From Trash To Treasure: Wine Crate Flowerbox

On one of my garage sale/thrift store expeditions, I picked up a couple wine crates, thinking my sister could devise some nifty shelves out of them. They didn't become shelves, but she took one look at them and saw... 

flowerboxes!

Here they are before:

(well, before the flowers, but after the clear coat)

And here they are after:

I really like the way they turned out, it's eco-friendly, and looks great in our front yard. I'll be keeping an eye out for more crates in the future!

See other Trash To Treasure features here!

From Trash To Treasure: Arts and Crafts Cabinet

Last week, I was driving back to my parent's house (read: office) after taking a few envelopes to the FedEx store and I came upon 2 cabinets and a sign that said FREE. One was a really cute, waist-height, hardwood cabinet with 3 heart cutouts in the door. The other was a squat nightstand with badly chipped veneer. I, therefore, took only the former. :)

When I got it home, I showed it to my sister and asked her if she could fix it up for me. My sister loves woodworking - she's made dressers, chests and adirondack chairs that are spread throughout my parent's house. I originally asked her to paint the cabinet, but once she started working on it, we discovered that the wood grain was way too pretty to cover up. So, she just sanded it down and added a clear coat. We got some new hardware and it was ready to go!