by Wendy Scheel | Sep 28, 2015 | DIY
Happy Monday everyone! I hope you had a great weekend. It was a top 10 day here this weekend in Minnesota!
I took this picture yesterday. You can see what amazing weather we had, June temperatures in late September. Beautiful.
Let me introduce you to my neighbor.
Everyone, this is Jimmy.
Jimmy, this is everyone.
Jimmy and his cute as a button wife Nikki live two doors down from us. You may remember me mentioning my neighbor that works at the local tree farm? He cuts the birch tree branches for me that I use to make these candlesticks.
This is him. (Nikki said she wasn’t ready for a photo, silly Nikki. I’ll catch you next time.)
Jimmy and Nikki both love to mill around on Pinterest. Not only do the pin ideas to their boards, they actually make the ideas they pin.
Last weekend they invited us over for a fish fry.
Fish fry. Someone else making dinner. Win-Win.
They deep fat fried the fish out in their garage. Very smart, plus it was another beautiful Minnesota evening.
While Jimmy was frying, I noticed this tool organizer on the wall.
I asked him where he got it and he causally said that he made it off of an idea from Pinterest.
So today I would like to share with you the steps he took to make this.
He started with 2×3 boards. In hindsight he should have used 2×4’s, but he used what he had in the garage at the time. He then made this template to use as the cut out for his tool handles. The rounded top is a 1.5 inch diameter and the length is almost 4 inches.
His next step was placing the template onto the 2×3, tracing it about every six inches.
Here is where he drilled out the top rounded section with a 1.5 inch drill bit.
After that section is drilled through, he simply took his circular saw and followed the black lines until they connected to the rounded out section.
Place, trace, drill and cut each area until you have the desired amount of spots for your tool handles.
There will be a lot of weight on these brackets so for the final step Jimmy attached each one of these brackets into a wall stud.
Another suggestion he had was to attach a horizontal brace behind the vertical brackets to make them stick out further. That way the deeper tools such as shovels would sit nicely into the slot.
I love how everything is on the wall, organized and ready to use without digging in a barrel or a pile for the right tool.
I hope I can convince Jimmy to share more of his DIY Pinterest influenced items. The guy has so many skills. 🙂
Here’s to getting organized! See you Wednesday.
by Wendy Scheel | Sep 25, 2015 | DIY
Years ago when our children were little, I worked nights and weekends as a cook and caterer at a quaint little restaurant in Lake Geneva, WI. The owner/chef was John and he loved to try new recipes. The menu was always changing. John would share his recipes with anyone that asked.
That always confused me.
Why would he give away his recipes? People could just make these dishes themselves and he would lose customers. In his gentle manner, he explained that you can give someone a recipe down to the tsp. but they will always, always substitute at least one of the ingredients so it will never be exactly the same. They will come back.
And they did. 🙂
I am finding this same principle to be true when I am attempting something from Pinterest.
My friend Karianne from Thistlewood Farms posted this blog earlier this week about how to DIY Pinecone Acorns.
What a great idea to add to my White Sweater Pumpkin décor!
Problem was that I changed the ingredients. My acorns don’t look like Kariannes.
Karianne used wooden eggs, I used paper mache eggs.
She stained her eggs, I spray painted and spray-glittered mine.
BUT, we both got our supplies from Hobby Lobby. 🙂
Here’s what I did.
I bought the paper mache eggs and pine cones from Hobby Lobby. The black spray paint and glitter spray paint came from an estate sale and I think the skewers came from IKEA. All very inexpensive items.
I then stabbed the eggs with the skewers and stuck them into the ground in the backyard to spray paint them.
(Can I let you in on a secret? My husband proof reads my blogs before I post them. He is going to sigh and roll his eyes when he sees the grass. Heehee, love you honey!)
After the paint had dried, I cut off the top of the pinecone and cut off the wider end of the egg. The egg was plastic on the inside. I was surprised by that. I thought paper mache meant it was paper all the way through. Obvi, not. ;(
Anyway, cutting off the top of the egg created more of a flat section to hot glue gun the pinecone top onto.
