It was a creative year for upcycling at Birdz of a Feather this year, so let’s have a look at our top 10 year in review projects from 2022! If you want to catch up on these videos, visit our YouTube channel! Or watch this quick reel to see a flip book of projects beyond these 10. 

When Hubs is off for the holidays, there’s nothing better than cozying up to the fire with a good book (now that we’re past the point where our gas fireplace won’t light)! So we started the year with an upcycled magazine rack (click to see the after), and of course a pop of colour to brighten our drab winters! If you’ve been following us for more than a minute, you know we love our Hudson’s Bay Point Blanket Stripes!

Our most unique upcycle was this quirky upcycled book shelf. It’s certainly a fun tongue ‘n cheek interpretation of a ‘book shelf’! And to think it all started from these cast off corner shelves!

We love our plants around here (we even have Christmas plant decor around the holidays) so this Japanese Glass Float provides a stylish way to display them in an old light globe!

Along that same theme, we gave a similar treatment to this sake decanter, turning it into a DIY air plant holder!

Lamp Upcycles

We upcycled not one, but two lamps this year starting with this super easy lampshade makeover DIY. We love thrift shopping! But we also love garage sales! So then we took an old wooden clamp and turned it into a DIY Pipe Lamp. In fact, if you live around the Toronto GTA, you can see it on display at the Ontario Science Centre until January 8th with Emett’s Dream Machines!

Home Decor

This year we got into a painting groove. Even though we had no clue how to use it, we sure had fun experimenting with this tiki set-turned wall decor and got beautiful results after trying the brand new Terra clay paint.

We love playing with colour!  So then we tried Terra Paint on this metal wall planter diy:

Furniture Upcycles

We did even more experimenting with paint this year and I couldn’t wait to learn how to hand paint furniture designs! Again, we’re using Terra Paint on the missing door; isn’t it amazing how many different effects you can get with one type of paint?!

But one of my favourite paint projects was actually creating something for Hubs for his growing vintage sewing machine collection. It started with how to make wood filler look like woodgrain, shown below, but we didn’t stop there 😉 (see how to stencil without bleed)!

I thought my craft stash was enormous. But I think Hubs will soon run us out of the house with his space guzzling hobby. I need to convince him to display some of his restored machines on the wall! Maybe vertical storage is a project to tackle in 2023?

One of my favourite furniture upcycles this year was 30 years in the making! I hemmed and hawed over whether I should paint this wood or not. And finally we went for a happy compromise with this DIY china cabinet makeover.

Having to clear out my mom’s house where it was stored all those years, I was thrilled when someone loved the makeover and took it home. And it’s rewarding to know it will be enjoyed for many years to come!

Honorable Mentions

We spent much of our free time getting my sister’s house ready for market this year (see how to whiten sheets and how to fix scratches on wood floors). But real estate tanked this year after so many consecutive interest rate hikes. So this Hamsa wall decor and acrylic pour painting were not the charms I had hoped they would be in bringing my sister luck in selling her house. However, they still look pretty as part of the staging.

UPDATE: Jan 9; the house sold early in the new year! Now onto packing and moving.

While we wait for good news on the house, we did manage to accomplish a milestone for Birdz of a Feather: our first eBooks on Amazon! We were a little late to hit the holiday season with Crochet Phone Covers: the Christmas Collection. But hopefully Beginner Crochet: Learn the Basic Stitches will raise some money in 2023 for our Crochet for a Cure Alzheimer’s fundraiser started in our mothers’ memories! And there’s only 361 days until next Christmas, so our first book might still pick up momentum next year :).

Pin Top 10 Year in Review

Time allowing, we’ll have our top 10 furniture projects before the new year too! Until then, sharing is caring 🙂

If we don’t post again, on behalf of me and Hubs, wishing you a Happy New Year!