here, that jasmine had to go.  Thankfully, mom agreed.  So out came the Hitachi CR13V2 10-Amp Reciprocating Saw AKA, the
sawzall! 

When figuring out my plan of attack, I wanted to avoid having the utilities come out and mark the underground wires...because I procrastinated and needed to get it done.  What else is new!  So I decided on a somewhat raised bed around the mailbox.  Check out what I made with some old pallet wood and soda bottles, yep, soda bottles. 

Before I did all that though, the mailbox and post needed some work!  Here's a better look:

Forget about all the rust and peeling paint, the hardware is MANGLED.  Looks like it's time for a new mailbox!  HA, I don't think so.  I simply removed the four screws holding the mailbox to the post and the 6 nuts and bolts holding the hardware on and blasted it with some spray paint.  As for the hardware, well that was straightened simply with a little muscle and a rubber mallet.

Besides the fact that the numbers were completely obscured by the jasmine, there were also numbers missing.  I knew I could come up with something better, handmade and upcycled!  Check out the house number plaque that I carved from a piece of pallet with my Dremel:

Now, just add flowers!

Which one do you like better?

See the complete details on how to make:

Garden edging made from pallet wood and soda bottles

My First Birdhouse...From a Tea Pot

Have you seen those adorable little tea kettle bird houses/nest boxes floating around Pinterest?  I LOVE them and have been seriously watching the thrift stores for months for the perfect tea pot.  I finally found it last weekend and made myself this little beauty:

It really was SO simple to make this project.  I just used my favorite outdoor glue, 100% Silicone, to adhere the kettle to a piece of embellished scrap wood (pallet wood in this case), added two hooks and hung it.  Yeah, that's it!  If you want to see exactly how I did it.  Here's the video for it:

Now all we need is a nest!


Linking up here

Sunday: The Creative HomeAcre Blog Hop, Nifty Thrifty Things:  Nifty Thrify Sunday
Monday:  Skip to My Lou:  Made by You Monday, DIY Showoff:  That DIY Party, Love 2 Upcycle:  Upcycled Linky Party, I Should Be Mopping the Floor: Inspiration Monday
Thursday: Katherine's Korner:  Thursday Favorite Things

A DIY Lighting Parts Bird Bath

Are you ready for another Mother's Day Patio Makeover Project?  I sure hope so, only two more after this one.  So today, it's an  upcycled lighting parts bird bath:

I love this bird bath!  It reminds me of one of those fancy tulips. If you decide to upcycle yourself one of these bad boys, keep in mind that every piece is going to be different.  The way you attach things is going to be different.  You're going to have to wing it some of the time.  Let me show you how I did mine.  Er, tell you most of the time.  I wasn't very good about taking pictures for this one.

First, the basics.  You'll need an old or thrifted lamp base, some kind of bowl shaped object with a hole in the center (or be willing to drill one) and you'll need some silicone for sealing around the hole to make sure the water stays in.  Optionally, you may want to use some spray paint - I did!  And you may want to add some kind of embellishment to the center of the bowl to hide the silicone blob - I did!

To get started rip your lamp apart, if you're good with wiring lights then hang on to those parts and reuse them in another project.  Paint your lamp base if desired.  Mine was a pretty simple black base with a golden faux sponge finish.  It was pretty yucky, so I pulled out the bright pink spray paint and coated the entire lamp base a couple of times.

Before you attach the bowl consider where your bath will be? Is the bowl in danger of breaking easily?  My bowl is actually a ceiling light cover and is very fragile so I pulled out my drill and drilled a hole in each of the feet.  Make the holes large enough to accommodate a very long carriage bolt if it is to be "attached" to softer earth or screws if it will be screwed into a deck, like mine.

With that done, time to attach the bowl. When you pulled your lamp apart you should have been left with a threaded bit of rod at the top.  This is where you'll attach your bowl.  I didn't want it to snap when the glass hit the threaded rod so I slid on a rubber washer in just the right size to wiggle in between the two pieces, protecting the glass from shattering. Then I added a nut to the threaded rod to keep everything in place.

To make sure there was no leaking I added a blob of silicone (this is my favorite adhesive!) to the threaded rod and nut.  You can imagine it was pretty ugly so added more silicone and then took a clear votive holder and flipped it upside down on top of the blob.  Perfect!  Let that cure for a minimum of three hours and you're ready to bust out the bubble bath for the birds.

