Recycle Inspiration for your home!

We all have those items at home that we can't seem to get rid of, even though they don't seem useful any more. This is where repurposing/recycling comes into play to give them a new life!

Repurposing/recycling is so much fun, just because it is SO worth going into the effort of creating something fun yourself to suit the space and color palette you want. The end product gives me such an adrenaline rush!

Below are some photos of items I have recycled at our home. Maybe it will be the inspiration you need to get you started (trust me it's addictive) and once you get an eye for it, you are always on the look out to recycle!

Here's a list of all my recycle design ideas together for you to browse.

1. Recycled Coffee Bean Sack Cushion - DIY

2. DIY Pantry Door Upgrade

3. DIY Coffee Table Makeover: IKEA hack

4. DIY Powder Room Refresh

5. DIY Easy Spray Painting Makeover

6. DIY Rug Makeover

7. Upcycled Thrift store find: Altered spoon

8. Upcycled Thrift store find: Craft storage caddy

9. Upcycled Thrift store find: Kitchen caddy

10. From trash to treasure: DIY Scrapbook paper jewelry tray

11. DIY – How to make pots look like expensive stone planters!

12. DIY Decorative Diwali Candle/Tealight/Diya Floor Stand with supplies at home!

13. DIY Industrial Laundry Sign

14. Recycled wall planter

15. DIY Patent Wall Art using Recycled wood 

Maybe this will give you just the inspiration you need to get you started at your DIY project!

Love,
Divya

New addition to my Faux Copper Patina wall!

Today is the day. Yep, it’s the day for the reveal of my Coffee room Faux Copper Patina Wall Art! So, my DIY Faux painted wall had been begging for a wall art to make it look alive, and husband and I had been searching for the perfect little thing. We had been looking all over the home decor stores and the online websites for something quirky and unique without breaking the bank. I even thought of painting something fun, but the wall cried out for something out of the box!

So without further ado, here is what we finally ended up with! *drumroll please*

Ta-da!

I love it to pieces. I think I even dream about it at night!

And believe it or not, we found this dilapidated Penny-farthing cycle planter at the The Amazing Mill Markets of Daylesford! I admit that when we bought it, it looked filthy and ugly. You wouldn't want to touch it! It had dilapidated rubber tyres on both the wheels, and had a stand making it a floor planter.Husband was skeptical about my plans, but I knew this would be perfect for my Faux Copper Patina wall.

After dumping it into the car and bringing it home, we cleaned it with a pressure washer to get rid of the superficial dirt. The rubber tyre on the big wheel was hideous, so we removed it, and cleaned it again to get rid of all the in-lying cobwebs over the years. We bought a metal cutting tool to get rid of half of the handle to hang it close to the wall , and a few trips to Bunnings later, voila!

I decided not to repaint it to leave the character on it.

These pots are from Bunnings, and the plants in them are from IKEA. 

I love how the black metal of the cycle goes so well with the industrial table fan lamp. 

Can you tell that this is my favorite room in the house? This also gives the illusion of a higher ceiling. I love it!

Love,
Divya

DIY – How to make pots look like expensive stone planters!

Every time I walked through the Garden section of Bunnings, I would dream about concrete/stone planters instead of the giant ugly plastic pots in my alfresco. That is when I thought of giving them a makeover.. What if I could give my existing sad plastic pots a new life as funky fake stone planters?

The pots were old and scuffed, but as they were in sound shape I thought it was a great idea to give them a new life versus buying new and expensive pots.




I remembered I had some Dulux Design Stone Paint lying around from our house painting back in February. So, thought it would be just right for the makeover. Do not have the Design stone paint? Fret not. I have jotted down steps that you can use to recreate the look with items that are readily available.

So, here is how I refreshed the pots.

Supplies needed:

• A plastic pot to upcycle
• Sanding block/ Sandpaper
• Dust Mask for protection 
• Paint brush
• Container for mixing paint
• Disposable rubber gloves to protect hands
• Drop Sheet/Newspaper for protecting the floor
• Dulux Design Stone Paint
  OR
  Grey paint (or you can mix White and Black paint) - You could use regular wall paint.
  If using regular paint, you will need the following additional items to recreate the effect:
• Plastic bag for shading 
• Plaster of Paris

Directions:

1. Place the drop sheet on the floor, and start with sanding the pot with a sanding block or sandpaper. Wear a dust mask to minimize intake.
   
   
2. Wipe dust away thoroughly with a piece of cloth.
3. Take the paint out in a disposable container. If mixing colors to make paint, then do that here.
4. I straight away used the Dulux Design Stone Paint on the pot using a criss-cross pattern to get the realistic look.
   
   
   
   If using regular paint,  give the pot one coat of Grey paint. Work in criss-cross motion to get some texture. Don’t forget to do the internal ring of the pot too.
5. For the stone look, mix Plaster of Paris powder in one batch of paint and slap on the pot. Make sure you work with batches. Get details on this procedure in my DIY Copper Patina wall tutorial.
6. Use a plastic bag to scrunch out a lighter shade of grey to get patches like concrete. 

