7 FAVOURITE UPCYCLED DUMP FINDS OF 2021 / TRASH TO TREASURE diys

Hello YouTube friends and welcome to my channel. If you're new here my name is Deidre from Our Upcycled Life and I do lots of thrifting, upcycling, repurposing, and DIY content and I love new crafting friends. So make sure you like, subscribe, hit the bell for notifications so you don't miss any great DIY content. Today I am wrapping up some of my favorite upcycled dump finds from 2021. I have seven fantastic projects that I want to share with you. Everything came from the dump. It was free. I upcycled it and they all turned out beautiful. I can't wait to share all of them with you. So let's get started. First project is an old sap bucket that I got out of the scrap metal bin at the dump. I'm giving it a really good coat of my homemade chalk paint. I thought this would make a perfect planter for my front porch. I printed off one of my custom napkins to decoupage with one of my favorite farmhouse graphics. I'm using the water transfer method with my Mod Podge and if you haven't tried this technique you need to give it a try. I have a full tutorial. I'll put a link down in the description of how you can do this yourself. And if you like any of these graphics that I'm using you can always head to my Etsy store and grab them and they're always 50% off if you use a coupon SAVE50. I'm using my Mod Podge Matte to transfer this graphic onto this old sap bucket. I actually found all kinds of these sap buckets in that scrap metal bin that day. Grabbed them all and I've made some fantastic projects with them. I'm just using a little piece of a balled up of saran wrap just to push any bubbles or wrinkles out of the graphic and then I'm going to seal it up really well with my outdoor polyacrylic sealer so I can put a plant on it and keep it out on my front porch. And I keep it out on my front porch and I just change up the planter for every season. It turned out fantastic for a free dump find. Second project is an old rusty pail. I love when I find these. I just wanted to give it just kind of a whitewash look so I just took my chalk paint and dry brushed over the whole pail. It had a little bit of a dent in it. I tried to get it out with the hammer. I did a little bit but I still think it gives it lots of character. I decided for this pail I'm going to do my Mod Podge Reverse graphic transfer on it. It's a little bit tricky when you don't have a real good coat of chalk paint for the base underneath but I wanted to give it a try so I put it on, let it sit for 24 hours and then I dampened it with a rag and started to rub off the graphics and actually it worked pretty good. I'm okay with not a perfect transfer on this pail because I want it to look kind of antique and rusty and vintage so I just took my time and rubbed away and then once it was finished I put a coat of my polyacrylic outdoor sealer because I'm going to have this one out on my front porch also. I love when I find these old pails because you can put graphics from any season on them and they make perfect decor for outside. Third project is an old cabinet that I found in the dump. It was pretty dirty and dusty but the structure was really good and I knew I could make it into something. I was pretty sure I could turn this into something fabulous, kind of farmhouse feel. I wanted to add some legs to the cabinet and I also found this off the top of an old broken chair. I thought it would look fabulous on the top so I'm going to add that later on and screw it to the top of the cabinet. The first thing I did was I took those spindles and I cut them all down to the size that I wanted for the legs on the cabinet and then I wanted to take the back off. It was just a piece of kind of a veneer wood and I'm going to decoupage the back of it and it peeled off really easy. Now comes the big part to clean it all up, get all the dust and grime off it, and give it a really good sanding. I gave everything a really good sanding with a 120 sanding block and wiped it down really well and cleaned it and then I'm going to give this back veneer piece a coat of my homemade black chalk paint. If you're interested in making your own homemade chalk paint I have a recipe. I'll put the link down below in the description. I took all of the hardware off, took it all apart, and now I'm going to give the whole cabinet a good sanding with that 120 sanding block. Other than being dirty and dusty this cabinet was in really good shape. It always amazes me what people throw out but I guess a lot of people can't see the potential in some of these things where I can kind of see through it and see what I can turn it into. Now I'm going to put a coat of that homemade black chalk paint over the whole cabinet. I also find old vintage furniture has so much more character than the new stuff. I'm also going to put a coat of that black chalk paint on that ornate piece that I'm going to put on the top and the spindles for the bottom. Now everything has one coat of the black chalk paint and it's all dry so now I'm going to take my homemade white chalk paint and give one coat over the whole cabinet. When you're using chalk paint on wood like this, because some of it is veneer, you don't have to worry about prepping it. It will stick to anything. I took it outside and I gave it a really good sanding with some 80 grit sandpaper. I had these beautiful floral napkins that I picked up at the dollar store and I thought they would look fantastic on the inside of that back panel piece so I'm going to decoupage them all along the back of that board and I'm going to do that with my mod podge mat. I like to tear the edges of the napkins before I decoupage them when I'm doing a big piece like this. It just lets them blend in together so you don't have that stark straight line when you're putting them all together. I can probably say