Busted Button

Hanging Tea Cup Bird Feeder

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Busted Button

I found the prettiest cup and saucer in the world. It was only 2 dollars and I knew I needed to turn it into something extra-special!

Isn’t it perfect? Well, I made it perfect-er:

It’s a bird-feeder! You can put water in the saucer too 🙂

If you wanna make one, read on!

All you need is a cup and saucer, three large jewelry bails, about 42 inches of sturdy chain, and some E6000 glue.

First, put a ring of glue around the cup and then place the cup in the middle of the saucer. It’s like having a tea party with harsh chemicals. Make sure you open a window.

Turn the cup and saucer upside down and glue 3 evenly-spaced bails onto the plate like so.

Allow that to dry for 24 hours, during which you can assemble the chain!

You need three 12 inch lengths of chain, and one 6 inch length.

Attach the 3 longer chains to the shorter chain, and then search through your key-ring stash for a perfect hanging device.

I decided to make a little charm decoration for the top of the hanger. I brought out some beads, an old bracelet and other nifty things that I could stick together to create something beautiful!

Oooooh, Aaaaaah.

And I attached it to the top of the chain. Once your cup and saucer and bails have finished drying for 24 hours, you can start to attach the bottom of the chains to the bails!

I’d let it dry for another 24 hours before you hang it in your garden, just to be safe.

And there you have a really cute, really functional (for the birds anyways) decoration that would add so much to any garden. I’m sure you can think of a dozen people who would love to receive one of these as a gift!

I saw the original idea on Pinterest, and then followed the tutorial here. There are also some different versions of these feeders that are set on top of a piece of pipe- here is an example of that type.

Well, I hope you will take a trip to a thrift shop to scout out the perfect china to use for this project! Imagine hunting down your grandmas or mom’s favorite pattern and making her one to match a set that is special to her?

Happy Bird-feeding!

~Dot

Posted in Craft Tutorials | 15 Comments

Thrift Shop Thursdays: Animal By-Products

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Busted Button

This week I am SO incredibly excited to show you another treasure I picked up at a thrift shop. Imagine, if you will, innocently hunting down the aisles, when all of a sudden you happen upon this:

Mystery box.

I knew it was gonna be good. I just got that feeling. I call it my “treasure-sense”, and it was tingling. What did I find when I opened the lid? Observe:

I’d like to introduce you to my box of mink tails. Yup.

Needless to say, I bought them. It was at an awesome thrift shop here in Victoria called Pickers. Pickers is cool because it is like a gigantic disorganized garage sale of awesomeness. You grab a pile of what you want, and when you are ready to buy your loot they give you a price, which is always very reasonable. The only negative thing about them is that you have to be careful of the random 70’s nude magazines that are floating around randomly LOL. Strange indeed.

Don’t ask why, but I totally thought these tails would be expensive. They were a dollar. The staff were probably like “Oh, jeez, lets just throw these out…Oh wait, I bet some crazy lady will pay a dollar for em hahaha.” Well I did, and I am not a lady.

I just knew I could use them for something! I still haven’t figured out the perfect use yet, but for now, they make a ~~sooooper creepy~~ beautiful centerpiece:

Just gorgeous. Imagine these at a wedding! Just kidding, don’t do that. In fact, to get your mind off of these tails, check out these insane retro shoes I found:

So nifty, hey?

And I will finish off this post with an AWESOME pattern:

Someone, please make this for me! And teach me how to get that natural volume in this little girl’s hair!!!

Anyways, I hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks Thrift Shop Thursday! Happy treasure hunting, and if you see any second-hand animal by-products, let me know 😉

~Dot