Dollar Store DIY Decor: A Skewer House.

 

All righty, joining back up with the recurring Dollar Store DIY Decor segment:  A Skewer House.  This thing is dang quaint and cute and adorable and dang easy to make too.  Make one, make a few, make different sizes or shapes, use different bits and parts....ahhh you get the idea.

You can hang it/these on a wall.  You can set them on a surface like a shelf or a mantle or piece of furniture.  Versatile home decor, yep. 

And so dang cute.

I mean, even Mike likes it.      ........Right?!

Riffling through my way-too-big stash of project supplies for something else...I've really gotta get to using up this ridiculous mountain of project supplies...I inadvertently came across wood house shapes I had picked up at Dollar Tree* a good while back with no premeditated use and tada, voila, new idea hatched. 

 

Hatched idea!

Maybe I've really gotta stop buying bits, pieces, and parts of project supplies.  Cannot help myself though.  It's that buy-it-when-you-see-it thing as the it-most-likely-won't-be-there-next-time issue routinely plagues me.   

Or the buy-it-when-you-see-it-otherwise-you're-gonna-regret-passing-this-up-at-some-point thing.

Now, I realize I purchased these wood house shapes from Dollar Tree so long ago that they may not have them currently.  To replicate this idea without the dollar store house shapes, you might have to assemble a little house on your own.

Don't panic.  It'd be real easy: 

Just use some flat stock wood trim for the sides, or some balsa strips and some balsa wood for the back.  Balsa* is easy to cut with a utility knife.*  Make sure you use a sturdy metal ruler, preferably with cork* on the back to avoid slipping and slicing up your hand.  Ouch.  Yeah, don't do that.

I realize making this base shape takes more time and makes this project more expensive but now you'll have extra wood to create more house shapes or other cool projects.

Ugh, see?  I clearly have a project supplies problem.  Among many others.

It's not my fault, ahem, I don't know what's happening when it happens.  I have too many ideas and too little time.

Moving on.

What you'll need:

• wood house shape (buy it or build your own)
• wood skewers*
• various wood dowels* or
• wood balls* or other shapes
• strong, sharp scissors* or snips*
• hot glue* or other glue
• drill bits*
• hanging hardware* or twine or leather cord* if wall mount or hanging is desired

That's it.  Oh, and any flora you'd like to display which in my case, snippets snitched while on a walk with Finn through Humboldt Park in winter.  

Yes.  I brought scissors with me on a walk in the park with Finn.  I am that person.

The general idea came from something I spotted on Pinterest.  It's adorbs.  Just a cutout of plywood in a house shape (as in the kind we drew as kids) with a sort of shelf at the bottom, wood beads and flora as decor.

So you could do that if you're not interested in building a shadow box house shape.  Great way to use up some scrap wood which huh....I might do too.

Ok, let's get started on this dollar store DIY decor skewer house.  

Generally speaking, this entire project is completely flexible; this here is merely a guide to unleash your imagination.

Fire up the ol' hot glue gun.

Grab a skewer, set it on your house shape frame to measure, and just snip it to trim to fit.  Try to get moderately close to the angle.

Here I started in the center and worked my way out.

A few itty bitty teeny tiny dabs of hot glue on the skewer will hold it in just fine.

Once you get one side done, fill in the other side.

Could not be easier, right?  

Skewers!  They're artful, who knew?!  Yay, haha!

It's a dollar store skewer house, ha!

Now, decorate your little skewer house any way you see fit!  You could paint this, stain it, gold leaf it, ya know, whatever.  I opted to leave the blonde wood as-is mostly as a point of reference for you and well, it was my preferred look anyway.

 

Trim up some dowel pieces, hefty diameter ones, into various lengths and gather up whatever other shapes you plan to use.  Do some test arrangements in there before you hit the glue to see what composition you like best.

In some cases, like the dowels and my other wood shapes, they needed a small hole drilled in order to stick in the flora.

Easy peasy, use a drill bit in a screw gun* then gently and carefully, don't go hog wild, drill holes as desired.

Next, simply glue your prearranged arrangement of wood pieces into the skewer house shape.

Lastly, glue your flora into the holes of the wood pieces and you are set, my friend.

Look at that!  How cute, right?!

Such an easy, and mighty quick, maybe fifteen minutes, piece of home decor to fill that one spot that's missing something.

Tada, Dollar Store DIY Decor, it's a Skewer House!

Ok, I should really head off to the basement and use up more of these darn project supplies.  Until next time, happy creating!

*The Dollar Tree link is a general Dollar Tree affiliate link.  The balsa wood is a Michaels affiliate link.  The screw guns are a Home Depot affiliate link.  The utility knives, cork backed metal rules, skewers, dowels, wood balls, scissors, snips, hot glue, drill bits, hanging hardware, and leather cord are Amazon affiliate links.  Mwah, thanks!  Please see the "boring stuff" tab for more info.