blogging mom – Page 6 – SunnyMommy Creations

Posted on January 24, 2024January 24, 2024 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Eucalyptus Wall Hanger

It’s now the…what? 14th week of January? 🤪 We’ve been slammed with snow and ice, gone crazy from school snow days, and got very lucky when a falling tree narrowly missed our garage. Playing outside lets us breathe in some fresh air, but the freezing winds off Lake Michigan also mean we live in one of those places where the air hurts your face.

Inside, where 4 humans, 2 dogs, and 1 cat live, I wish very much for open windows with summery fresh air. Until then, however, I’m doing what I can to add some nice, fresh smells around here.

I found some dried eucalyptus online and decided to use that in our master bathroom. I have fake eucalyptus in a vase by my sink, but I knew I couldn’t put the real thing there because our cat eats everything. Also, we’re low on counter space and I didn’t want to add another vase. So, I decided to hang this dried eucalyptus. The bunch I purchased came with a nice bit of twine for hanging, but I wanted something a little fancier than just a hanging bunch.

What I came up with ended up looking pretty and was SO easy to do! You could make these out of any size embroidery hoop, with as many wooden beads as you can fit. You could even paint the beads different colors if you wanted. Or you could hang the hoop with twine for a more rustic look. There are many things you could add to the steps below, but here’s the quick and easy way I did mine!

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

embroidery hoop (mine was the 8 inch inner ring from this set)
wooden beads (mine were the biggest ones from this pack)
dried eucalyptus
hot glue

Step 1: Prep the eucalyptus and test the beads. I used the largest size beads from the pack I purchased – the 3/4 inch beads, I think. The hole size in these beads was perfect for inserting the eucalyptus stems so that they stuck tight but could still be removed if needed. I first plucked off the leaves from the bottom 2-3 inches of the eucalyptus stems. I also scraped down the places where the leaves connected to make sure the stems would fit through the bead holes. I ended up prepping all but 2 of my eucalyptus stems, because you want some extra for the last step.

Step 2: Glue wooden beads together. Taking my embroidery hoop, I tested with beads until I figured out about how many I would need. Be sure that the beads at either end sit on top of the hoop, not on the inside, so that the eucalyptus will stay straight rather than bending around the hoop. If your end beads don’t sit exactly on the hoop, all you have to do is move the beads a little up or down on the hoop, depending on your placement preference, until everything lines up right. I ended up needing 8 beads.

Keep in mind that your holes will go up and down. To be sure I glued them all together straight, I did 2 at a time. I only had to use one small dot of hot glue to stick 2 beads together, and I pressed them tight until the glue dried. Once I had all my beads paired up, I set them on my counter to make sure they’d be straight. Then I pressed more small dots of hot glue between each pair to connect them all together.

Step 3: Connect bead ends to the hoop. Next I held the strand of beads in place over my hoop and glued one end bead to the front of the hoop. Then I did the other end. Again, make sure the holes aim up and down (according to how it will hang) when attaching to the hoop. To be really sure the beads stayed on, I went all around the backsides of the end beads with glue to really secure them in place.

Step 4: Insert the eucalyptus. With my eucalyptus already prepped, it was easy to push each stem down through the bead holes. I cut a few shorter to add some depth to the look of things, now that I was arranging the eucalyptus in place.

Step 5: Glue eucalyptus to the bottom stems. Remember how I didn’t prep a few eucalyptus stems? I cut these into lengths long enough to cover the exposed, naked stems that stuck through the bottoms of the beads. It took one whole eucalyptus branch plus a little bit of the last one. These short bits I glued onto the empty stems, gently pressing to make sure they stuck. The last long bit of eucalyptus I just tucked behind the beads to fill out the the finished look.

That was it! I took the finished piece up to my bathroom, tapped in a nail where I wanted to hang it, and hung it by the hoop at the top.

