Making Scrap Wood into Gift Ideas

I have a love affair with architectural accents. I always see more than it's original purpose. A piece of trim that was once used as an accent piece is now made into a picture frame to hold a picture of someone special or made into a Christmas Tree or Flag. I use each piece and nothing goes to waste. When I cut something, I will save the leftover piece. It goes into a box. It may be a triangle, a square or a rectangle…..sometimes it's a really awkward shape. I started making ornaments out of left over wood 4 years ago. I pulled out my stamps and added a "Merry Christmas" or "To: From:". They adorn a tree in my house and I still love to make them. This year, I was asked to come up with a craft for our local daytime show, Daytime Alabama. Wendy Garner is a friend and the host of the show. She and I have talked a little about my craftiness and she asks me to come up with something every once in awhile to do a segment. I did a couple of segments in the spring with The Smoking Glue Guns!

We set up in Papa's Barn since he has a great workspace and it's one of my favorite spots to work! Laura came over to be my "assistant". She did a great job stamping away while we talked about all the ways you can use these small pieces. By the way, Anthropologie is selling a little bundle of wood pieces for $14.00 right now. You can get those…..or just run outside and see what you can find! (wink)

Throw one on a wine bottle for the perfect hostess gift!

Thread the ornaments with jute to hang on the tree. 

These can be place holders, coasters, or just name plates for everyone that's coming to the party!

 I picked these up at the hunting camp the weekend before. They were left overs from the wood chopping and we made them into personalized coasters!

I love this one! Personalizing each person's stocking would be a fun project for the family to make one night! Have each person make their own or decorate it for someone else! 

You can see the segment here. We had a blast, as usual! Thanks for coming by, Wendy!

WVTM-TV: News, Weather, and Sports for Birmingham, AL

Cool Architectural Pieces

I went to one of my favorite salvage stores, Southern Accents Architectural Antiques,  today and looked around with a list. I was looking for leaded windows, tall windows..but narrow, newel posts or banisters, a table, a pull for a door on tracks, wood slabs for a coffee table, doors, corbels and picking up an M. None of these were for me....all for other people that know I like to find unique treasures and love to share them!

Some of my favorite finds today were smalls. Or parts of something.

Corbels always inspire me. This one was really big. I can see it as a shelf. There may have been two. If so, definitely could find lots of uses for these guys!

I saw this table online yesterday and didn't realize the size. It seemed bigger in the picture because it was shown by itself. With this adorable little, yellow car on top, you could see how small it is. It almost feels like a stool or shelf for something. It would be awesome as an island. You could add legs and a bottom with casters......(I really like that idea!)

 This creeped me out a little. I immediately thought of a crematorium.....or the slaughterhouse...eek!

Probably my favorite thing! Why didn't I bring this home with me today? How fantastic is the title Southern Queen?

Lots of new keys. I love to dig through the key drawers. These were all on rings and didn't lend themselves to being perused. I didn't ask if they were sold individually. That would be a good question. 

This is from a pulley. I just couldn't resist the HH. 

I bought a pull for the barn door, sent pics of windows and newel posts and brought home a giant M, took more pics of tables and slabs of wood. It was a pretty good day out searching! I know the newel posts worked. We'll see about the other things! 

Repurposing Old Architectural Pieces

I never watch tv. Ok, I do, but only when it's freezing outside! It's freezing outside here in Alabama. We do not get a lot of cold weather. I'm not a fan! I would rather be outside playing tennis or building something in my barn. Gah, I keep lying! When it warms up, I will be in the barn building all kinds of cool things! We moved in and I filled that cute barn up quickly. I haven't built many things, yet! Now that I have time to play, it's just too cold to get out there and clean it up!

I have been recording Rehab Addict, The Bronson Pinchot Project and today watched two episodes of The Salvage Dawgs. I love all this old, salvaged architecture! It's amazing what can be recycled out of old buildings.

You find them everywhere. Some are sentimental for family reasons. Others belong to the government and everyone can't agree on what should be done with the building or maybe someone is planning on remodeling and just can't afford it.

My Great-Grandmothers house is an example of the first. Her old farm house is falling apart and has been taken over by animals. It's been empty for 30 years. It is sad that no one has taken care of it. It still stands up on the hill with so many memories of Easter Egg Hunts and playing in the trees.

The public buildings sit for a long time. The government wants to try and use them for something else. Then vandals take over and it becomes an eyesore. There was a building in Anniston that needed to be torn down.  A fire destroyed a lot of the building and no one wanted to put the money into it to build it back. It sat there and deteriorated. It was dangerous because the floors were rotting and people were going in and could get hurt. I got to go by and take pictures because there was talk of it being torn down and salvaged. The politics got in the way and it was torn down with a wrecker ball. The doors, bricks, and beautiful ornate pieces were all destroyed. There are so many beautiful things in old buildings that need to be salvaged. They can be used again. Can you imagine what it would cost to have the character you see in old buildings?

 I had the pleasure of working with Southern Accents when they disassembled the Gay House in Montgomery. There were a couple of stories that ran in the papers in Montgomery and Mobile. The home was built in the late 1800's. It changed hands several times and was a rental when it caught fire. The owner at the time of our demo had dreams of rebuilding, but the economy wasn't good at that time and he couldn't justify the cost. The team took a couple of days to get everything out that could be salvaged. There were some amazing pieces. You can read a little about a connection with the Gay family in this post on Southern Accents blog. It was a cool reunion in the end! We also used a lot of the wainscoting in the Green House! You can see how the pieces were re-purposed in these pictures before the house was complete.