Only 11 days until solstice! The weather is bitter and my fingers and toes are always cold. This is the time of year that the walls start to close in on me because it's just too miserable to spend much time outside.

@phoenixwren is running a month long challenge where you can win SBI for participating, which means doing green deeds that help our planet. You can learn all about hte challenge and get involved here!

I decided to do #5 on the list for the Evergreen December Challenge - upcycle something!I went on a upcycling home décor binge over the weekend.

When cabin fever hits ...I redecorate!

To add to my cabin feverish state, our truck is broken down and I can't go to town to buy any stuff for my projects. This is a good incentive to get creative with what we already have.

First project. Turn a $75 flea market hutch from scratched up brown & green painted leaves into something more "chic".

Normally I would choose a colourful paint like red, yellow, teal, but this time I went with black. The main reason being this was the only milk paint I had sufficient quantities of. The best thing about this project is that all materials used are all natural, non toxic and fume free.

A lot of people find it funny that I spend all this time refinishing something only to take sandpaper to it and distress it all to make it look really old and worn. We live in a rustic log cabin though and shiny and new often clashes and looks odd.

Materials used: all natural chalk paint in black, bees wax and hemp oil.

the sunlight coming through the windows is sort of making the black look dull/dusty - it is much better in person.

Here's a before picture of that brown hutch

It is in a totally different location here because I move furniture around ALL the time. Anyone else do that?

Second Project: Make a wreathe out of dried flowers and grape vine.

We haven't got enough art on our walls yet. I figure why not put up some natural art for now to brighten things up. The first project I did was a rustic and rather basic wreathe. Nothing too fussy. I ended up placing a big Ukrainian Easter egg that my husbands grandma gave to me in the centre. What do you think?

Materials: dried lavender, dried oregano flowers, grape vine, hemp twine.

All of the items used came from my garden (Aside from the hemp twine and the little wood round with the decorative button)

Third Project: More art.

I grabbed this log from the wood pile when we were stacking wood in the fall. It just called to me. I decided to leave the bark on because otherwise it would totally blend into our log walls. I stuck some dried flowers in the hole and ...wall art! I'll add some evergreen and festive stuff to this later this week for the holiday season.

Materials: a decaying log, dried flowers, twine, a few screws (screwed into the log to create a mounting bracket).

Again, the sun is bleeding the colours a bit but I can't complain because sunshine is much needed around here even if it is freezing outside.

Fourth Project: Flower & Old stuff Art

I decided to fill an old tarnished vase with dried flowers and herbs, it smells really lovely with the lavender, sage, thyme, and other herbs. I grabbed the antique meat grinder that we actually used (I love it because my husband's grandparents also used it so there's an emotional connection). Some twine, a round slab of rough edged wood, and I hung a pretty picture above it. The picture is also vintage made of moose hide and the thread is also natural.

This is a close up of that framed art. It's been in the family for a really long time.

The last victim of my creative urges will be this old hoosier that I have painted before (more than once). The last iteration was yellow but it just blends into the walls rather than looking sunny and happy. Sorry for the fuzzy picture. I am thinking of doing the top black and leaving the bottom yellow.

My husband actually hates this piece of furniture because of how rickety and crappy it is - but I really do love it. There is a story in these old worn pieces of furniture and bit by bit I am getting it fixed up so that the doors close properly and such.

Our place might not be super fancy, but I really enjoy playing around and having the creative freedom of making things that I enjoy from stuff we already have. There's a certain sense of satisfaction in freshening up an environment without having much of an impact on the planet.

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[@walkerland ]
Building a greener, more beautiful world one seed at a time.
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