odds and ends hen house

Just a show-and-tell, not a tutorial, since your scrap pile will differ from mine significantly. With the exception of hinges, hardware, and shingles from Bring and some chicken wire from the farm store, all materials were on-hand including leftover cedar siding and fence board scraps, sections of 2x4 and 2x2, chunks of 4x4 posts, and old bifold closet doors.

(This is a chicken house, yes, but our outside cat sleeps safely in there at night, protecting her from cars and fights.)

Enjoy!

The scrap pile was pulled out onto the lawn for planning the hen house.

Some pieces were cut to length for support structures.

With slats removed, bifold door braces make side supports.

The basic structure, made of 2x4 scrap, bifold door lumber, and 2x2 pieces.

The door, made of leftover cedar siding and 1x3 boards.

The first side gets covered in siding.

The "run", framed in, was ready to be covered with chicken wire.

The hen house was covered in cedar siding, then had the roof peak added.

Legs are made from 4x4 chunks leftover from a fencing project.

Inside, floor boards are made of scrap lumber, and a vent on the back wall is made of hardware cloth tucked between layers of siding. The space left in the floor is the entry/exit to the run.

Side view of the hen house attached to the run.

Hardware cloth is attached to the roof peaks for ventilation and a view.

Shutter slats are nailed in place to hide edges and cover the sharp ends of wire on the outside.

Roof decking is made of lengths of cedar fence boards.

Tar paper covers the roof decking. We've had this tar paper leftover from roofing and siding  projects on the shed and studio.

Asphalt shingles are pretty easy to come by at Bring in small quantities. I found just enough to cover the roof.

I used a partial tube of roofing tar to secure the shingles in addition to roofing nails. We had the tar leftover from installing a skylight in the shed earlier this summer.

The door handle and piano hinge came from Bring as well. The other hinges were removed from an old standing screen that had its lumber incorporated into this project.

A small shelf holds a cat food can up off the ground. The edge is made of shutter slats.

Finished! The chicken wire run is continued to the area underneath the hen house, allowing for extra space to move, and is held to the ground with tent stakes.

The door is latched with a hook & eye on each side. The run is attached to the hen house with hook & eye fasteners as well, which allows for easy cleaning.

Complete! One hen house made mostly of stuff we had on hand. This was an interesting challenge because the scrap pile had to be used creatively to make a solid and attractive structure. In the end, it lives up to expectations. I think any time I build from scrap I end up especially happy with the results, but this hen house is one of my favorites.

Thanks for following along as I innovated!

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My Repurposed Life

thrift store finds: bike basket repair and storage

I started out with a cute wicker bike basket from the rebuilding store (Bring) and an intention to turn it into a little extra bathroom storage in our tiny bathroom. It's from the Nantucket Bike Basket Company. 

These baskets are pretty readily available through places like REI and After School if you have the money to spend. The one I bought was $3 and was sold "As-Is", which in this case meant that the caning at the back (where the basket attaches to the bike) had come loose. Someone attempted to fix it with zip ties and further ruined it by separating several rows of the wicker. You can see that separation in the photo below, after I covered it with clear duct tape.

I know that it's possible to fix these baskets by undoing the twining and caning, reinserting the wicker, and then gluing and rebinding the top, but I'm not an expert, and jobs like that require knowledge and skilled hands to make it look right. I wanted a strong repair that would look decent and use my current tools and skill set. You know: duct tape.

I used the tape to go all around the basket, just to stop any further damage from occurring and strongly hold everything together. It's not super-attractive, so I knew this wouldn't be my final step.

I used a printed coffee sack remnant to go over the tape, and used hot glue to make sure it was firmly attached to both the taped top and the wicker for a sturdy repair without vulnerable stress points.

The raveled edge is kept from fraying by being pressed into the hot glue (which is, luckily, invisible if you're really, really careful about how much you use and where it goes. And you don't use the yellow-y extra-strength glue sticks).

Just right for holding a couple of spare rolls of toilet paper up and out of the way.

This kind of repair will work on other kinds of wicker baskets, too, although I'd recommend finding someone to professionally fix really nice, heirloom-quality baskets.

Thanks for reading!

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The CSI Project

pull-string robot piñata and candy filler

Hey everyone! This has been a long week here at the old homestead. We've been home sick, and I finished in the bottom two this week over at So You Think You're Crafty?, despite my mad love for this project. I'm through to the next round, but the person I tied this week could just have easily have been the one to stay. I've got my fingers crossed for next week and I'll let you know when the voting opens!

