An Oh So Upcycled Piece of Pallet Wall Art

So I made a fabulous little piece of wall art, and boy is it upcycled!  It all started with a few planks from a discarded pallet.  Then I added some paint from the "oopsie" paint table from my local Lowes and flowers made from thrifted T-shirts and scrap fabric.

Assembling the "canvas" portion of the artwork was the easy part.  Yes, I had to use a few power tools but it really was quite quick.  The steps are below, but if you'd like to see it done you can view the YouTube video here.

1.  Cut several planks from a pallet (or other pieces of weathered scrap wood) to the same size and sand them before proceeding
2.  Cut two more pieces of scrap wood to act as supports across the backside of the canvas
3.  Drill two pilot holes in one of the pieces and screw in your eye screws
4.  Glue and screw your support pieces into the planks
5.  Attach your picture wire

And that's that...for the canvas.

The artwork itself wasn't difficult but it was bit more involved. I found it easiest to prepare all my pieces and do a rough layout before making anything permanent.  I started with several flowers made from T-shirts.  These are a very simple flower that you can make from T-shirts or any other fabric scraps that you already have.  Check out the video tutorial of the flowers here.

To make the stems and the shaped flower petals I simple wrapped some craft wire with T-shirt and other scraps, securing it with a little E6000 Adhesive.  I used the same adhesive to attach all fabric pieces to the pallet canvas.  But before I did that, I used my Sizzix Big Shot Die Cutting Machine
to cut all of the letters out from contact paper.  I applied the letters to the pallet canvas and used a dry brush to paint over them.  Then I removed the contact paper and used a paint pen to make the letters pop.  You can see it ALL done in this video tutorial.

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!

My "Simple" Bird Feeder

I thought this would be a very simple project but boy, oh boy was I wrong.  Thankfully, I can share my screwups so you can avoid them when you upcycle your very own bird feeder.  Here's my finished product:

I actually found two of those wavy plates at Goodwill and the mug at a yard sale. They were the perfect match for this project!  So here's what you'll need:

1.  Mug and a saucer
2.  Length of PVC
3.  PVC cutter
4.  Silicone adhesive
5.  PVC coupling with a threaded end
6.  PVC plug

First, you'll want to take care of the gluing. Use the silicone to glue the plate and the mug together.  Then the PVC plug - well, this needs some backstory!  I desperately wanted to put this project together without drilling holes in the bird feeder so I headed to the plumbing section of my local hardware store.  I searched high and low for a  cap that I could put on top of the PVC pole with a flat surface for gluing to the bottom of the plate.  Unfortunately, every cap in the plumbing isle had a curved surface, not ideal for attaching to the plate.  So I grab a plug that would screw into a coupling.  It sort of has a flat surface but there is a giant crevice in the plug.

After several failed attempts at attaching the plug to the plate, this is what I figured I needed to do. Screw the plug into the coupling then fill the crevice in the plug about a third or the way with silicone.  Let it dry overnight, then repeat one to two more times until you have a nice flat surface.

Then you can simply apply glue to the plug and attach it to the plate.  Let dry overnight.  Right about now, you might be wondering why we would need to fill the plug.  I just couldn't get a good grip on the dish when I applied it to the rim of the plug alone.  And I tried to fill the plug up all at once and it just wouldn't dry.  But this crazy method seems to be working.  If you can find something with a truly flat surface you can avoid all this nonsense but I didn't have a ton of luck.

Hi, Chico!

While everything is drying, cut your PVC to length and stick it into the ground.  Then you'll just need to drop the finished feeder on top of the pole once it's dried.

This method also makes for easy cleaning.  You can just pull it off the pole and bring the feeder portion to the sink.

If you figure out a better solution for the plug, please do post it below!  Enjoy!