 A portion of today's video is sponsored by The Motley Fool. As a small business owner, I've always been very cautious with my money just to ensure that I'm not spending it in the wrong places. My brother is somebody who has pushed me to invest in stocks, but I never really knew what that entailed until I found out about The Motley Fool. The Motley Fool Stock Advisor is a subscription stock picking service where members gain access to a library of expert stock recommendations which are carefully aimed at multiplying a member's returns. If you're curious about how it works, once a month their legendary stock advisors recommend two new stocks to members sent directly to their inbox. In the average return of all stock picks since inception of service is over 500% as of January 2021, which is beating the market by about five times. Simply visit fool.com slash loanfox to receive a special offer and I want to thank The Motley Fool for sponsoring this portion of the video, but let's get into these DIY projects. Hi everyone! Welcome back to Lone Fox! I hope you guys are having an amazing day. I have yet another DIY video for you. I have just been cranking out the DIYs lately. The first couple weeks of January actually was very in a creative rut. I don't know if you guys have ever gone through that, but I was just not thinking straight. Like I swear to you, I also have anxiety, so my anxiety was kind of bad at the beginning of the month, which sucked, but it's kind of getting a little bit better. I've been noticing lately, which has just been helping me overall creatively, and I have four aesthetic DIY projects for you guys and I am very, very excited to share them with you. And when I talk about aesthetic, I more so mean trendy things I've seen kind of everywhere, projects that have been recreated a lot across popular social media platforms, just things that I've kind of seen a lot that I want to try to put my own take on and recreate here for you guys on the channel. And the great thing about these projects is I feel like they are perfect gift ideas. These are really great to give somebody for their birthday. I know Christmas is far out of the way now, but maybe even a Valentine's Day gift, I just thought that when I was creating each of these projects, I was like, this would be such a cute thing to gift somebody. So keep that in mind as well. But I guess we could just go ahead and jump on into our aesthetic DIY projects. I kept every project here very, very minimal, not too many steps, not too many supplies, but let's go ahead and jump on it. For this first project, I actually wanted to take a current trend, which is tiled furniture and turn it into something a little bit smaller and achievable by really anybody. So we're going to be creating some really cute tiled coasters. So as you can see here, I got this 12 by 12 sheet of tile from the tile shop. It is two by two tiles. This only cost me $1.90 for the entire sheet. And I'm able to create nine coasters from this. And basically what you could see me doing now is cutting the mesh backing to create two by two square sections. And each of these little two by two squares or I guess four total squares is going to make up one coaster. And then here I'm simply going in to remove any excess mesh on those edges there. So just cutting as close as I can to the actual tile to remove any of that extra mesh. And then I kind of realized that I needed something to put this tile on top of because I didn't want it to crack and the actual mesh it's on is not sturdy at all. So I ended up hot gluing this down to some cork material. And I wish I had a thinner cork, honestly, but this cork was a bit thicker. I got this at the craft store a long time ago and I've had it in my stash. So I just went ahead. I glued the tiles down and then I used a pair of scissors to cut around the edges. But I highly do suggest actually using an exacto knife. It just creates a little bit of a cleaner edge because cork can be a little bit messy. But I did go ahead and back all of my coasters with this cork material just to kind of create a sturdier base and also will allow us to then grout them to where they have like a base for the grout to sit on. Now, if you want to go in and color your tiles, all you have to do is simply do about two to three coats of your favorite acrylic paint over the top of all of your tiles. The first coat is going to be super, super streaky, but do not worry. The second coat and third coat will totally clean that up and create a nice clean, consistent color across the tile. Now, as you can see here, I also went along the edges as well with the paint. But I ended up actually using some cocking on the entire edges just to create a more clean, kind of cohesive look. So totally disregard the edges if you don't want to do those because we're going to fix those a little bit later. Now, grabbing a hard coat sealant, I'm going to lock in that color by applying two generous coats of the hard coat sealant. This is just really honestly going to create like a nice, hard, scratch resistant coating on top of your paint. So you don't have to worry about that. And then once it is dry, we're going to go in with our grout here. So I got this premixed grout at a flooring store close by. I've had this for a while