Pallets... go find them, they're free~

I've been on a quest for a new coffee table. I originally wanted to created a pallet coffee table like the one below but I've moved on to a new idea. (Stay tuned, it's almost done) However, I did become quite interested in other ways to use pallets. I hear they're free... I like free... now, where do I find them?

Joy Ever After

Life on the Balcony

Homedit - a number of ideas!

Tip Junkie

Instructables

A Greenpoint Kitchen

Just a Girl

Better Homes and Gardens

Craftzine

Mother's Day Gift

Create your own Mother's Day gift. Below are the steps for this 3 panel personalize photo collage.

Don't want to do 3 panels? Just do one!

Materials:
Boards - I used 3 but you decided (I would stick with an odd #; 1, 3, 5)
Matte Black Spray paint 
Pictures - I was able to find three photographs from my childhood with my brother and sister. Print these pictures on thick paper. I used Card Stock.
Mod Podge
Eye Hooks - You'll need 10 if you create three panels
Twine

Start with the boards. Either buy some precut boards or cut them
down to the correct size.

Spray paint your boards. Be sure to cover the sides.

Once your paint has dried grab your eye hooks. I drilled a few
holes in the top and bottom of my boards to ensure they were
all in the same place.

Screw them in

Cover just the board with Mod Podge (without your picture).
Then place your photo on the board and cover the photograph
with Mod Podge too.
**** I used my inkjet printer but I think it would be better to
use a laser jet if you have one available.

Let the Mod Podge dry for about 12 hours. Then sand down
the edges. I roughed up other parts of the board and some
parts of the photograph too.

Use your twine to connect all the pieces. This was the
hardest part of this project for me. You want to make
sure the twine on each side is the same length or
your photos will hang crooked.

Here are my 3 photos: Summer time in the backyard

Building a snowman!

Summer vacation

And you're ready to wrap it up.

Twigs and Twine... the culprit has been identified

Some of you may have read my Twigs and Twine blog and remember how one of my adorable fur-babies destroyed took creative liberty with one of my projects.

Before

After

I had a hard time trying to figure out who ruined my sticks. While terrified of the 3 lb Pomeranian next door, Nadia (my chocolate lab), is usually oblivious to my yelling, finger pointing and stomping. So the fact that I have a picture of what looks like her sitting proudly by her "work of art" well.... sometimes she's just ignorant.

And then there is Nate. Typically well behaved but he has been known to get into his fair share of trouble. Unfortunately for me he has learned that this Puss n Boots-pouty face gets me every time.

So who did it? Well I think I found the answer today. I was gone several hours having lunch with my mom for Mother's Day and then completed a little craft shopping (yes, a scary situation to let my mom and I run loose in a craft store but we did a very good job... the key, don't get a basket/cart, it'll limit what you can carry). I came home, let the dogs out and after several minutes of this crazy behavior I finally realized the culprit....

Dogs are just suppose to fetch their sticks, right? Keep in mind, she was running around, eating sticks before I started video taping and throwing them for her. I have no idea what's made her so angry at all the sticks in the world. But I think this the only proof I need.

Ivy Tower

More Twigs and Twine!!! Let's hope one of my furry babies doesn't destroy this one like they did with my "Let's Stick Together" project. I'm still peeved about that one!

So this was a quick project I stumbled upon. I was actually looking for ways to create an attractive tomato cage. Living in a condo means finding creative ways to have a garden. I came across Carolyn's site DIY tomato cages and then continue on to find her smaller version where she makes it a Mother's Day Centerpiece.Glancing up from my computer I thought my own ivy plant might be in need of an accessory.

My ivy plant... beautiful. The plain old stick in the middle of
the pot... ugly! Plus with my Updated Plant Stand I needed to
complete the entire project. And how perfect is this pot for this
project? It already has twine (or rope) wrapped around it.
A perfect fit!

You don't need many materials for this one! Twigs and twine
that's all, oh and a hot glue gun. I created 4 different stacks of
twigs. The 1st being the longest and then each stack going down
in size from there.

I started by building one "wall" of the tower so I could
be sure my measurements were correct. (You don't
want to make the tower first and then see if it fits in
the pot.) Use your hot glue gun to hold them in place.