I really like how this fills in an empty space on my walls (which honestly are pretty cool on their own, and you can find that tutorial here). The eucalyptus hanger looks pretty, adds an organic touch to the room, and smells lovely!

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on December 31, 2023December 31, 2023 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Candle Holders from Pop Bottles

Here’s my last DIY project for the year on the last day of 2023!

Once the charm of Christmas is over, I remember how much I dislike the early darkness of winter. (I can practically hear you people making jokes about my name, but trust me – I’ve heard it all. 😆) In my younger/single days, I often left up white Christmas lights all winter to make my living spaces more cozy despite the cold, dark nights. Now, I live with a husband and 2 small children who can’t remember to turn off a room’s “big lights” for anything. So, cozier light is harder to come by these days.

BUT, my girls do enjoy candlelight, and flameless, LED votive candles are a great, safe way to add touches of coziness scattered about where my family is least likely to leave on the house lights. Plus, I get the extra fun of figuring out cool holders for the candles…

Enter my second use for the pop bottles from my last project. I used the top halves of pop bottles to make Christmas bells, and now I found a use for the bottom halves – candle holders!

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

pop bottles, various sizes
Flameless votive candles
hot glue
coarse sea salt
faux moss
gloss spray paint
flower petals
wine corks
metallic gold paint pen

Step 1: Cut bottles in half. If you haven’t done my last project with the top parts of the bottles, then take new pop bottles, wash them, and cut them to whatever heights you like. I’d already cut mine a little lower than halfway down, so those were the sizes that I had to work with. But you could make them as tall as you like, or even cut them at an angle so that the “backs” of your candle holders will be tall with shorter “fronts” to show more light. Really, you can cut them any size or design you like!

To cut the bottles, I found it worked best to stab a knife in to make hole, then use scissors to cut around the bottle. Again, I made mine in as straight a line as I could…especially since I didn’t think of the angled idea until way after. LOL.

Step 2: Rim with hot glue. As you’ll see in the following options, there are a few ways I made candle holders. But for each option, I started by rimming the tops of the cut bottles with hot glue. This adds some texture, keeps the cut tops from being jagged or sharp, and makes a “melted glass” looking edge.

And now you pick how to finish!

Option 1: Paint the rims. For a few of the bottles that had flat bottoms, I simply used a paint marker and colored over the cooled/hardened hot glue. I used a metallic gold paint pen, and I like how shiny and pretty this made the rims, leaving the rest of the candle holder clear to see the brightest light.

I filled the base of the bottle/candle holder with a bit of coarse sea salt, partly to look pretty and partly to help the base be heavier. Setting a flameless votive candle in the center, these were done! You could fill your bottoms with different things for these candle holders, since this option leaves the insides most visible. I might change things up and replace the salt with pebbles at some point. Or beads. There are lots of options!

Option 2: Glue the sides and roll in salt. For other bottles with flat bottoms (these were SmartWater bottles), I spread hot glue on small sections at a time and then rolled that side over a plate covered with coarse sea salt. This used a lot of hot glue sticks, but honestly these surprised me in the end and were my favorite.

Once the salt was stuck all over (some gaps are fine), I took these candle holders down to my workshop and used a clear gloss spray to coat them. This helped hold the salt in place and also added a crystal-like shine to the salt.

With these dry, I took them back upstairs and again poured some sea salt into the base of each candle holder. (You can’t really see what’s inside these options, so the salt was fine just for adding weight.) Setting a flameless votive candle in the center, these were done too!

Option 3: Make a cork base. The bigger, 2-liter bottles had bottoms that were very obviously pop bottles, so I wanted to hide these bottoms a little better. One way I did this was by using wine corks left over from another project. First, I took a knife and cut them in half, lengthwise. Next, I used hot glue and spread it on each cut cork’s flat side, then pressed the cork against the bottom of the bottle. I did this all the way around the 2-liter base, using 17 halves of corks.

