Almeida Adventures: D.I.Y. Projects On A Dime

INK PAD STORAGE
IN CRAFT ROOM

I have ink pads in my craft room and did not have an organized area to store them. So I asked Hank to make something for me and it turned out great! I found a picture of what I wanted and he went to work designing and building it.

Some of the wood we already had, as well as the paint, so it didn’t cost us very much at all to make this… just a lot of time.

I know this looks funky, but we don’t have a lot of tools, so we use what we can to “hold” things together after it’s been glued.

And here’s the finished product, so happy with it!!

FRONT DOOR MAKE-OVER

When we moved into our house in 2011 and the front door was in really bad shape, so we stained it not long after we moved in. After 5 years of the hot afternoon sun beating on it, I decided that every 5 years we will re-stain the door. It looks so much better now!! Zero cost… our neighbor already had the stain for his door and he shares it with us and it lasts forever!

BEFORE AFTER

FOOD CREATIONS

Here are some food creations that I’ve done the last couple of months for parties. Healthy, yummy, and very cute!

PAINTING & DECORATING

MY CRAFT ROOM

We only painted the bottom below the chair rail because the upper half looks good. Painting was a breeze, the detailed part was emptying all the cabinets, taping, then putting everything back.

The previous color was sort of a dark beige with a slight green tone. I chose a light green and I love the way it turned out. This is the same wall BEFORE & AFTER so you can see the color difference.

BEFORE AFTER Paint & Window Topper

I went on line and found 2 different window topper ideas that I liked, so I put the designs together and made my own pattern. I really took my time and thought out every step because I didn’t want to screw it up! It took me 3 days to complete, but I’m really happy with the results. Although I got the material on sale and used a coupon, it still cost $38 only because I didn’t want a seam in the middle of the panel, so I had to buy extra yardage to accomplish that. I will do something with the leftover material!

I made my own trim by sewing material around a rope I had in the garage.

We had this old rusty support in the garage from a really old tent that I thought I could use for the curtain rod. This is why we keep stuff and wood laying around, we can usually re-purpose it for something else with little to no cost.

I sanded it down in preparation for paint.

I found these supports to secure the rod and used old door knobs for the ends of the rod. I found these at ReCreate in Roseville
(I love that store!!)

I used left over spray paint that I had from a different project. Grand total for the curtain rod was only $1.75… gotta love that!

I wanted fabric buttons on each tab. I could have saved myself a lot of time and energy by just buying buttons, but that wouldn’t be any fun and would cost more. Sooooooooooo, I used cheepo poster board that I already had, cut the circles and covered them with coordinating material. They turned out really good!

Cut button, cut material, glued one side, turned it over and glued the other side… and voila, a covered button!!

The finished window topper… I’m happy Laughing out loud

I knew I’d find something for that left over material. Since my craft room has it’s own bathroom, humm… how about making a tissue box cover. Again I pulled out that cheepo poster board and cut away.

I glued the sides together and added tape for extra supoprt.

I covered the box with material using hot glue.

I still have left over material, so I’m thinking about covering my chair… I have to think about that one.

CART FOR WEBER

We have Little Weber and we needed a cart for it, so Hank designed and built it. We used pieces of wood from our stash and only had to buy a small amount of inexpensive wood for the framing, and we already had the wheels.

We used our fence paint that was left here from the previous owners.

Hank added a piece of aluminum on the bottom shelf so he could put the hot chimney starter on it.

The intent is to put the Weber on the top shelf when grilling, then storing both the Weber and the chimney starter on the bottom shelf and putting a cover on it. It’s on wheels so Hank can roll it around to wherever he wants.

COVERS FOR THE

WEBER AND SMOKER

So the cart brought me to my next challenging idea. Covers are so expensive to buy and sometimes don’t last long in our extreme heat we get here. So I searched our local fabric stores and found that Walmart sells a heavy duty outdoor canvas for only $4.97 a yard. I measured both the cart and the smoker and determined the amount of yardage I would need to make these. I bought
3 1/2 yards and for a cost of under $18 I made both covers!!

Although I was really leary because I’ve never done anything like this, I figured out my patterns on paper and got started.

When I was not sure about how some edges would sew together properly, I used an old sheet sheet and cut out a smaller version and sewed it together to see if it would work.

Weber Cover Smoker Cover

Both have handles to make it easy to take off the cover.

WASTE BASKET MAKE-OVER

I’ve had this waste basket since the early 80’s, as you can see from the dated material (it used to match our wallpaper in our master bathroom… LOL). It’s really well made and has a heavy duty removable plastic bucket insert. This is in our guest room and I’ve been wanting to re-cover it because it totally doesn’t match anything. So what the hell… I don’t have anything to loose except $5 for the material & trim.