Useful Thrift Flips

Thrifting can be so rewarding! It’s the thrill of the hunt to find those treasures. You may have your own mission but the end result is different for everyone and every trip is different too. It’s exciting!

Not only did I find great items to thrift flip in this new DIY video, I also found a treasure that was worth 30 x’s what I paid for it! You’ll have to watch the video to see what it is. I’ll link it below.

There are SO MANY things you can do with canisters! Of course they are great for kitchen essentials storage but they can be used in other ways too. I have four ideas that will set that creative lightbulb off for you! Click the video linked below to see them all.

DIY 1"x6" Planter

Supplies:

(3) 1×6 @ 6 1/4″ LONG
(1) 1X6 @ 24″ LONG
(1) 1X6 @ 7″ LONG
1 1/4″ Brad Nails
Brad Nailer
Miter Saw
Drill
Wood Stain
Vinyl
FREE SVG FILE
Transfer Tape
Soil/Flowers

Here she is! A handmade (by someone else) toilet paper holder? I think? It had potential, and for $4.67, it wasn’t a big risk as far as cost was concerned. I knew I could hack this up while still drawing some inspiration from the shape.

Time for demo! (I love demo) A hammer and crowbar worked great to pry this piece apart. There were also a TON of nails that needed to be removed. Whoever made this originally, really did a great job making sure it wasn’t going to come apart.

I was careful not to dent or damage the wood as I worked it apart and luckily it worked out and came apart nicely!

First, ignore the piece on the left. I was going to use it for the bottom but it was warped and didn’t work out. SO – pretend that’s another 1×6 that is 7″ long (the actual bottom that I used)

The other pieces:
(1)1×6 @ 24″ long – BACK
(3) 1×6 @ 6 1/4″ long – SIDES

I sanded all the pieces with 80 grit sandpaper to get off as much of the original wood stain as I could so I could later, add my own.

Now let’s attach the (3) 6 1/4″ long pieces together with brad nails.This is the front and sides of the planter.

Attach the longer (24″) piece to the back with brad nails.

Here is where we are after the sides and back are attached. And now we need to add the bottom.

The bottom piece is the 1×6 that is 7″ long. Lay the planter on it’s side and attach the bottom around all for sides with brad nails.

TA-DA! We just built a planter! This is a great beginner wood project that you can be proud of!

Now you can get your creativity on and add your personality!

I used Early American wood stain. I like to apply wood stain with pieces of flour sack towel I cut up. It’s a more affordable option than the cloths hanging near the wood stain itself. It’s easy to dip the cloth into the stain and rub it into the wood. Of corse, make sure you are wearing nitrile gloves during the staining process.

Let your piece sit overnight and then we can move onto decorating our planter!

This is looking great already! BUT, I can never leave well enough alone, haha! We are going to add a decal to the front of this and really give it some personality.

I have this design as a FREE DOWNLOAD for you! You can use either the SVG or PNG files however you’d like. The SVG is a cut file used for vinyl machines and the PNG is a print files.

I used the SVG version to cut the design out of white vinyl and weeded out all the vinyl that wasn’t part of the design.

Apply the vinyl decal with transfer tape to your wood planter box. I prefer paper transfer tape for stained wood. It lower tack and won’t pull the stain out of the wood as you peel it back.

Before adding live planters TWO THINGS:
1) Seal your wood with a clear spray or polycyclic
2) Drill holes in the bottom for drainage

*If you plan to use this inside or with faux plants, you can skip the two points above.

I added some rock and soil to the box and FINALLY it was time to add the pretty flowers. Now if I could just keep these flowers alive, that would be a bigger task than building this planter… tips are welcome in the comments.