Fruit Baskets and Coasters

As you know my kitchen is very limited on space. One day, many moons ago, I saw a project on Pintrest for hanging fruit baskets! What a great way to save valuable counter and table space!
So I of course went out and bought the materials and went on my way making these gems!

Realistically this should have been one of the easiest projects ever.

• Hanging (wall mounted) planters
• Spray paint (I choose Silver) But you don't even need to paint them!
• And a way to mount them on the wall (this is where I had trouble)

After getting them spray painted; and eagerly placing my fruit in them I realized I have no idea how to hang these on the wall... My brother advised me to buy dry wall anchors, so I finally did after about a month--But didn't have a drill.

This week while thrifting I bought some gorilla hooks (you just screw them into the wall and they hold up to 50lbs!) Low and behold approx. 3 months later I have mounted fruit baskets!

How awesome of an idea is this!

Bonus:

After making my dry bar last month I had some extra tiles. I wanted to try to make them into coasters. I bought cork squares, and measured out how many tiles I would need for each one and cut them all.

I played around with the idea of using grout to attach them to the cork--but that would have been a very heavy coaster!

I eventually decided--eventually being about 3 weeks after having them ready (and just sitting on my counter) that if I cut the spacers out and glued them with tacky glue to the cork that they should work find.

**They have mesh spacers between each tile to make them even when you add grouting--can you imagine measuring between each small tile!**

I have not used them yet--but they seem sturdy!

I got some cute napkin holders to put them in-- about 6 fit in each one. I have one in the kitchen and one on the bar!

Cheers!

Reupholstered Bench

Since my birthday (in November) I have been wanting to add extra seating in my living room--as to not have the problem of people standing when they come over. Because that's just awkward.
I have a large space in front of my front window that had nothing in it--except a tree at Christmas.
On an excursion to Jamie's basement I saw bench--with retro zebra fabric-- that I convinced her to let me have--and help me reupholster.

See said (before) bench:

So when I was finally able to get a Monday off, I recruited Jamie's help (of course) and we made a day of thrifting for materials (and other goodies), lunch and finally recovering this bad boy (which we discovered had been done many times before).

I was able to score some cute fabric--actually an old curtain for $4.00 at Goodwill.

I love this pattern:

After I painstakingly held the bench up so Jamie could pull the staples out (I know she gave me the hardest part--what was she thinking!!) We were ready to staple the new fabric on.

Why yes I did use a staple gun; and yes she did have to tell me how to do it properly...almost every time.

Jamie then used a touch up pen to fill in the wood as best as she could--but a wood filler and stain will be needed--but I will leave that for another weekend.

But the end result is a beautiful bench, that fits perfectly in front of my window--not so perfectly in my car (but that's a whole other story).

Although I like this bench I don't think I will be doing another reupholstering project any time soon!

(But I do have extra fabric to make some matching pillows!)