 Hey guys, if you hear a bird chirping. Okay, I'm just letting this bird be you guys. Welcome back to my channel. It is Drew here from Lone Fox. I hope you guys are having an incredible day. I have four dollar store DIY room decor projects and for these dollar store projects, I really wanted to take them out of the box and not do your traditional dollar store projects. Now I've seen a couple people do dollar store DIYs extremely, extremely well. I have so many of my talented friends on Instagram like Erica from P&E and Honey, Justin, Justin Ray. They all do really great dollar store projects and they're honestly very challenging. I walk into the dollar store all the time and I am just like, what am I going to do? So today I thought it would be really fun to focus more on almost techniques. So a lot of these projects are very, very random but they're using a lot of supplies from the dollar store and the outcome of each of them honestly looks extremely expensive and I am so happy with how everything turned out. So if 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 you can also follow me over on Instagram for weekly, actually honestly, daily updates, photos, stories, all that fun stuff that is Lone Fox Home but let's go ahead and jump on into our first dollar store project. When I saw this little garden fence at the 99 cent store I instantly knew I needed to take this home with me and figure out what to do and right when I got home, I broke out the power tool, I broke out my jigsaw and I am going to be cutting off all these little excess pieces on the fence that you would traditionally kind of stake into the ground actually cut all of them off on both sides and I just did it very freehand I feel free to use a ruler to cut these off but basically I decided that I wanted to turn this into a wall mounted hook system that's going to turn out really cute so this is what it ended up looking like once I jigsawed those off and I broke out just a bit of sandpaper to clean up those ends and make sure that they were nice and smooth and then once that was all done I actually wanted to go in with a little bit of wood stain so I've had this one in my stash for quite a while and I also knew that I had some woven cane material that I wanted to use on the backside of this so I thought the black stain would really contrast nicely with kind of that yellow rattan cane woven material if you will so I went ahead and I stained this block with just a little foam brush I really love how you can also see the kind of brown wood grain through it I think it kind of elevates the wood a bit and makes it look quite more expensive than something you would find at the dollar store so next what I did was I took this scrap piece of cane I cut it roughly down to a size that would fit the backing and I soaked it in water for about 20 minutes now the reason that I do this is because once you take it out of the water it's very easy to trim it's easy to staple on and also this actually expands the cane slightly and once it's dried it actually shrinks it up so it'll make your cane extremely tight so all I did on the backside was go in with a couple of staples and generously apply them across the bottom and at the top to apply our cane material on there just make sure to pull it tightly as you staple to ensure you have a nice tight bond and I also actually opted to add a couple of staples on the left and right sides and then also all the little middle bars as well I also added some staples there just to ensure that the cane was very visible on the front side and it wasn't set back far enough to where you couldn't really see it so the next step is just going to be adding our hooks to the bottom I got these hooks at the dollar store in a picture hanging kit I believe from the Dollar Tree and I'm just drilling a couple of pilot holes using a small little drill bit that I got from Walmart this is my heart tool that I love a cordless drill and I'm just simply going to go ahead and screw those in and that really finishes off this project you guys all you have to do is hang this up on the wall and you have a really cute entryway hook for your keys or jewelry organizer so for project number two I started off with one of these glass faces from the Dollar Tree along with a couple canisters of this lightweight spackling also from the Dollar Tree so this project came to be as I was creating it I literally had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do all I knew that I wanted to do was actually apply the lightweight spackling on the entire exterior of this glass container and make it very, very thick to where I could then go back and etch a design into it so I kind of had like this embossed looking vase but as I was applying the spackling on I loved the texture it was giving me you guys as many of you know I have done so much of that ceramic paint where you mix the baking soda with the paint and this is honestly like an elevated version of that it almost gives you a stone ceramic very matte finish which I love and if you use the palm of your hand you can really press it down and get some nice texture without leaving any fingerprints or any small nicks so I suggest using the palm of your hand as you work with this and it's just truly a really nice texture like I can see this being applied on any thrift store vase or like a table lamp whatever you wanna give like a stone ceramic cement finish to this spackling really worked well and once it was dried it was stuck to that glass you guys I just love the way that it ended up turning out I styled it with a couple of Magnolia leaves and that was this project I recently came across a video by Jocelyn Jimenez and she did a DIY restoration hardware dupe where she created these paper mache bowls and wow you guys these are quite expensive online so let's create our own for a fraction of the price I found these little plant pots at the 99 cent store and they're made of like a cardboard like material now what I did was I actually went ahead and I grabbed just one pack I used to create one entire bowl and I broke up every single one little plant pots inside of it because we are going to be boiling this down and I also wanna link below her original tutorial for you guys just so you can watch