and I actually used it on a larger scale project that's coming out in a video in probably February. But all you have to do is simply take the grout on your finger, especially for a small project like this and just rub the grout in the crack. And then the actual grout that sits on top is extremely wet and almost pliable. So you can just simply wipe it off with a paper towel once you're done grouting your section. And that is really all you have to do for these colored coasters. And of course, the white ones were a little bit more simple because all I had to do for these ones was just go in with our grout mixture, kind of press it into the cracks, smooth away any extra and then wipe off any excess with a damp paper towel to ensure we have a nice clean finish. And to finish off these coasters, all I did was go in with a little bit of caulking just around the edges to kind of bond the cork to the tile and make it look a little bit more cohesive, and that finishes off this project. This next project, we are going to be using some of these large scale shells. And this is just so cute. I'm going to share with you guys a couple different styles of how to create your very own kind of shell trinket dishes that have a hand painted pattern on them. I just love this idea. And I saw a lot of people actually using these shells as candles and they were pouring wax on the inside of them. And I thought it was just so cute. But I was like, what if we go ahead and kind of turn these into miniature little trinket dishes and I thought these would be such a nice gift idea. And I also do feel like shells in general as a shape. It's kind of a trend right now. So I really wanted to go ahead and use these shells. And then on this first one here, I used some black acrylic paint and almost created this like paint stroke, polka dotted pattern. It reminds me almost of like a Dalmatian or just like, you know, a little speckled situation. I think it's really cute, though. So I went ahead and I applied all the little black speckles onto this one. For style number two, we're going to go ahead and with a little bit more color here. So I'm starting off with some yellow paint, some pink paint, some green, some orange, and I'm adding just a little bit of white to each of them to almost create more of a pastel tone. And I'm going off of a simple pattern that I actually have on a wrapping paper in my craft room, and it just has some organic shapes on it. And I think that creating organic shapes with these like really pretty color ways is a no brainer way to create a very, very cute pattern. So I just went in and created the most random shapes. There is no rhyme or reason to this at all, but definitely go in and apply a second coat. Once that first coat is fully dry, that way you have a double coat coverage. In style number three, the first part of this was filmed completely out of focus, but I feel like you guys totally understand what I did here. I just went in the crevices of the entire shell and added this peach toned paint, which I think kind of created a more pastel, a little bit lighter and airier feel, which I love as well. And of course, the last step is just going to go in with a hard coat finish, something that has like a little bit of a gloss to it or a sheen, just to protect your surface, makes it wipeable. You could put your jewelry in here at whatever you want, but imagine gifting this to somebody and saying that you handpainted this little shell trinket dish. I think it's such a cute idea and it's super simple and affordable to recreate as well. Something that I've been seeing everywhere on social media right now are these really, really cool molded kind of structured candles. So I ended up picking up my very own mold online. And what I'm doing here is actually inserting a needle into the bottom of the mold, which is actually going to be the top of the candle. And the reason that I'm doing this is so that my wick can go from top to bottom and I'm able to trim it on the bottom and still have some of it exposed on the top. I do feel like these candles are more so just little decorative elements. You wouldn't actually burn something like this. But now that my wick is inserted, we can go ahead and melt down our wax. So I am using some soy wax here and I heated up some water. I put the wax inside of a little measuring cup and I'm melting this down double boiler method. I believe that's what it's called, where the boiling water is essentially going to be melting down at the candle wax. Just make sure to stir occasionally and mix up that wax so that it gets fully melted down and dissolved. I also picked up these concentrated colors for candles, and these are essentially like dyes that you can pour into your wax to color them. So I opted to go ahead and use this brown one because I thought a brown candle would look quite nice. So I mixed in a couple droplets of that brown color and I ended up adding just a little bit more so I got a darker shade. So that's what I'm doing here, just mixing that in. It melts down and it colors the wax, which I love. And here I thought I had a genius idea of opening the bottom of a paper cup. That way, my entire mold can sit on top and the wick can go underneath the cup. And the other part of the wick can stick out the top. So