Make Vintage Votive Candle Holders

This post originally appeared at Mod Podge Rocks Blog. Check it out for more great crafting ideas. Over at Hammer Like a Girl, we usually try to use materials that have been cast off, scrounged, or salvaged. So when we first were planning this DIY votive project, we thought it would be a great idea to use cut-off bottles. You’ve all seen the technique online – soak string in acetone, wrap it around a bottle, light it on fire, turn turn turn to get an even burn and when the flame starts to die down, dunk it ice water, and the bottle breaks where the string was, essentially turning a bottle into a glass. It sounds so cool (and easy). We went out and bought acetone, dug in our recycling bins and went to work. Maybe we were doing something wrong, but for the life of us, we could not get a nice clean break. The edges were jaggedy, like something you’d see in a bar fight. So with singed arm hair, we went to the Goodwill, where we bought 3 glasses for $.69/each instead. Here’s some instructions – not how to singe your arm hair – but for making unique decoupage votive candle holders.

Up-cycled Bookends from Salvaged Brackets

We were cruising the aisles of Second Use the other day and came across some really cool, heavy industrial brackets – cast iron we think? More truth about us: we can never resist interesting metal stuff – so for $5 it was added to our stash. We stopped by Daly’s Paint and quizzed them about primer and paint – the goal was to get a heavy coat on the bracket as if it had been dipped in a super thick, semi-glossy, paint which would then contrast with the rough and industrial nature of the iron. Alas, no great way to make our paint thicker – but we did have some older water based paint that had thickened on its own due to poor storage technique (what can we say) and the color was nice, so – Bob’s your uncle.

This Plus That Equals: Industrial Coffee Table

We found these HUGE casters at Second Use (where else?) and immediately thought “coffee table”. (Actually what I immediately thought was that the husband would kill me if I brought home another big metal piece of randomness – like this and this and this.)

8″ diameter industrial casters.

Planks from RE-Store, planed.

Old Gas Can from Habitat for Humanity.

If you like this post, you may also like:

Bathroom Using Salvaged Materials, https://hammerlikeagirl.wordpress.com/2013/04/28/bathroom-design-using-salvaged-materials/

Reclaimed vowel. http://wp.me/p1VSGx-19D

Attic Access, https://hammerlikeagirl.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/designing-with-street-signs/

Pillows using Grain Stencils, https://hammerlikeagirl.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/pillows/

Make a Home Office Pendant Light

I needed a light for my workspace. I wanted to find a really awesome Pendant Light. I poked around online and found some that were amazing, but a little too expensive for me to handle. I had a very basic $17.00 IKEA pendant light left over from my kitchen update. $17-40.00 was more like my budget. But, it was so small and lacked any funk at all. Plus it looked like it belonged in a kitchen.

I was hoping to snag an inexpensive, awesome, retro light from Second Use Building Materials or RE Store.

Modernized Armoire

I have a cottage style home which means very little storage space. I purchased an armoire from a friend several years ago with the idea that one day I’d paint, stain, or at least change the door handles.

It’s time for a purge!

My armoire with age spots and all

I used for a desk. A nice piece of furniture, however, it’s not sized to sit at with a chair.

I wanted to modernize the whole room. It currently serves as a makeshift office, spare bedroom and a lazy catch-all storage space. The thought was to get rid of a lot of useless stuff and shift the room toward a contemporary office space that could quickly convert into a bedroom when guests arrive.

Hallway Color Makeover

At one time, I thought having red in the hallway would add life and spark. The palette from a stir stick view seemed to be a good choice.

Lesson Learned: If there isn’t natural light available you’ll need a lighter color than you might think. In fact, less color just might be better. That doesn’t mean you should never choose rich bold colors. It’s all about the light.

Bathroom Design: Using Salvaged Materials

I bought this vintage utility sink years ago at Second Use Building Materials. We had been considering a second floor addition and weren’t 100% sure the remodel would actually happen. But then I fell in love with the sink and had to get it. So my argument for the remodel became “we have to do it, we already have the sink!”.