Because I only had enough corks left to do a smaller bottle, I did one of those the same way. (I guess we need to drink more wine 😆) But I like having a little variety between the sizes with the same style option, so these 2 together look nice. Once all the corks were on, I again poured in sea salt to add weight to the base. This especially helped on the 2-liter-sized candle holder, since the opening was bigger and you can really see what’s inside. I put more salt in this one than I had in the smaller candle holders, and it looked nice against the cork.

I ended up using my gold paint pen on the top, glued parts of these candle holders as well, just because I liked how that looked better than leaving them plain.

Painting the top of my cork candle holders.

Option 4: Faux moss wrap. On another 2-liter bottom, I went around the top again with a thin bit of glue, then quickly dipped the top in salt. This rimmed the top with texture and a bit of sparkle. I didn’t need to spray these tops with gloss since there wasn’t much salt on there.

Next, I spread hot glue over small sections and pressed on faux moss to cover the bottle’s bottom. I decided to go all over with the moss, leaving only the top exposed where the salt/hot glue showed. This ended up looking woodsy and wintery, and it really looks better in person than in my pictures. I used green moss, but you could do this in different colored mosses too!

Again, I added some salt to the base for weight, then placed in a candle.

Option 5: Cover in petals. I’ve had these white flower petals for forever and finally had a use for them! Starting at the top of a 2-liter bottom, I put a dab of hot glue on the bottom of a petal and stuck it on so that the majority of the petal stuck up above the edge of the bottle. I continued to do this with petals all the way around the top, overlapping them a bit and gluing them down onto each other if they stuck out too much.

Once the top layer was on, I went around with a lower row of petals. Then I did another lower layer. Finally, I heavily glued on petals around the bottom.

This petal-covered candle holder already looked pretty, and once I got a votive candle inside… 😍 This one ended up being my second favorite. …I may need to scrounge up more petals and do more!

That was it! I like the variety I ended up with. They looked cool without candlelight inside, and I’m SO glad this plan worked out and they look even cooler with candlelight shining through! 😆

Candle holders in action…

I’m sure there are many other things you could stick on the outside of these candle holders too! Beads, sequins, wood sticks – what else can you think of?

One IMPORTANT note: The hot glue might deform the plastic bottles a little bit if too hot. Since I was covering the bottles anyway, this wasn’t much of a problem. But it’s a good reminder that you MUST use flameless votive candles, because real fire will absolutely melt these and be a serious hazard.

I found flickering, LED votive candles on Amazon, and you can buy packs of them for pretty cheap…so I’m certainly making even more candle holders in the future. 😜

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on December 15, 2023December 15, 2023 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Christmas Bells Dupe

Anyone else singing “It’s beginning to cost a lot like Christmas” a lot this month? 😆 As far as new Christmas decorations are concerned, I’ve been trying to rein in the spending or at least make what I can myself. While shopping for gifts on Amazon, however, I found a beautiful set of old-looking Christmas bells to go across a hallway or over a mantle. Price tag: $130. So, no, that was not going to happen. But the more I looked at them, the more I began to form a plan…

The star of this project? Pop bottles. (Many of you probably call them soda bottles, so bear with my Michigan terminology. lol) This whole project technically cost me nothing because I used scrap materials, leftover paint, and a spare tension rod. I guess you could say I lost out on the $0.10 I could’ve gotten for each bottle if I’d recycled them, so maybe I’m down $1.50. But $1.50 is certainly better than $130! 😜

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

10-15 pop bottles
hot glue gun and glue
black spray paint
gold and/or silver spray paint
metallic tape
twine or string/rope
tension rod
burlap fabric strip
fake poinsettia or garland/ribbon

Step 1: Collect and clean pop bottles. You want to use bottles with rounded topsides, not angled like Coke bottles. Since we don’t drink a lot of pop in our house, I begged for empty bottles after Thanksgiving parties and started collecting them. 😂 I also used a pack of smaller SmartWater bottles to get a variety of sizes. I ended up with 15, which is about perfect for the space I wanted filled.

