Passion for Repurpose

I’ve been saving up my pics for this post so tonight’s Passion for Repurpose is quite the treat 😉. Let’s get right to it. You all know I’m all about being “green” and recycling and saving things to use for later (some people call this hoarding *ahem* my husband *ahem* but it’s totally not. I like to call it my organized conservation effort). I’m especially partial to saving bottles or containers, particularly glass, that items come in. Philip often asks me before he throws things away because he knows I might want them, which is cute and funny to me. Sometimes I buy things BECAUSE they come in cool containers but that’s a whole other issue 😝. Anyway, the first pic I have for you tonight is a craft I made from a glass bottle of a new tea out. I don’t usually buy store bought tea (filled with sugar and preservatives) but it was pineapple flavored tea and pineapple is my FAV so I had to try it. Also, the bottle was a unique shape so…😂. I glued glass gems to it and glued the stake from a solar light that I used on another project onto the lid. The finished project is beautiful decoration for my garden 😁. I also made ones out of two different brands of salsa jars, and I made a solar light using the gems, a mason jar, and the top part of a solar stake light, and another one using a Voss water bottle and the top of a solar light. Guess how many bags of glass gems I bought when I decided I liked making these crafts…that’s, right, 593. Just kidding but it was still way too many, as is my style. 

My second repurpose comes from the scrapes we have leftover from refinishing our hardwood floors. Two summers ago, before this blog existed, unfortunately, we discovered that the original floors in our old house were finished hardwood that had been covered up with horrendous carpet that I had fought with for ten years to keep clean. One of our previous dogs, Pretzel, spent most of her life in this house and she never fully quit peeing in the house. She would go for a week or so without doing it and then one day just pee on the carpet, always in the same area in the living room. It was infuriating and exhausting having to shampoo the carpet so often. I eventually got a Spot Bot, which works great for getting out a stain. However, it leaves noticeably clean circles on your carpet, which makes the rest of your carpet look FANTASTIC 🙄. Anyway, most of the floor was in pretty good shape but there were a few spots, where Pretzel peed all the time and around the floor vents, that needed replaced so we bought some new ones. They come in huge packs so we have quite a bit left over and I’ve been looking for a way to use it somehow. We’ve taken up the carpet in the craft room but left what’s in our bedroom, which will come up eventually. There are places that need new boards in the craft room but I swear there’s still dust on the walls from sanding the living room two years ago so I’m in no hurry to do it again. We’ll likely end up putting carpet back over it anyway. The dogs have a really hard time running around like the crazies that they are on the hardwood and tile so carpet would allow them to get their zoomies out more easily and I can’t think of a better reason to get carpet, can you? 😝

Anyway, my floor board repurpose: wine glass holders

Next up isn’t quite so re-inventive, just a reminder that sometimes it’s easier to throw out the old and get new, but a little TLC can save good items from the landfill and save you money. The lattice privacy fence that is in front of our patio, blocking onlookers from the street, has been here since we moved in. A couple of summers and windstorms ago, the front metal post actually broke off from where it was cemented in the ground. It fell completely over a while back and I zip tied it to the pole behind it that is a roof support for our carport. It didn’t look TERRIBLE right away but these last few windstorms have really wreaked havoc on it and it looked B.A.D. I couldn’t stand it anymore and we were looking for a project to do this weekend so I suggested we take it down and replace some parts of it and put it back up. Because nothing we ever do is easy, this project that I thought would be kinda quick ended up taking several hours over the course of two days to finish (and it’s actually not finished, the backs and sides of the posts need painted but you can’t see that in my pic so we’ll pretend it’s done 😄). We didn’t think the old metal posts had been cemented into the ground because they were super flimsy so I started digging and then gave it nice roundhouse kick, only to break a second pole off, making it ridiculously harder to get the bottom 2 ft of the cemented pole out of the ground. Fast forward through multiple shovel loads of dirt and many, many curse words, and we finally got the old posts out and popped the new ones in. The new one’s are 4x4x8’s, much heavier and durable than the old wimpy metal posts. We bought new moulding to go around the lattice but kept the old lattice, even though it was nasty looking. Nothing a little Dawn and Oxy Clean couldn’t handle though. It shined right up. Of course there was a problem though and that was that the new moulding was much more narrow than the old stuff so the lattice had to be sanded along every side for it to fix into it. Truth be told, a new piece of lattice costs $19.98 at Lowe’s and we would’ve needed 2 for this space but for all the aggravation, $40 probably would’ve been worth it if it had been able to fit into one of our vehicles 🙄. But it wouldn’t so now I can pretend that I kept it for the sake of not being wasteful 😝. Just kidding, you all know I wouldn’t have thrown it out, I would’ve kept (not hoarded) it for another project. Anyway, here’s the product of our blood (for real, Philip cut his finger), sweat (so much sweat), and internal tears (because there’s no crying while using power tools, it clouds your vision):

Stupid huge piece of cement that had to be hauled out 😡. 