I made this super fun robot piñata using mostly found materials and some crepe paper that I've had out in the studio since (*gasp*) my wedding ten years ago. My piñata is a robot for an upcoming birthday party (my kiddo's third!) but you could adapt the project for basically any theme. Just look in the recycling bin, and you probably have enough materials to start building one today!

I built the basic structure using boxes, tubes, and containers held together with duct tape and Makedo cardboard connectors, then covered it using glue sticks and crepe paper, and decorated with bits and pieces.

I like crepe paper better than the tissue paper I see used on most commercial piñatas because crepe has more flexibility to it. Curves aren't a problem. Tight corners aren't a problem. Stretching it to fill a gap isn't a problem. It's kinda awesome. And it's nice to have a way to use this dove grey color that I hadn't found a use for in the past decade. Plus, he's pretty adorable, isn't he?

Because this is a pull-string piñata (more suitable than the traditional "bash-able" kind for a group of really young kids), the harder-edged pieces (like the connectors and the reflectors) aren't a problem like they would be if you were going to hit them with a stick. All the kids just grab a string and pull till the base opens and all the treats spill out!

And speaking of treats, we spent some time last week making some yummy homemade gummy robots and chocolate robots in matching packages (designed in Illustrator) as piñata filler. I'll include the printable packaging graphics in the tutorial , for anyone who's been searching high and low for robot-themed party favors.

In fact, two separate tutorials are coming your way soon; one for the piñata and one for the candies; subscribe if you don't want to miss either of those!

Thanks a ton for reading and for voting over at So You Think You're Crafty! Wish me luck this coming week, too! It's heating up to be another edge-of-your-seat contest for me.

all-time top and bottom five posts -- part two

This is a continuation (two months later!) of part one from April, in which I did a quick run-down of my all-time top five blog posts. That post was easier to write, mostly, I suppose, because it's always easier to talk about things that can be considered successful (which here can mean "popular") than it is to talk about things that weren't as well liked. Which is why I don't talk much about junior high school, frankly. ;)

Here's the thing: most of my seldom-viewed posts come from a couple of years ago, before I was blogging regularly. I think that's the main reason they haven't been very far up on my "most-read" list. Here are a few of my favorites, then, from those tied for last place in terms of readership, together with what I would do differently were I to rewrite the blog post.

#1: Vintage Signs




I love going on trips to the Oregon coast and driving through all the towns along 101 (the Coast Highway). Some of the businesses have been there for decades and decades, and still have their original mid-century (or earlier) signage. And I love that. I love old typography and graphics and how they're married on the signs I photographed.

Unfortunately, a new blogger, I took the photos out the car window while stopped in traffic (so they're not awesome), and then made everything just too, too small. Which is a bummer, because that stuff really means something to me.


#2: A Trip to the Pumpkin Farm and Another Beautiful Thing

This should clearly have been two posts. I was really proud of the way those cedar shingles came out on the side of my backyard art studio, and if I'd taken the time to write a whole post about that, I would be a happy camper looking back on it now. It was a whole day (pre-baby) of me on a ladder. I was marking each of the edge shingles and passing them to my husband to cut, then hammer-tacking them onto the wall. And the effect was exactly the old craftsman look I wanted. It was great, and deserved its own post.

The pumpkin farm deserved its own post, too. The Mister and I started a tradition (probably eight years ago now) of going on a pumpkin patch hayride every October, something we never did as kids.

That year (2008) was a big one for our little two-person-family traditions since health-wise, the end of 2007 / beginning of 2008 had been rough for both of us. Times like that test your mettle as a couple; I think we were driven closer together through those experiences because we already thought of ourselves as a family.

Plus, pumpkins are big, beautiful, fat, happy orange things, and there should have been more photos that featured them.


#3: First Round is on Display!

This post features some of the projects I'd put up in my Etsy shop in the early spring that year. The projects and photography are among my favorites; I took a load of stuff to the coast with us and photographed them in the early morning, alone on miles of empty beach. The quality of light was perfect, and the storm-swept textures of the sand and driftwood make me happy to look at now.

The projects are some of my favorites, too. I'd love to do a DIY post on one of the bookbinding projects sometime soon. I really miss having the time to spend on bookbinding.


#4: Peter Pan-sies!

