How to Transform Junk into Farmhouse Garden Decor / Trash to Treasure

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. Today's video is right full of DIY garden decor that's going to be made from trash. Everything that I used in this video was either in the scrap metal bin, in the wood pile, or given to me by friends that were ready to throw it into the trash and I saved it from them. We got lots to do and I'm excited to share it with you so let's get started. First project I'm going to use up a whole bunch of scrap stuff that I've had in my shed forever. An old drawer, a teapot with a missing lid, and a door handle. I'm going to take the handle off the drawer that was there already and I'm going to paint the drawer with some of my crackle paint using the Elmer's glue. I'm going to spread that glue all over that drawer and then we're going to paint some chalk paint on top of it and as it dries you're going to see some wonderful cracks show up all throughout the paint. Once it's completely dried I had some stain and I'm going to put the stain over top of the crackle paint. It's just going to age it and give it more of a vintage look. I'm replacing the knob that was on there with this knob so we have a place to hang the drawer when it's all finished. I'm going to tape off the inside of that teapot. I've taken it outside and I'm spraying it with this lovely spray paint. Now the teapot's completely dry I'm going to take that tape out from the inside and we're going to attach it to the top of that drawer. I'm using this old door pole and I'm going to screw it into the top of the drawer attaching the teapot. I found this plaque at the dollar store and it's had a piece of paper decoupaged on it. I'm going to rip off that decoupage and get it cleaned down right to the wood and we're going to turn it into a sign. And to make the sign we're going to use the Mod Podge reverse graphic transfer method. I designed these graphics, printed it off on my laser jet printer, made sure to reverse the text. I've painted that little plaque with a couple coats of my homemade chalk paint. I sanded it, distressed it, and then put the graphics on and now it's been 24 hours. I dampened the paper, rubbed it off, and it's all set. I wanted to age that teapot a little bit so I took some 80 grit sandpaper and just went around the edges so it looked a little bit more old and vintage. I had this piece of chain that I'm going to loop onto the top. This spindle that was cut in half is going to go on the bottom. Hang tight with me, this is super cute. This is what I turned it into, a fun little birdhouse. The teapot acts as a little house for the birds to go in, home sweet home. The little spindle they can perch on. How cute is that? Now for this project I had this old rusty toolbox in my shed forever, full of little bits and pieces. I cleaned it out because I knew what I wanted to use it for. I went to the hardware store, got some small nuts and bolts because I'm going to attach some brackets onto this toolbox. I drilled two holes in each side to attach the brackets and then we're going to use the nuts and the bolts to attach it. I also put two holes in the bottom of the toolbox in case it ever gets any water or anything in it because I'm going to put this outside so the water can drain out. I'm going to clean it up really well, take the sticker off that was on it, put a couple holes in the back so we can attach it to my shed. I've put a block of wood on my shed because we want to be able to open up the door of that toolbox when it's mounted and there's enough room at the back. This is what I created with two brackets. I attached the toolbox and now I have a catch-all toolbox on the outside of my shed for all of my gardening tools. This poor little vase has been in my shed for probably since last Halloween. I painted it orange. I'm not liking it right now. I had this cement color oops paint that I found at Home Depot. I turned it into some sand paint and I'm going to paint over that orange paint with this gray sand paint and it almost gives it a cement look. So I've turned this orange little pot into this beautiful cement looking planter for my patio. If you've never tried sand paint you need to give it a try because it creates beautiful texture on all kinds of projects. Never threw out shovels that the handle is broken and I'm going to show you why because this is adorable. It was a little bit rusty so I cleaned it all off, gave it a little bit of a sand and now I'm painting it with my homemade chalk paint. Once it's completely dry we're going to put some graphics on with the Mod Podge Reverse Graphic Transfer Method. I love this graphic farm life and I think it's really fitting for this shovel. I'm going to cut it in half because there's that little bit of the dip in the shovel and I want the graphics to be able to form around it. Applied the Mod Podge, put it where I wanted it, let it sit for 24 hours and then we're going to rub off the paper. Now a little tip when you're doing projects like this if you don't want the rust to leach through again you can always use a spray primer first and then the chalk paint on top of it. I didn't use the primer because I'm okay if the rust does leach through. I sealed it up really well with some engine enamel because it's going to be out in the elements and I think this is perfect to put out in the garden at the farm. You can just stick the end of the shovel into a bucket full of flowers and it's adorable. For this next project all I used was an old colander that I found at the thrift store, a piece of a spindle and a wooden ring. I'm going to drill four holes in the colander evenly across the top of it and then we're going to use some twine and measure it out to the length that we need to where we want to hang it. Once it's all measured out we're going to attach it to that wooden ring and tie it to the colander. I wanted to give it a little bit of character so I drilled a hole through that spindle, had a piece of wire and I'm going to attach it to the bottom of the colander. So I've taken a colander and a spindle and a little bit of twine and I've made it into a really adorable plant hanger that you can put on your porch and the little dangly spindle on the bottom finishes off completely. Another thing that I always save from the scrap metal bin are ends of rakes. They turn into really great projects to make into coat hangers or to hang jewelry from and this one I'm going to put together with a bunch of scrap wood. I had this piece of wood, I think it came off an old antique table, I sealed it up with some penetrating oil and I had this old chippy piece of baseboard that I'm going to add onto the bottom. I sealed it up with some matte polyacrylic sealer so the paint wouldn't chip off anymore, put on some Gorilla Glue and I'm going to nail it onto the bottom of that piece of wood. Now I have no idea where this little bracket came from or what it was off of but my rake fit perfect into it to hang so I'm going to screw it into that piece of wood and then we're going to put the rake into it and it'll hold it in place and this was what I was able to create with a bunch of junk. An old rake, a piece off of a table, an old piece of baseboard and it's a beautiful piece to hang in an entranceway to keep your keys or you can keep it in the kitchen and hang some utensils on it, it's gorgeous. So there you have some outdoor garden decor completely made from junk. I'd love to know down in the comments which one was your favorite. If you love this type of upcycling and repurposing and DIY content, I'd love for you to follow along and subscribe and if you love this video then maybe you want to check out these other two. Thanks for watching, have a great day and we'll see you in the next video. Take care!