DIY - Pocketful of Joules

Brit Co-Op: Food + Wine + DIY

Do you remember way back over a year ago when I talked about being part of the Brit + Co Co-Op? Well, the Co-Op took a little break but came back a couple weeks ago with a bang.

Or maybe a tick tock.

That was my clever way of hinting that we created our own watch bands.

Get it.
Tick, tock.

{insert dorky snort laugh here}

Whatever. It was totally funny in my head. Anyways, I LOVE a chance to kick the boys out of the house and invite some of my girlfriends over to play. As always, I threw together some snacks and chilled a few bottles of wine because WINE makes all DIY projects more fun.

This month’s project was a Timex embroidered watch set that came in both orange and lime green:

They provided everything in the Brit Kit, except for scissors:
– Timex Weekender Watch
– embroidery thread in 3 colors
– embroidery needles

Even though some of my friends were craftier than others – most noticeable when we all started trying to thread our needles – I think all the watches turned out super cute. Check them out:

I felt like we totally need a “Go, Go Power Rangers picture…” And this one is even more awesome because it has an adorable baby photobomb!

They turned out super cute, right?

Do you want to make one at home? I have a lime green watch kit that I’d love to give away to one of you to enjoy! All you have to do is leave me a comment on this post and tell me what accessory you just can’t live without. I’ll pick a winner at random (or perhaps Ollie will do the picking…) on Monday, September 15th.

9/15/14 Update: The winner of the lime green Timex kit from Brit+Co is… Stacey, who can’t leave the house without her glasses. TeeHee. Congrats Stacey and thank you to everyone who entered!

Disclosure: Brit + Co provided me with the Brit Kits for free. I was not required to review the kits or even write a blog post about the party. I just wanted to because we had so much fun and I could see this being a cool idea for a bridal shower, baby shower or birthday.

Making over 2 Thrift Store Lamps

The better title for this post would have been: Making over 2 Thrift Store Lamps, Googling “Why doesn’t my lampshade fit my lamp”, “How do I make my lampshade fit my lamp”, “What the heck is a Slip Uno Adapter” and “How do I know what kind of fitter is on my lampshade”… then finally finding something at Home Depot to MAKE IT WORK Tim Gunn-style.

That might have been a teensy bit of overkill though…

It all started with these:

These two little crystal lamps were calling my name at the thrift store. They were marked at just $3.00 each and one was even on sale for half off! After I bought them, they just kind of sat around in my office while I did some online lamp shade shopping. I saw a few okay options at Target, but nothing that really seemed like the right design.

Then, on a trip to World Market I found these:

I didn’t have the bases with me, so I was just kind of crossing my fingers that they would work. Both of the shades were marked as $14.99; however the navy design one had a mark on it so I asked the manager for a discount. {Remember, the secret is to ask super nicely.} She was happy to reduce the price to $11.99 and then I used a coupon to get an extra 15% off of everything. So, the total for both shades was just under $23.00.

I was pretty excited when I got home and plopped the shades on the lamp bases… until:

Well, crap. The lamp socket was too small for the lamp shade. Instead of the shade fitting snugly, it flopped around on top of the on/off switch… this won’t do at all!

At this point I did A LOT of googling around. I found this post on how to determine what fitter you need to be quite helpful. I also found this thing on Amazon, that SEEMED like it might fix the problem: Slip Uno Adapter Harp Converter Lamp Shade Uno Euro Fitter 1 7/16 I.D. Almost $8 each for a fitter seemed a bit steep though, so I did what I always do… I went to Home Depot and looked around.

The nice lady at the lamp section had no idea what I was talking about. Even when I pulled a full-sized lamp from my purse to show her.

{ I mean, why WOULDN’T I walk around with a lamp in my purse? It goes well with the blue crayon, 3 monster trucks and 2 baggies of snacks.}

I decided to just keep walking around to see if I could find anything circular that might fit on top of the lamp socket… and found this:

It’s a plumbing part called a PVC Bushing that seemed like it would fit nicely. I tried it on the base that I had with me and it seemed to do the job. Since they were only $1.26 each, I got a few of them to try at home with the shades.

Look, they’re like little lamp top hats!

They fit perfectly on the socket, leaving the on/off switch clear. They also allow the lampshade to balance on top, without flopping around. All you need to do is screw a bulb in and it holds everything together. The only drawback is that you can’t use a fancy energy-saving twirly bulb because the base is too thick to screw in through the bushing. Luckily a regular bulb works fine.

Check them out. Sassy, right?!

I already found the perfect space for my favorite one. I love the way the crystal looks with the rougher straw-like shade.

I think the other crystal lamp will end up on my bedside table. I don’t really NEED it there, because we have a remote control for our overhead fan/light. But it looks super cute, right?!

Here’s what I spent:

Two lamps (Goodwill): $4.50
Two lampshades (World Market): $23.00
Two bushings (Home Depot): $2.52
Total: $30.02

I certainly could have found cheaper lamp shades at Walmart or the Dollar Store, but I think that the snazzy shades totally MAKE the lamps. It’s like a hard/soft thing going on that works in well with my home decor. They were definitely cheaper than this version of a crystal lamp/rough shade from Pottery Barn for $249 or this mini table lamp version from West Elm for $69. I’m pretty darn happy with my Cheapo-nista versions!

Have you gotten any cool stuff from the thrift store lately? Do you also have issues with lampshades fitting on your lamps? Which one is your favorite – the one with the woven shade or the blue patterned one?

Dog Proofing with a Staple Gun & Chicken Wire

For the last few weeks, Ollie has been driving me crazy. Every time I would let him out into the fenced-in area of our backyard to do his business, he would run under our sun room instead.

I think there might have been some bunny rabbits living under there, because one day a HUGE Ollie-sized rabbit came running out.

Hmmm… maybe they were making some sweet cross-species love?

Anyways, it got to the point where he didn’t want to do any business at all – other than hanging out in his hidden love shack. The tipping point was when we had a few days of rain… Ollie HATES baths and I hate having a muddy dog running around my house.

And it was quite muddy, because there wasn’t any grass under the porch. Or around the porch…

Instead of buying and installing some porch lattice, which is certainly one way of fixing the issue, we decided to work with what we had:

1 inch Poultry Netting left over from another project
A staple gun and staples that I have used for pretty much EVERYTHING over the past 10 years
A measuring tape
A hammer (in case I needed to pry any staples out)
Wire snips (not shown)

Step 1: While Ollie kept a close eye on him, Travis pulled out the random slabs of concrete that were stuffed under the deck. We have no idea why the last owners put them there, but we re-purposed them to block the skinny area by the back stairs (shown a few pictures down).

Step 2: We measured each space between wood columns and snipped the chicken wire to size.

Step 3: While holding the wire tight, I used the staple gun to secure each piece to wood.

Step 4: Travis added a few extra staples to keep the wire from pulling away from the house.

That’s it! It took us less than an hour and totally solved the issue of Ollie playing under the deck. We even left the shallow area open, in case there were little critters that needed to get in and out of the area.

Unless you look closely, you can hardly tell that the chicken wire is there at all. Ollie knows though, and totally stares through the holes with longing at his bunny wife. Or husband. I’m not really sure of Ollie’s sexual orientation.

I guess now we need to deal with the whole lack o’ grass thing going on…

Have you needed to do some random animal proofing around your house? Do you have a dog in love with a bunny rabbit?