Architectural Salvage Easel

The Neoclassical half-column of a base for something- heavy potted plant, patio table, bird bath-- was abandoned curbside the next street over. I raced back to my house, jumped into the car, and wrestled the heavy wooden piece of architectural salvage into the trunk without a thought what to do with it. The feet are shaved off unevenly and the wood was a dirty sorry shade of gray so I scrubbed, sanded, and painted it with leftover red from my sister's bedroom. By the time a coat of clear weather-proofing Rustoleum, I had thought how to put its tilted design to good use.

An easel of course requires a broad surface so I practiced my novice carpenter skills with spare metal joiner plates, scrap wood, and screws. There are a few nails I couldn't drive in fully that I left for hooks, and to mark it one of my inaugural clumsy carpentry projects along with the extra holes drilled in slightly wrong places. Despite these mistakes, the easel top sits sturdily on the base.

 The ledge was another feat of salvage. I unscrewed the loose curving legs from a dilapidated wooden chair, another curbside trash day treasure, and affixed them to the broad wooden surface with metal plates and screws. The holes where the legs were attached to the rest of the chair with wooden pegs function as pencil or paintbrush holders. I think the shape of the legs complements the Neoclassical base well, if I do say so. Now I need only a stool, or to use a collapsible folding chair, to paint en plen air. 

Americana Burlap Fence Hangings

I cannot encourage people enough to check local farms and farm stands for raw materials like burlap first rather than trotting out to a craft store and paying four times the amount for a newly manufactured, characterless roll. I saved the designs on the burlap bags I purchased for a few bucks from a local farm since the bold graphics summoned images of undulating corn fields and other midwestern Americana. I stitched the burlap into old wire hangers which looped over fence pickets. The hangings brighten the gray fence for the summer.

This potato sack, depicting a tiny mustached man with a boater raised to greet others as he cruises by on a penny farthing. I find the name of the chemical "to prevent sprouting" that may have been used dissonant alongside this genteel illustration. 

Fairy Tale Cottage Earring Organizer from a Dumpstered Spice Rack

Of all the female accessories I've learned to adorn myself with, earrings have been the most difficult to organize. Unlike my necklaces, which can hang off anything- like these on pushpins which rim a little shelf- they come in pairs and have two little pieces to each on top of that which I constantly lose. I tried stretching lace between large embroidery hoops and hooking my collection there but the hoop was difficult to move around to get to the post earrings. All my jostling caused the whole contraption to explode after a week or so. 

Since, I' had my eyes peeled for something sturdier that can hang but which also has firmly affixed grids. When I peered into a dumpster down the street at a house being renovated to check out some wheels poking out, attached to ugly tray tables, I found a spice rack identical to this. After prying off the wheels, I absconded with the tiny cabinet, still full of 21 glass spice jars with unusual pinkish copper-colored screw lids. After scraping out mid-century spices and soaking the jars, I set them aside for  miniature thing storage in my future home. The rack itself reminded me of Snow White's or Briar Rose's cottages in the woods but it needed some work.

I didn't have hooks for the upper shelf so I flipped the cabinet upside down. Fortunately, the hook clasped still secured the doors shut this way.  I scrubbed down all surfaces with dish soap and warm water, dried, and then massaged in 3 coats of coconut oil to restore the wood. The hinges, long creased plastic pieces,  broke as I rubbed at the doors so I improved new ones with heavy duty fabric patches and upholstery tacks after a failed attempt with tiny salvaged shutter hinges. Thumbtacks and some staples held strips of lace--these salvaged from a thrift store wedding dress I purchased for the satin- over the back of each shelf. I tied a hammock for loose earring backs and holiday earrings for my final touch.

The bottom shelf had a different rod running along the back. I addressed the accessibility problems I previously experienced with post earrings by incorporating the rod into the design. I draped 3 pieces of lace vertically over the rod so I can easily lift them up to view and remove post earrings and their backs. User experience design on the fly!

The finished product! A fairy tale cottage earring organizer from a dumpster spice rack cleaned, polished, turned upside down, re-hinged (with a pop of turquoise, notice), laced, and hung (but rather haphazardly for now with some hanger wire. When I move this to my future home, I'll have a less conspicuous loop. I might paint the black grate off white someday too.) Earring storage solved for free.

Upcycled Burlap Container Gardens, Part 1

Repurposed papasan chair container garden.  I stumbled upon a perfectly stable bamboo papasan chair while walking my puppy the day after seeing suggestions for its reuse as a container garden on Pinterest. Hoping for a more organized garden, I flipped the basket though my image search (albeit with aesthetic concave examples) suggests no one else has publicized such an innovation. I staple-gunned burlap and plastic mesh over the former chair seat opening and stabilized this since dirt is heavy with a Z of scrap wood nailed into the bamboo rim. I anticipate that the rings of bamboo will act to both trellis and compartmentalize the different plants inside. So far I experimented with corn, beans, and onions. (Notice the compost bin in the background of this photo? I installed the Earth Machine after a workshop session with a state resource recovery manager and a visit to my city's department of public works which subsidized my purchase, paying 50% of an already discounted product. Only $20 and a lot of discussion with my family to prevent food waste!

