3 Make a Wooden Arrow

Today we're sharing a fun project from the latest issue of Ideas Magazine. After a big wind storm we had last week, there are heaps of sticks laying everywhere ready to be foraged and this wooden arrow project would be perfect to use them in. The project was created by Lizel Cloete with photos by Ed O'Riley with extra styling by Carin Smith, all courtesy from Ideas Magazine.

You Will Need
- straight sticks of about 1-1.5 cm thick
- wood stain (optional)
- wood screws
- wood glue
- black marker
- basic woodworking tools
(hammer, saw, clamps, file, etc.)

2 Weekend Projects | 9 DIYs of the Week!

The first weekend of June! A great time to take weekend projects outdoors - maybe to paint, maybe to plant - for sure to create something! Here's 9 project ideas we've found notable this week.  Happy Friday!

8 DIY Copper Clothes Hangers

With all the copper spray painting happening this week, you know we just had to go there. Inspired by those copper clothes hangers at Lagerhaus on my recent trip to Sweden in May, I decided to make some myself!  Turning plastic ones into copper! Another simple project using copper spray paint in just a few minutes. Magic! (Note these are more for display purposes than to be used everyday). 

3 DIY IKEA Hack - Copper End Table

This idea we've been thinking about doing for ages, and finally after we got a hold of copper spray paint it happened.  Another super-easy project/hack. This time using an old melamine tray from IKEA and a vintage camping stool. It literally took five minutes to do.

You will need:
Round (or square) melamine tray (IKEA makes a new series every year - click here to see)
vintage or new folding camping stool
Spray paint (we used copper metal)
Newspaper
Velcro with sticky back.

7 5 Minute DIY - Copper Planter Pots

Don't have enough nice display pots? Need a temporary solution? Or maybe you just want to gift someone a little thank you plant. Turn those black plastic planter pots into something a little more presentable in just five minutes!

3 Weekend Projects | 20 Gorgeous DIYs to Try

Hi friends! A round-up of 20 gorgeous weekend projects up on the blog today!!! Happy Friday! Check them all out after the jump!

1 9 Super Cool Home Decor DIYs

1. Midcentury Wall Sculpture
by Blitzy

2. Triangle Mirror
by Almost Makes Perfect

3. Wooden Crate Side Table
by Dream Green DIY

4. Apple Crates Shelf
by Nur Noch

5. Bleach Spotted Fabric
by A Beautiful Mess

6. Easy DIY Art
by Decor Asylum

7. Painted Chair Makeover
by Sugar and Cloth

8.  Hutch Makeover
by Christina Williams

9. Ciao Welcome Mat
by Francois et Moi

0 How To: Hang Vintage-Style Bracket Shelf

Contributor post by Emily and Erick of Heidi's Bridge

 When furnishing a room, we find that one of the more difficult pieces to source is shelving. We had always admired wall shelves, but it wasn't until our friends at Meadowsweet Mercantile sourced the most amazing pair of vintage-style brackets that we knew what we had to make! As naive DIYers, we thought we could simply drill our brackets to the wall and be good to go. How wrong could we be: at first attempt, we drilled our bracket to the wall after spinning the screws and it immediately pulled out of the wall--disaster! After some research and a lot of trial and error, we finally figured out the key to hanging a sturdy shelf: having the correct screws for your specific wall! Here's what we learned.

You Will Need
-Measuring tape
-Pencil
-Two Vintage Wall Brackets
-Wood Board, about the same width as your brackets
-Four, 3" Screws (please read below to determine which screw is right for your wall)
-Electric Drill

3 DIY | Clay Circle Garland

Contributor post by  Caitlin of The Merrythought

Air dry clay is one of my favorite materials to use while crafting. It's so simple and the options for projects are endless! I recently made a moon phase mobile using air dry clay and loved the tiny circles so much that I decided to make a long garland out of them. I have primarily been using unfinished wood and plants to decorate my spaces lately and I love how the natural texture of the clay fits in with these materials.

2 9 Awesome Projects to Bookmark + Spring Break!

It's spring break in these parts and we're checking out early this week to take a real live break!  We'll be back with our regular programming next week!  In the meantime, here's a few project ideas to bookmark!  Have a great weekend!

