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This post is sponsored by Quikrete.

It's October and that means it's time to decorate for fall and Halloween. One of our favorite materials to use for outdoor Halloween decorating is concrete. It's easy to work with and holds up well to hot, rainy Florida weather. It's very DIY friendly. 

You may remember in 2016, we created concrete pumpkins that could be used as a flower pot or candy or candle holders. That's an easy project for any beginner. Take a look at that video if you want to create your own pumpkin. 

Now on to this year's concrete project. If you're like us, you may celebrate Halloween away from your home. If you're not home, you can just leave a bowl of candy at the door, but there is the very high likelihood that someone will pick it up and dump the entire contents into their bag. Well, with this project, that will be a little difficult!

We're making a concrete candy bowl that can double as October fall decor. Take a look. As always, watching the video is great place to start.

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This post is sponsored by The Home Depot.

Since we've recently completed some rather large and on-going projects, we were ready for a little simple DIY. Recently our friend, Chris, gifted us a beautiful piece of 30 year old redwood. We thought it would make a great rustic tray or shelf, both simple and fast to complete projects.

The shelf idea won out since we found the perfect place for it. We decided on a rustic shelf with industrial elements that would fit in well with the decor in Steph's bedroom. Take a look at the video to see how it all came together or read on for the tutorial. 

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This post is sponsored by The Home Depot.

Cleaning out the garage has been really hard for me. As a collector of stuff, sometimes I find it hard to let go. I commented to Steph during the huge purge of the garage that I really appreciated her not judging those things I wanted to keep. She didn't offer judgement on those things but simply put them aside in the "keep" pile. She was extremely kind and compassionate!

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When we saw these blue star shaped pool noodles at Target we knew right away we had to DIY something with them! With July 4th right around the corner, the stars would be perfect for a red, white, and blue patriotic theme!

We came up with four very easy to make ideas using varies slices of the pool noodle.

1. Flag centerpiece
2. Pool Noodle Garland
3. Hotdog holders
4. String light decor

Take a look at what we came up and then add your suggestions in the comments. 

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We have been using the recipe service, Hello Fresh (#notsponsored), for about 8 months now. Since we work from home, the service gives us the option to have a fresh, healthy lunch in around 30 minutes rather than having to go out or to rely on sandwiches or reheated leftovers. We’ve worked it out that one of us takes a break to cook while the other continues to work. Since I don’t like to clean up the kitchen, I usually opt to do the cooking!

Hello Fresh comes with most everything you need to cook a meal including very well thought out and organized step-by-step instructions. A full color picture of the dish is on the front and the steps, complete with pictures, are on the other side. The size of the instruction card is a little on the large side. We’ve dealt with this minor inconvenience by propping it up where we cook, but really were looking for a more elegant solution.

I follow the blog, My Repurposed Life, and when I found this post it became the inspiration for this project!

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Dixie Belle paint is Florida based, as are we, and they recently reached out to us to try their products. Since I was not familiar with their inventory, I took a bit of time to check out what they had as well as watch a few videos. 

In my exploring, I found a product called Slick Stick. It was an 'Aha' moment! Back in 1991 when Steph was in kindergarten, I found some bedroom furniture through the newspaper classified ad. That was a time way before Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist! Used furniture was a little harder to source back then. Anyway, she used it for a long time and even moved the desk to her new house in 2013. 

The desk is long gone, but I still had the dressers and hutch pieces at my house. I had been very reluctant to get rid of them since they are so well built. I always thought I'd do something with them, but was stymied because the tops were Formica (plastic laminate) with plastic edging. I never knew what would work on these to allow me to paint.

Back to that 'Aha' moment--the Slick Stick would work and I finally could paint and reuse the furniture!

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Are you ready for a home decor project that is so simple it doesn't really need a tutorial?! This metal pipe and string light statement light fixture will do nicely! 

In December, we picked up this string of lights in Ikea's clearance section. They were marketed as Christmas lights, but we thought they were classic enough to use any time of the year. There are lots of these kinds of lights on the market so you shouldn't have to wait until Ikea has a sale to get a set. 

