Crafty with Corks

As you have probably seen from my wife's posts, she is very creative with wine corks (you can see some past projects here and here).  We have saved them up over the years and she has come up with many interesting things to do with them.  I decided I wanted to give it a shot to see if I could also be as crafty with corks. 

I recently saw you could purchase a kit to make trivets out of wine corks.  This seemed a little ridiculous to me, especially when I saw the price of said kit.  I figured I may as well give it a shot and trying making a cork trivet using only the supplies we had on hand...making it essentially free. 

To start, I played around with the placing of the corks until I found a design that I thought looked nice.

I then glued a couple corks at a time to each other and clamped the corks while the glue dried.

 

*WARNING* Only use a small amount of Gorilla Glue!

Have you ever used Gorilla Glue?  This was my first time.  I have used many adhesives but never Gorilla Glue.  It's pretty great stuff and amazing at adhesion, but like I said, ONLY USE A SMALL AMOUNT.  I ended up with Gorilla Glue all over my hands and I could not get it off for at least a day.  Worst, Gorilla Glue expands as it dries and when used in excess, takes over your cork trivet project.

The glue worked quite well with the corks, however, and they were extremely secure.  Once I had the design completely glued together, I decided it needed some feet to add some additional interest and, well, feet.  I cut 2 wine corks in half lengthwise and used them as a base to raise the trivet slightly.

There we have it - a cork trivet made without a $40 trivet kit!

 - JOHN

PVC - Pipe is Very Cool

I know, I know!  That was a horrible acronym.  I did not want to just say Polyvinyl Chloride.  PVC pipe is a wonderful thing however.  Not only does it funnel your used water away from your house but it also is cheap and great for building various crafts.  I thought today I would share some of the many things you can make out of pvc.

The first non-aquatic project I used PVC for was to make a ladder golf set several years ago. Sets were being sold for exorbitant prices and friends had sets made out of wood but I decided to make one for $15 out of PVC.

The most recent project came from an issue that arose last week that I realized I no longer had a small microphone stand for recording.  I told Kristen I was headed to the music store to purchase one.  She said, "Why do you need to buy one?"  I responded, "I need a small microphone stand low enough to record guitars, guitar amplifiers, kick drums, etc."  She said, "You can't build one?"  Something about that statement screamed CHALLENGE to me.  Of course I CAN build one, I just don't want to take the time to build it when I need one NOW.  After a quick google search and a few thoughts I realized I could stick with my trusty friend Mr PVC!  I realized that not only would it be cheaper, but the music store is 40 minutes away and Home Depot is only 4.  I could go to Home Depot, purchase PVC, come home and cut the pipe and put it together in probably less time than it would take to drive to the music store.  Challenge excepted!

Supplies:
10 ft 3/4" in PVC
4 - 3/4" couplings
3 - 3/4" tees
1 - 2' 1/2" PVC 








I cut the 10 ft pipe into 1 - 19 inch section, 4 - 6 inch sections and 2 - 4 inch sections.  The longer 19" section serves as the height for the microphone.  The shorter sections were cut to be a base for the stand.  I used the coupling for the feet and the tees connected them all.

The 1/2" pipe fit into the 3/4" and I can slide it up and down for easy height adjustments.  I used some epoxy and attached an old microphone holder to it to hold a microphone in place.  I drilled holes through the pipe so I could stick a small dowel through to hold a microphone at various levels.  Unfortunately, I could not find a small dowel around our house so I found a small screwdriver that would work well and now he is doing two jobs for the moment!

Once assembled, we spray painted it black.  Although I plan on only using this for recording purposes and it probably will never see anything but a studio, the black looks a little classier than a white pipe with "Charlotte Pipe" written all over it.

Though I have misplaced my receipt, I know that I spent under $8.00. The cost of feeling like you won a challenge and saved money and time however, is priceless!

I have a feeling using this won't be the last time I use PVC for an awesomely creative and dirt-cheap project.  Speaking of awesomely creative, I recently came across this project - check out those kids playing in the awesome sprinkler! 

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This fishing rod holder is pretty awesome.  I have not done anything quite this extensive.  You can also make a great fly rod case out of pvc.  This is very helpful when traveling especially if you have to bring your fly rod on an airplane.  This website shows you how to make it very easily.  The best thing too is that it costs under $5 which is a fraction of what most fly shops would charge...it would be an awesome Father's Day gift!

Do you have any cool PVC designs you use?  Maybe you have some much cooler acronyms at least.  Please share!  If you're interested in other amazing PVC possibilities, this website has amazing ideas and inspiration.

