Easy Dollar Tree DIY Crafts to Upgrade Your Home Decor! Beginner Friendly Crafts Anyone Can Do!

The next time you're at the Dollar Tree, pick up a few boxes of the Tumbling Tower Blocks and I'll show you how you can use them in your crafts and your DIYs. Before I get into the crafts, I want to show you a few things that come in handy when you're using these Tumbling Tower Blocks. I like to pick up a bottle of wood glue from the Dollar Tree for gluing these together. I also use hot glue too, it just depends on what I'm making. I also use a T-square, this just helps when I'm gluing blocks together to line them up more evenly, and anytime I am using hot glue, I usually put a silicone sheet underneath just to catch anything that might ooze out. And every once in a while I do need the blocks to be shorter than how they come, so I do keep a pair of these miter shears on hand and with a little bit of extra pressure they do cut right through the Tumbling Tower Blocks, but you could use a mini hand saw as well. This year I'm all about using up what I already have in my craft room, and as you can see here I've been hanging on to this calendar since 2022, so I thought it would be time to use it up. The reason I bought this calendar in the first place was because I really loved all of the images in it and I think they would make great pieces of wall decor. I want to get all of the images separated first, so I'm taking the staples out of the calendar just to easier to cut everything down. Once I had the staples removed, then I was able to slide the pages right into my paper trimmer and just cut the images off so that I had 12 different images to work with, so essentially you could make 12 different pieces of wall decor. Because this was an unopened calendar, there was a piece of cardboard inside and I was able to reuse that to back up my image. I would suggest doing this because the paper from these calendars is fairly thin and I think it would just make it more sturdier if you had something behind it. So like I said, I'm using the thin cardboard that came inside of it, but you could use cereal boxes. I think that cardboard would be strong enough to back the paper up on. Now I'm using some double sided tape here just to stick down my image. Because this paper is so thin, I was afraid to use something like mod podge or a super wet glue because I think it would warp and wrinkle the paper, but something like a double sided tape won't affect the paper at all. Because this cardboard was just slightly smaller than my image, I did have to go around and cut off any of the excess. You can use the tumbling tower blocks to frame out the entire image, but I just wanted to create two pieces, one for the top and one for the bottom, to make it look like a hanging sign. So I gathered up six of the darker tumbling tower blocks that come in the pack and I'm just hot gluing them end on end. The reason I'm choosing to use hot glue here instead of wood glue is because it's just going to be hanging on the wall. Nobody's going to be picking it up or moving it around or anything like that, so the hot glue is good enough for this type of project. And like I said, I need one piece for the top of my picture and one piece for the bottom, so I created two rows of six blocks. Also keep in mind you can paint or stain these blocks any color you'd like. It just so happens that the image I picked out of my calendar, these darker brown blocks matched really well, so I didn't have to do anything to them. Now I just needed to attach my rows to my image, so I'm running a thin bead of hot glue along the bottom to start, and you can see I glued six blocks together which gave me just a little bit of overhang on each side, and then I repeated that on the top. I ran a thin bead of hot glue and laid my row of blocks into it. You could just add a piece of jute cord or jute rope to your frame to hang it, but I wanted to dress mine up with some wooden beads, so I added some hot glue to one end of my jute cord and I let it cool down for a couple of seconds, and then I rolled it between my fingers just to make it come to a point so that I could easily string on my beads. After I had 10 beads strung onto my jute cord, then I flipped my sign over and on the back side I hot glued one end of my cord to one corner, and I secured that in place with some clear tape, and then I hot glued the other side in and did the same thing with the clear tape. I've only put 10 beads on my cord because I slid five beads to one side and five beads to the other, and then I just had plain rope in the middle for hanging. After you've created your wall hangings with your calendar pages, have a look at the back side of the calendar and see if you have the mini images like mine does. I thought these images were really cute on their own and I figured they would make some really cute magnets. Now the nice thing is the cover page of this calendar is a lot thicker, it's more like a cardstock, so I wasn't worried about the paper being too thin to create anything with. I started by cutting all 12 of the images out using my paper trimmer. It doesn't really matter if you use the dark blocks or the light blocks because you're not really going to see much of them anyway, but I did find that