Vacation In A Can

I've admired these magnetic metal spice containers at Ikea but have been stumped for a use.

I made a fake vintage postcard using two of my photos. The tins allow for an image 3.5 inches in diameter. We collect sand everywhere we travel so I had some available to insert in the tin.

The depth was a bit more than I wanted so I put 2 layers of corrugated cardboard behind the printed image.

The photo came out very blue because every time I got near a light source the plastic lid had reflected images. My inner 12 year old goes Blue Hawaii and giggles. The tin insert actually looks like the image above but with sand.

What Really Happened To The Dinosaurs

Yes, that's the Starship Enterprise in the upper left corner.

We had a fish tank stored in the garage that my husband didn't want to get rid of so I filled it with dollar store dinosaurs, fake plants and rocks. I painted the vinyl dinosaurs with acrylic paint and hid them among the greenery. Some poor hapless beasts were not successful and were abducted. They are floating upwards, suspended by fishing line.  I used clear pushpins in the ceiling to attach the fish line.

I bought glow in the dark paint for beaming lines but I'm waiting until I repaint the room.

Donating Beanie Babies

I found a use for all those Beanies that my daughter used to collect; we're donating them to the fire station. The fire captain said they gave out several toys last week to children involved in a car accident. She kept them dust free, in mint condition and now they may do some good.

Repurposed Wobbly Lucite Wine Stoppers

They wobbled when moved and came in jewel like colors; now the wine stoppers live with a spider plant. If I drank wine I'd grab a glass and jiggle the plant.

Recycled Map and DVD Case Plant Stand

My daughter removed her DVDs from the cases; leaving me with boxes of empty DVD cases stored in the garage. I inserted map sections from a 2002 Atlas into the cases and hot glued them together. The vinyl is stretchy so they also needed reinforcements glued across the top to ensure the cases remained nice and tight with each other.
I didn't want to purchase anything other than hot glue for this project so I used a ceramic tile (also stored in the garage) for the top of the plant stand. To prevent the tile from shifting I made an insert from the cardboard box my new tennis shoes came in.
I used a paper cutter to make ten, 3.5" squares (this is the size of the inside cavity) and hot glued the stack together. The cardboard was then glued to the bottom of the tile.I wanted the plant stand to be stable enough for an antique jardiniere so I glued yard sticks on the inside. I still had a few yard sticks left over from when I was an insurance agent and I enjoyed the irony.

Vinegar Painting on a Chimney Cupboard

We made a chimney cupboard from a pattern found in Country Living.

I wanted to give it an outrageous finish so we painted it with vinegar paint.

It was pretty messy so we did it the driveway with an audience of neighbors trying to figure out what they heck we were up to this time.

I base coated the cabinet and sanded the painted surface after it dried. Vinegar paint is made from vinegar, sugar or syrup (for adhesion), liquid dish soap (an emulsifier), and powdered tempera paint. It's a negative painting process and dries very quickly so my husband painted on the vinegar paint and I combed through it. If you make a mistake the paint is very soluble so you can paint over it and do it again. I finished it with by spraying on Matte Fixative after the paint was dry.

Collecting Sand

We collect sand from all the places we travel to and these are the most recent. The sand is from beaches on Sanibel Island, Captiva, Fort Meyers Beach and Lovers Beach in Florida.

We normally put the sand in bottles that we cork with shells, rocks or coral. I had these bottles that held cocktail mix and they had handy screw top closures.

Ikea used to carry a wonderful decorative bottle that I can't find anywhere any more so I'm back to searching for bottles again.






















These are some of the Ikea bottles.

Dragon's Breath

Standup Chef Menu Chalkboard

I saw a chef similar this in front of a cooking school a few years ago, I drew a pattern and my husband kindly cut it out for me. He stands 4 feet high with a hinged support panel on the back and is pointing to an area painted with blackboard paint.

Blushing Zebra Plant Stand Pedestal

I used to dumpster dive at a metal recycling place for interesting metal bits for sculpture and found this rather rusty thing-a-ma-bob.

