Driftwood Votive - a creative project

Ever since a friend of mine described a serene sea-themed bedroom project that she was planning, I have had in mind the idea to make a driftwood votive for her newly painted dresser. The first step was to buy a glass container (mine came from a thrift shop), then to find driftwood pieces with similar diameters down by the beach.

After giving them a good washing and time to dry completely, I selected the ones I wanted to use and cut them to length.  I had decided that I wanted some of the glass to show at the top.

Using a rubber band to keep the sticks in place, I placed the sticks around the outside of the jar, choosing each one to fit well next to the other. Once all were in place I carefully applied a small amount of glue between each stick, at the points where one stick touched the other. Don't worry about too much glue, you can use a toothpick to smooth away the excess glue. Choose a glue that is suitable for wood and that dries clear. I used two bands during the gluing process and kept the rubber bands in place until the glue was completely dry.

Once dry, I removed the rubber bands and carefully lifted the glass out of the driftwood ring.  I then cut a ribbon and glued it to the driftwood on the inside of the circle.  It is better to glue a ribbon towards the top of the sticks and another at the bottom.  This will reinforce the ring, should some of the glue between the sticks come apart.

Once the ribbons are securely glued to the sticks, gently place the glass jar inside the ring. The driftwood votive is now ready for a candle.

You can also use the driftwood votive as a vase, or as a container for any other number of things!

Chalk Paint, easy project or not?

A friend of mine has been working on a wonderful project lately, painting her bedroom furniture with chalk paint. I had been curious about this magical paint for some time, so it was with great delight that I took her up on her offer to try the paint for a project of my own. 

I thought that an old white shelf with a set of hooks, which had been a thrift-shop find and had been languishing in a cupboard for a few years, would be a perfect small project for my first foray into chalk paint.

The marvelous thing about chalk paint is that you do not have to prepare the surface of whatever you are painting in any way. So after a coat of duck egg blue paint it was time to let the piece dry, which takes less than half an hour. 

 Once the paint is dry, you brush on a coating of clear wax, then buff it lightly with a clean rag or some paper towels. If you want a nice clean finish then there is no need to go further, your piece is done. If, however, you want to age the piece a little, you brush on some dark brown wax, then wipe it off a little until you achieve the desired result.

Once you have added the brown wax to all the places you want it, you finish with another coat of clear wax.  Then you buff the entire surface until the finish has a nice sheen. For this step I placed a shoe polish brush into an old sock to use for the buffing. It was fast and efficient.

  

And that is all there is to it.  There are other techniques to create a distressed look, and you can find loads of helpful instructions online.All that was left was to choose some photos to pop in and hang it up.  A very easy way to obtain very satisfactory  and quick results.

Buying Second Hand

An interesting fact, quoted from the November 2011 edition of  Britain's Country Living magazine:

"If everyone in the UK bought one reclaimed woolen garment each year instead of new, it would save 371 million gallons of water (more than a reservoir)." Source: Waste Online

Here's to buying second hand! 

Happy New Year! Here's to Buying Nothing New for a Year!

At the beginning of this new year, and after some thought as to what kind of change I want to create for myself, my intention to “buy nothing new for the year.”  I place this phrase in quotation marks because, as usual, when you do some digging, you find that an idea you had is in no way original.  Sure enough, my desire to get away from compulsive consumerism is in not a novel idea. I found countless versions of this sentiment online and one site devoted to the concept named it “buy nothing new for a year.” 

My reasons for trying this out over the coming year is not really about saving money. I tend to buy most things second hand and try to limit my retail therapy. If I do save money over the year, then I will happily put that money into savings to go towards travel and other activities I want to do. For me, it’s more about not wanting to buy more things that I do not really need, nor have the space for. 