Large real stone/concrete planters retail for more than $150, so I’m thrilled that these ‘stone painted’ pots look close enough to the real thing! Just look at the transformation:

Love,
Divya

DIY Decorative Diwali Candle/Tealight/Diya Floor Stand with supplies at home!

Diwali is just around the corner, and I wanted to make some new fun stuff for decorations around the home. It is our first Diwali, in our first home! This one has to be special, but I wanted to make something versatile, rather than one that would be tucked away for the rest of the year. That's when I came up with the idea of this Floor Diya Stand. It is quick and gorgeous, and will also liven any decor! Once Diwali is gone, it can be used as a cupcake stand for parties!!

Also, this project took me a total of 1 hour 15 minutes, and the end result is SO worth it!

Supplies needed:

• Recycled Cardboard sheets - I used empty carton boxes which I had lying around from when we were painting. 

• Thick Cardboard rolls - You could use toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, or even wrapping paper rolls
• Decorative paper - You could use scrapbook paper, origami paper, recycled cardboard sheets, whatever you have at hand
• Laces 
• Glue
• Glue Gun
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Tea lights for decoration
• Rhinestones, or any other items for decoration

Directions:

You can go with any other shape - triangle, circle or a flower for the "levels", but I thought squares would be quickest to make, and I was right. If you have time, you could tweak this tutorial to make any other shape. 

Also, I wanted height, so I made four "levels", you can add or remove to suit your space and liking.

1. I started with cutting out pieces of cardboard. These would make the base and the "levels".
I used the following measurements:

- 10 cm x 10 cm
- 15 cm x 15 cm
- 20 cm x 20 cm
- 25 cm x 25 cm  

Here are the final cardboard pieces. (You can see the paint splatters on most of them!)

2. Then, I started wrapping the cardboard in paper on both the sides. 

 

Then covering it with glitter paper and some fun scrapbook paper. Now, you could go crazy with colors because Diwali is all about colors, but since I wanted to reuse this as a cupcake stand in the near future, I kept it subtle.

 

Here are the final cardboard pieces:

 

3. Now, I should have measure the height and all, but I just ended up using one toilet paper roll as it is, and splitting the paper towel roll exactly in half for the three pillars creating the height.

4. I had Glitter cloth lying around, so I used it to wrap the rolls. You could use some decorative paper fabric, lace, or glitter tape to cover it up.

 

5. Now the glitter shebang starts! Use the glue gun to add whatever decorative laces or tape you want to the sides of the cardboard pieces.

6.  Assemble with the help of glue gun! 

 

 7. Stick on flowers, rhinestones or pearls

And we are done.. TA-DA!

8. Decorate with tealights/diyas/candles or cupcakes! :)

Let me know if you try this. And I would love to see pics of your handmade Diwali decorations, so please do share!

Xoxo

Divya

DIY Color Swatch Art

The wall in front of my table in the craft room had been blank and drab forever. My initial plan was to add a pegboard but husband had a fit at the number of holes we would be making in the wall in the process. Check out the rest of my Craft Room/Study here.

While watching the Fixer Upper series, I noticed some Color Swatch Art in one of the styled houses and literally fell in love with the idea. I knew that this would be the perfect pop of inspiration I needed on my wall, also adding color to the space.


The same day, we were off to Spotlight to get some canvases for the purpose. I grabbed 8 of the 11"x14" ones for 2$ each. (SCORE!) Just look at the transformation!

Supplies needed: 

• 11"x14" canvas - 8
  (Technically, the number and the size of the canvas would depend on the size of the wall you would like to cover with this project)
• Acrylic Paint
  (In the colors you would like to paint, or you could mix up colors to make new ones, totally up to you!)
• Alphabet Stencils 
• Mod Podge
• Pencil
• Ruler 
• Eraser

Directions:

1. I started with creating an outline for the color swatch with a pencil and a ruler. I wanted a 1 cm border around three sides, just because I think that looked better. My measurements of the square hence, turned out to be 25.5cm x 25.5cm. I created these on all the canvases as a guide for the paint.
    
   
2. Then I decided on the color palette I wanted to paint, and started to fill in the squares with the decided colors. I decided on the following shades: Crimson Red, Cadmium Yellow, Cobalt Blue, and made some pastel and neutral shades: Jade Green, Lilac Purple, Light Pink, Steel Grey and a Bright Orange. The painting need not be perfect, so I slapped the paint on!
   
   
   
   
   
3. Once this was complete, I stenciled out the color names on the bottom of each swatch canvas with pencil. I could have spelled out the exact color, but I only wanted to replicate the look and feel of a swatch, so kept it super simple!
   
   
   
4. With black paint I filled in these words. This was the most time consuming and tiring part of the entire project since this needed to be precise. You could use other mediums to do this, but I wanted to paint.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once everything was dried up, I mod podged all the canvases to seal and finish them up. This gave them a professional look and removed any major inconsistencies in paint color.
   
   
   

   

Two more to finish, and that's it, all done and ready to hang... love them to pieces! We used 3M Picture strips to hang these canvases. Trying to figure out the arrangement here:

And this is what the final arrangement looks like! They add such a fun vibe to the room and lots of pops of colors - perfect accompaniment to my doodle wall!

Hope these have inspired you to make something fun and colorful for your home! 

Xoxo

Divya