Pup-sicles – A Frosty Treat For Your Furry Friends!

It’ll make your dogs drool!

As I have been complaining about on this blog for about a week – it is freakin’ hot here. And also today I can see a wildfire from my house. Super. I was thinking about something to help the dogs cool down (we did finally cave and buy an AC unit. 90 in the house is too much.) so I had a look in my fridge and came up with these tasty treats!

Pup-sicles:

Ingredients

– 4 oz. Ziploc containers or something similar

– Chicken broth

– Water

– Lunch meat or dog treats

Directions

1. Fill the container with half water and half broth

2. Add your treats

3. Freeze (usually takes a couple hours)

4. Run some hot water over the outside of the container and pop out the pops (heh).

5. Put them in a food bowl if you don’t want a mess!

6. Cool off your hot dogs (I could pun forever with this)!

Romulus just chomps his down as fast as possible. Basically how he lives his life.

Your dog might be like mine and decide bowls are for losers. If so, you might want to keep them in the kitchen.

DIY: Canvas Bird Art

What You’ll Need:

– Canvas (mine is an 8 x 10)

– Cardboard

– Scrapbook paper

– Glue stick

– Acrylic paint

Directions:

1. Paint your canvas. I used a couple shades of brown and messed with it until I had something resembling tree bark. Experiment! It’s fun! Let your paint dry.

2. Either free-hand draw or cut out a template of a bird. Use it to cut out a scrapbook paper bird. Flip your template over and cut out another (so you’ll have two birds facing each other)

3. Trace your birds onto cardboard and cut out.

4. Repeat the same steps with a tree branch and a little heart, if you like.

5. Glue everything onto your canvas!

So easy and so cute. This is another little thing I made that was also somewhere at our wedding. I can’t even remember where it was. I was too busy having the time of my life I guess!

May or may not have included this picture for the sole purpose of showing off my pretty little pot of succulents…

DIY: Doily-Patterned Monogram

This is a throwback DIY project from our wedding. I glued really thick twine to the back of these and they hung on our chairs at our sweetheart table. After the wedding, I removed the twine and now they adorn the hallway to our bedroom. I feel like half of our home decorations were at one point wedding decorations. Wahoo for saving money!

Doily-Patterned Monogram:

What You’ll Need:

– Wooden letters (I got mine at Hobby Lobby for a dollar a piece)

– Acrylic paint in two colors

– Doilies

Directions:

1. Paint your letters your desired base color and let dry completely (this is especially important if you are using a lighter color for the pattern!)

2. Place the pretty edge of the doily over where you’d like a stencil. Paint it in with your other color. (I used dark purple as my base and a cream color as the stencil).

3. Attach twine if you want them to hang (or if using for wedding decor), or just stick ’em on your wall!

Before I ended up painting the whole thing purple, I had experimented with doing a doily pattern on the entire letter. I thought it looked pretty cool but it just wasn’t quite what I was going for. Feel free to experiment as much as you like. If it doesn’t turn out… you can always paint over it!

DIY: Repurposed Frame Picture Hanger

I’d seen this done on Pinterest and loved loved loved the idea. I kept this idea in the back of my head while out at Goodwill or thrifting around town. Finally, one day I found THE perfect frame for the project, so I snatched it up and brought it home.

DIY: Repurposed Frame Picture Hanger

What You’ll Need:

– An old frame (medium to large sized)

– Twine or wire

– Hot glue gun (if using twine)

– Mini clothespins

– Photos to display!

Directions:

1. Remove the back from your frame if it has one.

2. Cut off hanging wire if present. My frame had the wire and it made it hang funny without the backing so I removed it.

3. Hot glue twine from one edge of the back of the frame to the other. When spacing out the twine, you’ll want to leave enough room for pictures to be seen – it will take a little bit of trial and error. Make sure the bottom piece of twine is not too close to the bottom of the frame! You don’t want your pictures peek-a-booing over the edge.

4. If you removed your wire, you can either attach a picture hanging ditty (the little teeth things, ya know?) or glue another piece of twine to the top so it can hang (I like this look best!).

5. Hang your pictures and enjoy!

This project was really so simple (and frugal!) and offers a lovely way to display many pictures in one place (sans pre-cut frame collages or buying a bunch of smaller frames)!

I’ve also seen something similar to this used to display name cards with table numbers at a wedding. I think that’s such a cute idea! Have you made something similar? I’d love to hear about what you made and displayed!