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Recently, with Steph’s help and the help of a few volunteers, we planned and hosted a craft night for women at my church. A search of Pinterest and a picture on Facebook provided the inspiration for our Valentine’s Day craft. I’ll provide some tips at the end of the post for planning a craft night for a group. 

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Every time we go to a local restaurant here in Tallahassee Florida, I notice something. I always notice the really large canvas artwork they have on the wall and the very simple frame around it. I quickly determined a way to mimic the look with simple materials from the hardware store. Well, two weeks ago, I made a piece of artwork and thought, hey, I have the perfect frame idea for that! Take a look at how it all came together for under $10.

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​The A-frame 2X4 Christmas tree we made for 2017 was designed to come apart and fold for easy storage. With the exception of the concrete base, the tree came apart and easily stored as expected. Because of the weight and size of the base, we knew we didn’t want to try to store it, but wanted a way to use it throughout the year making storage unnecessary.

We designed a PVC (plumbing pipe) stand that utilizes the base to serve as a garden flag holder! People, at least in the south, enjoy displaying and changing out garden flags to match the season. Although the base is heavy, it’s not so heavy that it can’t be moved around to where you want it. You could even pop it into the car and reassemble it at your next tailgate and hang your team colors from it! 

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This post is sponsored by The Home Depot as a part of The Home Depot’s ProSpective Campaign. THD provided the Dremel tools used in this project.

​Steph has been using the same coffee table/bench since her college days. We bought the faux leather clad bench for her dorm room from Target back in the day. It held up so well that when she moved to her home four years ago it moved with her to serve as her coffee table. It was starting to look a little ragged so she really needed to retire it but didn’t want to give up the storage it provided.

She came up with an idea to make a coffee table starting with a bookcase. She had specific requirements for it including portability (it needed to be on wheels) and it needed to have covered storage. 

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Until recently, there were no hard surfaces near Steph's couch to set snacks and beverages. We had seen this idea for a flexible hard surface on Pinterest and decided to give it a try! 

Be sure to watch the video, it's really short, but it gives you the entire run down on how to make one. It can be customized to whatever size you need.

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This post sponsored by Diablo Tools.

In April 2017, we were introduced to a new product that just blew us away! Of all the tools and accessories that we saw at the event, this was the one that had us wanting to try it ourselves. That product was sandpaper from Diablo called SandNet. 

I guess what surprised us the most was Diablo took a very low tech product--sandpaper--tweaked it and vastly improved the life and function of it. Who knew sandpaper could be improved?!

We were thrilled when Diablo asked us to partner with them to demonstrate SandNet. It was easy to say yes as SandNet has truly become our 'go to' sandpaper of choice. 

We needed the perfect project that would showcase it's ability to be more efficient and last longer than what most of us are used to using. A recent yard sale find of a piece of live edge cedar proved to be the perfect piece of wood. We decided to make a sofa table for Steph's house with it. 

Read on to see how we put the table together!

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This month we were challenged by some of our blogger friends to create a gift that could be completed in 30 minutes or left. (Links to the other participants can be found at the end of the post.) The "Half-Hour Holiday Challenge" really had me thinking about how to make something simple enough to be completed in a short amount of time but still be useful and gift worthy.

​As an attender at the Haven blogging conference, we were given several sheets of M-D Decorative Aluminum Panels. They have many different styles but when we saw the one below, with it's symmetrical design, we thought it could be used to cover a mason jar and cut to fit the center ring to serve as a "frog" for making a simple flower arrangement for gift giving. 

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It's no secret that we like to work with concrete! It's such a forgiving, creative material. I was doing a little concrete project Pinterest research and came across a concrete garden orb. I really liked the look, but I thought the idea could be adapted to make a creepy mummy decoration for Halloween. Also, I had a huge supply of soft, cotton cording/piping from a yard sale that I thought would be the perfect material to use.