One circle is boring, many circles are...?

September 21, 2010 10:49 AM

Please help me to devise some crafty ideas for some boring, round boards!

I've got 34 of round 6" diameter pine boards. They're approx 3/4" in depth and have a 1/4" hole drilled in the center. I think they were going to be the wheels in some other craft project.

As luck would have it, 90% of my walls are empty.

Aside from just painting and hanging these bad boys, what else can I do with them?

Thanks!

posted by Zoyashka to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

Paint some of 'em with chalkboard paint. Put circles of peel-and-stick magnet material on others. Cut whiteboard material to fit still OTHERS. Drive a nail or a big decorative pushpin through each of them. Hang 'em on the wall and use it to map out all of your ideas/projects/plans, and use big chunky strings of yarn to "connect" certain circles to other, related ones.
posted by julthumbscrew at 10:52 AM on September 21, 2010

little sundials?
posted by jquinby at 10:53 AM on September 21, 2010

(And corkboard on some of them - cork is lovely!)
posted by julthumbscrew at 10:54 AM on September 21, 2010

These would lend themselves to certain kinds of uses which may or may not arise in your case. For example, suppose you acquire or scavenge a table top to which you would like to attach legs, but the built-in screws for the legs are longer than the thickness of the table top, or perhaps the table top is made of particle board and it just isn't strong enough to support the screws anway, whether it is thick enough or not. So, glue on the round pieces of pine in each corner, then you can screw in the legs through the convenient hole already drilled in the center (which, depending upon the type of screw you are using, might have to be enlarged). Other than tables, there are also stacking wooden boxes which often benefit from the addition of feet of some kind; these round wooden pieces are perfectly suitable for that use. What if you have no wooden boxes. There is nothing simpler to build, and you can build them out of virtually any kind of wooden or particle board or fiber board material you can scavenge - people throw tons of the stuff away every day. Of course it's a lot of effort, but you have the deep emotional satisfaction of having performed an act of recycling.
posted by grizzled at 11:00 AM on September 21, 2010

Buy some cheap curtain rods and create the WORLD'S BIGGEST ABACUS.
posted by phunniemee at 11:04 AM on September 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

Archery Targets.
Lollipop Lawn-Ornament Sculptures.
Interesting lily-pad rafts if you live by the water.
Lazy-Susan style shelving.
posted by not_on_display at 11:10 AM on September 21, 2010

Turntable for miniature railroad. Doll carousel. I thought of this because, if you are prepared to make lazy-susan style shelving out of 6" diameter wooden disks, you are already in the realm of miniatures.

not_on_display's suggestion of lollipop lawn ornaments sounds good, although we don't know if you actually have a lawn or would want to decorate it. But perhaps you do.
posted by grizzled at 11:18 AM on September 21, 2010

Upholster them with complementary fabrics and mount on the wall.
Connect with wire and create a giant mobile.
Make a potted plant stand (or just use an existing stand and the wooden wheels can be the shelves).
posted by jddizzle at 11:47 AM on September 21, 2010

Response by poster: As an accountant, I am LOVING phunniemee's idea!

Some really good ideas here, I've got some planning to do!
posted by Zoyashka at 12:08 PM on September 21, 2010

I'd probably just get some wood stain, stain them in a coordinating color with your walls, and mount 12 of them (depending on available area) on a wall in a geometric rectangular arrangement, especially in a minimalist room with other "earthy" accents. I can totally imagine this in some fashionable architecture magazine...
posted by dreamyshade at 12:20 PM on September 21, 2010

You could make room dividers or window coverings by making long chains of circles and hanging them from the ceiling.
posted by TooFewShoes at 3:38 PM on September 21, 2010

Decoupage is easy and quick. Examples here and here.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 5:48 PM on September 21, 2010

Make at least one of them into a cool clock. You can get clock mechanisms at craft stores pretty cheaply. Then you could paint, decoupage, stain, whatever a cool looking clock face to match your decor. Search google images for clock faces, or numbers, and decoupage the results onto the face.
posted by wwartorff at 6:33 PM on September 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Paint them different pastels colors, stack them up, wrap them in a clear vinyl shower curtain and make the world's largest roll of Smarties.
posted by julthumbscrew at 7:21 PM on September 21, 2010