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| Beachy DIY day! |
Scroll down a few pics to see my homage to the beach!
I inadvertently shrunk this T shirt, so I snipped it down the middle, cut the neck band off and handstitched a knit scarf to the raw edges. I wore it to work Friday and got several compliments. My good idea was also reinforced by the cover the early fall Lands' End catalog which featured this sweater. Total cost: $19.95 for the scarf.
One of the kitchen thrifty things I learned from my mom and grandmother was to save bread bags and the plastic bags you bring home from the grocery store: the bags are great to double wrap around fragile items you want to freeze or to hold stinky stuff you are throwing away. To corral them, I store them in a paper towel tube (Mod Podged with scrapbook paper to strengthen it) in the drawer where I keep my foil, plastic wrap, etc. Then I found this post and decided to use my current tube (cut in half) for some extension cords, and to make a new tube for my bag storage. The pretty pink and green flowered material is from a thrift store blouse that I cut up into scraps for little projects just like this. Total cost: $0.00
Here are two creative bathroom projects. I re-matted my painted starfish onto a scrap of muslin - I think it looks much better than the blue scrapbook paper I had originally matted. The soap pump is an old blue-green glass jar with a tin lid found in an neglected corner of a local antique spot. I took the lid and the pump (which I kidnapped from another bottle of soap I had) to work where one of the machinists drilled a quick hole into the lid. A little Loctite around the newly drilled hole and now I don't have to clean a soap dish anymore. Total cost: $4.50 for the glass bottle.
Last weekend was not only the Festival of the Islands, but my own "Festival of the Plattsburgh Target". I purchased the bracelets on clearance, but realized when I got home they were a tad too small. Enter a black rubber-band (the ones used for little ponytails). I looped it through the existing button loop: the bracelets have just enough 'give' to close and move freely on my wrist. Total cost: $3.98 for the bracelets, $0 for the rubber bands (I bummed them off my superfantastic landlady.)
The 12 x 12 pillow is one of a pair ($2.00 for the pair!) I found in a little furniture resale store called Rumplebox between Alburgh and Swanton. The fabric reminds me of one of my favorite blog reads.
I purchased these bottles a few weeks ago, unfortunately they didn't come with the little tip caps. Enter Sculpey modeling clay. I made some chunky block-y caps as well as adhering a piece to a bottle opener, then topping it with a magnet so it will stick to our refrigerator. Total cost: $1.98 for the Sculpey (and I still have 3/4 of a block left!)