I just couldn’t part with $50 of my hard earned cash this close to the holidays. I decided to take on this project as a crafting adventure. I gathered my supplies…

$3.99 styrofoam ball from Michael’s.

$1.75 bag of Navy Beans from Albertsons

My trusty glue gun and of course beverages. This crafter needs creative fuel and the source of it is usually Miller Lite.

I just started gluing the beans all the way around the ball. It was tedious but very easy. If your glue gun has a low setting, I would recommend using it. It keeps the styrofoam burning to a minimum. I tried two different patterns. I glued the beans in the picture below in and up and down pattern.

From there, just keep gluing, just keep gluing! This is what you’ll end up with. A faux shell ball! I think it turned out pretty cute. I switched out our conch shell for this puppy. I love how it looks under the coffee table!

Another view of our sassy new accessory in the living room.

Here’s the second shell ball I made. I glued the beans on long ways (if that makes sense). I like the other pattern more but this took much less time and less beans!

So there you have it. A new use for beans! Have you crafted up anything fancy lately? Maybe used an unconventional ingredient in your latest DIY adventure? Do tell!

Matt went to work so I was on my own. I felt fairly confident taking care of the task solo since I had plenty of past experience with the kitchen and bathroom floors.

I bought a ten pound bag of grout and was ready to mix. The only problem-I didn’t have the mixer attachment for our drill. My step dad had brought that along last time. I didn’t think hand mixing was going to work. What’s a girl to do? Use the kitchen hand mixer. This baby worked like a charm. Adapt and overcome. In case you’re wondering-this is now strictly the “grout mixing mixer.”

It was fairly simple from then on. Just plop on the grout with your grout float. Make sure to get it into all of the cracks. Bower Power has a great tutorial on grouting right now-check it out. 

From there it was just wipe away the excess (see how it looks dirty in the above pic?) and let it dry. We will be adding trim and touching up all of the paint where I got a little out of hand with the grout.

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