Quick Pencil Holders

I'm BIG into reusing stuff, and my sister was throwing out a bunch of these disks when she moved last summer.

I took a small tub of them thinking that there HAD to be something that I could do with them. I got them home, and promptly forgot about them. 

Then, I happened to purchase an EXTREME number of zip ties for something else, and was in my shed trying to come up with something quick and easy I could create during one cold rainy day, and it all clicked!

I drilled holes in the corners that didn't already have them, and used small width zip ties to assemble these cute pencil holders. 

My teens quickly grabbed them for their rooms, much to my surprise! 

Cost: $0

Time: about 30 min to figure it out, mostly.

Verdict: SUCCESS! 

Fence Picket Floating Shelves

I had to rearrange my room to make space for a home office, and in so doing, I some of my shelf space.  Suddenly, I had to put supplies for an office in the spaces I had used to display my kids' artwork.  After I got all the furniture placed, I realized I had a completely blank area in which I could hang small shelves.  A quick search of Pinterest, located floating shelves, but when I saw the labor intensity and the hardware I would need to buy to pull them off, I was disheartened.

Then I came across this post, and had a flash of inspiration.

I had to replace some pickets on my fence because I have a black lab who thinks she's in training as an escape artist, and I bought the 8' pickets from Home Depot, and cut off 12" so I could have a slightly higher fence in that area of the yard.

I grabbed my circular saw and cut 1" strip off the length of each 12" section.  Then sanded each piece with my sanding sponge.

I hate nails, so tried to use screws to attach the sections in an "L" shape, and split the wood.. :( That didn't work!  Pulled out some small nails and my hammer and, using wood glue, made quick work of the little ledges.

Then I covered with 3 coats of a nice red paint that I've been enjoying.

(That blue/red piece at the top is another, much larger project, that I'll be posting next.)

When dry, I used the same nails, made sure they were level and nailed to my wall.

SO easy, and I think they turned out GREAT!

Total Cost = materials already on hand
Total Time = 1 day (waiting for paint to dry)
Outcome = SUCCESS!