Some past-their-prime items can be a little more difficult than other to properly dispose of.  One such item is a very common one: the rubber tire.  If you’ve ever tried to get rid of unwanted tires, you know it can be tricky.  In my area there is nowhere to take them unless you pay for them to be taken – and who wants to pay to throw something away?  Keep that money in your pocket – and another tire out of the landfill – by turning it into a rope-covered ottoman instead!  This eco-friendly DIY come from Brazillian design site Minha Casa, and while the instructions are not in English, the photos do an excellent job of showing all the details you’ll need to know to complete the project.  [how to make a recycled tire rope ottoman]

Project estimate:

• Tire, on hand
• Wood, on hand or about $5 and up
• Rope, on hand or $1 and up
• Hot glue, on hand
• Sealer, on hand or about $3 and up

Total:  Free and up

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Maybe you found a piece of discarded furniture on the side of the road that you brought home to give a makeover.  Maybe you are just looking for a change to spruce up your existing cabinetry.  Whatever the reason you’re looking for new hardware, one thing is for certain: knobs and pulls can get expensive, especially the more unique styles!  Grace at Design Sponge found a cheap way to DIY her own handles, making them out of an old belt.  Clever!  It’s a great use for any belts you have that are starting to wear out or no longer fit properly, or you can surf through your local thrift shop for belts to cut up.  [how to make leather drawer pulls]

Project estimate:

• Leather belt, on hand or $1 and up
• Awl or hammer and nail, on hand
• Screws, on hand or $1

Total:  Free and up!

The post Make Leather Drawer Pulls appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

There are few things in crafty life quite as satisfying as finding a bargain piece of old furniture and reworking it into a fabulous new piece.  But what if you want to add details that are outside of your artistic ability?  Nicole at Design It Girl snagged this antique cabinet at a flea market, but it needed some love.  After a fresh coat of paint it still needed a little something extra, which she found in the form of a sheet of wall stickers from the dollar store.  Once she added the stickers, she added a final crafty touch to make them look less like stickers and more like part of the paint job.  Make sure you check out her blog post for the before pics!  [how to use wall stickers to decorate furniture]

Project estimate:

• Furniture, on hand or about $5 and up
• Paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Wall stickers, $1

Total:  $1 and up

The post Use Wall Stickers to Decorate Furniture appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

While some stock at Dollar Tree changes all the time, there are a few items that are a constant on their shelves.  One of the things that you can always find there are bags of flat, gem-like glass marbles.  There are so many things you can do with them, including this fun idea by Shannon at Madigan Made:  She used several bags of them to revamp a pair of end tables!  With yard sale season in full swing, this project is just one more reason to keep an eye out for furniture finds to refurbish!  [how to make a glass marble tiled table]

Project estimate:

• End table, on hand or about $5 and up
• Paint (optional), on hand or $1 and up
• Flat glass marbles, about $5
• Resin, on hand or about $8 and up

Total:  about $5 and up

The post Make a Glass Marble Tiled Table appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

It takes real crafty ingenuity to turn a fail into something fabulous. One such happy ending was brought to us by DSC reader Shelly of 14countess.  She picked up some placemats to match her dining room decor a the dollar store, but after running them through the washing machine, they emerged a misshapen mess.  Unable to bear throwing them away despite their bargain price, she turned them into stylish chair cushions instead!  (Genius!)  [how to make a placemat chair cushion]

Project estimate:

• Fabric placemat, $1
• Polyfill, on hand or about $5
• Button, on hand or $1
• Ribbon, on hand or $1

Total: $1 and up

With the wide variety of placemats available on a seasonal basis, this easy and cheap project is a great way to dress up your dining room chairs throughout the year.  It is also an inexpensive way to add a grown-up touch to a childrens play table and chairs, making tea parties a little more elegant.

The post Make a Placemat Chair Cushion appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

How to Refinish Furniture at Blue Cricket Designs

This article has a ton of great information on what products to use (primer, kinds of paint, glaze) and what tools you need (dollar store paint brushes, etc.) for refinishing furniture on a budget. There’s a wealth of insider knowledge here (including a lot of great ways to save money), so if you are interested in finding trash at the thrift store (or on a curb) and turning it into treasure, be sure to check this out!

Flower Power Dog Collar at Dill Pickle Picnic

Cece made this charming collar for her doggie using a pet collar and a faux flower – both things can be found at the dollar store, although she received her materials in Mich L.’s Envelope of Doom project. Anyone else have any good pet DIY projects?

