Update Your Home With These Easy Dollar Tree DIYs!

In today's video, we're doing all new Dollar Tree DIYs. Now, if you're like me, you probably have a lot of items from Dollar Tree that are sitting around in your house, in your craft room that you haven't DIY yet. So I challenged myself in this video to go in my craft room, find items that I already had and create DIYs. So the first item we're going to DIY is this canvas print. This was one I bought sometime this year at Dollar Tree, and it's a great print. I just haven't used it yet. The technique I wanted to do on this was I wanted to show you guys how you can make a print like this look more like an oil painting. So to do that, you're going to need to remove the picture from the frame. I love the way the frame looked. I wasn't going to do anything with it. The next thing you want to do is get a foam brush and some Mod Podge. Now I started by using a matte Mod Podge, but I realized that I probably should have used a more shiny one. So I did have to come back in and use a shiny one. So use just the regular Mod Podge for this DIY, but the technique is the same. You're going to put a little Mod Podge out on your table. And then with a foam brush, I'm just going to wipe the Mod Podge onto the actual print. And when you're doing this, you want to kind of cross your strokes over so it doesn't look perfect. Once this dries, it's going to have a very shiny oil painting appearance. That's where you're going to get the look of an oil painting. And when I put this print back in the frame, I'm going to take out that plastic top piece because I feel like that makes it look less realistic. So take that out and just put it back into the frame. And then you have an oil painting style print. In the fall, I did a DIY video where I was showing you all these different boxes that you could use from Dollar Tree. So I have a lot of leftover boxes in my craft room. I found this one, it opens, it has a lid on it. So I wanted to use it for this DIY. So I went with a medium stain color and I'm going to stain the entire box. So to stain, I like to use a foam brush and I dip it into the stain. I'll paint on the stain on my box and any excess, I'll just remove it with a paper towel. Now you notice that I didn't stain the top. I wanted to add a print to this. So the last time I was thrifting, I found this book. It was really cool. It had all of these major prints from around the world in these pretty colorful pictures. I just found this book at the thrift store. So I flipped through the book and found a picture that I thought would be perfect for the top of this box. Then I took the box and I put it on the picture where I wanted to cut it out and I just traced around it with a pencil. Then I cut out the picture on those pencil lines and I went a little bit farther in because the top of the box kind of had an indention around the top. I made sure it was going to fit well on the top and then used Mod Podge, painted that on the top, placed the picture on. I let that dry and then I added a layer of Mod Podge to the top. Once it's all dry, you have a great decorative box that you could set out with any of your decor. So I had these big plans to do new wall art for Christmas that didn't happen. So I ended up having these two large canvases that I never used. So I thought, okay, let's do it now. You can always reuse canvases. So I had this large canvas that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby. That's really where I get the larger ones. I feel like they're the best price for a large blank canvas and I wanted to do a fun technique with this. So I was searching around for some materials and I noticed that I had a lot of clay in my craft room. So I thought, let's use that. So I'm using the Crayola Model Magic clay and I took it out of the package and then I rolled it out till it was probably about maybe a fourth of an inch in thickness. Using a pretty sharp scraper tool, I created lines across and I just made long pieces. They didn't have to be the same. Honestly, I wanted them to be a little bit different. Then I came back in and I cut the pieces down to be about two to four inches in thickness and I didn't want the lines to be cut the same way. Some were straight, some were angled. It didn't really matter, but I wanted enough pieces that I could cover the center portion of my canvas. Then I went in and I kind of measured out roughly where I wanted these pieces to sit and I put about four pieces and just started making rows. Again, I didn't want them to look the same on each row. I just wanted them to be about the same distance around the outside. Once I got all the pieces on, I did measure, move things around a little bit more. And one of my tips for making sure that it looks great is when it's sitting on your table, take a picture of it with your phone and then look at it. I feel like that's the best way to know how it's going to look whenever it's standing straight up. I don't know if you guys do that. Let me know if you do that trick down in the comments. So once I was happy with the way they looked, I used hot glue to attach them to my canvas. Then I wanted to paint it. So I thought about going with something neutral, but I was like, no, let's go with a color. So I had this blue sample paint. You guys know that I love to do that. I love to get really fun colors and make sample paints. You can do that as well. Just pick some paint colors out, take them to a big box store like home Depot. I like going there. You could also go to Lowe's and have them make a sample. Usually they're between three and $5 for the small sample jars, but you can do that with any paint color. So I had this blue color and I mixed the blue color with baking soda. The reason I did that was because I didn't want to do as many coats. And a lot of times if you mix it with baking soda, it makes your paint a little bit grittier. Plus I love that look of that grittier texture. So I painted the entire canvas with the blue paint and the baking soda. I let that dry. Then I wanted to create a little bit of dimension to the side. So I used that same color and mixed it with a blackish gray color. And then I painted that around the outside edge with a round brush, let that dry again. And to give it even more dimension, took a little bit more black