My Bucket Buddy

My Bucket Buddy
This post was previously displayed as a Project Friday. Today it is being posted on "Sunday Favorites" at Happy to Design. Scoot on over there and see all the previously posted favorites.
Hello Ladies. Welcome to the mansion today. Fabulous Friday.

Have you ever finished a project and had to ask yourself...."What did I ever do without this thing?" I am wondering this about my bucket buddy. Not long ago I cut a picture out of some magazine and put it in my idea book....here it is...

Isn't that fabulous? I closed the idea book and didn't think of it again until I saw this...

Well...husband happened to be sitting near when I exclaimed over this bucket. He mentioned that he had an old bucket liner thing in the garage. "Run," I said "Don't walk," to get it for me. He did. Here it is...

Not very attractive, huh? I washed it...it smelled like motor oil. I pulled the man tag off of it. And then, I did some sewing and gluing...see????





First I sewed on some white gros grain ribbon that I had. Then, I hot glued some big rick rack on. I was too lazy to change the bobbin color to sew it on....And finally, I had to put my monogram on. (like any good southern girl) And then...I had this....

I love it! I love to wrap things in brown paper. And, being military, I am constantly mailing something to someone far away. I can't believe that I didn't do this earlier. Everything is right there in the bucket (white bucket from Wal-mart for 4.50). Here is a pic of the inside...

And there you have it ladies...the bucket buddy. It cost me 4.50. You could use the bucket buddy for any number of things other than wrapping and mailing. Crafting, cleaning, picnic stuff, home school stuff, stuff to take to lessons when you are sitting and waiting for the kiddies....endless possibilities. I hope you too create a bucket buddy.

Have a great weekend ladies.

Try This: Frugal Plate Hangers

It is "Show and Tell Friday" @ There is No Place Like Home. This is my first Friday to join in the fun. To see all of the great "Show and Tell" posts click here.

It is also "Frugal Friday" @ Life as Mom. To see all the frugal tips click here.

OK. So....do you sometimes buy things that are WAY too expensive, but you really do need them, so you buy them????? GUILTY. I have decided that I am going to hang around 20 or so plates (small in size) at the new mansion. (Movers come on Monday...biting nails....wheezing...heart racing...what will get broken?) I digress. I also decided that I do not want to use the standard metal plate hanger...the ones that look like this..

I decided to go with the round stick on kind of plate hanger. The ones that look like this..

These things are great. I found them at Hobby Lobby and bought them up. Now...here is the less then frugal part of the story...these little gems are VERY EXPENSIVE. We are talking 3-5 bucks per. But, because I needed them, and because I couldn't think of a way to achieve this type of hanging without them, I bought them....lots of them. Content with my purchase, except for the expense...I went on home. Then, strolling through Dollar Tree, I came upon this... A Package of 8 cloth hangers. They are adhesive on the back and have a metal hook. I think that you are supposed to use them on the wall. But, if you put one on the back of your plate and then use a twist tie, you so....have a plate hanger. See??????????????? Here is the plate with the cloth hanger stuck on....
Here is the cloth hanger with the twist tie attached. Just make a loop with it. Here is me, holding the plate by the twist tie. Then, you just put your nail in the wall, and hang it up. Tada...invisible plate hanger. This version costs 12 1/2 cents per hanger. Much better on the budget. Now...I wouldn't try this with a jumbo plate or platter, but it will do nicely for my purposes.

Needless to say...I am returning my 60.00 plate hangers and heading back to the Dollar Tree. I just have to eat 20 loaves of bread to get all those twist ties. Ha.

Have a great weekend ladies.

Laura

Picture Candles

Hello Ladies. Welcome to the mansion this fabulous Friday. Today I am joining in on a Round Robin over at Keeping Up With The Schultz Family. Hop on over there to see other great ideas.
Yesterday I saw the photo above at BHG. The family photo on the candle caught my eye. Having all of the necessary materials for the project, decided to try it.

Gather a piece of white tissue paper, tape, a piece of printer paper, and scissors. Find the photo that you would like to appear on your candle. Tape the tissue paper to the printer paper and print your photo on the tissue just like you normally would on the printer paper.
Now, you should have something that looks like this. Cut out the image that you want to appear on the candle. Place the image on the candle. Now you need a few other things.... OK...Now...wrapa piece of wax paper around the image and the candle.Now use your heat tool and heat up the image. This takes about 30 seconds or so. You will see the tissue paper start to disappear. When you no longer see the tissue, you are done. Carefully peal the wax paper off of the image. There you have it. It is much easier than it sounds.


I wanted to see what would happen if I used a colored candle. So, I printed a pic of a bird silhouette on my tissue. And here is how it turned out... I love this one.

And there you have it. This particular project didn't cost me anything, because I already had a couple of candles laying around. I think this would be really neat with all kinds of silhouettes. Halloween candles would be really cute with pumpkins or crows. Hope ya enjoyed it.

Laura