that if you have any more questions she goes super in depth on it but these are our ripped up pieces of paper here or our ripped up pot pieces and I'm going to be submerging them in some boiling water essentially we're gonna wanna break down the paper and turn it almost into more of a fiber and then turn it into a clay like material so the first step in this process is actually going to be to boil down your paper for about 10 to 20 minutes until like it's very soft like this it honestly looks like beef and I'm going to forewarn you guys this project is not a pretty one while it's in the works it honestly looks kind of disgusting as you're making it but in the end you have a really cool piece of decor so just stick with me on this one so you're gonna pull it out and I actually left a little bit of that water and there I didn't strain it fully just because I knew I wanted to keep some of that water for our mixing process so I strained out all the little small pieces and I'm going in with a hand mixer to break up the paper fibers even more basically the more broken up you can get them the more smooth of a finish you're gonna get on your bowl so I just went in for about a minute or two and just broke up that paper these particular pots really broke up nicely once they were wet and I'm also now going to go in with a little bit of Elmer's glue and some joint compound so the joint compound this is just such a gross process like I'm just letting you guys know like it looks so bad as I'm doing it I'm just pouring in random amounts of both and I'm going to be turning this into almost a cookie dough consistency you're gonna want something to where it's bound together and it's not gonna fall apart but also it's not too wet to where it's like running if that makes sense so you're just gonna add as much as you need to create a nice like clay like cookie dough consistency and this right here is what I ended up with and I'm pretty happy with that so I grabbed this IKEA bowl which I'm actually going to be using as a mold but you can really use any bowl that you have handy I'm going to be creating a larger one today just because I do have quite a bit of material now I put some oil down just so our saran wrap can stick nicely this was just regular old olive oil but you can use whatever you have and I'm just going to be putting my plastic wrap over the top that way we can easily like de-mold this and it looks great in the end so I'm pressing down my plastic wrap making sure it's nice and smooth and again this is where it like looks disgusting like that looks not right you guys I don't like the way that looks but trust the process so I'm going in and I'm pressing this down we are going to be molding this and keep in mind you want a generously thick layer because you're gonna want your paper mache to dry into a nice hard bowl shape that's not gonna be able to be disformed or broken or anything like that so I suggest going quite thick with it the thicker you do go the longer the drying time though do keep that in mind so I'm going around I'm applying it and I actually ended up doing almost the entire bowl just because I wanted to see how big I can make it and I left some of the edges as well a little bit jagged just to almost give it more of that vintage vibe and on the bottom I tried to create a little ring as like a foot section but I was running out of the material so I did the best that I can and I'm pretty happy with the way that it looks I actually want to make more of these because when you guys see the outcome it is so cute I love it but what I did here traditionally you're supposed to make kind of like a little rim on it to give it that bold detail but I did not have enough material so I just pressed it on the edge I let it cure for about four to five days which yes I know every day check this it was still wet so after like the fifth day it was finally dry and it was rock hard you guys this was really cool I loved how it just popped right off the mold and it honestly looks pretty good as is but I knew I wanted to go in with some acrylic paint just to add some more detail because this is super textured you can get away with anything on this bowl and it really looks amazing so I first started off with a dark gray paint just to kind of add almost a dingy element to the piece so I'm just brushing this on almost dry brushing it and then I'm going in with a cream tone to lighten it up a little bit we do have that darker base that's kind of like that cardboard color so I'm going in with that cream tone just to lighten it up a little bit and then I'm gonna go back in just a couple of seconds here which you guys are going to see and actually add a little bit of a darker element to it and some shading which totally makes this piece come to life but what? I just said life I don't know what is going on with the voiceovers today but let's just keep on moving on so I went in with my verithane wood stain and this is in the color early American and this just transformed everything it was kind of just something I thought of I was like why don't I just apply a wood stain and see how it works and it really worked well I wanted something semi-transparent and not like an acrylic paint where you can really like see that opaqueness I liked that the wood stain you can kind of see through it so I actually went around and defined a little rim section that I did with my finger and I think that this little defining of the rim really made it look more like those traditional paper mache bowls and I also added a little bit more here and there just to kind of give it a distressed look and once you are done you guys this truly looks like a piece you would find inside of a museum or like an antique shop I love the way that it turned out and I can't wait to style this in my living room and last but not least I saved this really fun one for last I actually got this hula hoop which I decided to try to use and it didn't really work out as planned but do not worry we're gonna turn it into something else so the first thing I did was strip this hula hoop of its silver and pink ribbons because we are gonna be painting this black using a little bit of flat black spray paint by Rustoleum I did a generous coat on the front side and then I