three blocks was a good size for these mini images. I hot glued them side by side and then rather than using hot glue to glue the image down, I'm just using some double-sided tape. I put a good amount on the back side and then added it to the front of my little block stack, and I used a bone folder to burnish it down to make sure that image was really stuck in place. There was a little bit of excess paper around the edges of my blocks, so you have two options. You could either use a sanding block and just sand off the excess paper for a more distressed look, or you could just flip it over and use a utility knife to cut away the excess. The last thing I needed to do was add some magnets to the back side. So I have these adhesive magnetic sheets in my craft room and I wanted to get those used up, and they're really easy to cut with scissors, so I was able to just cut a few pieces down and add it to the back side. The good thing is is these tumbling tower blocks are not that heavy, so you don't need a good strong heavy magnet to hold them up. This little thin magnetic sheet was plenty. It held the block up fine on my refrigerator when I tested it out. Also keep this in mind if you need a gift for somebody. I think it would be really cute to make a wall hanging out of one of the calendar pages and then make them a little mini magnet that coordinates with it. I'm so excited to let you know that this video is part of a collab hosted by my friend Lisa over at Crafting My Best Life with Lisa. She asked me to be a co-host this month and I'm really excited. It gave me a good opportunity to go through my stash and figure out what things I need to use up. So make sure you check out the description box below. I'll have a link to the playlist so you can check out all of the other creators videos and I'll also have a link to Lisa's channel so you can check her out if you haven't already heard of her. Thank you again Lisa for inviting me to be a co-host this month. Now let's get back to crafting. When I first started my YouTube channel I made a set of coasters using the tumbling tower blocks and in case you missed that video or you weren't hanging out with me then I want to show you how to do that again. I'm also going to show you how to create a carrier for these coasters so that you can keep them organized in your home or you could give the entire set as a gift. In addition to the blocks I'm going to be using some rub-on transfers and then for the back of my coasters I'm either going to put cork or felt whatever you have on hand will be fine. For each coaster I'm going to need 12 blocks all together so I'm starting with some wood glue here and I'm just gluing three blocks side by side and I'm going to repeat that three more times so that I have four sets of three blocks. I'm using wood glue for this project because it will hold up better than hot glue would on these tumbling tower blocks. Since you know you're going to be moving coasters around you're going to be picking them up putting them away they're going to be handled quite a bit so the wood glue will just ensure that they stay together longer than if you were to use hot glue. Once I had my four bundles of three blocks glued together I'm going to use wood glue again and I'm going to stagger how I'm gluing them together. So you can see in the left hand corner I have my three blocks facing up and down so the next set of blocks that I'll glue next to it they're going to be horizontal and then I'm going to make that opposite on the bottom as well so instead of having my vertical blocks on the left hand side I'm going to make sure that my vertical blocks are on the right hand side and my horizontal blocks are on the left side. So each corner of my coaster the blocks are going to be going in a different direction. I chose not to paint or stain my coasters because I like how the natural wood looks with these rub-on transfers that I'm using. I get these from essentialstencils.com and they're really easy to use and the patterns and designs on them are so pretty. So I picked out four of the flowers that I liked and the ones that I thought fit the best on this size of coasters and I just went through with a craft stick and I started rubbing the sheet down until my transfers were completely on my coaster. If you don't have rub-on transfers this would be a good place to use up any kind of stickers you might have in your paper crafting stash or this would be a good place to use up any pretty paper napkins that you have you could just mod podge them right to the front of them. I wanted to add the backer onto my coasters before I started sealing the top and I do have one of these adhesive cork sheets on hand from the Dollar Tree. I measured my coaster and three and a half by three and a half inches is a good size for a backer. So whether you have this cork sheet or if you're just going to use felt that's the size that you'll want to cut your pieces down to. I like using these cork sheets because they do have an adhesive back and it is pretty strong. I've used it quite a bit before and I've not had any issues with it not sticking well so I was able to peel the backer off of my cut down cork sheet and just apply one piece to the back side of each of my coasters. I