Naomi – Author at Plaster & Disaster

This project was born when I was out by myself visiting a few thrift stores. I had come up empty so far that day and I really wanted to buy something. Usually I am pretty choosy and patient, but in this particular moment I was looking at every item and trying to figure out a reason – any reason – to possibly justify taking it home.

So when I saw a set of silicone mini-muffin pans I obviously had to buy them to make ~~mini muffins~~ DIY cement cabinet knobs.

What, you didn’t really think I’d let the cold weather come without one last project made from cement, did you?

And this is a good one, too. Cabinet knobs are expensive, and this is a super affordable, easy, and very customizable alternative. You can make them in any size (for which there exists a silicone mini muffin pan: i.e., endless) and decorate them in any way you like.

Supplies:

Long machine screws (I used #10, 2 1/2 inches long)
Flat metal washers
Hex nuts
Plastic O-Rings
Silicone mold
Cement
Polycrylic, or other sealer
Optional: Craft paint, painters tape, X-Acto knife

I started by mixing the cement and filling the molds, making sure there were no air bubbles by tapping the tray gently on the table. (For more on working with cement, check out my first cement post.)

Just remember to wear gloves and protection, and that the gloppy, mud-like appearance is all part of the fun.

Next, I slid a washer onto each machine screw, and stuck it into the cement. While the cement would likely hold with just the screw in there, I figured that the washer would give it more resistance once it was under heavy use.

I had to do this step in stages and fairly quickly because I was working with quick-curing cement, but this project would work just as well, and be in less of a rush, with regular cement.

Once the knobs had cured but were still a little malleable, I took them out of the mold and used that opportunity to smooth the bottom edges with some coarse sandpaper. This helps them look a bit more finished from the front.

I then let them ~~sit around my basement for way too long~~ cure completely to a nice, dry, cement-y texture.

They were pretty cool as is, and I totally could have left them alone or sealed them with a bit of polycrylic and called it a (successful) day. But of course I wanted to decorate them with some color and high-contrast pattern!

I chose to go with white, black, and yellow which are the constants throughout my home, using plain craft paint as I have on all of these cement projects. I considered simply painting the fronts solid blocks of color, but instead cut a few different shapes out painters tape to create related, but varied, geometric patterns.

I cut holes in a cardboard box to hold them upright while I was painting, and filled in the shapes slowly, careful to only pass the brush from tape onto cement to prevent paint from bleeding under and ruining the crisp look I was going for.

I finished them with a coat of polycrylic to protect the cement and paint from wear. I think they turned out pretty cool!

I tried them out on the little set of drawers that I made-over last winter with paint and wood polish. To attach them, I screwed two nuts all the way on until they were nearly flush with the cement, inserted the screw through the drawer, and then held it in place with a plastic o-ring and another nut.

The o-ring helps give it a little flex, keeping it securely on the drawer without damaging the drawer’s finish or putting stress on the cement. The other nuts provide a bit of separation from the drawer front making it easier to grasp.

I also like the industrial edge that the hex nuts add, peeping out from behind the knob.

I think they bring some fun and pattern to the piece!

I like that they all have a different pattern, but they definitely could all have been made with the same pattern or in just one color for a more unified look.

These were really very affordable. I’m calling them $2 knobs, but that is rounded up significantly. The hardware costs $1.03 per knob, so if you’ve got some basics like cement, craft paint, and polycrylic hanging around, then these are practically $1 knobs!

You could also skimp on the hardware – I bet these could be made without the metal washers, o-ring, and third hex nut, for a mere $0.59 each.

I’d love to make more of these to see how they’d look on a larger piece, or even in a kitchen. I wonder if they’d hold up to frequent use? I’ll let you know!

(Sharing at Tip Me Tuesday, Totally Terrific Tuesday, Create Link Inspire, Remodelaholic, The Creative Gallery, Link Party Palooza, One Project at a Time, Weekend Retreat Link Party, and Two Uses Tuesday)

Disclaimer: If you don’t like sarcasm and satire, you probably won’t appreciate this post very much. Come back on Wednesday for our usual, earnest selves.