flipped it off camera and I did a generous coat on the backside just let it cure for about 30 minutes between coats and you are good to go and while that was drying I actually got these s'more campfire sticks also at the 99 cent store and I took them out of the packaging and honestly they looked a little bit more yellow in person than they do on camera so I also wanted to give these a wood stain as well so using that same exact early American wood stain I just popped it on a paper towel and I'm just staining these dowels so they have a little bit more of that brown tone as opposed to that like yellowy color just because I felt like it clashed with the yarns that I ended up opting for as well so I just stained these you can leave them as is if you'd like or paint them if you want to and I laid them across the hula hoop just to get an idea for where I wanted them to go and give me like a rough estimate of where I should chop off the end because as you can see they are pretty long now I use my industrial scissors which I use all the time I highly suggest these you guys I will link them below for you because I think everyone needs these they cut through virtually anything which I love and then I found my placement for them and next what we're gonna do is a very repetitive process but it truly is really fun I like it, it's therapeutic for me so I grabbed these two yarns from my stash I do know that you can get yarn at the Dollar Tree but my Dollar Tree is always out of it or they never have enough of a specific color that I wanna use so I just opted for a couple skeins of yarn I had at home already and for our first section I'm using this kind of tan topi color and I cut it to about a yard each that way when we fold it in half it will hang at about 18 inches and I grabbed three strands together and I'm just gonna be looping this in a traditional little lark's head knot right on that skewer kind of pulling it through and I suggest doing three at a time just so it goes quicker instead of having to do one piece of this thin yarn at a time do three strands at a time and you were going to move along quite quicker so here's a little sped up version of what I was doing basically I wanted this to go almost all the way across the piece because then we're gonna be using the white yarn and kind of layering it right on top so I made sure that this brown kind of gray topi color filled up almost the majority of the skewer but I did leave a couple of inches on either end and then moving into this thicker cream yarn which I love this one was really simple and fast I cut these ones probably to about I would say 25 inches in length and then I doubled them over so they were about 12 and a half each and once I laid those down it sat right on top and next what I'm doing is I'm just gonna be gluing our skewers in place based off of our first placement I couldn't figure out a better way to attach these to the hula hoop I could have done it on the backside so it was like a little bit more not visible but I didn't like the way the yarn kind of hung forward it just seemed odd to me so I just glued them down on the front side and it doesn't look bad at all but I feel like there probably is a better way to attach that to where you can't really see it and I took a little bit of that cream yarn actually and I slipped it through the top there and I just wanted to add a detail to the top of this so it wasn't just two random stripes so I felt like this little additional element here just finished off the piece and just made it look more full and as one full piece as opposed to like two random things just glued onto a hoop I really liked the way that this ended up looking and I just tied it down on the edges and then next what I did this is a great tip if you're ever doing macrame or you're ever doing any form of yarn hanging just use your traditional like hand steamer and you could steam the yarn and it will go super flat if you could see on the left side here it's very kind of crimped up and that's because as you get deeper into the yarn ball it kind of gets more crimped up around itself so use a steamer to steam that out prior to cutting and it will make everything just so much nicer and easier so yeah, just steaming that out both of the colors I'm doing the brown color and I'm also doing the white just to make sure everything lays flat and just a little tip I don't know if this is normal to do I just used a piece of tape to tape all the way across my yarn and cut it into a nice straight line that worked for me perfectly fine and once you're done you have this really cute hanging wall decor made from a hula hoop and there you go you guys that finishes off today's dollar store DIY room decor video I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I loved creating these projects they were so much fun and I loved how I was able to use supplies from the dollar store a little bit different than your traditionally would so I used that spackle you know to create kind of like a texture I used those little plant pots to create a paper mache bowl so I wanted to share with you how you can use things and kind of think outside of the box of their traditional use and apply them to home decor and DIY them into something incredible for your space so if you guys would like more dollar store and DIY room decor definitely leave a comment below letting me know if you would and give this video a big thumbs up it helps out my channel so much you guys we are almost at a million subscribers which is unreal I'm actually my little office space right now which is kind of fun I actually love this background it's very very cute and before heading out you guys do not forget to check out my online shop which is loanfox.com I have DIY kits I have super cute home decor lifestyle products merch there is so much over there and you can also download the loanfox app where you can easily shop the entire store there's exclusive content all my videos are there all my blog posts everything is like an essentialised hub over on the loanfox app and it is available on android and on the iphone so I will link those below for you guys if you want to download them but I will let you all go have an amazing rest of your day and I'll catch you in my next one bye guys