I did exactly that and I poured in my wax. But something I didn't realize was that this mold is very flimsy and the cup had a ridge on it, so it ended up actually indenting it. Now, when I'm holding the wick in place, I'm using one of these little wooden clips, but you're going to want to go ahead and let that wax fully cool. And you're going to see exactly what I meant by those kind of impressions on the top. So when you unmold this, it is the most satisfying thing ever. It just peels right out, which I love. And then there is that wick. That's why I was telling you we needed the top and bottom. But as you can see on all of the corner balls, they're broken. And then I dropped it, which is just lovely. So I wanted to go ahead and do another one. So I remolded up my mold with the little wick in there. And I just left this sit on a flat surface as opposed to on top of the cup. And it actually worked so much better. So after about an hour, I was able to unmold it. And this one is a little bit lighter than the last one, which I love because now I kind of have two different brown toned candles. And honestly, they just turned out so, so cute. I think these look so expensive and they only cost a couple of dollars to create. For our last and final project, I am doing a DIY version of a neon sign. So this is really fun. I'm starting off with a canvas. It is 12 by 16, I believe. And you're going to want to start off by painting your canvas, whatever color you want the background of your neon sign to be. We're going to be building the sign right on top of this canvas. So I opted for this peachy pink color. And I suggest giving around two to three coats for a full coverage. I then went in with a pencil and I just traced out what I wanted my neon sign to say. And I ended up just doing like a very loopy cursive. Hello, because I thought that would be kind of cute with the pink background. And I'm using this red LED strip, which is actually going to be the light up portion of our neon sign. So this is a very kind of thin cable that has a light running through it, essentially, and it's very pliable and bendable. And you can also adhere it to any surface. So I'm going to be using some super glue tracing my pencil line and just tapping down the little thread as I go. And this adheres so quickly and simply, you guys, like right as the actual LED strip touches that superglue, it's bonded, which is really nice. You do have a couple of seconds to kind of peel it up or move it around. However, it just works really, really great with the superglue. So I went all the way around, went around my cursive word, and I did this. And if you don't have a cursive word, you can actually kind of sew the LED strip in and out of your canvas, if that makes sense, by poking holes. And that's how you can get some more block like lettering. And next, what I'm going to be doing is threading back down my strip underneath the canvas. That way it goes in the backside. This is how you're going to hide any of that extra LED strip. And you could still run it back up through the front in case you want to add more of it, which is exactly what I'm going to be doing. But first, just kind of fixing that letter O and making sure everything is in place and, guys, any excess glue. I'll show you how to clean that up in just a little bit. But I'm popping my LED strip back out for the back through the front once again, because I wanted to add a line underneath the word hello, just to kind of add emphasis to it and almost make it pop a little bit more. So I thought the line just, you know, grounded the entire neon sign and just the word in general. And then lastly, what I did was I created one more hole to pull my LED strip through at the backside. But if you want to clean up any like overflow of superglue, I just went back in with my same exact paint color and painted right over the top. It hides any of that kind of shiny finish that the superglue gives. And then on the backside, all you're going to want to do is just tape off any extra LED strip. You're going to want to plug it into the battery pack, tape the battery back down on the backside and you're good to go. You could turn it on and off and hang it on your wall. And that guys finishes off today's video. I hope that you enjoyed this one. I definitely do feel like these projects are more of a younger demographic. If you look at them, however, just keep an open mind because they are great gift ideas. They're perfect for Valentine's Day and they're also perfect. Just DIY projects in general that you can totally change up, change the colors of things, change the placement, the finish to kind of match your own interior design style. And maybe you found something in here that you would like to create for your own space, which is my goal in every single video. You are not already make sure to subscribe to my channel. I post brand new home decor and DIY content every single week here on Lone Fox and click that bell icon next to the subscribe button. That way you get notified when I upload brand new videos. And I'm going to go ahead and let you go for the day. I hope you have a great creative rest of your week and share with me your projects and DMs over on Instagram. I would love to see that. I'll catch you in the next one. Bye guys.