The addition eventually did happen and I finally got to use the sink.

The “before” picture:

Here are some pictures of the finished bathroom. Things to note:

• Salvaged materials include: tile seconds from Second Use and Architerra NW, castors, sanded Fir flooring from our attic for shelving, planed and sanded/finished Fir from basement cladding for baseboard/door trim.
• When we got the sink it came in an angle iron frame. It was rusty and a little thin, but the general design was cool. We modified it a bit, designed flanking cabinets to match, and had a local welder/artist build them.
• The counter tops (and floors and shower walls) are d.i.y. Milestone, a decorative/pigmented hybridized cement. That was a wacky Hammer Like a Girl undertaking that we will never do on that scale again. Counter tops – completely do-able. Floors and shower walls – not so much. But we did it and I only cried once.
• Speaking of crying, the day we set the tiles was 103°. (We reserved the wet saw and the husband took the day off work so we were determined to get it done.) Actually it was 103° outside and about 110° inside/upstairs. Sweaty.

If there is a moral of this story, I guess it would be: if you love something that is one-of-a-kind – even if you don’t quite know what to do with it – go ahead and buy it (if your significant-other will let you and you have room in your basement, that is.)

Salvaged castors on the iron frame counters.

Milestone countertops.

Storage.

Reclaimed and sanded Fir from attic.

Angle iron sink frame and matching flanking cabinets.

Cool stamp on ceramic sink: Crane & Trenton Potteries Co.

Wall mounted faucet.

Designing With Street Signs

Sometimes things turn out better than you expect – I was beginning to wonder what the heck I was going to do with the $60 worth of street signs I had piled in the basement. Turns out they don’t work so well for magnetic boards – since they aren’t magnetic. “What now?” we asked ourselves, (I wasn’t the only one with a basement stash of them). We decided to experiment by making a street-sign-collage-clad door for access to my attic. The location is basically out of sight in the house – you know – just in case it didn’t work out so well…We started with the the giant hole in the wall which had been covered by 2 planks all winter (bye bye heating $$) –

Street Signs and My Attic Access

Sketching the door

Fitting the plywood

Insulating the door

Waiting…

I’m on a kick to make my home more energy efficient. Yeah! First project – a better attic access door. Boring! Thank goodness I have 2 willing girlfriends to help me… and I must say it’s turning out to be anything but boring!

So we sketched out our plan, knocked a bigger hole in the wall (after verifying it was not structural), built a plywood door panel, applied insulation to the back of it and then…

St Patrick’s Day

Graduation parties

Snowboarding

Ultimate Frisbee

Summer water polo

Christmas presents

Christmas decorating

Summer vacations

Summer sand mermaids

ONE YEAR LATER! Back to work… We had plenty of time to think about it, ahem, and decided to experiment with our Seattle street signs.

Installing Craftsman Window Trim (Finally)

A while back, we published a post about selecting douglas fir lumber from the odd lot section at our local lumber yard to use for window trim. That lumber sat for a while in the basement while we worked on other projects.

We (or should I say the husband) decided it was finally time to get to work on it. It went something like this: “The lamps, the pillows are nice and everything, but maybe you 3 could work on some projects that will get the house done.” He’s so practical (and right).

Just as a reminder, we had 9 windows without trim. The windows came from Loewen, a company from Canada. They make beautiful SDL (simulated divided light) windows – you can check out their website. One thing they do in their fir windows is mix a vertical grain (vg) fir with a less costly flat grain to make them more affordable. To save costs, that is what our plan entailed as well for the trim and we saved even more money by going to the odd lot section. We told ourselves that we would be ok with imperfections such as knots, and once everything was up, the knots did just become a natural part of the window.

Here is one example of window sans trim:

Our craftsman trim design was pretty simple –