DIY DOLLAR STORE ROOM DECOR You Actually Want To Make! *Aesthetic + Easy*

Hi friends, welcome back to my channel. It is Drew here from Lone Fox, and where are all of my One Tree Hill fans at? I'm wearing my Clothes Over Bro shirt today, and literally, I'm obsessed with this shirt. It's a woman's shirt, that's why it's so low, but you know what? It's fine. Pulling it back a little bit, okay? Honestly though, I am a humongous One Tree Hill fan. This video literally sounds like it's sponsored by One Tree Hill. It's not. I swear. I'm just a humongous lover of it. I actually flew all the way to Wilmington, North Carolina, checked out all of the places, bought this shirt at the gift shop. It was a really fun time. So yeah, besides the point, today I'm going to be doing a dollar store DIY decor video, and I think you guys are going to absolutely love this one. I actually needed to go to the dollar store to get a couple of items unrelated to the video, and I figured while I was there, I was going to browse the aisles a little bit and see if I could find some stuff, and guys, literally, these ideas were just flying into my head, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to be such an amazing video. So I really hope that you guys love these projects. There are a total of four of them, and if you are not already, make sure to subscribe to my channel, become part of the Lone Fox family, and I also post brand new content every single week on home decor and DIY, and last but not least, you can follow me on Instagram at Lone Fox Home. I post a ton of behind the scenes stuff over there, and without further ado, let's jump into today's projects because they are really cute, affordable, and honestly, really fun to create. So for this first project, I am going to be sharing with you how to turn a dog toy into a chain link decor. I don't know if you guys have seen these online, but chain link decor has kind of been trending for a while. You can basically put this on top of a shelf as shelf decor or on top of a coffee table, and they're normally constructed of like marble, metal, or some form of wood, and they range anywhere in price from like $50 to $200. I was walking through the aisle and saw this dog toy, and I was like, let's make this into a chain link decor. To start with this DIY, I'm going to be using this dollar store rope dog toy and also some Model Magic foam clay that I've had in my stash for a while. It's in a blue color, but do not worry, once it's dry, we're actually going to go ahead and paint it. So you can get this in whatever color you would like. And I actually opted for the foam clay because I find that the foam clay actually cracks a lot less than the traditional air dry clay. So if you're applying a very thin layer of this on top of a surface like I am for this piece here, I find that it cracks a lot less, which is really nice for a project like this. So basically, I took little pieces of the foam clay, and I'm going to be wrapping it around the entire width of a chain link. So how you're going to do this is I took a little piece off, kind of flattened it, wrapped it around, and then kind of just used my hands to mold it in a shape that I liked. And then you're going to go ahead and work on your second piece. But the thing is, is that once these links start to kind of connecting or touching, the clay does stick together. So how I solved this issue was I used a little bit of saran wrap, and I actually put it around the first link, and I let the second link then rest on top of it where the clay was already done. So as you can see here, I'm kind of maneuvering it over, laying the second link on top, and then I'm going to work through the second link ending to make sure that it's fully covered in the clay. And I also covered the little plastic attachment, which is used to kind of connect the rope pieces, and everything just kind of works seamlessly in the end. So as you can see here, I'm adding a second piece of the saran wrap. That way, I could then go ahead and work on my third piece and wrap that piece in clay as well. I'm going to set this aside and actually allow it to dry for 24 hours, and then remove the cling wrap, and then let it dry for another 24 hours. Then when I was completely done with that, I used a matte black spray paint to go ahead and give it a full coat of spray paint on each side. So you kind of have to let this dry in between, and then flip it because there are a lot of different facets you actually have to hit. Once you flip it over, there's going to be kind of a lot of blue still showing, so you're going to want to spray those pieces, let it dry, flip it over, spray it, let it dry, flip it over until everything is fully coated. And also consider maybe spraying it with a brass paint, a silver paint, or even like one of those textured hammered metal paints, which I think would look so cool on a piece like this. Jumping into project number two, I really wanted to share this one with you guys, even though I feel like it's very self-explanatory because all I'm doing is spray painting. But I absolutely never knew about terracotta spray paint until I was scrolling on Amazon one day and saw terracotta spray paint, and I ordered it and instantly fell in love with it. It is such a cool medium to use. If you're a fan of terracotta or just like natural earthy tones, this is a great spray paint to use. So I'm going to link it below for you guys if you are curious, but we are going to be using this on some Dollar Tree vases and like glassware and ceramicware to essentially turn those pieces into more of a terracotta look. To start off this project, I picked up a couple of just glassware pieces from the dollar