Once I had one wall built I found it was easier to build
the other walls with them already inside the pot. The 2nd
wall I built was the opposite wall using my 1st wall as a
reference for where the twigs should be placed. Continue
on with the 3rd and 4th wall.

Next I brought out the twine and wrapped around each of the
joints. I am not a knot expert so I have no idea what you
would call this but I wrapped them in a cross-cross pattern.

Pull your longer pieces of ivy up through the top of the tower
and let some of the shorter ones fall on the lower twigs and
you have an Ivy Tower!

I admit, my ivy does look like it's having a bad hair day but with a few days of sunshine the leaves will flip over and it will figure out its way around the tower.

Animal Coat Rack... for the kids

Need a unique coat rack for your kids? I saw something similar to this on Pinterest several months ago and thought of my nephew. He loves animals so I'm hoping he enjoys this.

The directions for the original website I found are on Apartment Therapy. Unfortunately I had to modify her instructions so there was some trial and error involved.

Find some animals you like. I wish I had found a few more.
As morbid as it seems, use a saw or utility knife and cut
the heads off.

Still think it's not morbid? Unfortunately a new dog sitter came
over to meet my furbabies with these out on my counter. I'm
hoping she didn't call an animal abuse hotline.

I bought a 1x4 board and cut it down to about the size I wanted.
I then sanded, painted.... sanded.... painted until I was happy.
I basically went with a white wash look on the front and then
painted the sides black

Here's the tricky part. Apartment Therapy must have bought
a different kind of toy animal than what I have here. The inside
of these heads were completely hollow. Long story short, I
eventually used some epoxy and glued around the neck of the
animals. TIP: the elephants ears kept pushing his head off the
board. I couldn't sit holding an elephant head to a board for 24
hours so I grabbed a juice cup, stuffed a plastic grocery bag inside,
flipped it over on top of the elephants face and then placed a
large book on top of the glass for extra weight.

And here we are!

Apparently I did a pretty good job arranging the animals
without even knowing. My nephew's fav animal is the
elephant. Front and center!

Pinterest for Dummies

For those of you who haven't made the commitment joined Pinterest yet or even for those who have, the complaint I usually hear when surfing the internet for ideas is you see an image once and then it's lost in good ol' internetland, never to be found again. Of course when Pinterest became popular there wasn't an issue, right? Wrong, how many times have you pinned an image only to go back later and find the link is broken. Boo! Well, here's a helpful tutorial to solve that problem.

I stumbled on this by accident while searching for images on Goggle. My issue is I usually see an image I like, save it to my computer and later on forget why I saved it, where I found it, etc. I discovered Google has an Advanced Search option. http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search Pretty nice, eh? So I did some reading about using their image search and found you can actually search for an image by using that image! Craziness! Who would have thought.

Below are some screen shots and directions.

Go to Google.com and click on the Images tab along the top. The Google Images page will include a camera icon within
the search bar at the far right.

After you click on the camera icon, this box will appear. You can either paste the image directly into the field (Ctrl V) or
you can upload an image you've saved on your computer.

I decided to search for an image I saved. I know I copied the pic from Funky Junk Interiors (awesome blog!!!) but for
purposes of this exercise, we'll pretend I can't remember.

A window will pop open for you to search for the image you've saved, in this case a large # 2 Donna created. This one
was out on my desktop. Click 'Open' once you've selected the correct image

You should see it searching (or the little spinning wheel as some call it) .....

And voila! There's the image along with the correct website! MAGIC!

Here was the information Google Support provided. I did some more research to see if I was absolutely nuts or if other people were struggling with this too. One of my favorite sites, The Graphics Fairy actually has a blog on how to find Pinterest images too. Hope this helps!

Metallic Flower

There's not much of tutorial for this one, it's pretty simple. I used the same technique from my Song Lyrics Artwork, using contact paper and peeling off parts of the design. I used the design from my Skittles watercolor piece. And I also had a piece of sheet metal leftover after my Scrabble Board artwork.

So I already had almost everything I needed. Sheet metal, contact paper and a design. The only item I had to buy was some spray paint.

The contact paper does leave some stickiness when you pull it off the metal. I used some Goo Gone to remove it.

I'm curious to see if I could do a multicolored pieced..... oh, the projects will never end. :)