wanted to seal in that rub-on transfer and protect the surface of my coasters so I'm using some mod podge and I'm just going to apply two coats to each coaster making sure that the first coat dries really well before putting on my second coat. The last time I made a set of coasters a few of you suggested that I use the dishwasher safe mod podge to heat protect the coasters a little more and that is a great idea and I will definitely be doing that in the future but in the interest of using up what I already have I'm going to use up my matte mod podge and then I'll look into getting the dishwasher safe mod podge. While my mod podge was drying I wanted to create a box to hold all of my coasters so to create the four sides of my box I'm just gluing together eight blocks side by side and I'm going to repeat that three more times so that I have four sets of eight blocks glued together. Then I just needed to connect all four pieces to create a box and this is where that t-square comes in handy. I laid one of my panels down on the bottom I added a little hot glue to the side of the second panel and then I placed it in the t-square to make sure that it was lined up nice and straight. Now I'm using hot glue for this part because it is just going to be a box that holds the coasters so I feel like the hot glue is enough to hold everything together. Once I had three of the sides glued together then I went on the inside of the box and ran another bead of hot glue just to give it a little more stability and security and then to attach my final fourth side I just added hot glue to the long ends and attached my fourth side laying it into the t-square to make sure that it was nice and straight. If you're feeling really ambitious you could create a bottom for your box out of the tumbling tower blocks also but I wanted to make my life a little bit easier and I was also running out of time to craft on this day so I'm just using some craft sticks. I cut them down to the size that would fit across my box and then just using a little hot glue I spaced them out across the bottom of the box. There was a little bit of gap in between each stick but that was okay because the coasters were big enough that they wouldn't fall through anyway. You can decorate your box however you want. I wanted to keep mine simple so I'm just using some jute cord and I wrapped it around about three times. I added a little hot glue here and there just to make sure that it wouldn't slide around and then I also tied a simple bow out of the same jute cord and placed it on the one side. Now this box is big enough you could either lay the coasters flat inside of it or you could set them in on an angle to make it look more like a display. I love adding greenery and florals to my home decor at this time of year and I'm sure you're like me and you probably have a couple empty cans laying around. I grabbed one of the larger ones and I'm going to be using both colors of the tumbling tower blocks. Now this step isn't necessary but I did want to cover up my can a bit so you wouldn't see that metal peeking through. I'm just using some craft paper and I taped it on to start and then I used some hot glue as I was rolling it around the edges. Once I cut off the excess and used some clear tape to hold it in place I started cutting tabs on both ends and on the open end I added some hot glue to the inside and tucked all my tabs towards the inside and on the bottom I just used some hot glue and folded my tabs into it. You could paint your can if you wanted to but since I already had some craft paper laying around I just thought this would be easier. You can make this planter whatever size you'd like so don't worry if you don't have the same size can that I do. So no matter what size object you're using, whether it's a can or a jar or a vase, I started with one color of the tower blocks and I started laying them so that they would go around my can. So you can see I placed a bunch of them down on my silicone mat here. I lifted out the can and I reformed the shape. None of my blocks touched and that was okay. If your blocks do touch that's fine too. I just wanted to make sure that my can would slide in and out of that size ring fairly easily. Now without moving any of my blocks I'm just adding some hot glue and I'm moving on to my second color. You can make yours all the same color if you'd like but I thought it would look pretty if I alternated the colors. You can see here I'm just using some hot glue and I'm laying my second row of blocks in between my first row and I'm being really careful not to move around my blocks too much because I want to make sure that I keep that same shape as I'm going around. So once I had my second row in place I put my can back down inside just to make sure that it would keep sliding in and out with no resistance and then I just started working my way up until I got the height that I liked and I alternated colors each time I went around the rows. I tried to make sure that I was stacking the blocks up correctly and I wasn't losing the shape as I moved my way up. Sometimes I would have to adjust it here or there but the important thing to remember is after you finish a row or after you finish two rows you take whatever you're using whether