that 80% of the furniture in our home has been stuff that I have found in the dump and brought home and upcycled. I get so excited when I pull up to our wood pile at the dump and I see something that catches my eye and I know I can fix it up and bring it home. I'm now going to add that ornate piece that I found off the back of an old chair and I'm just going to screw it into the top to secure it really well and I'm also just going to screw those legs into the bottom of the cabinet. I finished decoupaging that back panel and now I've saved the nails and I'm just going to re-nail it back onto the cabinet. The back was a little bit scratched up so I just took my black chalk paint and I'm just going to put one coat over the whole back of it just so it makes it look finished and it turned out fantastic. I can't believe I found this at the dump and how well it turned out. Fourth project is this cute little jewelry box. Somebody had taken it to the dump but they kind of set it aside on another piece of wood. I saw it sitting there. They probably wanted someone to rescue it and that's why it was kind of set aside so I grabbed it. I love to upcycle these little jewelry boxes but I sometimes find the insides are kind of gross and grimy so I usually end up pulling out all of the innards. Sometimes it can be a little tricky because it can be glued in there really well but I just take my time and work away at it, scrape it, and sand it down and it usually comes up really good. I also find when you take all of that out it gives it a little bit more room for storage inside the jewelry box. I'm just taking my 120 sanding block and I'm just giving it a little bit of a sanding and then wiping it down and cleaning it really well before I paint it. I'm giving it a real good coat of my homemade white chalk paint and I'm going to paint the whole jewelry box with this color. And if you're upcycling an item like this that has that kind of really shiny veneer wood on it, you want to make sure you do use the chalk paint because it'll adhere to it. If you just put a latex on it sometimes I find that it chips and rubs off really easy. And I paint the little knobs and the hinges and everything. This had a little mirror on the top of the inside lid and I took that off too because I'm going to put a graphic on the inside of the lid. This took two coats of the homemade chalk paint and now I'm just taking my 80 grit sanding block and I'm just really giving it a really rusty look by sanding it all over the whole box. And it's all done and it looks much better than that old reddish wood. This one is going to be Disney theme. I'm going to use this Mickey Mouse scrapbook paper and I'm just going to measure the inside of the drawers and cut the scrapbooking paper to fit the inside and then I'm going to decoupage it down and I think it's going to look really cute. I've got them all cut down to size, it's perfect, and now I'm going to just use my Mod Podge mat and decoupage it into the bottom of those drawers. And you just put a light coat on and then press in that scrapbooking paper and it will stay down really well. I also like to put a coat of the Mod Podge on top just to make sure that it seals it so you can wipe it down or dust it if you need to. You can see the possibility with these little jewelry boxes and I find them all the time in the thrift store of the different types of scrapbooking paper and graphics that you can put on them and these make fantastic gifts. I designed some Disney graphics. These are available in my Etsy store if you want to try these yourself and I'm going to do the Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method on this jewelry box. I sized these graphics in my word program and now I'm just going to Mod Podge them onto the jewelry box. If you've never tried this method to transfer it is so cool. I'll put a link down below in the description because I have quite a few tutorials on how to do this and it'll give you more of a step-by-step to do this yourself at home. Now I've let that graphic sit overnight and now I'm just going to dampen it with a wet rag and once you see the graphics show through then you're just going to rub off all of that paper and that graphic is going to be left on your project. And for this little jewelry box I put a graphic on the lid, the inside of the lid, and I put Mickey Mouse on either end. Now I'm going to take my polyacrylic sealer and put a really good coat over the whole jewelry box and what do you think? Are you a Disney lover? If you are you will love this jewelry box. So next time you see one of these jewelry boxes make sure you pick them up because I see them all the time. Now on to our fifth project. You have probably seen this dresser in my craft room. I turned this into a whole workstation and everything that I found was from the dump. I gave the dresser a really good cleaning and I took off those wooden handles and I gave all the drawers and the whole base of the dresser a coat of my homemade black chalk paint. Again if you're upcycling anything with kind of a shiny varnish on it you want to make sure you're using chalk paint so you don't have to do a whole lot of prep. If you use a latex paint without doing a primer underneath it will just scratch off. I've got everything all finished with two coats of the black chalk paint, added the handles back on, turned out fantastic. I wanted to add a pegboard to the top of my dresser so I can keep all my tools and supplies. I found this antique frame in the dump and I thought I could put pegboard in the back of it. So I had my husband give me a hand and we traced out the pegboard to fit the back of that old antique mirror frame. You can find pegboard at any hardware store. We just traced it out and then took the jigsaw and cut around where we had traced it and when we were finished it fit into the back