We also moved the bricks that were in the first pic. That was the stand for our rain barrel last summer but we discovered that the gutter it was hooked to doesn’t get much water so we plan to move it to the front of the house. 

Two more to go! The next isn’t so much a “repurpose” as it serves the same purpose but now it’s pretty and I will use it for things I wouldn’t have before. I started with a plain wooden crate. My plan when I bought it was to mount it sideways on the wall of the basement bathroom to hold toilet paper, only that won’t work where I wanted to put it. Since making this discovery I’ve been looking for a purpose for this crate so I consulted the almighty Pinterest, which never fails to inspire me. To pretty it up I primed it and then used mod podge and napkins leftover from a birthday party. I added some wheels to the bottom so that it can be stored under my desk if need be and moved easily. 

Last one. I’ve told you before that I typically do a craft with my nieces and nephews on Fridays when I go visit them. I hadn’t taken a craft in a while because our visiting schedule has been off; they were sick, I was sick, I was out of town, etc. and when I went last week I figured they would want to play outside since it was nice. However, little miss boss, aka Kate, told me that she wanted me to bring a craft for her to do 🤦🏻‍♀️. I found a really cool idea that I thought they would like when I was searching for a Playgroup craft one day. You can make bracelets out of popsicle sticks by boiling them for 15 minutes and then bending them to fit into a glass and letting them dry overnight. They liked making them but I only had enough sticks for everyone to make one and one is never enough for Kate. She can’t display all of her creativity in one bracelet! I told her I would make more for her to do again the next time I see her. I really enjoy making crafts with the kids and I especially like when the older kids join us. Surprisingly, Coen even came out to see what we were making and the word “bracelet” didn’t scare him off, although he had one of the bigger sticks and decided to make it into a headband using a rubber band to secure it 😂. 

Onto the important stuff: Sansa & Sophie. We were getting a really big kick out of all the sitting Sophie was doing on Sansa but lately it seems as though Sansa’s spirit is broken and she very much misses being an only dog, and so we’ve started making Sophie move when we see her doing it. I may or may not snap a quick pic before I yell at her, but that’s beside the point. We’re trying to spend one on one time with them, which is good because Sophie needs to work on her training and Sansa needs and wants undivided attention. She seems a bit happier since we’ve started doing it. I hate thinking that Sansa is sad but I just have to remind myself that Sophie won’t be a pup forever and someday (hopefully) she won’t be such an attention..hog. She constantly wants someone to pay attention to her and touch her. We got back from our walk today and the humidity was terrible, everyone was sweating (those of us with sweat glands anyway, the other two were panting like crazy) and Sansa gets home and goes straight to the water bowl and then to the floor vent to soak up the cold air from the AC. Where does Sophie go? Right freaking beside her. I tried explaining how body heat works to her but she didn’t really get it. I called for her to come into the craft room and sat her on the vent in there, which she really enjoyed, however, as soon as I got up and went back into the living room, she followed me and sat by Sansa again 🙄. That dog does not like being alone. In fact, she almost ended up in the hot tub the other day because she ~had~ to see what we were doing in there. She jumped up on the edge and got her foot wet and got right back down. I guess that satisfied her curiosity because she hasn’t tried that again since 😂. She does still jump up to give kisses if she sees one of us by the edge though. Sansa, on the other hand, prefers being alone. We often wonder where she is and will find her in the cool spots: in the bathroom or in the basement. She’s miss independent but does love a good butt scratching. She’s a good girl. Sophie is a good girl, too, she’s just learning still. As I typed that I remembered that I wanted to ask you all a question: do you use proper dog pronouns? It has occurred to me before and many times recently that people just don’t seem to care if they use the correct gender pronoun for our dogs. I get that Sansa isn’t a common name so you may be on the fence about which one to use but let me clue you in on a few things. 1) She wears a purple collar and has a purple leash. Not that boy dogs CAN’T wear purple, I’ve just not seen many who do. 2) If I repeatedly say “she” and you continue to say “he,” you may have a listening problem. I’m just putting that out there. I find it amusing how many times this happens. People also often say her name wrong, they say San-ta or Sam-sa for some reason. Again, I know it’s not a normal name but it’s not hard to say. Let’s practice SAN-SA. See how easy that was? It’s from the show Game of Thrones, in case you’re wondering and don’t know where we got it. That’s the show about the blonde girl who’s the mother of dragons. It’s pretty good, you should watch it. 

Ok, this one was hilarious. I couldn’t help taking a pic. 

Alright, well, I think it’s time for bed. It’s been a long weekend. I participated in a 5k on Saturday. I had my worst time ever but I enjoyed catching up with one of my BFF’s, Kim. I like her because she has a great name 😝😉😄.

Don’t forget: yoga Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday!!!😃😃😃

Good night!