Don’t you just love fall? The crisp weather, plaid flannel, and excuse to eat and drink a lot of sugary stuff makes this our favorite season ever! Here at Plaster & Disaster, we celebrated this pumpkin-iest of seasons by getting together and spending day doing crafts inspired by the best that the DIY blogosphere has to offer.

You might think that we are behind the curve because blogland has already moved on to Christmas decorating, but to be clear: this is our autumn crafts post for Fall 2016.

DIY Watercolor Chalk Paint Chevron Painted Pumpkin

Let’s be honest, carving pumpkins is for children. Painting pumpkins, on the other hand, is for grown adults. We’re definitely adults, so we knew we had to tackle a painted pumpkin project. We also knew immediately that we wanted to involve the color turquoise and a chevron pattern, because obviously. Do we even need to explain?

The first step is for this project to get a pumpkin. We recommend not waiting until the actual day of Halloween to do this, as the selection gets quite slim from all the other people painting pumpkins in totally unique ways, and you might have to get a ridiculously tiny perfectly miniature pumpkin. Explaining that you are there to buy a pumpkin for Halloween 2016 may not work.

Next we wanted to give our pumpkin a nice clean base, so we decided to hit it with some high gloss white spray paint. First, though, we taped off the stem, as we really liked the natural coloring.

Remember: thin and even coats!

Once it had dried, it was time to start painting. We had some turquoise Annie Sloan chalk paint on hand from another project — although it’s super reasonably priced and you can buy it at any hardware store, so if we hadn’t already had it we would have run and picked some up somewhere totally convenient for only a teeny tiny fraction of our weekly paychecks.

We did hit a bit of a roadblock when we discovered that Sage swears by Frog Tape and Naomi is a die hard Scotch Blue fan — we just couldn’t agree on which product would block bleed through and prevent peeling better. But finally we found common ground around the idea of just free-handing it using a small foam brush. It ended up being so fun and easy!

Our original plan had obviously been to distress the finish once we were done, but it was coming out more watery soft and ethereal than we’d originally planned. Maybe because Annie Sloan wasn’t formulated to stick well to glossy pumpkins? Seems like a major oversight, but this was really for the best — we realized that a watercolor look was really what we had been going for all along.

The imperfections are what make it feel so unique and special, don’t you think?

And of course, here it is styled on a log with some corks. It just feels so fall, but also so fresh and fun!

We’re so happy with how this project turned out, it’s exactly like we planned it! We love how intentionally imperfectly perfect it is.

Mason Jar Pumpkin and Burlap Wreath with Handmade Mini Pom Poms

Any day of crafting is a failure if it doesn’t involve mason jars. And what better way to incorporate mason jars into fall decor than turning them into pumpkins? We started with some regular mason jars. Aren’t they beautifully country?

But of course we knew that they could be improved. Outside, in the refreshing fall air, we filled them with orange craft paint for a saturated color that retains the gloss of the glass.

It took so much more paint than we expected to coat each one of them – but it was so worth it!

We also painted the tops a bright green. We didn’t have any green paint, so we whipped out our kindergarten skills and mixed some out of yellow and blue.

The bloggeriest fall crafts -- Plaster & Disaster

Fall crafts are so fun!

Once they dried, we fitted the lids back on and admired how pumpkin-y they looked. Just like the real thing! In this picture are our five mason jars and one real pumpkin: we bet you can’t tell them apart!

But what is better than a pumpkin? A decorated pumpkin, of course! Using ~~our Cricut Explore~~ some adhesive vinyl intended for a Cricut Explore, we cut out adorable little jack-o-lantern shapes and stuck them on the mason jars. I think the imperfect, handmade look is really what makes them so charming.

