Smuggled paint sticks and two DIYs

By Chelsea

DIY no.1

So there I was. With one of those 'car' Home Depot carts with steering wheels, packed with three kids. Other than the kids, my cart was empty. To save a tiny bit of dignity I grabbed a few cans of wood stain, then proceeded to prowl around the paint counter. Both my children, and innocent standbys, were all blissfully chatting and going about their business when I reached my shaking hands out and picked up their entire bucket of paint sticks. A quick look around to be sure I wasn't caught, then I walked. When I felt safe, about 5 aisles away, I dumped the bucket of paint sticks into my cart and ditched the bucket. Obviously I went through the self-checkout to pay for my stains, avoiding all contact with anyone wearing orange.

Paint sticks are free folks. Clearly I've never stolen anything in my life because walking out of Home Depot with what turned out to be 100 free paint sticks was a serious rush. My palms were sweaty, heart was racing - all over something that was free to begin with. What. A. Wimp. Home Depot store #4602, I'll see you again never. 

But alas, it wasn't a rush I was after. I smuggled all those paint sticks in the name of DIY! (...nope, that really doesn't justify it as much as I was hoping it would). However, I was actually able to use them for two projects, one which I'll save for Monday. The first was to give the boys a significantly more awesome lamp in their room than they had before. What they had before was my poor attempt at painting cabana stripes on a thrifted lampshade. Not awesome when the light was on... I really wanted something that measured up to the rustic, casual, All-American boy / Aviation theme that we had going on. After settling in the two flea market finds, their room was looking so good! So I came up with this:

It's just paint sticks glued to a cylinder shade and stained, but it totally works!

Want to see how it was done?

First, you need a cylinder shade. Just keep checking your local thrift store, it'll pop up. Then you need about 40 paint sticks, give or take depending on the size of shade, and hot glue. Staining is optional - the natural blond wood would look really cool with some decors!

Using a hot glue gun, glue one stick to the shade at a time. I found it easiest and most accurate to apply the glue directly to the shade and then lay the stick on top.

Press firmly.

Voila! Your shade is done! There are, of course, options with this project. Like I said, you can stain or not stain, up to you. I chose to stain this shade in Hickory, which I wiped on with a staining sponge, (found at Home Depot), after the shade was assembled. I also chose to leave the sticks longer than the shade, but you could always cut them down to size if you don't want any extra hanging off.

All finished! The lamp base was another thrift store find from a couple years ago which I spray painted in flat black by Rustoleum.

For our boys' room, the beautiful orange Home Depot stamp that you can see on the inside of the sticks really doesn't bother me. It's kind of fun! We're there often enough so it's only fitting that Home Depot be represented somewhere in our home.

I love this lamp - and how cool would it be as a hanging piece?! (whatdaya think, Cate?)

DIY no.2

This one was in my head as one thing and then turned into something else. I was wanting to make some sort of angular, geometric airplane art to go somewhere around the aviation chart I found at the flea market. I bounced around a few ideas, one involving string, then a Sharpie, and finally landed on doing something with wood stain to balance out the use of  wood around the room.

To make this, I used a scrap sheet of plywood from our garage, ScotchBlue Edge Lock tape, a box cutter, and wood stain, (Hickory again).

First, I found the middle of my board of plywood and made a light mark where I wanted the tip of my painters tape to be. Then I crossed the pieces, one over the other, so that both were intersecting the middle mark.

I used a box cutter to trim off the excess tape that I didn't need.

Then I made a light mark on each side where I wanted my wings to reach, and laid a strip of tape on either side, meeting that mark.

Again, I used the box cutter to trim off the excess tape I didn't need; in other words, forming my desired shape.

Then I dipped my staining sponge into the stain and wiped it all around the blue tape. 

As soon as I finished the stain I removed the tape right away.

All finished!

I would almost call this abstract art. My test was asking our kids, ages 4, 4 and 3, if they knew what it was. One said "airplane" right away. Another said "I don't know". The last wouldn't answer the question. Soooo, the jury is out on whether this really looks like an airplane or not. I think it does; my husband thinks it does but he thinks it's a rear view, (I'm looking at it from the front...or at least I thought I was). I guess we all have different perspectives!

Happy weekending, folks! As always, thank you so very much for stopping by!

~Chelsea