Weekend Projects
So this weekend I left the house only to pick up supplies at Home Depot. My mission: build a custom closet and paint, paint, paint!
So this weekend I left the house only to pick up supplies at Home Depot. My mission: build a custom closet and paint, paint, paint!
Crafster user kymj made this french press cozy for her coffee-loving husband. I would have never thought to make a cozy for my french press, but look how cute it is!
For anyone wondering where the heck I've been, don't worry. I'm right here.
A while ago I purchased an IKEA sofabed and couldn't have been happier. I figured that I would look on the IKEA website for slipcovers later, but when I went to look I found that my sofabed didn't have any readymade slipcovers. argh!
So the other day I was riding the bus home and remembered that I had a shower curtain that would make a great slipcover for my little black sofa. I just wasn't sure if it was big enough or if I could even make a slipcover.
So here's what I started with:
And here's what I ended up with:
I think it turned out really nice. Maybe having the Olympics on in the background was good luck. I can't believe I even got all the stripes lined up. Now I'm going to be on the lookout for more shower curtains to make more slipcovers out of (I like to change things up a lot!)
Paper Brain is in the studio. That equals hours of time spent in one room with very little to do....other than listen to stuff. Tonight I spent my hours surfing the web. In all my surfing I found a "real" bigfoot, lots of cute shoes and these lovely, wonderful, amazing tabletop items from Lama. If it was humanly possible I would have hearts in my eyes.
It seems that free stuff is always too good to be true. That there's a catch. You have to sign up for something and call in 30 days to cancel or they charge your credit card, you have to visit 12 sponsor sites, your email inbox turns into spam central, etc. Well, I've spent the morning checking out some websites that are all about free stuff and here's what I found.
The good:
gogoshopper.com: freebies listed by category. The links usually take you right to the free sample page and none of the sites required you to enter credit card info. The only downside is that a lot of the offers had expired.
justfreestuff.com: a lot of the same deals as gogoshopper, but with occasional commentary about the link. Also broken down by category and also a lot of expired offers.
Walmart: yes, we are supposed to dispise walmart, but I think we can suspend our hatred just long enough to get some free samples every so often. These offers are current and ever changing. They are also extremely easy to get. All you have to do is enter your mailing info into the walmart site (not into all the different vendors sites)to get your samples.
mygrocerydeals.com: this was my favorite of all the sites I checked out today. I'm putting myself on a strict food budget and this will help immensely. You enter your email address and zip code, then pick your favorite grocery stores. When you log in the site displays all of the sale items from your "preferred" store with sale end dates and even the option to add items to a printable grocery list! It will also tell you if a coupon is needed to get the sale price.
gutenberg.org: project gutenberg is a website devoted to online books, as in whole, complete books. Not just snippits or sections, but the whole thing. There aren't a lot of new books in the database, but there are plenty of great not-new books to read. There are also audio books and even sheet music!
opensourcefood.com: if you haven't been to this site, you are missing out. It's full of amazing recipes that all have photos! I have a hard time wanting to try recipes that I can't see first (I'm a visual person!). You can browse other user submitted recipes or submit your own. Not only that but the website is really user-friendly and the recipes are fantastic!
The not-so-good:
startsampling.com: there were a few coupons. not anything I would have wanted to buy anyway and only one actual free sample of powdered lemon juice.
myfree.com: a lot of links to free stuff that you could find for free on your own very easily (recipes, "ideas", jokes, health and fitness tips). also sweepstakes notices....I'm really not a fan of online sweepstakes.
freebiesgalaxy.com: the freebies that I would have liked were all linked to "try 2 of these silver offers" websites.
There are endless "freebie" websites online. These are just the few that I took the time to try this morning. I have a "junk mail" email address that I used to register with the sites and I highly reccommend having one if you're going to delve into the world of online free stuff.
Now that the chicks are outside and in the coop full time I've been reflecting on my ramshackle cabinets-turned-coop. It would have been easy and probably cheaper to have just bought a couple of sheets of wood and made a simple box. But why do things the easy way? Anyway, my point here is that before the chicks start laying this fall I am going to make a new, simpler, coop. So I spent some time today looking at coop designs.
Amongst the typical chicken coops I found some really interesting ones...thought I'd share them.
a tall coop in Zululand
a Brazilian coop
just a very lovely picture of an old coop.
The latest craftster challenge is to create something exclusively from dollar store finds. You are not allowed to spend more than 10 dollars. I'm seriously amazed at what people have made...here are some of my favorites:
Doggie Yurt - amazing
this whole caddy is made from dollar store finds (minus the pot holder, glasses, silverware, etc)
a wedding dress
Shoes! seriously....who would ever think you could make shoes from foam and cleaning rags??
I'm inspired.....My weekend may now be filled with dollar store items and creative brainstorming.