First, I rinsed out the bottles and caps, and then I pulled off the labels. The SmartWater bottles in particular had a lot of adhesive still stuck on, so I used some Goo Be Gone and wiped it all off.

Some of the 2 liters had scraps stuck on, but I pulled them off best I could and gave up on the rest, so don’t worry too much if you can’t get it all off.

Step 2: Cut the bottles to bell shapes. I tried a utility knife and a little hacksaw before finally using a sharp knife and scissors. For each bottle, I found a spot a little past halfway down and pushed the knife tip through to create a hole. Then, taking the scissors, I cut around the bottles to cut the top “bell” part free from the bottom.

Try to cut as straight around as you can so the bottom of the bell will be level and even. I tried to think of ways to maybe draw a guideline around the bottles, but I figured I’d be able to cut about as straight as I’d be able to draw anyway. 🤷‍♀️ I tested by setting the cut “bell” tops on my counter. If they were tilted too much, I knew which spots to cut down. If there was a gap around the bottom, I trimmed the other places to even it out.

Step 3: Hot glue the bottoms. I didn’t love how jagged the bottoms of the bells were from cutting, plus I wanted them to look more like old metal. I ended up taking my hot glue gun and adding a ring of glue around the bottom of each bell. This almost made it look like melted glass (…which gave me an idea for later, so stay tuned for another project using the leftover bottoms of the bottles).

Step 4: Spray paint black. I wanted a base coat on my bells so that they’d look dark from the undersides. And, a black undercoat would add an aged look to the bells under the metallic paint of the next coat. Also, I wanted the tops and caps of each bell to be black.

I prepped my craft room by placing some flat cardboard on my turntable, and then I set the bottles on top. I sprayed the bottles all over with one good coat of the black, then let them sit to dry.

Step 5: Cover caps and spray paint metallic gold and silver. Since I wanted the tops to stay black, I took some painters tape and wrapped the tops of the bottles to cover them. Then I divided up my bottles and decided to make 6 silver and 9 rose gold. ( I used rose gold because that was what I had already and I like how it looks a little coppery, but you could do straight gold instead.)

I spray painted these one color at a time, making sure to get them all over as best I could. I also held them by the taped tops and lightly sprayed on the insides, mostly around the rims, which will be most visible from below when these are hanging.

Step 6: Remove tape and add loops. I let the paint dry and then brought the bells upstairs to finish them up. Gently, I pulled off the tape. Then I took some rope/ties and decided what lengths to make my loops for hanging the bells. (I was going to use twine but didn’t have enough, so that would be a nice option too.)

I wanted the bells to hang at slightly different lengths, so I decided on 3 different lengths for my loops. I cut 5 short strips at about 4 inches, 6 long strips at about 10 inches, and 4 strips between those 2 lengths at about 6 inches.

Taking my hot glue gun, I added a blob of glue to either end of one strip at a time, then pressed the ends on either side of the bell’s cap area. This made a nice loop at the top of each bell. I tried to vary what length of loop I put on which size bell, but there was no rhyme or reason to it.

Step 7: Wrap cap area. I had a lot of extra gold tape from another project, and I really like how this easily added a different look to the tops of each bell. I was worried about the tops of the bells looking too much like pop bottles, and this tape worked great to pull my whole plan together by making the cap area look like the attachments for the bells.

Basically I just wrapped the metallic gold tape around the bottom of the cap, making sure to also cover the ends of the loops.

Step 8: Prep the tension rod. I could have just spray painted the rod black or gold or silver and been done with it, but I wanted to wrap mine in a strip of burlap fabric to add to the rustic-but-cozy look. First, I put the tension rod up across my entryway hall to be sure it was the right length, nice and tight. Then I cut my strip of burlap.

Next, I used my hot glue gun and stuck the end of the burlap around the end of the tension rod. Twisting the burlap loosely around the rod, I glued it again at the other end to hold it secure. Finally, I went back around the burlap and glued it together where it gapped too much and the rod was visible.

