Try It OR Ditch It... Sunburst Mirror

Today's Try It OR Ditch It is the famous sunburst mirror that are made of paint sticks from your local hardware store. There is at least 10 different pins on this specific wall art and we thought we would give it a go. So read on to see if we say try it or ditch it.

When we first decided to this project we had no idea how many paint sticks we would need. So of course not having a clue we went to Wal-Mart to get the paint sticks. We were worried the Wal-Mart employee would tell us no due to how many we needed. But when we asked they pointed us to where the sticks were and told us to help ourselves. We ended up grabbing around 40 sticks and stuffing them in our purses.

We got our trusty stain out and an old rag and started to stain the sticks. We let the stain sit for only 1 minute; we didn't want them to be too dark. After one minute we rubbed the stain off. This took FOREVER and our arms were tired from all the rubbing.

While the stain was drying we found an old make-up mirror and ripped the mirror off the stand. You can also find small mirrors and your local Dollar Store or Target. We traced the mirror on the cardboard, so the sticks had something to stick to.

We used a hot glue gun to stick the sticks onto the cardboard. Designing the sticks is trial and error and also personal preference.

The tricky part of this project is getting the mirror to stick to the sticks. We used so much hot glue it's not even funny. After failing 3 times to successfully attach the mirror we decided to use Epoxy. We had some just lying around the house from a previous project awhile back. The Epoxy worked the first try. Thank goodness!! We almost gave up and was going to call this project a Ditch it.

We let the Epoxy sit for 30 minutes and placed our spatula holder on top to add some pressure.

Voila the finished project! So we would say this project is a Try It as long as you have patience and a Wal-Mart employee who doesn't care about you taking 40 paint sticks. We hope you enjoyed the blog and comment if you have any questions or just feel like saying hi!

Reno On A Budget... Knife Block

In out last post about the fudge you could see our not so pretty knife block in the background(we tried to hide it dang!)  and that got us thinking what we could do to it. At first we were just going to chunk it, it was way too light for our home and it had no character. We left it on the counter a few more days and then decided we would try giving it a stain and see if it looked any better. We thought about painting it but couldn't decide on a color that would work in our kitchen and not scream hey look at me. So staining it was!

As you can see it isn't horrible by any means, it was just boring! We started off by sanding down the block with general purpose sand paper. Make sure your sanding up and down in the direction of the grain, and not side ways (we made this mistake) you can definitely tell in the finished product. It caused etched lines in the sideways direction (whoops lesson learned).

We used RUST-O-LEUM Wood Stain in Dark Walnut. As you can see we LOVE to stain a little too much. You have something you don't like, just stain it (just kidding... but really) We've had this can for which seems like forever and there is still so much left. Anyways, we sanded the block down three times just to be safe and with an old paint brush paint on the stain. As simple as 1-2-3!

In the picture the stain just looks like brown paint but we promise it's stain (you can see the can in the background if you don't believe us haha). We let the stain sit for about 20 minutes and found some old rags to rub the stain off with. Depending on what type of wood it is you might have to put a little elbow grease into removing the stain.

Ta-Da the finished product.. We actually really like it (yes we are surprised) we were scared that we didn't pull up enough of the original stain and it would stain multicolored but it came out pretty well if we do say so ourselves (and we do!). The cost of this was free and only took 30 minutes and we had a new piece for our kitchen. We hope you enjoyed and give it a try if you have an old tired knife block sitting around.

Fudge Recipe... Try It OR Ditch It

Today's Try it Or Ditch it is a fudge recipe found on pinterest that only has 5 ingredients. You heard it 5! This is a super simple recipe from chocolatechocolateandmore.com head on over there for more chocolate recipes.

Our grandfather is ALWAYS talking about fudge and pretty much hinting he wants us to make some for him. Well his wishes came true today. We had all the ingredients at the house already so it just took the will power to turn off HGTV and start. You only need chocolate chips (semi-sweet or milk chocolate), vanilla extract, sweetened condensed milk, nuts and salt. And of course your trusty stove (and pan). We omitted the nuts, for the simple reason we HATE nuts inside desserts! Yes we said it we hate them...

Ignore the awful laminate counter tops, the kitchen is in the middle of a face lift and their next (muahahaha). First things first, line a 9x9 pan with aluminum foil. We actually used parchment paper because we were out. We don't recommend the parchment paper it was a pain in the side to try to get it to conform to the pan.We also cut the recipe down, too much fudge lying around is not a good thing (actually any isn't a good thing). So we used a smaller pan so that they were still tall enough.

Now here comes the hard part, dump all ingredients (except the vanilla and nuts) into your sauce pan. Wow wasn't that challenging... I love simple recipes. Turn the heat up to medium to melt the chocolate keep stirring until you have a smooth consistency.

Yep, that's not really all that smooth but at some point it did get better. Once its smooth, remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla and nuts (if you want...yuck!). Then pour into the prepared pan and let it chill in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 hours.

Once it has completely set, you can take a knife and cut it into small bite size pieces. We would show you a picture of that too....but its kind of missing in action at the moment (half is in our stomach..so sick now). So the real question Try it OR Ditch it? We say try it... Its not your typical old fashioned fudge recipe, it tastes more like sweetened chocolate than fudge. If your craving fudge and don't have everything on hand this one is simple and fast to whip up and is still delicious!