 - JOHN

The Parsimonious Penny Pincher

Hello Turning a House into a Home readers, I am Kristen's husband John.  My wife has inspired me to take on some of my own diy projects lately and she has asked me to share some of them with you throughout this week.  I used to consider myself a cheap person.  That is, until I married my wife.  Frugal is an understatement when I describe her spending habits.  A parsimonious penny-pincher I think is a more accurate description (sweet alliteration, I know!).  I have friends with spouses that are big spenders and live outside of their means.  We definitely do NOT have that issue in our household.

One of the many things that my wife's frugal habits have shown me is that the small patch of woods behind our neighborhood is an untapped resource of creativity and a beginning to many diy projects.  It is the same as modeling clay is to a sculptor or blank canvas to a painter.  I will frequently make a "woods run" for more supplies (Yes, our neighbors do think I'm crazy as they stare at me and wonder why this man frequently carries branches back to his 3rd floor apartment).

When Kristen needed a new plant stand on our balcony, did I go to Home Depot?  Of course not!  I made a woods run!

I searched the woods until I found the right branches that I wanted to create a plant stand.  I wanted straight, long sticks that would work for the top and legs for the stand.  I also wanted some smaller pieces for supports.  All the wood I used I found on the ground and did not cut anything from a tree.  At the same time I did not want anything that had been down very long as it may have started to rot.  Once I had some supplies, I was ready to cut!

I began by cutting the branches into smaller pieces for the legs and the top.  Now, normally I like to plan how I'm going to make a project.  I will draw diagrams, look up different ideas, make very careful measurements.  With this project, I totally improvised everything as I went along.  In hindsight, this was not the best idea and I definitely could have benefited from a little more planning.  In fact, I ended up starting from scratch half-way through the first try.

Also, if you ever do this, use a miter block or a chop saw.  Your cuts will be much straighter than mine and
the time it will take will be drastically reduced (especially with the chop saw).  I did however know how large I wanted the top to be.  I wanted the top to be 12"x12".  I cut 2 - 10" sticks that I could secure the top to then I cut 9 - 12" sticks that I glued to it.  The legs were all cut at 14".  

Once I had my top and legs cut, I glued the top together.  I used screws to fasten the legs to the top.  From there I screwed in some supports.  The side supports I drilled holes into the legs that the supports could fit into and slid them in with a small amount of wood glue.  Overall I used four screws, some wood glue, and some gorilla glue to fasten the wood together.  I did not want to use too many screws as I think they take away from the overall natural look.

We now have a rustic plant stand for our growing container garden on the balcony. We have yet to decide if we want to stain it to match the bench we built out of branches as well or if we'd rather leave it natural.  Not only is my wife happy with the end product, the plants are loving it, too.

 - JOHN

Sticks and Stones

Given my obsession with sticks, twigs, and branches it was only a matter of time until I created another piece of art with nature's free crafting supply.  While gluing sticks together for this project I found myself contemplating about my love of dead tree limbs tree branches.  I didn't come up with an answer, but I did come to appreciate their versatility and ability to become anything you want them to (including a focal point and flowers)

My vision began with this pile of sticks on our balcony.  I sanded them lightly to create a worn look and broke them into smaller pieces.

After playing around, I found that I enjoyed the whimsical shape of the heart paired with the rustic quality of the sticks.  Simple but texturally interesting.

Sometimes I wonder if a home can have too many dead trees twigs but I highly doubt it. Nature, in any form, is beautiful.

Vacation Watering System

Summer is a time for vacations and for that I love summer.  Summer vacations, however, tend to bring up a lot of obstacles when you're new to a city and don't have any friends to casually leave your house keys with and ask that they water your plants a few times while you're gone. We just left on a road trip to see family and we had almost forgotten about the fact that we didn't have any of those old amazing friends we were so lucky to rely on for help.

Just a day before the big road trip did I remember our balcony container garden as well as my very loved houseplants.  The heatwave we've been having for the last three weeks worried me about how our plants would survive for ten days without water. I immediately went to google for some suggestions and learned that almost everyone alive has close friends to ask (at least that's what all the suggestions were on the message boards to those few loners who had no trusted friends, like us).

I guess the saying is true - necessity is the mother of invention.  Sitting down with my thinking cap, I came up with two ideas. The first was to fill empty bottles with water, stick them in the plants and allow the water to slowly moisten the soil.  I came up with this while remembering those self-watering bulbs you can buy for $10-$15 at garden stores. I decided to try it out and soon realized that, unfortunately, my idea was flawed. The opening of the beer bottle was too large and the water drained into the soil within a couple hours. That would not work with our ten day vacation coming up - we needed something that would slowly ensure that our plants were hydrated for at least a week or so.

Enter idea number two: fill the bathtub with water and place the plants on top of something that would wick the water from the bathtub into their soil.  I have a large variety of pots and plants and therefore a garden with a large amount of varying water needs. Some of the plants get upset with too much water - so I couldn't just dunk them in the tub of water.  Some other of our plants fear dehydration and beg for water constantly - so I had to ensure they'd be kept moist.

