What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Junkreating

I took a pile of junk and made something cool today. I am proud of myself!

Here is my starting pile. The spindles, square things on the white shelf and the wooden "V" were from a broken table I spied in someone's trash on Wednesday. I tore the table apart and pried the spindle into two pieces. The blackboard/corkboard frame was at a yard sale on Friday morning for 50¢. It was missing the corkboard part. The white shelf was from the same sale for $1.00 and the FAMILY letters were $2.00 at the same sale. I am all about letters lately. I wasn't thrilled with FAMILY, but thought I could use each letter individually in swaps or use them randomly around the house out of order and out of context. I had to buy a piece of Matte Board for $1.00 and some thumbtacks for $1.00, but everything else in the resulting product came from the junk pile or my stash of junk. I bought several of the fancy doohickeys at the top for 25¢ at a sale a few summers ago.

Here's the semi-finished product. Leftover whtie craft paint from Hobby Lobby 90% off After Christmas sale rubbed onto the spindles and "doohickey", matte board covered in a scrap of black and white gingham cloth in my fabric stash, coffee stained ribon from my craft suppies and vintage buttons hotglued on thumbtacks for the bulletin board.

I've been looking for a bulletin board to save my cards and items I have received in the mail from my blog buddies. I had a small one, but it was totally packed and about to fall off the wall.

I am going to hang it in the kitchen and then mount the whte shelf under it and use the FAMILY Letters to put M-A-I-L above it. The Bean figured out that we could make "MAIL" out of "FAMILY". Do you see yourself on my board?

I have drug home boxes of broken things and not used them before, but I am on a mission to USE MY JUNK and make it useable and resourceful. I think my first project fit that bill perfectly, if I do say so myself!

Total cost for the Bulletin Board - $1.50 not including the thumbtacks. I only needed twelve, but I had to buy 300! Eh gads!

5 comments:

  1. That Bean--he's a smart kid! The homeschooling must be working, because I'm not sure I ever would have figured out that you can get MAIL out of FAMILY. LOL! Shara, it looks great! I'm very impressed! I love the fancy piece at the top & the spindles--they're perfect!

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  2. That is so cool! Bean did an excellent job with "mail" as it's a perfect fit! I wish I had an eye like yours, so creative.

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  3. Now that's my kind of junk! Great idea, and filled to the brim already! You'll have to make another one.
    Sue

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  4. Now that is just innovative! I am thoroughly impressed with your creativity! And I have to agree with Heidi...I'd never have thought of making "mail" from "family"! Good goin' Bean!!!

    Jan

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  5. It's gorgeous! You did a great job. :) Seriously, I love it. And how smart is the Bean? :)

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