Step 9: Add the bells and hang. I planned the order of my bells by setting them along my counter. Once happy with the plan, I gently pulled the rod back free and held it up with one hand while using my other hand to slide the bells’ loops along the rod into place.

The really nice thing about hanging this is that it’s SO light. I was able to hold the whole thing while climbing on a chair to stand tall enough to reach where I wanted this in place. I pushed the rod in place so it was tight, made sure it was level, and that was it!

Step 10: Customize! The bells looked pretty cool alone, but I felt like the whole thing needed a little extra pizzazz. There are all kinds of ways you could customize this decoration to finish it off. Adding LED lights would be cool. Wrapping a small garland of greens would be pretty too, or some red or green ribbon. I had some fake poinsettias and decided to add a floral pop of festive red. I simply climbed back up and stuck the stems through the gaps in the burlap, and for a few I wrapped the stems around the rod to hold them in position.

Done!

Now, fingers crossed that my plan for the bottle bottoms goes this well…

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on November 25, 2023November 25, 2023 by Sunshine — Leave a comment

Saving Junk Furniture

I’ve always loved taking hand-me-down, “junk” furniture and turning it into something new and cool. Many of my earliest DIY projects (if that’s what they were called in the 90s), involved taking old dressers or tables or nightstands and painting them in fun and unique ways so that they had a second life. This is how I ended up with a pretty cool room as a teenager. I did homework in my room on a restored and repainted kitchen table, which is still in use at my parents’ house and in fact was used to hold pies this Thanksgiving. It’s also how I ended up with my cousin’s dresser and makeup table, which now are in my daughter’s bedroom and my own bedroom, respectively. I’ve redone benches for friends, tables for friends, and countless projects for my mother. 😆

So when I say that this table seemed almost beyond redemption, you know it was pretty bad. My mom bought it somewhere for cheap (I’m quite sure), and she asked if I could fix it up to use at her house for her grandkids. Since her grandkids coincidentally are my kids, they teamed up with Grammy to insist I give it a go.

There was no way a simple sand-and-paint job was going to be enough. The general structure of the table was fortunately ok, but the tabletop and legs were stained from years of use. It appeared that liquids of indeterminate origins had soaked into the wood as well. There were also a lot of really deep scratches and cracks. I could have worked really hard to sand all this smooth and putty the scratches and cracks before painting over it, but I was pretty sure I’d have to go quite deep to find smooth and clean wood again. I don’t have that kind of time or patience. And I wasn’t entirely sure the table was up for it either.

So how did I decide to fix the damage? I burned it all! 😆 But with control, and on purpose, to make the table look cool again.

If you don’t have the skill or the tools or the patience to repair ugly furniture the “right” way, this is a relatively easy, inexpensive, and unique way to do it! You could do this to a dresser, headboard, or really any wooden furniture piece. Obviously I’m showing you how I did this table, but the same general steps will apply.

Supplies:

(As an advertising affiliate and Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. But it doesn’t cost you anything extra and helps me keep up my site!)

sandpaper and sander
spray paint
kitchen torch
semi-gloss polyurethane

Step 1: Disassemble and clean. To make things easier, I took off the table legs so I could fix them separate from the main tabletop. I wanted to be able to put the tabletop on my lazy Susan to spin easily as I worked, and this wouldn’t have worked with the legs on either. With the legs off, I’d also have an easier time sanding to the edges of my pieces.

To give myself an even easier time sanding, I wiped down the whole table and scraped off some gunk stuck to the wood.

Step 2: Sand. I used 60-grit sandpaper because this table needed tough love. If your furniture doesn’t have layers of stain or paint and is generally not in terrible shape, you could use a higher grit sandpaper so it’s not too rough on your wood. But mine needed 60.

I started with the legs and went all over them with my little sander (a birthday present yet to be named) to get rid of the slime-y feel on the existing stain. To save time and make this project easier on myself, I’d decided to just spray paint the legs since they weren’t too banged up. So, I only sanded the legs enough to give the spray paint a “rough” surface to adhere to.