DIY Fabric Bolts to Organize Fabric! by The Little Green Bean

What a fun idea! Organize your fabric stash by making your own bolts out of foam core board and an old bookshelf. This is brilliant! It could make your old dusty blah stash into a new and exciting thing again! You can get foam core board at the dollar store. [via]

Linoleum Tile Mirror Frame by Mark Montano

Mark Montano says that the key to using linoleum in decor is to keep it off your kitchen floor! When used out of context, he says, it’s really not that bad. Pretty great, I’d say. Check out this tutorial for a mirror he made using linoleum tile as a frame.

Party Pom-Poms at A Girl and a Glue Gun

A Girl and a Glue Gun made these party pom-poms using dollar store balls and party cups. You could also use styrofoam balls and those teeny shot glasses they have right now in the luau section at Dollar Tree. I think these would look awesome painted silver and glittery for the holidays.

The post Weekend Roundup: How to Refinish Furniture and More appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Have you seen footstools at your local dollar store? I haven’t, but Carrie from Tao of Craft found an unfinished wood stool and finished it as a toadstool for last week’s (dollar store crafting themed) round of So You Think You’re Crafty. Very cute, isn’t it? If you can’t find stools at your dollar store, check thrift stores for stools under $5. [toadstool tutorial here]

Project Estimate:

• Wooden stool, $1
• About 1/2 yard of wool felt, acrylic felt, or a dollar store fleece blanket, $1 and up
• 1/8 yard white felt (or above materials), $1 and up
• Brown craft paint and brush, on hand or $1
• Staple gun, on hand
• Wool or poly batting, about $1 and up

Total cost: $4 and up

The post Make a Toadstool Stool appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

I think you will be interested in the site because I know you love great ideas, good design, and making your house a home, all on a budget. If you can dollar store craft, then you can build Knock Off Wood style! One of the things I like most about the site is that Ana White, the author of the blog, demystifies the process of building and is really encouraging toward beginners. Even if you have never picked up a hammer or power tool in your life, you will feel like you can do it after reading a few of the blog posts and reader testimonials.

Ana let me ask her a couple questions to share with you. I’ll share the interview on the next page, but first let me tell you about my storage bed and the very cheap (but cute) storage containers I made to go in it.

The Bed: Here’s the bed. It’s a king-sized storage bed that I painted dark brown. (Sidenote: you will notice that it’s REALLY tall because we use the boxspring as well as the mattress. I am so thankful for the lip on the end of the bed so I can get on the bed!! Otherwise, I’d also have to build a staircase too!). It’s been several months since we built it, so I don’t really have any major details to share because I have mommy brain and I can’t remember them. I believe we spent about $150, including paint and a countersink and drill bits. It took about 3-4 hours to build (not including about 2 hours in the home improvement store to get the lumber cut!) and several coats of paint. I think I should take a page out of some of other other builders’ books and go ahead and distress it in advance since I have 3 small kids!

Storage: I was stumped about how to put storage under the bed without spending as much as we spent on the bed. Large baskets were about $20 apiece at the cheapest, and the bed has space for 12 baskets. Hmm, 12 x $20 = too much. So, I hit upon a great idea. I bought a pack of 10 bankers boxes at Costco for less than $15, as well a can of paint.

I like the banker’s boxes because they are cheap, sturdy, easy to replace if necessary, easy to paint (and repaint, if you change color schemes), and streamlined looking. A painted banker’s box would also be easy to embellish. You could Mod Podge pretty paper to them, add fabric, ribbon, flowers, or whatever, according to your style. Oh, and they provide a ton of storage!

Project Estimate:

• Banker’s boxes, about $1.50 each
• Can of latex house paint, about $11, or on hand (leftover paint is great for this project)
• Primer, if you have some

Total: $1.50 and up per box

To Make:

Prime the banker’s boxes. This is optional, but recommended. You want to cover over any words or logos on the boxes so they don’t show through the paint.

Paint the boxes with latex paint in your chosen color. Give it a second or third coat, if necessary.

I assembled the boxes before I painted them, but after I did it, it occurred to me that it would be a lot quicker and easier to paint the boxes while they’re still flat.

Side project: if you want to make a “headboard” like mine, put three nails in the wall, tie dollar store jute string to them for a virtual headboard, and hang photos from the jute string with clothespins! Total cost: about $2 if you don’t already have everything on hand.

Now, on to the interview with Ana.

See Page 2 for interview –>

The post $2 Storage and Knock-Off Wood Interview appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Have you been loving the look of the mirrored furniture in all the design collections this year? Audra from Simpsonized Crafts wanted a mirrored nightstand, but she didn’t want to pay $600, so she remade her existing nightstand. She added mirrored tiles (you can find them in the candle section at the dollar store, although you might get a better price at a home-improvement store) and for $20 had a new nightstand. [find out how she made a mirrored nightstand here]

Project Estimate:

• Your old nightstand, on hand
• Mirrored tiles, $20
• Assorted tools, on hand

Total: $20

The post Make a Mirrored Nightstand for $20 appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

I just wanted to show you my little before and after chair makeover project. This isn’t dollar store-y, but I did stashbust for this project! We got these two chairs (cute midcentury mod!) when we moved into our last house; the previous occupant left them (and a few other pieces of furniture). They had already been recovered with some unattractive beige fabric (probably in the 1980s – the fabric has the telltale country blue and dusty rose accents).