paint, mix that in to get an even deeper color and put that around the edges. Once I was happy with the color, I hung it up in my house. Now I know that I can't be the only one who has leftover greenery sitting around our house that we've bought at Dollar Tree. I would love to know down in the comments, what you have the most of sitting around in your craft room that you need to DIY. That would be a fun thing for us to share below, but I have a ton of greenery and it's from Dollar Tree and it's awesome. And honestly I reuse my greenery. So if I'm done using a wreath, I will pull the greenery off and reuse it in other projects just because I don't want to waste it. I also had a wreath form that I'd picked up at Hobby Lobby, a really pretty one. And it gave me this inspiration of doing a very natural organic wreath. This is great for this time of year because it's very neutral, but really it's going to last for a while. It's one you could have up now until almost August. So I started with my wreath base. The item that I had most of was this greenery piece from Dollar Tree. So I straightened them out because I had used them in another project. Essentially I wanted them to be on one side of my wreath. So I wanted to some coming out the top and the bottom. So I just placed them in spreading out the branches until I had a nice base to my greenery. Now I'm going to come in with the filler pieces. So I had this eucalyptus. I honestly don't even know where these were from, but I placed a few of these in. You really don't need a lot of greenery. As long as you have a few stems for your base, this will just add in a nice texture, but I put the eucalyptus down. Now where all of the stems meet, I thought it would be cool to add in some moss. So I had moss from Dollar Tree that I just hot glued in the middle. And then to finish it off, I had these little tiny sprigs that I didn't use in a project in the summer. I had four of them and I just placed those into the wreath. I think this wreath looks amazing and I cannot believe it was from items that I already had in my craft room. If you've made it this far in the video, thank you so much for watching. Comment the word of the day, which is DIY. So I had this wood round and I don't know where it was from. I was probably thinking I was going to do another DIY that I never did, but I believe it was from either Lowe's or Home Depot. And I had a bunch of dowel rods and I thought, okay, what could I make with this? I was like, why don't we put together a pedestal? So I took my dowel rods, I cut them in half and I decided to just place them around the base of it to make a pedestal. So to do that, I found something that was round. So it was just a bowl that I had from Dollar Tree. I placed it in the center of the wood round. Using E6000, I glued all of the dowels around the outside of the bowl. Now, once I had them all in place, I removed the bowl and I kind of moved them so that all of the dowels were connected together. And then to make it even more stable, I put E6000 on the inside of all the pieces that were connecting so that they held in place really well. I find that whenever you're using E6000, it's best to let it dry overnight, especially something like this, that's going to be the base. So I let it dry overnight and then I wanted to stain it, but I also liked the natural wood. Do you guys ever struggle with figuring out what color to stain something? I know I do, but I decided to do it in a natural stain and I ended up really liking that. So using a foam brush, I just wiped on the natural stain. And for some reason, this really kind of took the stain. So I didn't have to wipe any of it off. I just let it all sit there, but I did a light coat and once it was dry, I could use it in my home. Did you guys buy these arched frames? I bought several. I think I used them in another DIY, but I had four of them sitting in my craft room and I always have a ton of vases. So I found a vase that I had sitting on my shelf and I wanted to try to create like an arched planter. So take two of the frames and I took all the backing out and any pieces inside there. And I did have to unscrew the fasteners that hold the backing in place. And then I hot glued on the inside portion of these and place the two pictures together. I held them in place until it was dry and I repeated those steps making two more. Then for my center base, I found this little fluted base that I had from Dollar Tree and I needed to attach the two frames to the side of my base. So I used a combination of E6000 and hot glue and pressed them together on the side. I let that dry completely before I moved on to the next step, which was finding some greenery to put in there. I had a few greenery sprigs leftover that I had purchased from Hobby Lobby. I cut those off and I put them in my vase and here's how it turned out. You guys know I love to get thrifted lamps. This is a thrifted lamp right here. The one behind you is a thrifted lamp as well. I just use them all over my house and sometimes I just buy lampshades. This lampshade that I'm going to show you guys I bought to use as a base for Christmas decor. So what am I going to do with it now? Well, I thought what if we recover it with fabric? And I haven't recovered a lampshade in a while. It's been several years, but I had some fabric from Walmart. They have a lot of fabric that you can purchase. It was a blue and white fabric. I want to show you how I easily recover lampshades and it's with this one product. This is like a game changer when it comes to putting fabric on lampshades. So this is the product that you need to pick up. I will link it for you down below along with anything else I'm showing you in today's video. The first thing you want to do is lay out your fabric. Your lampshade, like most lampshades, is smaller at the bottom and larger at the top. So what I like to do is just make sure that I can move my lampshade to where all the fabric will cover it. Meaning it goes at a curve. You don't have to cut the fabric ahead of time, but you just need to make sure you start your lampshade where it's going to be completely covered with fabric. This piece was about two yards. So I started by putting the spray glue on the lampshade. I find that it's better to put it on the lampshade than the fabric. Then you're