DIY: Birdbath

Goodwill is so good to me. Who knew so much inspiration could be found in a fluorescent-lighted, grandma’s attic smelling, allergy fit inducing establishment? I’m a believer now. I get all my best ideas at Goodwill. 

Like this one for a small-ish homemade birdbath. I was actually looking for pots and other garden decorations when I came across this magnificent purple pie plate. I don’t know why, but my immediate thought was that it needed to be a birdbath. Maybe it was telling me. Maybe this pie plate knew it was destined for greater things than sitting in my kitchen cabinet for 364 days a year. 

Over in the hodge-podge section I found a really sturdy wooden candlestick holder and a smaller metal one that fit the wooden one and the pie plate quite perfectly – I dare say, serendipitously. I took my $2.37 worth of Goodwill loot home and got to crafting…

DIY: Birdbath

What You’ll Need

– A pie plate, large bowl or other round, shallow item.

– Hefty/sturdy candlestick or two (have fun with it and see what you can stick together!)

– Hot glue gun

– Spray paint

Directions

1. Hot glue your candlesticks holders together – making sure to put the heavier one on the bottom if you’re using multiple.

2. Spray paint what is now your birdbath base and let dry.

3. Hot glue the pie plate on top.

4. Set it out in your garden and get ready for more bird friends.

I didn’t have any trouble with it falling over or anything because the candlestick holder I got was so heavy. You’ll definitely have to do some good thrifting to find pieces that will fit together as close to perfectly as possible, but that’s the fun of it for me!

DIY: Air Fresheners

I have three dogs and one Army husband. To say I need air fresheners is a gross understatement. Air fresheners, however, are kind of expensive if you plan on having one in every room. Plus, I just watched this documentary that made me terrified about all the chemicals in my house trying to slowly kill my family. Solution?

DIY (Chemical Free!) Air Fresheners

What You’ll Need:

– Baking soda

– Essential oil of your choice (my favorite is lavender!)

– Small, wide mouthed jar

– Fabric to cover (optional)

Step 1:

Pour enough baking soda to fill about a quarter of your jar.

Step 2:

Add 12-15 drops of your essential oil. I’ve also heard that you can add the oil to a cotton ball and add it to the baking soda – removing it after 24 hours. This helps prevent clumps I think, but I find it works well just adding it straight to the soda.

Step 3 (Optional) :

Tie some fabric to the top! I don’t mind them being out and seen with the fabric on them. Also, to be repetitive, I have three dogs. Leaving jars of anything uncovered around here is just asking for it.

So, there you have it – cheapo, smelly good, non-murderous air fresheners. I ended up making six of them after finding a bunch of jars at Goodwill (I paid just over a dollar for all of ’em!).

Let me know if you make them with a different essential oil. I get so stuck on lavender that I don’t ever try anything else, but I’d be willing to with a good suggestion!

DIY: Pretty Bathroom Organizer

We have one cabinet and one sink in our bathroom. We don’t even have a medicine cabinet. Needless to say, this has forced us to be very creative with our bathroom storage. I even went through and moved everything I don’t use that often into our guest bathroom and I still felt like my counter was drowning in beauty products.

I saw some cute organizers in my Pottery Barn magazine, but they were outrageous ($70 for a little metal towel holder?! Why, PB? Why?!). I’m not sure why I get it. It’s really only good for making my heart die a little bit whenever I look at the prices. So, I was walking around the opposite of Pottery Barn (Goodwill) when I found this dinner and salad plate set that I thought was adorable. There was only one dinner plate and one salad plate so I knew I had to think of something crafty to do with them in order to justify taking them home with me. 

Then it hit me – my bathroom! I moseyed over to what I like to call the “hodge-podge section” and found a ceramic candlestick holder that went perfectly with the plates. I rushed home, heated up my ever-so-handy glue gun and had a bathroom organizer in less than 5 minutes and for under 5 buckaroos. Slam dunk the funk, my friends.

In case you couldn’t figure it out from the picture… here’s the steps:

Pretty Bathroom Organizer

What You’ll Need

– 2 plates (one that’s smaller than the other – like a salad and dinner plate)

– A candlestick holder or other diddlydoo you find that could work.

– A glue gun

What to Do

1. Hot glue the large plate to the bottom of the candlestick holder.

2. Hot glue the small plate to the top of the candlestick holder.

3. Get those beauty products off your counter!

See why I didn’t feel the need to include step-by-step pictures? You guys got this.