Pinterest Challengin' it up.....

If you read Young House Love , (which in my world should read: "If you breathe") you've heard of the Pinterest Challenge....or ....

A challenge created by Sherri and Katie, to help all of us get out of our pinning ruts. Basically everyone will create one Pinterest inspired project and post it today! While I recently posted a list of stuff I wanted to try from Pinterest, and still plan to try these at some point, I had some serious time constraints this weekend so I had to resort to a smaller, but still fun project. Also, the smart bloggers posted about this challenge last Tuesday to let you guys know it was coming (AKA to help any other bloggers get involved) but as I've mentioned before I'm a failure as a blogger (in fact here's a list of why I suck) so I did not....also I was behind on my google reader and was not aware of it until later in the week...#WINNING

For more fun "Pinterest Challenge" projects check out these blogs:
Our Fifth House
The Ugly Duckling House
Bower Power Blog
and of course Young House Love...
and I'm sure there is a ton more out there!
Onto the fun stuff...or at least fun for me stuff:

Here's a not so big secret...I have a black thumb. I tend to kill plants, like all of them. I recently heard about "air plants," a plant that requires no soil or water...aka a plant that could actually survive in my house. So I bought one from the local nursery. Now the task was to find a planter for it, and then I saw these (they are for sale on Etsy, but originally found on Pinterest so it's solid):

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I was immediately in love. They weren't terribly expensive, starting at only $25 with shipping, but I knew I could do better (besides the challenge is to make something not buy something)...in fact how does $4 sound? Here's what went down...

Sorry about the terrible phone picture...it was late...and my toe was broken...and I was super tired...and possibly a little buzzed...

A hobby lobby store plastic toy animal (actually got a few more the next day!), dollar store spray paint I already owned (never use dollar store spray paint BTW), frog tape, and some gold craft paint...oh, and the hubby's drill (I'm sure you could use a knife for this too, it's plastic people). That's right. I just spray painted the toy, and then dipped her little feet (she's white and gold so of course she's a female...or Liberace) into some metallic craft paint I also already owned for a little glitz. Drilled a small hole in the back...and now a small elephant fashion show...ya know, like you do...
Warning: bad phone pics ahead...Must. Get. New. Camera. Now..

I love her little gold feet, tail, and tusks...

A little hint: if you're as weird as I am and find the need for an elephant shaped planter in your life and decide to try this yourself, try to use good spray paint, I just used what was in my large spray paint collection and this was the only one white I had left, but the plastic didn't absorb the spray paint well and it took like 5 coats...which is annoying when it's 11 at night and 30 degrees outside...and like I said before, you're a little buzzed. Shouldn't have been a problem with non dollar store spray paint though.

And now Ellie (yes I'm nothing if I'm not creative) resides on my office shelf which needed some glitz...oh yes, that hits the spot:

How about you guys? Any super cheap/simple/weird projects around the casa lately? Anyone else have a hard time explaining to your mom and sister on a shopping trip, that you MUST find a plastic elephant? Anyone else participating in the Pinterest Challenge? Leave me a comment so I can check it out!

I'm also Linkin' this up over at homemade ginger for her Ginger jamboree party! Check out all the other fabulous projects here!
And finally, linking up at 52 mantels for her Thursdays are your days link up party! Check out the other fun projects/recipes here!