Before and After: DIY Upcycled Bathroom Decorations.

What can you do with a few champagne corks, upcycled pallet timber, empty jars, a few screws and a bit of paint, when your stuck in the house on a miserable rainy day? You can do an awesome Towel Hanger for your bathroom door and a Decorative Piece with Plants for the window sill 🙂

I reckon these DIY jobs can be easily done in around 30 minutes- well, if you have the time to do it all in one go. As for myself I have a little baby, so I had to do it bit by bit in between baby’s naps, feeds and play times 🙂

Bathroom Towel Hanger:

This was my first ever attempt to make a hanger by myself. It was so easy to make… and I’m so proud of it:)

What you need:

A piece of timber; Corks; Nails

Sand paper; Paint; Drill

Recipe:

Cut a desired size timber, sand it down and clean.

Pick a color you like and paint. I used a mix of green, blue and baby blue (tester pots) and I used an old kitchen sponge to paint because I couldn’t find any paint brush.

I ended up using only 2 corks for this hanger, they are attached with a screw each.

I had 2 holes on the door already so I drilled holes in the hanger in the same place and attached it with screws.

To cover screw heads visible on the hanger I used paint, and to cover screws on the cork I glued a bit of cork onto it.

This all can potentially take no more than 30 minutes:)

Decorative Piece with Succulents:

I wasn’t sure how to call it really, as it was a completely random thing I did. After cutting out a piece of timber for my hanger I was left with 2 small wood pieces, I also had some paint left in a bowl that I didn’t want to waste. So, since I was in my creative mood I looked around the house and put few things on the table…cobbled stones from Napier, jars, some green fabric and …that is how I came up with this idea:)

What you need:

2 pieces of wood; 2 jars; stones; piece of fabric; soil and 2 small succulents

Sand paper; paint; glue gun

Recipe:

Sand down and clean both pieces of timber.

Paint both pieces and let them dry

Fill 2 jars with 50/50 stones and soil and put succulents in.

Glue both jars onto the timber using a glue gun.

At this stage I decided to add stones to cover the line when the timber is joined on both pieces. So, using  a glue gun I attached few.

I also glued the green fabric around the top rim of each jar and added a decoration stone to finish.

This all can potentially take no more than 30 minutes:)

I know I could have gone to the local DIY and bought something similar and just be done with it, but the beauty of making things yourself is that every time you look at it you have a sense of pride that you made it yourself and you are the only person in the world that has it 🙂

A short story of upcycled, handmade Christmas Decorations

Happy to announce that we spent our first Christmas and a New Year as a family. We made all our Christmas food from scratch and didn’t waste a crumb of it. We didn’t buy presents but instead spent time creating Christmas decorations together. We didn’t watch TV but instead spent time on simple things like talking, laughing, playing cards, swimming, walking and of course eating:)

There is a lot to say about the act of rewriting Christmas, about finding a true meaning of it, about stepping away from the purchase mania and finding happiness in just being together and about how others might perceive it. But that is for a separate post. .

Today, just just wanted to quickly share a little bit more about the Christmas Tree Project I had 🙂

Preparations for it started quite early, I was still pregnant when I started to pick different types of tree cones while walking in nearby parks or just along quite streets. It must have been a funny sight when I was trying to bend to pick them up having a big baby belly on my way:) Now, don’t think now that this preparation and cone collection was taking a lot of time! This could have been done in one day as well 🙂

So to the point, here is the summary:

Christmas Tree

• 8ft artificial, second hand tree bought on Trade Me for $40 from a lovely gentleman

Christmas Decorations:

• Oven dried apple and orange slices
• Homemade Ginger cookies
• Polyurethane pipe which I found in a shed, cut into slices, painted and sprinkled with glitter
• Various tree cones painted and sprinkled with glitter
• Tree top made of an old star-shaped chocolate box, painted and sprinkled with glitter
• Christmas lights, the only newly bought item $15

I already had some cheap acrylic paint and glitter from my earlier projects

Just to add to it my mum made Snowmen from old socks and rice and a desktop Christmas Tree from an old magazine:)

..yes I like glitter;  and yes the living room was in a mess when we were making all the decorations;  and yes we all had glitter everywhere in the house. But we had an enormous amount of fun while doing it and a strong sense of pride when we looked at the tree after finishing decorating it. That sense of pride was stronger each time someone looked at the tree and couldn’t believe it was all home made and/or upcycled.

See below, say what you think and share your own ideas 🙂