it's a can or a jar and slide it back down inside just to make sure that it's going to keep fitting as you keep moving up. If you start to feel like there's a little resistance as you're sliding it in and out that may be because you're starting to tilt the blocks inward and you're closing in on your shape so on the next row just try to make your blocks go more towards the outside and it should correct itself. Now I did quite a few rows on mine because I wanted it to go up over the top of my can so you really wouldn't see it so I created mine so that it was high enough that I had two rows going above the top of my can. After I had all of my blocks glued together I did have a lot of little glue strings hanging about so I just took my heat gun and I started running it around the edges. This takes care of any of those little glue strings that you might have going on and anywhere that maybe it dripped a bit you can heat it up with the heat gun and then remove some of the excess. Just be careful when you're doing this because these heat guns do get pretty hot and you don't want to burn any of your fingers or your hand while you're trying to remove those glue strings. Now I like the look of this planter as is I like the alternating colors but I thought it would be fun to give it a little more character with some handles so I took some of this thinner jute cord that I get from Amazon. I cut two lengths the same and I tied a knot in one end of the rope and cut the excess off right at the tip of the knot and then I just hot glued it on to one side of my basket. I tied a knot on the other side as well doing the same thing cutting off the excess and then I was able to hot glue that other end to create a handle. Then I moved to the opposite side of my planter and added my second handle. Now I can just slip this can in and add whatever flowers or greenery I want to it and I'll be able to switch it out for the different seasons or the different holidays. I saw this wooden butterfly cut out at the Dollar Tree and I thought it would look so pretty in a frame so I also picked up a two pack of the 11 by 14 stretched canvases that you can usually find in the plus section. I started by removing the canvas material from the frame. I'm just using a utility knife here. Sometimes I like to take the staples out of the back side of the frame but for this project I knew I would cover them up so it didn't matter if they were there or not. I've used these frames a lot in different craft projects. They're always a great way to frame out something that you think is really pretty but I wanted to make this one look a little more interesting. So with my tumbling tower blocks I'm starting in the bottom right hand corner. I hot glued one block down right in the corner and then next to it I hot glued two blocks together and I'm gluing that next to it. So I centered the two blocks within the one block and then I just repeated that the whole way across the frame. So you can see I have one block then a set of two then another single block and then a set of two and I went the whole way around the frame with this. Now in some of the corners the blocks didn't quite meet but because I'm using that wooden frame it all blended together and I think this pattern just gave a little more interest to my frame. And keep in mind this is another one of those times where you can choose to paint or stain this however you'd like. I do like the natural wood color of this but I thought I would step out of my comfort zone and do something a little bit different. We actually had a sunny day here in PA so I went outside and I gave both my butterfly and my frame two coats of a satin finish black spray paint. I was so glad that I was able to spray paint these. I think whenever you have intricate little parts like the cutout on the butterfly or the different areas of the frame it just makes it so much easier to spray paint it rather than trying to hand paint it. After my paint was nice and dry it was time to put everything together. I cut down a scrap piece of cardboard that was slightly smaller than my frame and I was able to use some hot glue around the edges of it and I glued it back down on top of that canvas material that I had originally removed from the frame. I used scissors to cut off all of the excess canvas material from my backing piece and then I was able to just use some hot glue on the back side of my frame and place the canvas on the back. I added some hot glue to the back side of my butterfly and then I just centered it within the frame. I don't usually use a lot of black when I'm crafting but I really like how this turned out. I think it's a cool modern piece and I really like the interest in the design that the tower blocks give to the frame. Thank you again to Lisa for inviting me to co-host the craft your stash collab this month. Make sure you check out the link in the description box below so you can have access to the whole playlist and see what everyone else made. Thanks so much for coming to hang out in the craft room with me again today. If you haven't already I would love it if you would subscribe so that you don't miss any of my future videos. All right everyone I hope you have a great week and I'll talk to you in the next one!