Budget Buys... Dinnerware

Do you ever find yourself starring at dinnerware at Dillard's or Macy's and trying to calculate out if you can afford it? We do, we love looking at dishes but never seem to buy any new ones for the simple reason there so DARN EXPENSIVE! Who has 130 bucks to spend on plates that stay hidden in your cabinets most of the time. And to top it off half the stuff you get with a set you don't need or want. Who actually wants the coffee cups that look like tea cups, they're way to small(we need our coffee to function) and don't even get us started on half the sets that come with the tiny bowls meant for the mice that live in our cupboards (just kidding..we think).

 Another option is to buy the dishes separately. You think you have found a way around the madness.. WRONG! 14 dollars per plate and 12 for a bowl! That will add up fast. Not to mention you need more than 4 if you plan on feeding anybody but yourself.

A couple days ago we were bargain hunting for cheap stools to reupholster and our local Goodwill is located right next to a Family Dollar. We hesitated at first whether or not to enter but decided it was worth a try. We wondered the whole store and found nothing but a cheap bottle of comet; disappointed we were ready to leave but something urged us to look again. We realized we missed the very last aisle and guess what we found? If you said dinner dishes you were RIGHT! Not just plain Jane white dishes either, these were fiesta colored. Similar to the ones we had our eyes on at Dillard's. We argued for awhile on what color to get but finally settled on multicolored plates and matching bowls(and not those tiny mice eating ones either). We opted out of getting any matching coffee cups just for the fact that we have so many(obsession ALERT) and these were on the small side. They didn't have any matching salad plates, but they did have some in a similar color(who needs things to match 100%) so we made room in the basket for them.

Poor guy at the register had to ring up 8 plates, 8 bowls and 8 salad plates, he had nothing to put them in. He had to run to the back to grab some boxes so we could get them out of the store in one piece (and surprise they made it all the way home too). So how much was our total? 24 dollars plus tax, only 1 DOLLAR for each bowl and plate, I mean yeah its a dollar store but who actually expects to pay only a dollar for ceramic plates! So next time your out and about don't hesitate to stop in your local dollar store and see what they have you might be surprised (we were).

Try it OR Ditch it... Spoon Decor

We can sit on pinterest all day long pinning home decor DIY and every time we go to do one we think is this even going to work or is this a waste of time and material? I bet you have asked yourself that same question. Well we are here to help. Our goal is to test out those DIY pins and see if they are easy enough for the average person to do. Sooo here is the first Try it OR Ditch it!

We have been looking for some wall art for a particular spot in our house which seems like years now (maybe a couple months). We found this picture on pinterest and KNEW it would be perfect for that spot. Turns out that spot wasn't so great after all... BUT we found an even better place for it to call home. We started off at our local Wal-Mart in hunt of CHEAP wooden spoons, and lo and behold we found extremely dirt cheap wooden spoons, 88 cents for 4. Crazy good deal right? They only had 10 packs left at the store so we bought them all and crossed our fingers that it would be enough. We made sure to do self check out so we didn't look completely crazy buying 40 cheap spoons(but it is Wal-Mart).

We also needed wood stain that we happened to have lying around in the garage, and black and red acrylic paint that we had in our craft room. To start off we laid out the spoons in the pattern depicted in the picture, and realized our longest spoon was way too long. We first tried to cut the spoons with a saw, but that proved to be too difficult for us... so we grabbed the nearest bread knife and chopped off the ends about 4 inches. After hacking the bottoms off, the ends were less then pretty, so we sanded the bottoms down using general purpose sand paper. Then we set about the task of separating out the spoons into piles one that would not be stained at all, one for a medium stain, another for dark stain, and one for a red stain. For the medium stain we used paper towels and dipped into the stain and rubbed it into the spoons pulling off most of the color but leaving some behind. For the darker stain we repeated that same process but added a small amount of black paint in with the stain and rubbed it in (very fast). For the red stain we repeated what we did with the darker stain but with red paint instead of the black. After that was completed we tried to let the spoons dry but we were too impatient and began the next step after only a few minutes. Somehow we luckily didn't get the stain on anything. The next step is to plug in your hot glue gun(get that bad boy ready). We then began to glue the spoons in the same pattern as the picture shows while burning the crap out of ourselves. We would suggest avoiding the burning part. After gluing 4 or 5 together the spoons kept falling off so we decided to glue them in intervals of 4. After all the spoons were glued and our skin was nice and burned we found a 1X4 (which was an old bed slat) and placed the spoons on top of the slat.

The slat was around 5 inches too long so we busted out a manly tool that we were deathly afraid of, a Sawzall. After a few tries we successfully cut it off 6 inches... Whoops. We thought it would be a good idea to drill screws into the spoons to attach them to the 2X4, but after searching and searching and blaming each other we couldn't find the drill and thought a powered screw driver would work just as good(hmmm doesn't sound too smart right?) it wasn't. The powered screw driver was not strong enough and cracked one of the spoons. After searching some more we ended up hot gluing the spoons to the 2X4 and burning ourselves some more. The glue held the spoons great! We now have a great a piece of art work to hang in our kitchen area. So try it or ditch it? we say try it but be very cautious, we are now sporting third degree burns!