of that antique frame just perfect. I didn't like the color of the frame and it was going in my craft room so I thought I want to make it kind of like a fun vibrant color that will pop out that dresser. So I laid it out on some packing paper that I could paint on and I went to work with this amazing color which I love. It's from Behr and it's called Poached Pear. For some reason I'm being drawn to this yellow paint color. Everything I've been doing lately I've been doing in this kind of shade and I love it. I put two coats over the whole frame, let it dry really well and then we tacked it into the back of that frame with some finishing nails so it would stay put. I decided not to paint the pegboard. I just wanted to leave it that white color because I think it looks really nice against that Poached Pear yellow color. I also bought some hooks for the pegboard so I could hang up all my stuff and I think it fits into my craft room amazing and I have so much storage now for all of my craft supplies. Although I guess if you're a true crafter like me we never have enough storage for everything but this has certainly helped in my craft room and look how ornate that frame is and we just screwed it into the back of that dresser everything free from the dump amazing. I just kept the original handles on that dresser too because I love the way they have that line across the drawers. I don't think it would have looked as nice if I had have just put a knob on it. Now on to our sixth project. I am so fortunate that we have people throw out fantastic stuff in our dump because can you believe I found this lamp in the dump. The base is so ornate, it's wood, it looks like it's hand carved but I wanted to put a funky spin on the lampshade. I picked up this bed sheet at our local value village and it actually the yellow in it I think matches my craft room dresser so I am going to decoupage the fabric onto the lampshade. This is an old vintage bed sheet probably from the 70s and I'm just cutting it into panels to make it easier to decoupage onto the lampshade. Lampshades are so expensive to buy so this was definitely worth upcycling this one. I'm using my mod podge mat and I'm just going to decoupage right into those pleats. I'm doing it in sections because I think that's a lot easier to manage. It did take a lot of mod podge to do this but it was so worth it and I love how that pattern in that bed sheet kind of shows up really well in the pleats of that shade and I'm just as I go along pushing mod podge into the pleats on the lampshade and then pushing the mod podge on top of the fabric to seal it all in really well. I also tried to make sure that I lined up the panels so the pattern was consistent over the whole lampshade. When I had it all finished I just pushed in the little ends into those pleats to give it a really nice finished look. Now to add a funky fun twist to this lampshade. I found this pom-pom trim at value village quite a while ago tucked it away didn't really know what I was going to do with it. I added it along the top of the edge and I think it looks so cute. I love it in my craft room. I can't believe somebody threw this out but their loss is my gain. Now on to the seventh project. Friends of ours had this bench loaded into the back of their truck that they were taking to the dump. I saw it, I asked if I could have it, took it out of the back of their truck and proceeded to upcycle it. And did you notice the color of it? Again I am drawn to that yellow primitive yellow color. I am just loving it. I did not want to do anything to this bench other than just preserve it the way that it is. I took some TSP and I gave it a really good scrub to get all of the grease and grime and little bits of paint that were flaking off cleaned up. And I took a scraper just to lift off any bits of that paint that might be kind of peeling off so I could have a nice clean smooth surface. The spindle legs on this bench are fantastic. I just love it. Now I took a scour pad. This is a really really light scour pad and I just went over the whole bench so I could smooth it all out before I went on to the next step. I mixed up a batch of my homemade colored stain. This is really easy to make. I'll put the link below in the description for my tutorial on how to make it. And I just think it makes that yellow pop and it just gives that raw wood a little bit of depth before I seal it up. I didn't want to paint over this bench because the chippiness of it is just gorgeous and I didn't want to get rid of any of that. I'm going to put a couple really nice graphics on the front of this bench because I'm going to put this out on my patio and I thought it would look really cute with sit, enjoy, relax. I'm going to apply these graphics using my Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method. Now this is sat and I'm just taking a damp rag until you can start to see the graphics show through and then rubbing off all of the paper and then you're left with fantastic graphics. This technique takes a little bit of practice but once you get the hang of it, it is so fantastic and I love the way that it turned out. I sealed this all up with my outdoor polyacrylic sealer in gloss. I wanted to have a really nice glossy finish on this bench. As soon as I applied that polyacrylic, that yellow just popped. This fit in perfect on my patio. Whenever I find chippy rustic wood like this, I never want to paint over it. I always want to preserve it and seal it up and leave it just as it is. I hope you have enjoyed today's upcycled projects and what makes them even better is they all came from the and they were all free. I love taking something old and discarded and turning it into something beautiful and pretty again and I hope I've inspired you to do the same. Thanks for watching, have a great day, and we'll see you in the next video.