Perhaps what really brought this home to me was watching a news report showing people actually wrestling each other to the floor over an item on sale in a store on Black Friday. What have we come to? Fighting over discounted sales is madness. People were willing to line up for hours just to buy more stuff, when they already have too much stuff. I am also aware of the fact that much of what we buy new is made from resources that are shipped or flown to other countries, only to be manufactured and then shipped or flown back for sale here in Canada. Not only is this consuming lots of energy, raw materials are being used that needn’t be. So my reasons are also environmental. Moreover, I realize that I can use up a lot of the things I already have, or repurpose them. Or I can make use of other people’s cast-offs, thereby recycling, re-using or re-purposing. So much less stuff to hit the landfill.

I will certainly be buying second-hand and there will be some exceptions to buying new (for example, food, toiletries, underwear, two favorite magazines I buy monthly, and items that I find when I travel). Visiting the dentist, opthomologist or other health-related expenses will also be exempt.

I am actually in good shape going into this year. I have plenty of new underwear in stock thanks to a buying spree at Marks and Sparks last August when I was in England. And I just bought new eyeglasses in December. So there shouldn’t be too much that will need to make it onto my exceptions list. The hardest thing will be falling completely in love with some item in a store and not giving in to temptation. I am hoping this won’t happen too frequently since I tend not to go shopping at regular stores too often, and now certainly will go even less.

I will, however, continue to frequent thrift shop, visit flea markets, rummage sales, church bazaars and garage sales. And I will also be popping into antique shops from time to time.

And I will still be getting haircuts, visiting art museums, spending on transportation and the odd meal out. This is not meant to be about being stingy or denying myself pleasure, rather I want to try to get as creative as I can to find alternative ways to meet my needs. Gifts for others are certainly going to be an area of particular challenge.

Over the coming months, I will check in from time to time to share what I’ve been experiencing and let you know how I have been living up to my new year’s pledge of not buying anything new for the year.

Anyone care to join me?

Victorian Dinner Party #7

Some antique alphabet blocks spell out Victoria on the mantle.

A selection of items were gathered together into a vignette for effect, providing a suitable backdrop. This clock looks old but is actually an inexpensive thrift shop score.

An old print about October was a lucky find in a thrift shop, only a couple of weeks before the party. Even better, it cost the very reasonable sum of $1.99, including the matting and frame.

The poem is appropriate for Halloween and the past, with its mention of chill October winds "sadly sighing, when the leaves in circlets fly, all seems dead or dying."

  

Happy Valentine's Day

 

Happy Valentine's Day!  I picked up this cloth heart-shaped box in a thrift shop a couple of months ago, thinking that I might be able to use it for Valentine's Day in some way.

 

I found a bunch of these lovely two-tone pink roses at the supermarket and cut the stems down so that they would just peek out the top. The box is covered in fabric so I placed a squat jam jar inside to hold the water. The box's lid has a lovely lace top. It makes a lovely Valentine's vignette.

Thrift Shop Magic

As sometimes happens when I am thrift shopping ... and I have written about this before (April 17, 2009), I manage to find all sorts of things that seem to share a common theme of one sort or another. Is it by chance? Well, I do have certain colour palettes that I am more drawn to, but there is no way that I can orchestrate what is going to be available at a thrift shop on any given visit...

On this particular trip, everything that made it into my shopping cart was pretty and pink.


A Van Gogh framed print.


A couple of balls of soft pink cotton/acrylique yarn made in Ireland.


A necklace of rosy ceramic beads.


A hand-embroidered table runner.


And an all cotton muslin sheet with a rose and polka dot motif.

I have ideas about how some of these will be used, so watch future posts when all will be revealed!

Thrift Shop Find of the Week

With all the knitting and crocheting I have been doing lately, I have started to check out the wool and yarn in the thrift shops once again. And look what I found! These are a linen/cotton blend from Italy. I can only imagine what they would have cost originally, but they were just $2.99 for all three for me!


I decided to crochet some dishcloths, a couple of the traditional kind and this flouncy one. A very quick and easy project!