store, but the star of the show is the terracotta spray paint by Rust-Oleum. I'm going to link it below for you guys. I found it on Amazon and I am obsessed with this product, but I kind of have done trial and error and figured out the best way to use it. You're going to want to put your can about 12 inches away from your item and do very light coats of this, but build it up. You're not going to want to spray a ton on at once because it will start dripping. And the great thing about this product is that when you spray it on, it kind of goes on a more brightish orange color, but as it dries, it dries into the most beautiful terracotta look and it actually has that terracotta kind of sandy texture to it as well. So I let it dry for about 20 minutes between coats. It's a super quick dry because I believe it's more of a powder paint as opposed to a liquid paint, but you're going to want to do about three to four coats. And then I also got this little ceramic cactus ring holder or jewelry dish at the dollar store as well. And I sprayed that too. But as you can see, as the coats build, it turns into a beautiful terracotta finish. I'm sure a lot of you guys know what my love for macrame and I wanted to create some form of macrame project within this video. And I found this dollar picture frame. It's a five by seven frame, found it at the dollar store, of course. And I figured why not create a macrame frame? I don't even think I've ever seen a macrame frame before. So I figured let's create one today. And that is exactly what we're going to do. For the macrame picture frame project, I use this five by seven frame I found at the Dollar Tree, which is actually a really pretty frame and also some macrame cord from Amazon, which I will link for you guys below. So what I started off by doing was measuring five, five foot pieces of macrame cord. And originally I was like, Oh, I'm going to need five pieces of this to make it wide enough to cover the frame. But I actually ended up only using four strands in the end. So I just went ahead and I taped this down to a heavy work surface. You can also use a clipboard or directly on top of a table. I decided on this wood piece here, I use some tape and taped it down. Now this is a little bit out of order, but basically how you're going to do this knot is you're going to create a four shape and then pull the string up through and then repeat it one more time. And that's going to be your knot. So you're going to create this four shape, pull the string up through and then just tighten it up. And that is your knot. And then you're going to work onto the next strand. So as long as your strands are just kind of nicely lined up together, you're going to be able to really weave this kind of nicely and it kind of creates a diagonal shape. So as you can see here, I'm going to create my first knot and each knot consists of two passes. So you're going to do your two passes there, then you're going to work onto your next strand. So you're going to do with the four shape, one knot, and then you're going to do one more knot. And that is your full knot there. So as you can see, I kind of wanted to go ahead and see if the picture frame would be covered by this. This is when I started off with five strands, then I switched back to four strands. And this is just a very, very continuous kind of loop from here on out. So you're just going to be doing the two knots to create your knot and then work onto the next strand. And as you do this, your strands are actually going to transfer to the right and you're just going to be continuing the process. So as you can see here, I'm finishing this up at the end, then you're going to grab your leftmost strand and continue the process again, working from left to right. It builds up pretty quickly and you're going to need to create four total macrame pieces. Two are going to be for the top and the bottom and two are going to be for both the sides. So I started off by adding glue to the top of the frame and then I'm going to be placing down my macrame piece that I created for the top. And then what you're going to want to do is also glue down those ends. I did the top and the bottom first. That way I can glue the ends underneath what is going to be covered by the left and the right sides. So I glued these down and I used my scissors to kind of just keep my hands nice and not burnt. So I kind of pressed it down with my hands. Then I flipped it over to the bottom side and did the same exact thing by gluing this down to the bottom of the frame, tacking down those extra cords on the left and the right side and just cutting them flush with the edge. Then we're going to work over on the side. So I added a little bit of glue there and then I took the piece that is for the side and pressed it on and kind of pressed it into that little crack on the corner. And then all the way down, you're going to want to glue on the side of that frame and just press your piece down. And keep in mind that if you macrame a little bit more, the great thing is that you can kind of undo some of the knots if it's too long. But it could be a little bit more challenging to add knots. So I suggest macrameing a bit longer than you think and then you can cut off any additional pieces. So as you can see here, I'm kind of unknotting it a little bit because it was just a little bit too long. And once you unknot it, you could then glue it into place and just cut off the strands flush to the knot that you created. I'm working now on the opposite side, gluing that piece down. And that is really how you create the macrame frame. It is pretty simple. It's just four continuous macrame pieces. On the back side, I popped in the