Dollar Store for Inspiration?

I love going to different stores for inspiration. Anthropologie is definitely one of my favorite. But have you guys ever heard of someone going to the Dollar Store for inspiration? Sure, you can get inspired by all the finished products that you see on the shelves saying, "Oh I can make that!", but for me, supplies and "raw materials" are also great inspiration to me. Of course supplies and materials that cost a dollar is just the icing on the cake!

A little searching around showed I am not the only one who browse through dollar store to find things to use in their projects. There are websites such as Dollar Store Crafts, where people use all kind of stuff from the dollar store to make wonderful projects. I even found a Dollar Store Challenge, too bad that was over a while ago, or I would have entered my projects there!

I will be showcasing several of the project that I have done using things I found at the dollar store on this blog. So please stay tuned for more!

So this lead to the surprise that I mentioned from an earlier post. I had finally finished this project after having it sit there for a while. So here it is!

This pillow is made for less than $4! The casing is 2 Microfiber cloth from the dollar store! It is actually really really soft and fluffy. If you have some stuffing from around the house (in old pillows that you longer use) this project could be done for $2.00! 

The  microfiber cloth came in a rectangle shape, so all I did was cut it to a square and sewed them together leaving about 3-4 inches open on one side. After stuffing it,  I just hand sew the sides together. Super easy! it only took me so long because I couldn't find my needles to sew the sides close. 

The finished pillow is about 13in. X 13in. It is not huge, but just the right size for my bed. 

Please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

You can NEVER have enough nail polish

Okay. I admit, I might have a little obsession with nail polishes, so you might not want to take any Nail-Polish-Buying advice from me.  Whenever I see a color that I do not own at the store, I want to pick it up. When I read forums/blogs with pretty pictures of swatches, I want to go to the store and buy more polishes. If I see polishes for sale, I will probably pick out a couple. Buying 1 or 2 a week or even month can really add up. Over the last couple of years, my collection grew from 20-30 bottles to about... several hundreds? The truth is, I am a little afraid to count them. I upgraded from using clear plastic shoe boxes to "Melmers", which is a cheaper Michael's version of IKEA's Helmer. The Melmer is actually very famous on the interwebs, if you do a search on google for Melmer, alot of images come up. I personally got the Melmer for several reasons:

1. Cheaper
2. More storage
3. Made of MDF instead of Metal
4. Its Modular, so I can get more if I wanted.

I actually use several drawers to store tissues, lotions, and just random stuff. It doubles as my night stand. I used this system for about 2 years. and I had ran out of space and had some over flow of polishes where I store in a crate (or just random places around my room). 

My Melmers. It is 2 Melmers stacked on top of each other with a wooden cutting board on top to increase the top's surface so I can put more stuff on it.
(the last drawer is full of my nail supplies from when I used to do acrylics, and it does not close all the way)

Then, One day my friend showed me a video showing a girl (Dulcecandy) making a nail polish rack. I loved it! I thought about it for a couple of days about how I would make it. And one day I started looking at youtube videos about making nail polish racks. THERE WERE A BUNCH, but only one stood out to me. Nguerriero19's video was clear and the finished product was what I was looking for. After I saw the video I could not wait one more day, and went out to buy the supplies right away. 

I got 3 foam board, hot glue gun, and hot glue. can you believe that's it?

I did make a few changes:

1. I did not use the Ductape on the lip.
2. The measurement for the front lip is 3/4" instead of 1'.
3. The 2 sides were 2 3/8 instead of 2 1/2 so it was completely flush with the front.

The rack is secured with some anchors to my dry wall on all 4 corners, I also put on washers to make sure it is very secure. Some of you might think, "Foam boards are flimsy! It will not hold up." I had the same thought when I first saw the video, but after I made the rack, I cannot believe how sturdy it is! If you secure it well to the wall, it should not come apart/fall off! I even put 2 rows of polishes on some of the shelves and it is not coming apart.

Here are some before and after pictures.

I am very happy with the result, my polishes are right on my wall where I can easily see them. But that also means other people can see them as well, and see how crazy I am with my polishes. 

I am planning on making one more. but next time I will probably  not use hot glue. I like the things I make to be perfect, and hot glue just do not give me enough time to line everything up exactly right. It dries way too fast and glue will seep out from the seams and if you look closely you can see the glue (I did add a line of glue to the bottom and use my finger to smooth it out, I do not recommend doing this becausemetimes so it will burn your fingers and you have to be very careful). I will probably use Tacky Glue, it seems to hold up quite well.  

Over all this project cost me a whopping $9. If you already have your glue on hand, and happens to catch foam boards on sale at Hobby Lobby, you can make this for less than $5. You just cannot beat that! I happen to like the look of white foam boards, but if you want to do black, It will probably cost a little more just for your information. 

Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear from you!

DIY: Solar Light

I've seen so many Solar light jars that I wanted to make one myself, but instead of using jars and glass bottles that has a glass lid, I am simply going to use the light part as the lid! This is seriously one of the easiest DIYs I've done, and the results will surely impress!

What you will need:

Solar Garden Light - I got mine at Target for $2 WooHoo!!

Glass Bottle - I had this on hand, It was a bottle from my diffuser, similar to THIS.

Nail Polish - preferably a sheer pearly polish and a matte top coat. (optional)
E600 Glue

1. If your glass container has been used for something else, clean it thoroughly and let it dry completely.

2. Take the top of solar garden light off. If your lucky enough to find the exact same one at Target this step is easy, all you have to do is twist it off. The light that I got was designed with an on and off switch so it was meant for you to take the light off so you can turn it on and off. This is great because I am able to turn off the light when I don't want it to be on! If you have other kind of garden solar light, you  might have to use a screw to take the top off. 

Once you take it off, you want to test that the top will fit your container right. The mouth of my bottle is small enough where I still have access to the on and off switch. YAY!

3. Test out your colors! I used a clear glass lid that I didn't need anymore and swatched all the nail polish colors that I felt might work. Then, I turned off the light and took out my garden light to see which color I liked the best. I decided on a combination of 3 colors + matte top coat mixed together. I actually put a little bit of my chosen colors in a small glass container that I had just to make sure that it's the color i wanted. 

4. Pour your nail polish into your bottle. How much polish to use depends on the size of your bottle. Mine was pretty small so I used about 30-40 drops of polish total. (of course if you prefer a clear glass you can certainly skip the polish part.)

5. Shake your bottle like crazy and make sure there's an even coat of polish inside the bottle. Turn it upside down and let the extra polish drip out. Now, you have to wait till the polish is completely dry. 

6. Now all you have to do is use your E600 glue and glue the top on your bottle! Let it dry, put it under the sun, and VIOLA!

Hope you enjoyed my first tutorial!