I rescued it from the garage yesterday, gave it a base coat of Gesso then painted it pink. After the pink was dry it received black zebra stripes.

Watermelon with Ants Painted Wooden Chair Directions

I put this painted chair by the front door as extra seating and a spot of color. I found the chair at a garage sale for a $1 and painted it with gesso. I would have sanded it to remove the glossy finish if it still had one. Gesso is an excellent surface to paint on and seals the item at the same time.

I blocked in the green and white areas with acrylic paint. There is a soft line along the hard melon edge that was done by side loading a brush. To side load a flat brush you take a brush that was loaded with water, lightly squeeze the bristles to remove the excess and dunk one corner in the paint. When you stroke on the paint the water that remains in the brush allows the paint to float out gradually. This takes a little practice to get the technique down. If you make a mistake you can wipe it off with a damp paper towel.


The light green areas were sponge painted with a small piece of sea sponge. I sponge painted the melon flesh with 3 colors on a palette and and had bits of the all of the colors on the sponge at the same time. The colors mix slightly and it gives the paint a more translucent appearance.

The ants are painted with simple black shapes and some of the ants are carrying bits of melon. The ants were made by dunking the handles of stencil brushes in black paint and dabbing on dots. The reason the ants were made with dots is it's easier and the dots keep the sizes relatively uniform. I elongated the shape of the ant's tail with a brush and brushed on the antenna and legs.

The watermelon seeds are black and with thinned brown paint used to make subtle lines. If you look closely at a watermelon seed they are not solid black.

The Effectiveness of Magnetic Paint

I have a home studio/office with bifold closet doors on one wall. I was going to paint a mural on it but decided to try magnetic paint with a blackboard painted top.

I painted the doors following the manufacturer's guidelines and did the suggested 3 coats, then I covered it with 2 thin coats of blackboard paint.

Small weak magnets tend to slide down. Sheet magnets adhere, probably due to the greater surface area, but only hold their own weight. Heavier, very strong magnets stick but won't hold a single piece of paper for long.

The doors look nice in black but I consider the magnetic paint from RustOleum to be a failed experiment.

The latex blackboard paint worked well.

Ladder Pot Rack

I've had this ladder for years. It's only 12" wide so it was too narrow to use and rather short. My husband kept petitioning me to sell it but I always resisted: I was waiting for my aha moment and it finally struck.

The handmade ladder is extremely sturdy. The rungs are totally surrounded and it is disproportionately well made considering no one ever stood on it. I painted it black and I hung it from heavy duty chain. I used to have cast iron pots hanging from it so it needed to be secure. The pot hooks came from IKEA. The moths on the ceiling are visiting.

Concrete Sunflower Stepping Stones

I've been busy lately molding concrete. I have two of these molds and one bag of quikrete fills both nicely. We discovered that cabin water won't work since the concrete never sets up properly (it crumbles); city water works fine. Time doesn't make it set up any better. We had some made with cabin water stored along the edge of the cabin and they were stolen. Normally I would be unhappy about theft but they actually did us a favor hauling them off since they were unusable. Karma is a bitch with a sense of humor.

Table Made From A Display Case

I've been reducing the clutter in my house and one of the first victims was my antiques. After I sold the contents of this case it occurred to me that it would make a good display case table.

The display case was a wall hung deep shadow box with a sliding glass cover. I painted it black and attached 4 wooden legs that I found at the hardware store. I filled the case with the beads from leis I made on a Hawaiian cruise.

I had two of these cases so I made 2 tables and filled the other one with Kukui nuts. The tables looked nicer separated into different styles. The darker Kukui nut lei table is my favorite but it doesn't photograph well.

Wisteria Stained Glass Lamp and Geese in Tulips Window

These are two of my husband's many stained glass pieces.

The stained glass geese window is our bathroom window treatment. I don't care for drapes and this gives us privacy and spares the neighbors from getting to know us too well.

The stained glass wisteria lamp was Bryce's most ambitious project; every piece of glass was wrapped with copper foil and soldered. Many of the glass pieces are smaller than a pinky finger nail; they were all cut and fit to make this lovely lamp.