glass piece, popped in a little bit of artwork, and that finishes off our macrame frame. This project was such a fun one and it actually came together perfectly. I had the idea in my head when I saw a laundry basket at the dollar store and I took the laundry basket, brought it home, and constructed it into a hanging caged pendant light. And I am obsessed with how this turned out. I think you guys are going to love it. This project probably cost me a maximum of $10. Okay, I am so excited about this one, so you guys are going to love this, I think. I used a dollar store laundry basket and I started off by taking some scissors. These are industrial scissors. And I'm going to be cutting off the rim of the laundry basket. This is a very soft plastic material, so it's super easy to cut. So I was able to go around and basically cut it to where I was left with just a quarter inch of that plastic material on there. I just wanted it to essentially match the same exact width as the cage of the basket. So once it is cut, it's going to look exactly like this, which I think looks perfect for the project that we are going for. But I also used an IKEA light fixture and I'm going to be placing this on top and just tracing around that light fixture to see where we're going to need to cut the hole. And this was just a perfect, perfect size for me to kind of stick my scissors in there to create the hole to start. Then I used my industrial scissors to go in and kind of cut out the entire circle. I believe these industrial scissors can also kind of be swapped for gardening shears, just anything that's a little bit stronger than your traditional scissor that will cut through plastic. But I just went around, cut out the circle. It cut out so simply and easily. It was such an easy process. And then you could simply pop in your little light fixture and that is the essential base of your cage. I then went and used the same matte black spray paint I used on the chain and I gave this a generous coat of the spray paint. I kind of did it in a couple of smaller coats to start. So I did the whole exterior of the cage. But also keep in mind that if you just wanted like a metal looking cage light, this could be sprayed in a copper, a brass, a silver, whatever you want. And it would instantly give it a very, very metalized looking simplistic cage light fixture. But I wanted to go a little bit further. So I sprayed mine with the matte black spray paint on the outside and the inside. This is what the basket ended up looking like, which I think looks absolutely perfect. So I then went in and I wanted to add a little bit of personality, just a little bit more interest to this piece. But you can keep it just as a simple cage if you wanted to do multiple of these, like across the kitchen island or something. But I wanted to just create this to be a little bit more of a statement piece. So I used my macrame cording and I wrapped it around the whole entire top rim of this piece. So I kind of wrapped it about seven times in each little square section. And then I moved on to the next square piece. And as you do this, you can kind of glue on the inside your rope and add on rope if needed. I like working with smaller pieces as opposed to super longer pieces. But I wrapped this cording around the entire top. And when I reached the ending, I'm just going to glue that piece down and then just cut off the strand. And I was like, I need a little bit more. So I went ahead and I added more macrame cording. And I added this just by simply weaving this in and out of the cage. So you're going to kind of go through, go over a spoke there, and then go underneath the peg there. So I'm just going to go in and out and wrap this all the way around the entire exterior of the cage light. And the great thing about this light is you can personalize it. So let's just say you wanted to add macrame cord on the top. Maybe you wanted it in the middle. Maybe you wanted no macrame cord. Maybe you wanted the entire thing to look macrame, which I think could look so cool and such a statement piece. I decided that I just wanted to add a little bit of macrame towards the bottom just to kind of make it look a little bit heavier towards the bottom, just because I feel like that gives it a nice weight to the piece. But I also believe that this adds a little bit of interest. And I also suggest gluing down once you are finished, just adding a little dot of glue underneath so that way the rope won't fall. And then just kind of press that rope on. This kind of finishes off our pendant light here. I'm going to pop in our IKEA light fixture. Screw on the backside. Screw in a simple little bulb here. This one has a vintage aesthetic. And that finishes off our light. So those are my dollar store DIY decor projects for you guys today. And I hope that you enjoyed this video as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. I thought that these projects turned out so cute and I'm really excited to use them in upcoming makeovers because as a lot of you guys know, I moved into a new apartment and I still have so many rooms left to do in my makeover series within the apartment. I have already done the dining room and the horror movie room, which are the two rooms completed, but we still have the living room, kitchen, laundry room, and there's a lot of spaces in here. So definitely subscribe to my channel and click the little bell icon. That way you are notified whenever I upload brand new videos. And also don't forget to follow me on Instagram at lonefoxhome, I'll put it right there for you guys. Follow me there on Instagram. Have an amazing rest of your day guys. Stay safe and I'll see you in the next one. Bye guys.