These are the go-to chairs for my preschool sons, who sit on them when they paint, play with playdough, and stand on them when they help me cook in the kitchen. I’m sorry to say our contribution to the ugly beige covers are all those stains! Ick! (Sorry if this photo made you lose your appetite, or your respect for me!) The seat covers were ugly, and ruined, and the finish was chipping off.

You’ll probably agree with me that these chairs (1960s, you think?) have seen better days. I like the shape, and I had extra paint left over from a building project I haven’t told you about yet, so I decided to paint them and recover the seats. I’ve heard it’s pretty simple, so I wanted to find out just HOW simple!

Re-covering the seats

I’m sorry I didn’t take process photos because I didn’t intend to write a tutorial. I’ll describe how I did it, and there are so many chair-recovering tutorials floating around out there. And really, this is a good jump-in-and-figure-it-out project. Every chair is different, but you will probably need some of the same things for your project:

Tools:

• Screwdriver (or electric screwdriver/drill, which is what I used)
• Paint and paintbrush for refinishing
• Fabric, enough to cover your seat with 4-6″ fabric hanging over on all sides
• Staple gun with staples

Total cost: FREE because I used stuff I already had on hand!

Steps for recovering seat:

1. Remove screws that hold on the seat (see above photo). Our chair had four screws, which I removed with a heavy duty electric screwdriver.
2. (Optional): Remove old seat-cover fabric. In my case, I removed the previous added fabric (which had been tacked on with thumbtacks!), but left the original seat cover (white vinyl) intact and just covered over it, like the previous DIY’er had done.If you decide to completely remove the existing fabric and padding, save the fabric to use for a template for your new fabric, and either save the padding or cut new padding in the same shape. I didn’t do that, so I can’t give any more specific advice than that.

   
   (This is what the bottom of the fabric looked like after I reassembled the chair – see the old white vinyl? Those chairs must have been awesome when they were first made!)

3. Lay new fabric good-side down, and then lay seat over it, face down. Wrap fabric around the seat so that the edge of the fabric comes up around the seat. Staple fabric to the bottom of the seat, all the way around the seat, pulling it taut as you staple.I began on the side that goes toward the back of the chair, and stapled a few anchor staples, and then worked my way around the seat, stapling anchor staples. After I got the whole thing stapled (I just pulled tightly at every place where I stapled), I went around and made sure the fabric was secure. I probably stapled about 30-50 staples per seat.

I used stash fabric to recover my seats. I originally wanted to use some Pendleton wool blanket off-cuts I had, but they had been attacked by mice in the garage, and weren’t in useable condition. I then found some sturdy cowboy print fabric that happened to match the paint (total happy accident). I only had enough of the cowboy fabric to do one seat, but I found some red corduroy that compliments the cowboy fabric. Happy accident #2. (Oh, and on my computer, these look rooster red, but they’re darker than that!)

Cheapster tip: Corduroy looks a lot like velvet, but it’s a lot cheaper and wears better.

When I flipped the seats over after stapling them, I couldn’t believe how great they looked! It made me wonder what took me so long to tackle this project. I loved the fabric, and it stretched right over the seats. I was afraid it would end up being saggy, or not straight (especially for the corduroy, since there’s a distinct line running across the seat with that fabric).

Painting the chairs

I didn’t do any of the prep I should have (mostly sanding), although I did wash them to remove the built-up kiddie paint and playdough! Since these are workhorse chairs for us, I just jumped in and started painting. My almost-4 year-old son helped me paint the chairs dark brown. He took charge of one chair, and I took charge of the other. He did a pretty good job of covering his chair (lots of excess drips–ha ha!), and I did an okay job of covering mine. I went over his chair when he was done painting, but apparently I missed a drip or two! Oops! You can’t tell if you aren’t looking closely.

We did two coats of paint, and I decided to just leave it at that because I needed to get the project finished, so I reattached the seats (with the aforementioned four screws), and then they were done!

I’m so happy with them! They turned out better than I imagined. I know they’ll probably show wear sooner rather than later because of the slapdash painting job, but now that I know how easy it is to transform chairs, I won’t mind redoing them when the time comes. This was such a fun project with great results! I will definitely be on the lookout for old nasty chairs with potential now.

Before and after!

I know this is like kindergarten to you veteran furniture make-over-ers, but this is new to me! And, I did it all myself!

The post Midcentury Chair Before and After appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.