Then I simply added the acorns to my fall décor.
Thank you Karianne for the great idea even if I did change your recipe. 😉
Stop in tomorrow for a quick SideNote Saturday!
by Wendy Scheel | Aug 21, 2015 | DIY
I am not only a blog writer but an avid blog reader. I religiously follow several blogs. They are part of my morning routine. They are all unique in there own way, but at one time or another they all have sponsored giveaways. And, I, have entered those giveaways if the product speaks to me. And paint brushes speak to me. With the enormous popularity of these blogs it is rare to win a give away. But I was notified the other day that I had won!
I was so excited and grateful. I had a dresser project waiting and a new brush was the push I needed to get ‘er done. This dresser was the final piece of furniture Samantha needed for her new apartment bedroom. We found this piece at a local garage sale and it was the detail of the silver corner braces sealed the deal.
The dresser is all wood except for the top which is a white laminate. We decided to freshen the look of the dresser with a white high gloss paint.
On the day that the brush arrived, I couldn’t rip the package open fast enough. I was so happy to see a wood handle on this brush. Don’t get me wrong I own several brushes with a plastic handle, but this brush was just pretty and somehow made me feel like a true professional. You know what I mean. Fake it til you make it, kinda thing. 🙂
Just as Imperfectly Perfect advertised, the brush had a comfortable grip, a 2 inch brush and synthetic tapered bristles allowing a crisp edge when painting. And this brush did not disappoint.
Using the right tools always makes a job easier and more enjoyable! The stunning silver brace corners now pop with joy!
Thanks Perfectly Imperfect for offering a great giveaway. I am a fan. 🙂
by Wendy Scheel | Aug 14, 2015 | DIY, Life
What’s it called when you put a room together on paper? You know, you cut, copy and paste pictures of the bed, the duvet, the rug, the lamp and all of the things you would choose to make the perfect bedroom. I can’t remember what it is called, a mood board? Hold on, I’ll Google it.
“A mood board is a type of collage consisting of images, text, and samples of objects in a composition. They may be physical or digital, and can be “extremely effective” presentation tools.” Thank you Wikipedia.
So now you are thinking I will insert my mood board for my daughter’s first apartment bedroom. Not gonna happen. I usually make the mood board in my head, starting with one piece. That piece is this rug, purchased from RUGSUSA.com
Next up, a dresser. Oh how I love how this dresser turned out. It is an IKEA dresser. The RAST.
We have all seen hacks of the RAST dresser from IKEA. (A hack is when you modify or repurpose an item.)
I present the RAST as seen in IKEA.
And the RAST all assembled. I love directions from IKEA. I am a visual learner so this was right up my alley. From beginning to end it took me about an hour to put this together.
Moving on, I painted the dresser white. And since Samantha’s sorority symbol is an anchor, she choose this larger sticker from Target to adhere to the dresser after the paint had fully dried.
The final touch was these 6 ceramic nautical blue and white dresser pulls from Hobby Lobby to replace the simple wood knobs that come with the RAST.
Drum roll please….
I’m thinking that these nautical pillows will be a great addition to the room too.
We are working on a couple more pieces for the bedroom. I will post those soon!
Have you worked on any fun IKEA hacks lately?
by Wendy Scheel | Aug 10, 2015 | New Products, Quick Thoughts
Let’s talk about pet peeves. You know that little thing that bugs you but there are so many other real issues in the world that it doesn’t reeeeally matter in the big picture of life?
But, it bothers, YOU.
I’ll go first in the sharing arena.
Water ring stains on my wood furniture. The residue that soaks into the wood because a coaster wasn’t’ used. GASP! Drives me crazy.
I have ceramic tile coasters, I have beautiful agate coasters and this past weekend I made fabric coasters.
Take that water ring non-coaster using people! 🙂
Okay. Your turn. Pet peeves?
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