Thrift Shop Find of the Week

When I saw these old hand-knit socks with their bright cheery red at a thrift shop, I knew right away that they would somehow be used during Christmas. So I "socked" them away in the basement with the rest of my Christmas decorations until it was time to decorate the house for the holidays.

It didn't take long to come up with an idea of how to use them this year. I stuffed them with cedar and pine cones, some cinnamon sticks and candy canes and then attached a ribbon to hang them. A very quick decoration and so informal and fun. Maybe next year they will be filled as stockings for someone, but who knows...

Thrifty Birch Bark Candles

After blogging on December 8th about my idea of how to get more out of candles by hollowing out a space to use replaceable tea lights, I saw another version of my idea using birch branches. They were for sale at a local Christmas Farmers' Market.

I think these look very elegant and I love that they will never burn down and have to be thrown out. And if you're handy with tools, you can make them yourself.

Thrift Shop Find of the Week

Amaryllis Blooms

What could be a better gift at this time of year than the promise of life and colour? Amaryllis bulbs come in an assortment of pretty colours and the size of the blooms never fail to amaze. It is such an easy gift to put together for someone. All you need is an amaryllis bulb, some potting soil and a container.


If you have ever had the disappointment of growing an amaryllis bulb that put forth luscious green leaves but never developed a bloom, do not despair. I have a small "tip" that will ensure that this never happens again. When you buy a bulb, take a close look at it. If this means opening the box that the amaryllis comes in, then don't be shy, open that box up and have a look inside.

After several large disappointments, I will never buy another amaryllis bulb without first performing this simple inspection:

Look around the top of the bulb for new growth. If there are no tips showing, then put that box back and keep trying until you find a bulb with at least the beginnings of white or green tips showing. (Don't worry that the new growth is white, it will turn green once it has been exposed to the light for a short period.)

You will notice that one tip may look a little different from the other. One tip has a little indent, or notch, at the top (the lower tip in the photo above). This is a flower bud. The tip without an indent (the upper tip in the photo) is a leaf. If you are lucky or willing to check enough bulbs, you will be rewarded by finding bulbs that have not only one flower bud tip, but two!


This amaryllis has two flower buds and several leaves coming up through the middle. Now, here's the next important point. If you buy a kit, your amaryllis bulb will come with a plastic pot of some description. While the plastic pot will do the job and certainly you can use it, why not make your gift a little more pleasing to the eye and to the delight of the recipient by using a lovely pot instead? That doesn't mean that you have to spend a lot of money on an expensive pot. It doesn't even mean that it has to be a new pot! The ceramic pot here was a $1.99 thrift shop find.



Just fill up your pot with some potting soil and place your bulb firmly on top, pressing down gently until it is securely nestled in the soil. (These bulbs like to be exposed at the top.) If you like you can cover the soil with some moss, or pebbles, or anything else you can dream up. Give it a little water and set it in a well-lit spot.


After several weeks, the stems will grow quite tall and the bud or buds will begin to open. Add a festive ribbon and it will be ready to give away. Or, give it to someone as soon as you've potted it and allow the recipient to watch it grow day by day. Once those gigantic trumpet-like flowers appear, it will seem like a little magic has occurred. A burst of colour to brighten a winter's day.

Candle Thrift

If you're the thrifty sort, as I am, then you too probably get frustrated when a candle's flame keeps going out and there is still a lot of candle left to burn. Such a waste!

This sad fact of life led me to think up this solution. With a heated knife, hollow out the top of your pillar candle until a tealight can fit inside. this is much easier to do if the pillar candle is quite wide at the top as you don't have to worry about getting too close to the candle edge as you carve. And if you sink the tealight a little deeper than I have here, you won't even notice that it is there.

Carve, pop in your tea light, light it up, and you're back in business. Once the tealight has burned out, you can simply replace it with another. In fact, I think this is such a good idea, I might just carve all my new pillar candles and fit them with tealights before I ever use them at all.


Just think, no more throwing away perfectly good large candles after only a short use.