Trash to Treasure: Candle Lantern to Bird Feeder

I'm throwing a few little Trash to Treasure projects out here. If you're frugal because you have to be or because you want to be, this is where I find myself hating to spend money, on things that are not necessities but luxuries and costly ones at that. So I find ways to use things that I stumble across that other people have no use for and I can turn into something super cute.

 

A friend of mine had this high quality candle lantern sitting on her porch collecting spiders and webs because one of the glass panes had broken. I sometimes forget that not everyone has the creative gene or the patience to repurpose such treasures. So what shall become of ye oh lantern...

 

The first thing I did was knock out the remainder of the glass pane. There is a door on the opposite side of the broken window allowing easy access for whatever I do to this broken side.

Once I knocked the glass out, I decided to bring out some popsicle sticks and see if I couldn't get a little picket fence going. I then glued the pieces together and sprayed them with a similar bronze color.

I then visited my dollar store and picked up some moss, one of those little mesh paperclip cups, some decals, and a solar stake light. The light was just small enough to fit inside the handle opening and I used no shortage of hot glue to secure it! :) Finally I placed the decals on the windows, the paperclip cup in the center, supported it with some moss, added some seed, and put it out to solar charge! Here's the final result.

 

 

 

 

I may take out the bird seed cup and see if this will be used as a nesting box for a little mommy bird. :)

 

 

 

 

Repurpose Your Trash Boxes into Storage Boxes....

Saving money efforts are only as good as our imaginations. So I will be sharing my repurposed, upcycled, and cheap creations along the way.

 

It never really dawns on us to use our 'trash' from things like cereal boxes, or in this case, dog treats. But I had been keeping these boxes and using them for silly things like a lint bin in the laundry room when I clean out the dryer. When I went to the Dollar Store, I saw this cute black and white rose contact paper for shelves, drawers, and the like. I got a roll of it not knowing what I would use it for. Well, I used it and here's how it came out!

 

 

 

 

The contact paper being white didn't offer 100% coverage and to do it again I may just spray paint the box with a coat of cheap white paint first since there is some shading that can be seen. Also, I would do this indoors instead of outside while my husband mowed the grass. Hind sight... right? :)

 

The lid I painted technically twice. This one had depressed lettering in it so I first used a textured paint I had on hand to basically fill in the lettering. Then once that dried, I used a flat black. But you could also fill in lettering with good old Elmer's and then paint over it once it's good and dry. I haven't exactly figured out what I'll be using it for, thank you notes and cards maybe?

 

 

But overall, this came out adorable! I will be doing up some magazine boxes here soon so I'll post that project as well!