Then came the tabletop. This took a while. There appeared to be a few layers of wood stain. And then there were damaged areas where liquid had soaked into the wood. And of course those scratches were nearly impossible to smooth out without sanding so far down that it left dips in the surface. I ended up going over the whole surface about 3 times to get off as much as I could.

With the top done, I flipped it over and sanded down the surrounding side parts/supports around the underside of the tabletop. These weren’t too bad, but I sanded them down pretty well since I wanted these sides to match the top.

Once I was sure it was as good as I was going to get it, I wiped off the whole tabletop to get rid of any dust.

Step 3: Spray paint the legs. Like I said, it seemed like a lot of effort to do anything complicated with the legs. Since they weren’t in bad shape, I decided to just spray paint them black and call it good. I used a glossy paint to add some shine, and I sprayed on 2 coats to make sure they were good and covered.

If you have a part of your furniture that would be difficult to burn evenly or would take a lot of time to do, spray painting these parts is a good alternative to torching. It also can help to highlight the cooler, burned sections.

Step 4: Torch the wood. Using my kitchen torch (which at this point is covered in epoxy and I need a new one for my actual kitchen), I set it to a medium flame and began at the edges of my tabletop. I went over these edges with the flame and burned them quite a bit without worrying about grain lines just yet. Then I started from one side’s edge and began to go over the top surface with the flame to burn long lines across the tabletop.

I like to tilt my torch and blow the flame forward over the surface I’m burning rather than aiming the torch straight down at the wood. This makes straighter, less dotted lines as you move across the wood, plus it doesn’t get your hand as hot!

If you have natural wood grain lines to guide your burn lines, this looks great and makes it easier. However, my wood was a mess and I had to make my own fake “grain lines” by burning them into the wood. This takes time and is a little more effort, but it’s not that difficult.

If you’re worried about starting a fire, it helps to keep a wet cloth or sponge nearby. If you feel like your burned wood is too hot, use the wet cloth to pat the hot parts and cool them down. But despite using, you know, fire for this project, it really does char the wood nicely without catching anything aflame.

If you feel like your lines are too blotchy, I found that I could really, really burn a bigger area and that looked fine too, surrounded by smaller lines.

Once I was done with the tabletop, I also burned the surrounding bottom sides that attach to the legs. You could do this part first and the tabletop second. I just wanted to make sure it worked on the worst part – the top – before bothering with the sides if it didn’t work.

Step 5: Seal with polyurethane. Once the wood was cool to the touch, I grabbed a can of semigloss polyurethane. (You could use high gloss or matte, depending on the shine you want.) Using a brush to really get it into the wood, I brushed the poly on over the tabletop surface. I gave it a good coat, including over the edges. Then I did the surrounding bottom sides as well.

While the first coat was drying, I could already see I would need a second coat because it soaked in so much where the wood was most burnt. But the poly doesn’t take long to dry, so I applied a second coat over the first, and this really helped to make the top surface shiny and smooth.

Step 6: Reattach the legs. With the table dry, I spread out a towel and lay the tabletop upside-down to reattach the legs. These went on easily with the original hardware, and then I flipped the whole table to stand.

Ta-da! This “junk” table went from a total mess to now a really cool little piece of furniture. My mom is happy; my kids are happy. Mission accomplished.

DIY Must-Have Lists

Posted on October 26, 2023November 15, 2023 by Sunshine — 1 Comment

Easy Spice Cupboard Shelves

Is it turmeric? Is it nutmeg? It’s hard to see! (There’s a story there about a time I very, very incorrectly made ginger ale floats… 😆)

Yesterday, I discovered that we’d bought TWO huge containers of chili powder because we hadn’t seen the one we already had buried behind other spice jars. This was my final straw of minor annoyance, and I decided to reconfigure our spice cupboard.