Yep, that's all there is to it!  You're going to try it right?

How to Make a Flower Pot out of Thrifty Kitchen Stuff

I think my Mother's Day Patio Makeover could keep me writing fresh new posts well into the summer!  Here's another such post....

The first thing my mom said when she saw this was, "Is that from my cupboard?"  Of course the answer was, "No!"  But then I thought, "maybe I should have grabbed that one because the last time she used it, I think I was a kid."  Oh well, so here's my thrifted Bundt pan planter:

The supplies are few.  You will need a pan of some sort, some sisal, a drill and a 1/4" and 5/8" drill bits.  If the kitchen item you choose is a heavy duty piece of metal, you'll want to consider drill bits made from Titanium or, even better....Cobalt.

With your 1/4" drill bit, drill several holes in the bottom for drainage.  Then use your 5/8" drill bit to drill four equally spaced holes for the sisal rope to be threaded through.

Now cut two equal lengths of sisal to the size you'll need to hang from your favorite spot on the patio and tie them together in a knot that forms a loop for hanging.  As a side note, even my sisal is upcycled.  You know mom and dad have a pet store right?  Well dad makes all the cat trees in the store from pre-assembled parts.  He had all these obsolete sisal covered scratching posts that didn't work anymore...guess who inherited them!

 

 

Now feed the resulting four pieces of sisal through the the holes from the inside of the pan and tie a knot on the outside:

All that's left now is to trim the tails from the knots and plant your pan.  Easy Peasy, right?

Your local thrift store is just filled with old unwanted stuff just waiting to be transformed into something pretty and useful, so head out now!  Get that patio oasis started today.

My Snapple Bird Feeder Is Working!

Remember the Snapple bird feeder that I made last week?  Well, I'm happy to report that it is actually working!  Here's what I saw when I came home from work last night.  There's only a smidge of bird seed left in the bottle.

I probably wouldn't have even notice if it weren't for the giant Blue Jay sitting atop the Shepard's hook eating.  I don't know how someone that big was able to feed from it, but there he was - the very first Blue Jay that I've seen in my yard.  I was very excited!

Have you tried it yet?

My Newly Upcycled Bird Bath

I love this bird feeder!  It's little, it's cute, it's one-of-a-kind and it's upcycled!

After a morning of yard sales that left me empty handed, I headed to my nearest Goodwill on the hunt for some wonderful pieces to make my own bird feeder.  I found some wonderful bowl-like dishes that would have been beautiful in my garden.  But they were part of a complete set that still had lots of life left in them in their current form and I only needed one.  So off I went to continue my search through the adjacent isles.  Just when I was about to give up, along came this beauty:

It was the only one, tucked in the back of a shelf and the perfect reward for resisting taking one from a full set earlier.  I picked up a perfectly matched flower vase to serve as pedestal of my bird bath.  And all I had to do was use a little silicone adhesive between the two.

Just one more look:

Isn't it adorable?

Marking Your Plants - the Upcycled Way!

I came across a bunch of really cute upcycled garden markers on Upcycle Magazines website the other day.  There are 8 adorable ideas for marking those vegetable/flower/herb gardens without buying a thing.  I have another to add to their list and I'm going to show you how to use old soda cans and sharpies to make some really cute garden markers.  You can get really creative if you like or you can keep it simple.  Here's what you'll need:

1.  Some clean soda cans that you have cut the tops and bottoms from - be careful the edges are sharp!

2.  Something to cut with - keep it simple with a pair of scissors or get fancy with die cutting/embossing instruments meant for scrapbooking.

3.  Something to write with - a sharpie will do just fine but so will other markers and inks made for slick surfaces

Now that you have all your supplies gathered you can start cutting up your sheets of aluminum into the shapes you desire.  Keep it simple using your scissors to cut out simple stake-like tags.  Or you can pull your die cutting machine and let it do the cutting for you.  I even added some embossing to a few of mine. You'll probably need to flatten the aluminum which can be done easily by rubbing it lightly along the edge of a table. I find it easier to flatten after I cut the shape rather than trying to do the full sheet at once.  You're likely to make unsightly creases if you do it first.

Well, that was easy wasn't it?  Time to label your markers:

Add some simple wire or skewers that will easily hold your marker in the ground, like this:

And now to the garden:

What materials do you reuse to mark your gardens?  Leave a comment below and share your ideas.