Super Simple (No Cost) Mason Jar Candles For Fall

Hope you had a nice weekend and did something worthwhile and fun!  

We worked on a couple of things this weekend and had some friends over on Saturday night. 

One of my projects was made for our Saturday evening get together. I was in need of a couple of candles for the basement patio. 

Last year I put together a couple of Mason jar candles for Spring using items I had around the house. I use plastic Mason jar screw on lids to keep the rain out, since these stay outside on the basement patio.

The ones I made last year were looking kind of tired and decided to put together two Fallish looking candles.

 I had all the items on hand and the candles are super easy and quick to put together. I'm sure you have plenty of things around your house to do the same.

Take a clean Mason jar (or any clean jar) and add sand.

Add some jute string...

...and a dried flower to the outside...

...and finally, a candle.

  Finished in just a couple of minutes.

Don't you just love cute, super simple projects that don't cost you anything?

I know I do! 

Pam
joining:
Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style
Debbiedoos
Between Naps On The Porch

Dropped Ceiling For The Basement Storage Room

Wanted to share a good alternative to a sheetrocked ceiling in a basement storage room

As usual, we've taken a long time between having all this work done until finally finishing the ceiling. We do things as we have the time and money and since it's in the basement, and a storage room, it really affect how we live in the house. It took us 4 years to finish the basement family room and bathroom but this area only took a few years ;) So much for timeliness.
Sorry for the rabbit  trail!

Mr. F was going to leave the walls unfinished and just put the shelving up, but since we had a BUNCH of paint samples and some partial gallons, he decided to mix it all up and finish the walls. The containers shown in this pic were used for the undercoat, which turned out to be a beige color. The beige samples were purchased in my decision to find the perfect beige for our Family Room. He used my 10 assorted Benjamin Moore grey paint samples for the topcoat. The grey samples were left over from when I was choosing what color to paint our Kitchen. lol...anyone else have a problem deciding on paint colors?

Here's the room all painted.The color is perfect...not too light and not too dark. Sooo glad to have more room on. my paint shelves in the garage. hmmmmm

Now about the ceiling...

One great thing about having an unfinished basement is being able to get to pipes and wiring for the projects upstairs. Mr. F thought about leaving the ceiling unfinished like this for easy access, but he just couldn't do it because the walls looked so great, painted and all.

So, he decided to put in a dropped ceiling. There are some pretty fancy dropped ceilings out there, but this is a storage room after all, so we opted for the cheapest ceiling tiles. Sheetrock would have been a lot cheaper than a dropped ceiling, but we needed to have access to the pipes and wiring, especially if there's ever a problem, so it was worth the added cost to have access, but we weren't going to spend more money on fancy tiles. It's a fairly easy project. 

Mr. Fanatic started by putting up the tracks around the edge of the room.

The next step is to add the tracks lengthwise in the center.

Then he added the tracks that connected the lengthwise tracks.

The tracks are suspended by wire to the ceiling joists.

Once all the tracks are up, then the ceiling tiles are put in and sit on the tracks. You just push up on the tiles to get access to the ceiling.

Mr. F installed two can(pot) lights in the ceiling, which now looks clean and finished.

This storage room looks so clean and organized now and the drop ceiling allows for easy access to the pipes and wiring above....

We need to work on the Barn Doors for the Basement and finish up the Solar Tube Skylight, which is partially installed. 

So many projects, so little time.

What do you have on your project list and how do you prioritize it?

Pam