going to start on one end and you just want to smooth it down, making sure that there's no bubbles. But once you get maybe seven inches done, spray some more, smooth it out and keep repeating those steps where you add the spray, you smooth it out until you get to the very end. Then you can cut a straight line and then at the end, just add a little bit of spray and hold it down. Then you're going to cut off each side. So you want to leave about maybe an inch and a half on each side and then you'll spray around the inner rim and then place your fabric down. Repeat those steps on the other side. And that's really all you have to do. Let it dry. And then you can add it to any lamp in your house. I found this bronze candle holder in my craft room. I also had a couple of candlesticks from Dollar Tree. So I thought, what if I turned this into a tapered candle holder? And I also had some leftover candles that I had picked up from Christmas. They were these green candles that were really pretty. So my first step was to try to cut off the top portion of this candle holder from Dollar Tree. So I used some of my heavy duty clippers to pull it off and I just kind of wore it down and then twisted it off. I used E6000 to attach it to the center of my thrifted candle holder. Let that dry. Then I used some Rub and Buff. I went in with two different colors and applied that to the entire candle holder. And then I let that dry completely and then put in my green candle. Now to go along with this, I wanted to show you how you could create a really cute matchstick holder. Now I've done this before. I've done it with a really pretty vase with long candle holders from Walmart. But another way you could do it with just short matchsticks is to use any Dollar Tree vase. I had this white ceramic one and then you need a match container. So if you open up the box where the strike kit is, you want to cut that down and then make it the size that fits on the base of whatever item you're putting it on. And then you're going to hot glue that to the base. This will be where you can light all your matches. Then on the inside of your container, just place as many matches that will fit in there. And then you have a decorative matchstick holder that you can place beside your candle. When I saw this scallop tray on Crate and Barrel's website, I thought that looks exactly like the scallop tray that was $5 at Dollar Tree that's sitting in my craft room. So let's get it out and use it because this is a really pretty tray. I used a medium stain on this piece and I just put it on the entire piece and then wiped off any excess. I wanted to give it a more neutral appearance. So I did after I was done staining it, add some watered down cream paint. I just brushed that on and then I immediately wiped off the excess. I felt like this kind of muted down my stain color and gave me that look I was going for. I let it dry and then I styled it in my home. We must've gotten a lot of scallop decor this year, or maybe I just bought it all in the party section. They had these scalloped containers that were so pretty. They were plastic, but I never did a DIY with them. Another item I had were these pretty napkins I bought in the party section at Dollar Tree. And I thought, let's put these two things together. So I took one of the napkins and I was going to Mod Podge it onto my vase. So to do that, you want to open up your napkin and then there's usually a white layer inside your napkin. You're going to think there's not, but just try your best to pull it apart and pull off that white piece. You don't want that whenever you Mod Podge and you're going to need about two napkins for this. To add it, you're just going to put Mod Podge all over your container and then as flat as possible, you're going to put your napkin on the top, and then do this until you completely cover your vase. I have found that honestly, ripping the napkin is the easiest way to get it where you want it around the top because once it dries, I will come back in and do a top layer of Mod Podge and then any napkin that's still kind of sticking up, I can put down with a Mod Podge. That's the way I do it. I don't know. Let me know if you guys do it any different when you're applying the Mod Podge. I'll let that dry. And now I have a decorative vase to set out in my home. I thrifted this basket earlier this year and I never got around to using it and I wanted it to look like the Pottery Barn baskets. If you look at the Pottery Barn baskets, they are never one tone. They are multiple tones. So I thought let's try to achieve that with this basket. So I went in with two different colors of stain and brush those on lightly and wipe them off. So go in with like a darker stain and a lighter stain as well. You can also go in with some white paint. If you look at those Pottery Barn baskets, they very much have multiple tones to their baskets. I did the two stains. I also added in the white paint to give it that layered look. Again, as soon as you put it on, wipe off any excess, let that dry. And then I added in some Dollar Tree stems that I had on hand. Here's how it looks. Of course I had to have a bunch of random Dollar Tree frames in my craft room. These were actually really cute. They were these round oval frames and then I had another gold frame. So I thought, okay, I know I have prints in here. So I found some canvas that I had from Dollar Tree. I also found these prints that I had bought off of Amazon. I think I had used some. These were the ones I didn't use. I laid out each of these three prints and figured out which print I wanted to go in each frame. Then I added a little bit of Rub and Buff because I feel like the gold at Dollar Tree, isn't the gold that I put in my home. I like a more warm gold. So using a foam brush, I added gold Rub and Buff to the outside of these frames. And then I cut down each of my prints and put it into the oval picture frames. Then I had to trace around my canvas that I was going to cut out and put in the rectangle frame. And here's how these prints turned out. I can't believe they were just sitting in my craft room. Let me know down in the comments, which DIY was your favorite. I love knowing your opinion and make sure you subscribe because I want to see it back here and I'll see you in our next one. Bye.