I ended up gathering up our baking dishes and placing them upside down in the bath tub.  I filled the tub until the water was slightly above some of the smaller baking dishes and not quite covering the other larger baking dishes.

I then covered them with a towel, making sure to drape the towel into the water between the baking dishes. I knew the towel would wick the water up and stay moist.

I carefully arranged our plants in the bathtub, placing them on the towel-covered baking dishes. The plants that love water I placed on the lower baking dishes that were covered while the plants that enjoy some drying out were placed on the higher dishes that were not submerged in water.

I also have a couple pots that don't have holes in the bottom. For them, I watered the soil extremely well and placed them on the edge of the tub hoping that the extra humidity from the water-filled bathtub would help them a little.

I've been keeping my fingers crossed that my plants will survive our vacation.  After starting many of them from seeds and taking in dying plants from friends and nursing them back to health I would hate to come home to a plant-less house.  I'll keep you updated on how this watering system worked, but until then, perhaps you could cross your fingers for us too?

Yellow Blossoms

I love nature. I love nature so much that last month I found a tree branch, spray painted it, and hung it up in my living room. Remember, though, how it was missing something so I whipped up some origami leaves? They were nice for a couple weeks, but then the bold, modernism made me tired so I started looking for other branch-sprucing options.  With my mind focused on flowers, both real and otherwise, this week, I decided to try my hand at paper flowers. We needed something pretty, summery, and colorful to replace the leaves and I think I found them!

I started out with some scrap cardstock and a variety of fun scissors.

Drawing a spiral, I cut it out. I got a little experimental with the scalloped scissors.  I decided I'd try a variety of made up flower techniques to see what I liked and didn't like.

After cutting out the spiral, I took the outer end piece and  started rolling. I tried the inner end piece and that didn't work very well...so stick with the outer end.

I found that if I rolled it tightly and then gently let it go when I finished, the flower blossomed very nicely

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I also took a long strip of paper and cut it into fringe to roll up.

Then I used my pencil to curl the fringe down and make into a flower-like shape.

Falling in love with all the flowers I couldn't pick my favorite style so I did something bold. I decided to use them all. I know, I know. A branch with three different flowers? Let's see how it looks.

I like the yellow against the green and it's nice to bring in some new color to the blue and greens of the living room.

 Much better than those leaves! Don't worry, I saved them and may bring them back out in the fall. I'm liking the simplicity of the small yellow blooms...what do you think?

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Today we are celebrating flowers. Not just any flowers, mind you, but flowers that don't wilt, don't cause allergies, don't cost money, and don't go out of season. Yes, today we are celebrating pom pom flowers.  I love pom pom flowers for a myriad of reasons, among them the fact that you can choose any color under the rainbow that you want and you can dress up little corners of your house and then just forget about them.

I've had many comments about the flowers seen in this post and many more emails asking how the flowers were made. Well, hold on tight because you are about to embark on a journey of discovery and learning, my friends.

The first thing you must do and the second most fun part of this craft is picking out the color you want (don't worry, I'll get to the number one most fun in a bit).  I chose yellow and white for a simple yet summery feel.

Once you've chosen the perfect shade of color, you have to decide how large you'd like your flowers. I tend to make mine a variety of sizes by altering what I'm wrapping the yarn around. I've been known to use a fork for smaller flower all the way to to my entire hand for a larger flower. Typically I alternate between two, three, and four fingers.

After deciding on the size of your flower, just start wrapping. If you are choosing to wrap around your fingers, you may want to keep them apart a little so that your circulation doesn't get cut off from wrapping the yarn too tightly.  Have fun wrapping and keep in mind that the larger the flower you want, the more wrapping you must do. I tend to like full flowers so I wrap a lot - 100-115 wraps for a small flower, 110-125 wraps for a medium flower, and 130-150 wraps for a larger flower.

When you've finishing wrapping the yarn around and around and around some more, carefully take the yarn off your fingers (or fork or whatever else you found to use) making sure to keep a finger in the hole of yarn.

You will then take the bit of string you cut previously (oh, you didn't? Don't worry, I always forget, too) and carefully push it through the hole and tie it as tightly as possible in a double knot.

Then take a pair of scissors, place one blade in the hole and cut opposite of the knotted piece of yarn.  Don't worry if it looks like a floppy mop, you are now at the funnest part of the craft: trimming the yarn.

The trick to getting a perfect pom pom flower that isn't floppy and yarn-y is to trim, trim, trim. Never have I trimmed too much, but many times I haven't trimmed enough.

Even this guy needs more trimming! Just keep trimming, just keep trimming.

When you've finally got the little ball of fur perfect, with a dab of hot glue in the middle of the yarn ball firmly place the small twig into the flower.  I like to try and get the twig inside the center of the flower careful not to come out the other side.

There you have it - a beautiful pom pom flower.