Burlap lined wire bicycle baskets for beans, squash, cukes, and nasturtium. Because the soil quality in New England can be poor, my compost know how was acquired very recently, and the neighborhood squirrel and rabbit populations have exploded, I wanted some of my veggies to be protected. Containers-- here from curbside reclaimed wire bike baskets with burlap from a local farm's corn and potato sacks (only $2 for 7 huge sacks!) sewn in with garden twine- let me take the higher ground in more ways than one in my struggles with pests and soil. The impromptu stake stick mini-fences to scare off bolder vegetarians take away from the rustic aggie charm in their primitivism, but I'd rather have several lines of defense. Salvaged wooden decor, rubbed down with coconut oil so the wood will resist the rain, serve as trellises. 

Cetacean Ocean T-shirt Quilt/Picnic Blanket.

Cetacean Ocean T-shirt Quilt/Picnic Blanket. I learned about slavery message blankets and crazy quilts during my college freshman interdisciplinary arts seminar on the African diaspora and its impact. While using scraps and remnants has not always been out of necessity, and was even in vogue among wealthy Victorians, the sentiment of reuse and folksy nostalgia remains popular today. Unlike many scrap t-shirt quilts, I restricted the color palette and theme of this one, capitalizing on my love of the ocean and elementary school fascination with our highly encephalized marine relatives, dolphins.  

Rock Pocket for Windy Picnics. I detailed my quilt with machine-quilted waves to complement the theme and the uneven pieces (caused, no doubt, by my novice and impatient quilting and sewing skill) as well as utilitarian pockets at each corner. Tucking rocks or kicked-off sneakers into the pockets prevents the wind from upsetting a blustery picnic. I also insulated it with a thrifted ugly black fleece blanket which otherwise would have hit the dumpster, I suspect. This project is thus tuned to its environment as a picnic cloth, thermal energy-saving as a blanket, and versatile as either of these or a folk art piece. 

Honeycomb Jars Succulent Hanger

Honeycomb Jars Succulent Hanger. Succulent gardens stir my urge to venture to the Great American Southwest and adopt their close relatives, cacti. Pinterest boards could no longer sate my hunger for designed my own green microcosm so I took some clippings, saved my mom's peach jars, and found inspiration in the structurally sound hexagons of honeycombs. Save those sculptural glass jars! Weldbond glue (though I hope to try a boiled vinegar and baking soda glass to glass adhesive next time) and a wire hanger frame hold the jars together. I used activated horticultural charcoal, soilless potting mix, and extra perlite to plant my new specimens. While I hunt for more more cheap or free little plants, I store my old geology/gems collection in one lidded compartment.  A ribbon scrap for hanging and my weird contraption was set to hang in a window.

Travel Chocolate and Sweet Snack Wrapper Memory Board

Los Chocolates y Las Meriendas Dulces: chocolates and sweet snacks. Inspired by my Ecela Peru classmate Derek, who decided to sample all tienda candies, and my former lab adviser Alison, who decoupaged an entire wall of her kitchen with the wrappers of her and her husband's favorite exotic chocolates, I sampled and saved as many cheap sweet things in Cusco, Peru and Antigua, Guatemala as possible. I visited El Choco Museo (see center flyer) in both cities as well. I finally arranged, labeled, and tacked them to this board. Still smells tasty! 

Wooden Stool to Olde School Tray

Wooden Stool-turned-Olde School Tray. Because I cannot choose one or two, or ever only five, hobbies at one time, and I live with like-minded indecisive creatives, there's a lot of stuff on tables that ends up on floors, beds, chairs...The tray is a powerful compartmentalizer, especially for competing scrapbooking, papercraft, sewing, or jewelry projects. I salvaged a wood- not particle board, real, solid, dark wood with a weathered patina- stool with broken legs from the curb on Dedham, MA trash day. I pried off the legs, peeled away tacky sailboat-print contact paper covering the top, and restored the wood with sanding and a few coats of coconut oil (smells so much better and is safer than polyurethane). Salvation Army Thrift Store stainless steel cupboard handles (in a grab-bag 6 pack for only $1.99) inspired a self-taught lesson in hole-drilling and screw-driving. Washers added a minimal detail to the handles' bases. Finally, a jarring wrestle with a ruler and electric engraver balanced out the off-center handles with an imitation pencil ledge.

This stool top will be a useful tray for beads and other tiny supplies that are apt to roll. It curves down ever slow slightly toward the center. The cross pieces of wood underneath also raise the stool-turned-tray an inch or so off the ground so papers can slide under or the tray can function as a display shelf. A nice place to put a sign-in guestbook at a party, perhaps. 

Fabric Scrap Sewn Tray

Fabric Scrap Sewn Tray. Fabric, especially from natural fibers, is a wonderful material since it last years unlike its paper counterparts and has remarkable versatility. Sewing machine know-how, material size, and imagination sometimes limit fabric projects so useless scrunchies and tiny pillows take over the craft table. Luckily, non-clothing projects like this handy fabric tray, lined inside with glue-stiffened felt and stitched from vintage thrift store/yard sale found scraps, have popped up online. I made a long one first but the sides flopped so I split it into two paperback-size trays.