Dollar Tree Leash Holders

Hello everyone and Happy Sunday! Today we have another Dollar Tree DIY. I was hanging out with my mother recently and she gave me some pieces that she had from the Dollar Tree that she did not end up using. She had a project in mind for these, leash holders, and I ran with her vision! What we were working with was some bamboo cutting boards, some thin wooden pieces and some metal tool hooks.

The cutting boards were a little thinner than the screws that came with the tool hooks so the plan was to add the additional wood pieces to make a thicker surface to screw into. I painted one side of the wooden planks with some black chalk paint.

I then used some brown wax to seal the chalk paint and used some wood glue and clamps to adhere the wood pieces to the cutting boards.

Once the wood glue had dried, it was time to start drilling into the bamboo and this is where things started to go awry with this project! I learned through this project that bamboo is fairly difficult to drill through and is a pretty tough wood overall. I had a few instances where I needed to make new holes as I tried drilling screws into my pilot holes and the screws ended up breaking, with the top snapping off and the bottom being left in the wood.

​I originally had 5 cutting boards, but ended up having to scrap one completely that simply would not cooperate with me. What I learned was that I had to use a larger pilot hole than I was used to for the size of screw I was using. To give a visual, the drill bit on the right is what I typically use for the screw size I had, but the drill bit on the left is what I ended up having to use.

Once I got the hooks screwed in on the front, I added some sawtooth hangers on the back. These also fought back a little and for a few I had to try several attempts at making holes. The backs of the cutting boards all had some visible holes or screws poking through from my debacle with the screws on the front.

To help cover this up and to finish off the backs, I used some adhesive cork. I added some Gorilla Glue in the holes to help seal the screws in and added some Super Glue on the back of the cork to really keep it in place.

Finally it was time for the finishing touch. As I mentioned above, my mother's original plan for these was leash holders so I thought it would be cute to cut out a little phrase to put on the front of each with the Cricut. I used some fun shiny vinyl I had on hand and cut out the phrase "Time for a walk ..." in 4 colors.  

And here are the final products! I'll be honest, I can't decide if I like how these came out or not. There are some things that I like and some that I don't and I'm still figuring out how I feel overall. The plan is to take these to some craft fairs and maybe they will end up on the Etsy shop as well. If they do I will let you guys know! 

Let me know what you think about these in the comments below! 

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Blue Bird:
www.pexels.com/search/dog/?orientation=landscape​