Come and Strut Your Stuff - I'm Co-hosting a Blog Hop!

I'm super excited to be co-hosting a Blog Hop today, Thursday Favorite Things over on Katherine's Corner to be more precise!  I'm teaming up with Katherine from Katherine's Corner to meet up with other bloggers and see what some of their favorite things are.  I've seen lots of great things on the hop, like great recipes, pictures of beautiful places, great DIY projects...you name it and it's probably been linked up to Thursday Favorite Things!

Right about now you're probably wondering, "Tricia, what is YOUR favorite thing?"  Well, I'm going to tell you.  You probably already know that I like to play with trash, turn it into something new...useful, anything to keep it from the landfill.  And you probably already know that I love to work in the garden!  I know, I know someone out there is yelling, "But I thought you loved animals!"  That, too, is true.  But my absolute favorite thing is showing others how to do what I do, how they too can make a difference. It is the reason that I blog at all.  So, without further ado...

Its Time For Thursday Favorite Things! Thursday favorite things is where you can link your favorite post or write a post about your favorite things and share it with old and new followers. You gain visibility for your blog and make bloggy friends too!

Please share the hop with your readers and let Katherine know if you would like to co-host with her. 

Remember to leave her a comment if you are a new follower so she can follow you back. Here are the rules, yes there are rules. But just a few: Please DO NOT link and run...visit a few of the wonderful blogs that are sharing at the hop.

• Follow Katherines Corner preferably through Email it’s on her right sidebar (or facebook,  twitter, bloglovin, etc. they are on her sidebar too) And My Blog too
• Visit as many blogs in the list as you can, please leave a comment so they know you stopped by!
• Share the button or a linklback on your post. Grab the hop button code from Katherines button page It’s always nice to have the hop button on your post. It IS NOT mandatory; but a Link back to Katherines Corner is always appreciated 
• No adult content blogs or links directly to your shops please
• Yes you can link giveaways ( they are everyone's favorite thing) Add your giveaways to the Win It Page at Katherines Corner too!
   

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!

Wordless Wednesday Featuring a Flaming Hot, Upcycled Mailbox

Girl Scout Cookies...Yuuuuummmmm

So last month was the month of the Girl Scout cookie!  And this week is National Girl Scout week.  So my question is, do you have any cookies left?  Me? No, I don't!  Each year it's one box of Thin Mints and one box of Samoas, which I think are now called Carmel Delights.  It doesn't matter what you call them, they are simply heaven in a box!  And each year, I miss those dang cookies come March.

That is until I found this crazy recipe for Somoa Popcorn and had to give it a whirl.  The results:

I heart Samoa popcorn

If you love Samoa cookies as much as I do, you'll probably be making this tonight.  So if you do, here are my three suggestions:

1.  You'll need to toast a bit of coconut for this recipe.  Mine toasted in half the time that the recipe called for so keep an eye on it!
2. The recipe calls for several bags of microwave popcorn. I'm not a microwave popcorn kinda gal...too much packaging and all.  So I stove popped mine and it was fine, I have to assume air popping it would be as well.
3.  When making homemade caramel, and you will for this fabulous deliciousness, it is hot!  Don't touch it...not that I've had any experience with this {insert winky face here}, but I'm just sayin'.

And right about now you're thinking, "where the heck is the upcycled bit?"  Glad you asked!  Here's my bracelet made from a Samoa box:

Paper Bead Stretch Bracelet made from a Samoa Box

So what's your favorite Girl Scout Cookie?

An Upcycled Write and Wipe Board

Well, happy National Craft Month everyone!  I kicked the month off with a fabulous little farmer's market this past weekend in Clemson, SC.  Let me tell you, it was cold!  But that didn't stop all the brave souls from coming out and supporting their local artisans and farmers.  And I knew it wouldn't, so planning, prepping and designing went on full steam ahead! 

This year, I am looking to upgrade my booth and I have lots of new things planned.  I still have quite the to do list, from sewing new table skirts to designing more vertical space.  But, I thought I'd share a little something that I was able to finish up for Friday's event:

It's a small "write and wipe" board that I used to mark my new spoon necklaces.  I used a wet erase marker to write on the glass of this old picture frame so it's easy to reuse for something else when I need to.  Here's what I started with:

I picked up a couple of old gold frames from Goodwill for $0.50 and $1.00 and then added some spray paint left over from a bird feeder project.  And speaking of leftovers, I had some fabulous pink textured fabric leftover from this pet bed:

Princess Bed Made from a Drawer

So, I cut a piece of fabric equal to the cardboard that slides into the frame and used a little spray adhesive to attach them (spray the cardboard, not the fabric).

Then I Just slipped that back inside the frame and was ready to rock and roll....or write and wipe anyways!  Doesn't that fabric add a neat texture without interfering with lettering? 

I think I might make a larger one for the grocery shopping list.  How about you?  Where will you use yours?

Fast Fix Friday: How To Reslot a Screw

Even if you've never a stripped a screw yourself (haha), you're likely to come across one when you're upcycling some old piece of furniture, cabinet door or the like. And when that rubber band trick fails, I pull out my trusty little Dremel.

In a matter of moments I had this horrible little booger....

...reslotted and ready to remove. You'll need a heavy duty cutting wheel for your Dremel, but then it really is as easy as this:

Look at that beautiful cut!  Well, at least as beautiful as a chewed up screw head can be.

So for the recap:

1.  Don't forget your protective eye glass and gloves wouldn't hurt either as there will be sparks.
2.  Insert the cutting wheel into your Dremel. 
3.  Turn your Dremel on high and slice either a deeper cut in the existing groove if it isn't too chewed up or make a new one.

So there it is...easy as, yep you guessed it, 1 2 3.