1.  Mudcloth Planter | Francois et Moi
2.  Acrylic Message Board | A Beautiful Mess
3.  Ikea Accordian Hack | The Gathered Home (sort of like ours)
4. Floral Decoupage Storage Box | The Crafted Life
5. Free Desktop Wallpaper | Something Peach
6.  DIY Woven Planter | The Lovely Drawer
7.  Copper Pipe Himeli Side Table | Brittany Makes
8. Statement Coffee Table | Monster Circus
9. DIY Roman Shades | Honestly WTF!

3 DIY Eye Print Kitchen Towel

Contributor post by  Caitlin of The Merrythought

The eye print trend going on lately might not be for everyone but those quirky prints and sweet lashes have really won my heart! I've been doodling eyes all over everything. I'm currently working on updating my kitchen a bit so naturally some new eye print kitchen towels were in order!

9 25+ New + Beautiful DIYs for Spring!

Is it us, or is there a surge of creativity happening this week? Our usual nine or so picks of favorite DIY projects of the week, has easily turned into 25! Must be the hope of spring just around the corner! Check them out!

6 DIY Desk Organizer

Contributor post by Caitlin of The Merrythought

I've really been diving into simplifying in big ways this year. Once I got mostly decluttered, I realized I really needed some storage solutions to help keep me organized and prevent me from buying items that I already have one of. This wooden desk organizer was a perfect project to help tackle the chaos that is always spread out in my workspace while also displaying the things I need and use in a lovely way!

4 Weekend Project | DIY Copper Stocking Rack

Contributor post by Caitlin of The Merrythought

Christmas will be here before we know it and now time to find the perfect place to hang up the stockings! This is the perfect solution for those of us without a mantle or a nice staircase to hang stockings from plus this is unbelievably easy. You can put this together in just a few minutes and it can also double as a blanket rack after the holidays!  Here's the how-to:

Supplies:
-Five 7/8" x 48" round dowels
-Tape Measure
-Miter Saw
-Four 3/4" copper tees
-Four 3/4" copper caps
-Two 3/4" copper 90-degree elbows
-Copper nails
-Hammer
-Greenery
-Floral wire

Instructions:
-Use a miter saw to cut  four 3' pieces of dowel and six 1' pieces of dowel.
-Follow the diagram to put your pieces together.
-Mine fit together very securely but if you're worried about this getting knocked around, (kids, dogs… clumsy friends) you might want to put some glue on the ends of the wood before you put it into the copper pieces.
-On the middle dowel, measure out and place copper nails where you want to hang the stockings.
-On the top dowel, attach greenery using floral wire.
-Hang your stockings and fill them up!

About the Contributor

Caitlin McGrath lives in a small town in Western New York. When her face isn't hidden behind her camera, she's usually crafting and daydreaming for The Merrythought, where she is a part of the three lady team sharing DIY projects, recipes, fashion, home décor & and bits of daily life.

2 DIY: Old Skateboards into Furniture

 “Creative Recycling”, is the third of five interactive workshops from Converse. Taking place now through Spring 2015, these multi-city workshops entitled, CONS Project, are a series of community events designed to inspire the next generation of creative spirits through interactive skate, art and music workshops.

Converse, along with Jason Podlaski, craftsman and founder of skateboard recycling company, Deckstool, recently led a New York workshop where participants were invited to build their own stools made from recycled skate decks. Photo credit Zander Taketomo.

Out of the workshop came a step-by-step guide on how to create your own deckstool, at home:

WHAT YOU’LL NEED

Materials:
• Two (2) Full or Two (2) 3/4 Skateboards
• One (1) Half Skateboard
• Skateboard Truck
• Long Bolts
• Lock Nuts

Tools:
• Power Sander or Sandpaper
• Power Drill
• Power Saw
• Screw Driver

INSTRUCTIONS

1.) The stool requires (2) Full or (2) 3/4 skateboards for the each leg and (1) half skateboard for the seat.
2.) Cut both full boards (or 3/4 skateboards) to 18" length for the legs.

3.) Cut the half board to 12" length, ensuring the truck holes are located in the center of the board.
4.) Sand all edges of each board to make smooth.

5.) Drill one hole (approximately 3/8" in diameter) in the center of the truck holes on each leg.
6) Drill out existing four (4) truck holes on seat to fit long bolts.

7.) Insert each side of skateboard truck through holes drilled into each leg and secure from opposite side with lock nut.
8.) Attach the stool seat to the truck using long bolts and lock nuts.

