Advertising Disclosure: Upcycle Design Lab may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.

Hello and welcome. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you will enjoy your visit and maybe even explore some of my other upcycled projects. Perhaps you will even be inspired to sift through your own recycling bin for some crafting supplies. That is my hope anyway, that you will experience the joy of making something with your own hands. And if you can save some money and the planet by using something you were going to throw away well that’s a win, win, win, in my book.

And speaking of books, I love them. Don’t you? To spend a few leisurely hours reading a well-told story, you know, the ones that are told with a delicious word salad. Well, that is one of life’s most delightful and simple pleasures. But books are so much more than stories. There are books that teach us about anything imaginable and books that help us learn new skills, books that allow us to explore new interests and hobbies. There are books that take us places we would never otherwise go.

But mostly books are amazing because of their singleness of purpose. The words inked on their pages do not move flash or reveal. You can’t click them to jump to an entirely different story. No advertisements pop up as you turn a page. They are grounding and stable in a world so full of interruption and distraction.

Perhaps it is slightly disingenuous to be giving accolades to books on the very platform that I was just speaking ill of, but for good or for bad much of our lives are now lived online. And this is my little nitch in it.

Last week I finished my review of the book called The Artist Way. And because I love books so much I have decided to stick with this theme for a while. This week I begin a new review of another one of my favorite books. This book is also centered around being more creative but it focuses primarily on creative writing.

I used to fancy that I might write a full-fledged book someday. (Maybe sometimes I still do.) But it is a daunting undertaking even for experienced writers to be faced with a blank page. That is where this new book comes in. The book is titled “The Write Brain Workbook,” written by Bonnie Neubauer. It is a book with 366 short writing exercises, for writers to use as creative writing prompts. They are meant to be short writing assignments to help you get some words down on paper. They are for practice and for fun and who knows maybe even some serious writing might come out of them.

In my next few posts, my intention is to choose one exercise and share a little bit of silly creative writing with you. If you are here strictly for the upcycling projects please feel free to scroll past all my yammering. 🙂

If, on the other hand, you like the creative writing thing than please read on. If you are so inclined to, play along as well. As I mentioned I love books but not just reading them. I like the way they feel in my hands and I love it when they include visual stimuli. This book is for writers to give them writing prompts but it is also very visual, every page has some visual prompts for writing ideas as well. In short, I like it because it is also fun to look at.

One of the first writing assignments I did from the book was titled ship shape. There was a silhouette of a sailboat and the assignment was to fill in the shape.

For today’s writing, I have made up my own version of this assignment by choosing the shape of a puppy to write inside.

Do you have your own shape in mind? Do you want to give it a try? The rules are simple just keep writing until the shape is full and try not to censor what comes to your mind just write it down inside the shape.

Here is my silly creative writing project for today. I wrote it out longhand below so you wouldn’t have to spin your computer monitor around and around to read it. 🙂

Puppies Puppies Puppies Galore! We had two puppies and we got two more. At times I am not sure what we did that for.

The love and companionship are of course what we need and the loss of a shoe or two does not make us bleed.

It’s mayhem on some days with all of our four-legged friends and the house is full of messes that just don’t seem to end.

The toys are all frayed from tiny sharp teeth and some of the furniture may also have a beef.

At times when another dog may dare to pass by the cacophony of barking can make me ask WHY?

What on earth would possess us to choose such a life?

The answer, of course, is not for all, but for animal lovers who also hear the call, we know that they need us and we need them too. The answer is obvious, it’s the only thing to do.

Our hearts are so big even if our houses are small. We must bring them home for one and for all.

We change our routines our clothes and our lives as we must, for, after all, they have given us their trust.

We must never betray them with harshness or neglect and why would we ever want to after all that they give, it is our honor and privilege to give them a place to live.

I know that this is not destined for any creative writing awards and once it was written I wanted to do some editing but for the sake of sharing the assignment in its pure form I left it as-is.

******************************

And now for today’s upcycling project.

This is the third project in my Extreme Upcycling-Craft Room Makeover.

It starts with a cheap panel door some paint and some empty tin cans.

The first step was to paint the door. I started with a coat of primer paint and then added a top coat of gray.

Next, I took a bunch of tin cans, tin can lids, and literally a couple of thousand silver thumbtacks and put a rusted finish on them. You can find out how I quickly rust cans and other metal without harsh chemicals here.

Once the cans were rusted I cut them into 2×2 squares using a cardboard template and some tin snips.

I laid out my design and determined how many metal squares I would need. My plan was to make the shape of window panes.

Then I marked the door and started applying the squares using the thumbtacks to hold them in place.

Once all the squares were in place with a couple of tacks I finished off all the sharp edges by covering them with more thumbtacks.

The final step was to add a coat of minwax polycrylic.

You can find all the details in the video below.

Full list of materials and supplies

• White primer paint
• Gray paint (Sherwin Williams GS15 Sealskin SW7675)
• Empty rusted tin cans and lids (23-25)
• Thumbtacks (9 boxes rusted)
• Minwax polycrylic high gloss
• Purdy paintbrush
• Hammer
• L square or T square
• Marking pen
• Tin snips

Happy Upcycling

Advertising Disclosure: Upcycle Design Lab may be compensated in exchange for featured placement of certain sponsored products and services, or your clicking on links posted on this website.