Tag Archives: diy

September 21, 2025 · 1:27 am

“A Tisket, a Basket…” – 2

Matt Tommey – Tabletop to Pedestal

I would LOVE to have this for my dining area table!

“Even the simplest wicker basket can become priceless when it is loved and cared for through the generations of a family.” ~ Sister Parish

Matt Tommey – YouTube

A new basket is justified by its utility in personal or professional gifting, the convenience and value of a pre-packaged gift, or for retail use as a tool to encourage larger purchases and improve the customer experience. You might also justify buying a new basket to enhance the aesthetic of a space or for practical home organization needs.  (I could go on, but you get the idea – there is always a reason to buy another basket.) 🤪

Musgrove Willow

  • Storage and Organization: Baskets are functional for various purposes, including storing clothes, furnishings, or other household items. 
  • Aesthetic Enhancement: Baskets can be used to add artistic or decorative elements to a living space. 
  • Cultural Significance: The creation and use of baskets have deep cultural and artistic traditions, and incorporating them into your home can be a way to connect with these practices. 

Wabanaki Basket – Jessica Hamilton-Jones, Fine Artist

  • Personalization: You can customize gift baskets to suit the recipient’s tastes and preferences, making the gift more personal and meaningful than a standard store-bought item. 
  • Presentation: A gift basket provides a special and memorable presentation that enhances the excitement of the unwrapping experience. 
  • Versatility: Baskets can hold a wide variety of items, including food, cosmetics, or other goods, offering immense possibilities for a fantastic gift. 
  • Convenience: Gift baskets can save time and offer a cost-effective way to give a meaningful gift. 

These, of course, are works of art and well beyond my ability to actually buy them, though I’m drooling.

AND you begin to see why I banned myself from going into basket stores. I MAY be able to justify buying some for my NEW place, though….

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December 12, 2024 · 9:27 am

Driveway Tour

As you come to visit, there is a decoration we made attached to the mailbox at the bottom of our driveway. Right now, it’s Yosemite Sam. We have made 34 decorations in our shop, choosing favorite cartoon characters and holiday decorations.

Our robot welcomes you, doffing his hat and grinning. You can see one of the owls behind him. (We have one on either side of the driveway.)

Here’s a close-up of them.

About halfway up the driveway, our flying pig hung from a strong line over the driveway. The huge branch AND the pig came down in a storm. The pig is now in our shop, waiting for me to refurbish him. We’ll bolt him to one of the big boulders beside the driveway, so it looks like he’s about to take flight.

Meet our guard dog. He’s ready to defend us from harm.

This crow is on the other side, at about the same level as the guard dog, watching everyone who drives up.

Toward the top of the driveway is our sun face. He weighs a LOT and was really hard to attach to the tree.

Below the sun face on the same side is our turkey, made from an old propane bottle and scrap metal.

This turtle sits beside the turkey. We didn’t make this, but I painted his shell.

And there you have it. You have almost reached the house. You might have missed the signs on trees, “Is there life after death? Trespass here and find out,” “Trespassers Will Be Shot. Survivors Will Be Shot Again,” and “Trespassers will be composted.”

Welcome to the Lewises! We’ll continue introducing you to other ‘critters’ another time.

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October 25, 2024 · 9:03 am

Friday 10-25-2024

Jennifer Warfield-Pinterest

It’s a beautiful day here. We are supposedly at the end of our unseasonably warm weather here in Arkansas, with cooler weather to come and possibly some rain to break our drought a bit. I have absolutely no complaints.

Yesterday I spent about 3 hours in my art room, trying to get started on reorganizing everything in there due to shelf supports failing suddenly and dumping a ton of ‘stuff’ onto the floor. These are really strong shelves, but I had gotten really careless on realizing how much I was asking from the brackets. I’ve ordered replacement brackets (plus some extras) that should be delivered sometime tomorrow. Until then, there is lot of rethinking and reorganizing I can do.

Yesterday I concentrated on moving heavy stuff to lower shelves and low cabinets. I have the wall shelves empty now of almost everything. I’m going to use the lower shelf that avalanched as storage for some of groups of different types of paint when we put it back up. I’m concentrating on distributing anything with weight.

I’m certainly getting my exercise with this while paying for my carelessness. I’m bending over, moving things off lower shelves and out of lower cabinets, hauling things around and relocating them. I’m throwing away a bunch of stuff, as well, trying to create ‘areas,’ such as one set of shelves for stationery and note card supplies (with the heavier stuff at the bottom now, of course. ) :0)

It looks like a bomb hit in there, and will until most everything has found its new home and is straightened up. I’ll spend a bunch of time up there today and see what sense I can make of things.

I wish you a happy Friday.

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October 14, 2024 · 11:32 am

Strenuous Morning for Us

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We gathered our trash and drove it down to the bottom of our newly cleared NICE driveway this morning. My husband stopped the truck before we got to the bottom so that I could get out and get the trash can and drag it down to where we leave it for emptying right beside the street. I did NOT fall on my head, though I’m thinking of trying to have retractable cleats installed on the bottom of my sandals so I don’t slip and slide so much. I’m seriously considering getting several pallets to put across the ditch to the side of the driveway and leaving the trash can down there, rather than dragging it down and then back up every week.

We drove back up and noticed our elephant ear plants were drooping. We checked the watering units in the well house and they were wonky again. Apparently every time the power even blips, the control units lose their minds, not knowing what time it is or when or if they’re supposed to come on.

I managed to figure out how to run each unit manually and we had to tweak the water in several of the planters. Then I had to set the clocks again, and reprogram each unit to run automatically. I’ll set my alarm to go out at 3pm and check to make sure that each one runs as it is supposed to.

One of the units had switched which ‘station’ it was on, so when I got the manual setting to work, water whooshed out of a faucet that had nothing attached to it, drenching me from the waist down. Yeah. :0(

I went to check on my husband and found him trying to get up onto the edge of the nook planter (the one behind the house and beside the back porch.) I got him to wait until I could come heft him up and get him settled standing in the planter while he worked on a hose that wasn’t working right. He fixed that, and I helped him get out of there and back down to the ground without falling.

Hopefully, the rest of our day will be QUIET. PLEASE.

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