9.) Tighten the screws gradually, rotating between the four bolts on the seat, while simultaneously tightening the lock nuts on stool legs until stool is steady and sturdy.
10.) You’re done! Now take a load off on your brand new seat.

There are going to be 2 more DIY themed workshops happening in NYC, Toronto, Boston and LA in early 2015 and people can look for info coming soon at www.consproject.com

3 10 Beautiful DIYs for Your Home

1. DIY Ikea Hack Floating Credenza
by Sugar and Cloth

2. Woven Plaid Scarf
from The Purl Bee

3. Buy or DIY Wood Block Photo Holder
via Apartment Therapy

4.  Reverse Indigo Dyeing
by Fall for DIY

5.  Free Crochet Cushion Pattern
from Joann.com

6.  IKEA Hack | Laundry Hamper Turn Side Table
from Ikea Hackers

7.  French Vanilla DIY Candles
from Hello Natural

8.  DIY Hanging Table
by The Merrythought

9. DIY Knitted Pendant Light Cord
by Agus Yornet

10. An Easy Flower Arrangment
by Livet Hemma

5 Decorating With Gift Wrap | 3 Different Ways

A new selection of Rifle Paper arrived in the shop this week, which got us inspired to do a little redecorating! There are so many things that can be done with gift wrap, from decoupage to art; and although these ideas are not new, they're inspiring just the same. With such pretty papers we couldn't resist! For this set we used the Emerald Peonies paper.

We have a record player in the shop that's getting a lot of use, but the red lining inside clashes with everything! (So we covered it up)! We also made a print using some wooden screen door trim (thanks Fiona Richards for the tip!) and the small leftover pieces we used to cover a notebook. Let's take a look:

1. Line a Turntable
Decoupage or faux decoupage? As we didn't want to make this a permanent change, we faux decoupaged (taped the paper inside of the turntable lid instead of mod podging it). One could of course do the real thing; (here's a link to instructions on how to decoupage a record player that Cori Kindred did earlier this year for us. if you're so inclined). 

How we did it:
To measure, we placed the paper in front of the area we wished to cover, and marked each end of the width where we were going to cut it using scissor marks.  We then trimmed to size, then placed it inside to measure the length. We then marked where it would end, and folded the paper as a marker and then cut that piece.  For the sides, we did the same for one side, then cut four sides to finish trimming off each length as we went.  All pieces were attached using masking tape.  To finish off, one could use a coloured matching masking tape to make the edges look clean, which we pretended to do using photoshop for this example as we didn't have any handy. So much better than the red!

2. Hanging Poster
As mentioned, this is a pretty simple project we were reminded about from Fiona of Cartolina. Fiona and her husband, Doug have a heap of posters like this in their beautiful new brick and mortar in Nelson, B.C., if you're ever out their way (it's a must see)! There are quite a few how-to's on this online, but here's what we did.

What You Need:
Screen door trim (we picked ours up at Home Depot).  Comes in 8 foot pieces.  So needs to be cut down to size of paper.
Saw
2 Eye hooks
Twine or Baker's Twine
White glue

How we did it:
Cut the screen door trim (you'll need two pieces) to the size of the width of the paper leaving an inch or half inch length on both sides (approximately 53 cm or 21-22 inches for these papers).  Screw in eye hooks on each side of the top piece. Tip: A plyers or fork (if you don't have one) makes it easy to screw in. Begin by screwing in the eye hook. Once it has caught itself when you first start, slide one of the fork's teeth into the eye hook, and twirl until tightened.  Measure twine for hanging length (looks best if not too long) and tie and knot to each eye hook.  Pull out the paper you will be framing. Squeeze glue in a straight line across the front top of the paper.  Place the cut screen door trim over the paper (balancing to leave an inch overhang on each side of the paper) and press down and hold for approximately 1 minute.  Do the same for the bottom piece.  Once dry (approximately 10 min. it's ready to hang)!  To finish off, you could add an extra eye hook on the bottom (for looks only) to make it look more like a pull down map effect.

3. Cover a Notebook

Make a budget notebook look more special by covering it in your favorite papers. So easy, doesn't even really need instruction (more an idea really).  For this book we just covered the front cover. 

How we did it:
Measure, trim and glue!

We loved how they all turned out.  A fast and easy way to freshen up a space.  What have you covered lately? Leave a link in the comments, would love to check out new ideas!