One of my two favorite poster design projects, ever. I really wish I'd spent a whole post talking about the design process a bit more, and showing the poster in various stages of design. Instead, this post is pretty short and the follow-up blog post showing the final poster (sans much of the color, at the director's request) is even shorter. In my defense, I was tackling about 50 other projects for Peter Pan at the time and also working full-time (as well as playing Nana in the play), so blogging didn't make my "high-priority" list.


#5: Desert Photography

I went to Arizona with the Mister not really expecting to find it as beautiful as I did. We were there for the wedding of an old friend of mine (someone I was very close to as a teenager) and to visit the desert where my husband grew up.

I'm from a place where everything is green and wet and I'm a big lover of the ocean, so my first visit to the desert was a revelation of sorts. So different from anything I am used to, but also lovely. Prickly and lovely. I did two posts chock full of photos, but sometimes, a little text is nice too.


And there you have 'em! Some of my favorite low-ranking posts. Take a look if you have a minute; I'd love to have some more people stop by and take a glance at my little world. So; what have you written or made that you want more people to take a look at? You can leave your (non-spam) links in the comments section below.

p.s. you can make these photos larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.

flannel projects - - part two : monkey crib sheet and pillowcase

Next up from this pile of fun flannel prints

is this little set of crib sheet + pillowcase made from a monkey/bicycle print flannel from Joann Fabrics.

I discovered about a year-and-a-half ago how easy it is to make fitted crib sheets. That was about the same time I discovered how hard it is to find flannel ones. Our house can be a little chilly in the winter, and at the time, my kiddo was too young to sleep with a blanket. Flannel crib sheets were at the top of my "must-have" list.

Basically, you take a two-yard long piece of 42" wide fabric and cut 8" squares off the corners. Then sew up the cut edges, hem, and add elastic. Go here for the illustrated tutorial from Michael Miller Fabrics that I used to make this one:

Pillowcases are pretty much a cinch, too.

My kiddo's too little to use a pillow in his crib yet, but eventually the crib will convert to a toddler bed and the pillow (and pillowcase) will see lots of good use.

In the meantime, I just keep busting out cute cases in preparation.

Here's the pillowcase tute from Film in the Fridge. It takes about a yard of 42" fabric to make a standard-size case.

Want to see more? Here's Flannel Projects -- Part One featuring the flannel pouf I made from a cute owl print.

(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)

post - easter peeps

Just a quick little front door upgrade and a little story to share with you.

We hadn't quite gotten around to putting a peep hole on the front door since replacing the door two years ago, and generally, I have been peeking through the front curtain or pretending not to be home if I wasn't expecting a delivery person.

Well, the Friday before Easter, my dad and stepmom were going to be coming through town and wanted to pop in to see the kiddo and me. A phone call let me know they were just a couple of miles outside of town, so we finished straightening up, and heard the knock of their arrival.

Or so I thought. I peeked through the door chain and saw the angle of a jaw that somewhat resembled my dad's, but when I actually opened the door, it was random neighbor X peering through the screen door, wanting to know if he could take the little desk we had put out by the trashcans. I said yes, of course.

In my head, though, I was silently cursing myself. It could literally have been anyone out there, and I had put myself and my kid in danger by not having a stupid peep hole on the front door.

Well, enough of that. I took care of Mission Peep Hole today. It was fast, it looks pretty good, and it only cost a couple of bucks.

In fact, since we'd actually had the peep hole kit sitting in a kitchen drawer for the past two years, I didn't shell out a dime today.

Step one: Drill a hole through your door at about eye-height. Our peep hole kit specified a 1/2-inch hole.

Step two: Pop in the front half of your peep hole and notice how there's a lot of splintered door peeping out behind the eyepiece. There's some showing on the other side of the door, too. Swear under your breath.

Step three: Remember you have a little drawer full of old washers, gears, and other nifty metal findings. Find some with holes that are about half-inch across and add them to the peep hole stems before screwing them together through the hole.

Step four: Try it out! I had the kiddo try mine out for me, while the mister made faces on the other side. Giggles ahoy.

Here's the full door from the outside, underneath a climbing kiwi vine that's proving it's spring.

Hooray for finishing quick projects that make a world of difference! Hooray for nice weather that makes me want to get outside and get stuff done! Hooray for spring!

Thanks for stopping by! I'd love it if you left me a comment below, letting me know what quick fixes you might be working on this spring.

(p.s. you can make these photos bigger by clicking on them . . . but you probably knew that!)


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