And, we of course wanted to incorporate handmade pompoms into our DIY wreath.

There are so many good pom pom tutorials out there. (For some of our favorites, check out here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and obviously here.) But we realized that there aren’t any tutorials that talk about making pompoms as a blogging duo, so we had to adapt those tutorials to fit our specific situation of being two people. We bet a lot of people out there are having that same problem, so we thought we’d provide a tutorial with some of our own tips.

Making Handmade Mini Pom Poms with Two People

First, collect your supplies. You’ll need:

yarn
two forks
scissors
corks (optional)

These are basically the supplies for making pom poms on your own, except that you’ll need two forks. We recommend that you also use two pairs of scissors so you don’t need to wait and take turns. It is also recommended (but not required) that you have some corks around for decoration and to set the crafty mood.

Start by wrapping the yarn around the fork, except each of you should do this separately on your own fork, rather than doing this on just one fork like you would if you were doing this alone.

Next, you tie it off around the middle of the wrapped yarn with more yarn. Be sure you do this on both forks, or one of the pom poms will be ruined!

If one of you gets ahead, like in the above, they should wait for the other one or feelings might be hurt because someone WILL FEEL LEFT BEHIND SAGE.

Next, cut the loops of yarn to form the pom pom shape. It will look a little scraggly, so you’ll need to trim the edges to a circular shape.

Do this for each pom pom, not just one of the pom poms. If you have two pairs of scissors like we recommended, you can even do this at the same time!

However, if you have two scissors but only one of them is pretty, be sure to leave the ugly, utilitarian pair of scissors out of the copious images that you take of the process.

Finally, style a photo with a white background and a cork for decoration.

That is it! Easy as pie!

We recommend that you mass produce these while binge watching HGTV and drinking tea.

With our pom poms made and all of our materials assembled, it was finally time to attach everything to our wreath form.

We attached the mason jars by wrapping wire around the lip, and then looping it around the wreath frame.

We attached the pom poms with a loop of yarn, but something was still missing. We added a burlap bow and some fake flowers in vibrant fall colors, and then we were done!

We love how whimsical it is. It is so nice to have the spirit of fall right at the front door to welcome all of our guests!

Mid-Century Inspired Pumpkin

Our last craft project brought us back to working with an actual pumpkin. Instead of painting it, we really wanted to keep the natural finish — it’s such a shame how people are always ruining perfectly good pumpkins by painting them. It’s truly amazing how much you can accomplish sometimes with simple things like new legs and hardware. For this project, we broke out some mid-century legs purchased from Etsy (affiliate link – read our policies) and a beautiful knob we scored for a steal at Anthropologie.

You guys, this project was so simple.

First, we mounted the legs by drilling a small pilot hole with a steak knife and then jamming the legs into the holes. Then we did the same with the knob. The piece is totally transformed:

The legs make it feel so much less bulky, and we love the pop of color from the fun knob.

Here’s another photo with a large (small? photography is confusing!) aperture to get a really cool depth of field effect. So pretty!

Our last step was to bring all our creations outside and style them together in a festive fall vignette:

Sage’s neighbors caught a glimpse of us styling our final pieces, and asked if we were hosting a kids craft party — we felt kind of awkward because it was clear they were a bit jealous. Still, they’re super polite and declined when we offered up the wreath for them to hang on their back door.

We really had such a blast with these projects!

What a fun and super productive way to spend a Saturday! We can’t believe Sam spent the whole time goofing off with yard projects while we worked on sprucing up the house.

Free Fall Printables

Finally, because we love fall so much, we wanted to share some of that joy with you, dear readers. So we made you a series of three fall printables that express how great we are feeling right now. These are all based on images and thoughts that we had in our very own yards.

About being outside:

Our favorite thing to do this season:

About the cultural response to the changes in nature:

Feel free to grab and print any of these images to bring some of this season into your own homes! You’re welcome, and happy fall from Plaster & Disaster!