First off Farmgirls, Happy Valentine’s Day! For some reason, the holiday has eluded me this year. Yesterday, a few moms of my students asked if it was alright if the kids brought in cards or treats for our class, and it took me a second to realize why. Then I realized–oh yes, we are studying hearts and the circulatory system today for a reason! It is the heart happy holiday. The best thing that came from today was finding out, through the grapevine, that one of my cute students has a crush on another–he displayed his love by proudly giving her a candy heart that had “awesome” etched into it. He can’t read very well yet, so he had to ask me what it said (he’s seven). “Because you’re awesome,” he sweetly proclaimed as he handed it over. Ah, young love!
My stepmother collects heart shaped rocks for little decorations, I’ve taken to snapping pictures of heart shaped boulders.
While my love and I won’t be celebrating Valentine’s Day this year, our love is still young and this post is about a thing that we love to do together…Repurposing found and otherwise cheap objects. Have you ever heard of repurposing or upcycling? It entails taking another person’s trash and transforming it into something useful, possibly beautiful, and definitely better than it previously was.
Our local school district was replacing their wooden bleachers with new plastic ones and we managed to snag the wood from those bleachers. We cleaned the boards up, sanded them down and used them to replace all of the trim boards in our house and put up wainscoating in our living room. Pretty much most of our remodeling has been with repurposed material and items bought on clearance.
Your ladder idea is awesome! I’m on the hunt for tree-vees to make my own coat rack like yours. Brilliant idea.
If you want to tear pallets apart or take up a wooden floor, etc, buy a tool called a "Gutster". We have one and I used it to tear apart a deck that had been fire damaged. That tool makes a quick job of tearing up anything nailed together! We got ours at Harbor Freight but I would imagine other places have them.
Repurposing sewing is my game in the south….why throw clothes away when something else can be made of them….my blog show what I’ve made and where I sell…www.cabinfever228.blogspot.com….
I’m also on Facebook at Mel’s Designs ‘n Harmony page….
I enjoy your postings of your recycling and heart shaped rocks and your farm…best to you in Alaska!
Brilliant! Thank you! I love both of these ideas, and though we don’t have much birch around where I live, we do have a lot of other kinds of trees (and hopefully some old ladders!).
: > Sippie
great ideas! looking forward to reading more
My husband made two, one small and one very large, chicken coops out of pallets. He can be very creative when he has time. I always scout around for old jewlery or trinkets to add to my cards and scrapbook pages that I am making. We also love to collect old things, just for the sake of history. It always brings awe to my being when I come across old, used, loved, items.