Holiday Gift Ideas for Tool Lovers and DIY Fans

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Holy cow! How is this year going by so fast? How is it already December? I have a confession: I am a horrible procrastinator. I haven't bought a single Christmas gift yet. 

My twin boys are ten years old now and that means they are still super easy to shop for. We draw names for the extended family, so that means we only have a couple people to shop for there as well. My husband on the other hand, he's the tricky one. He's a super handy guy and possibly loves tools as much as I do. I combed through HomeDepot.com and made a list of gift ideas in every price range. Truth be told, it's really just a collection of my favorite tools and gadgets and several new items I'm itching to buy for myself. 

If you have a tool lover or DIY fan on your holiday list, keep scrolling and feel free to add those things you've been needing to the shopping cart as well. 

Ryobi 3/8 Inch VS. Ridgid 1/2 Inch Impact Wrench Head to Head

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

Alright guys, it's been a while but it's time to talk tools again!

Unless you do a lot of mechanical work or heavy duty construction, you might not be familiar impact wrenches. Easily confused with an impact driver, and impact wrench has a  male stud as opposed to a  female collet or chuck. They are designed to accommodate sockets, not bits. Traditionally, impact wrenches were pneumatically powered and often found in mechanic's shops. 

I own a couple impact wrenches and I actually use them WAY more than I thought I would. They are extremely powerful tools that can be used for a number of different jobs.

DIY Modern Plywood Nightstand | Video Tutorial + Building Plans

*This post is sponsored by Kreg Tool and The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links. 

My sister is getting ready to move into a much smaller house and needed some new furniture to match the new home's more petite scale. Good thing she has a sister who loves to build furniture. 

I've been wanting to try a project with a continuous grain, mitered edge design that kinda creates a waterfall effect. It's traditionally a more advanced technique, but since I've been using my Adaptive Cutting System from Kreg  more and more, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to test this tricky design element out. 

NO WELD Metal & Glass End Table | Brazing Aluminum

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

I know. The idea of welding is scary. I think professional welders encourage that idea to keep people away from it and keep paying them for all their metal fabrication needs. The truth is, my husband taught me how to weld years ago and I was SHOCKED to learn that it's not nearly as hard as it looks. It takes lots of practice to get the feel of it and produce pretty looking welds, but it's not too hard to get two pieces of steel to stick together. Now, even with that being said, I'm sure many of you are reading this and saying "I don't care what you tell me Elisha, there is no way I'm ever going to try welding". Well, there's good new for you my friends. You have other options. 

Have you ever heard of brazing aluminum? Admittedly, it's is a lot more limited than welding and doesn't work on steel, but brazing gives you the option to join metal together without having to purchase an expensive machine or have lots of technical experience. I've been wanting to experiment with different materials lately, and that's what I just did on this modern aluminum pipe and glass end table. 

Outdoor Sofa with Hidden Storage | BUILDING PLANS

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

I know building outdoor furniture in September may sound crazy to you, but here in the desert, our weather is just starting to get nice. In fact, its a bit too warm for my taste during the day, but the evenings have started to cool down a little, which means it's time for grilling and entertaining outdoors again. Even though I built us a cool wood and glass outdoor table a couple years ago, we've never really had someone comfortable to sit on the patio. I figured it was time to build a outdoor sofa / couch, but I had a couple requirements. 

Let's think about it. Patio sofas are great, but what are the downsides? The cushions are ALWAYS dirty. No one wants to sit on dusty, or wet upholstery. Also, have you ever had an unexpected wind storm sweep in the blow your cushions into the pool? When I started to sketch up the sofa design, I knew it had to involve some hidden storage for the cushions and pillows. 

Epoxy Resin + Wood Live Edge Hair Comb | Video Tutorial

*This post is sponsored by The Home Depot. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

It's hard when your best friend lives on the opposite side of the country. But when your best friend is an insanely talented DIY blogger and YouTuber, you find excuses to go see her for a "collaboration". Somehow, this is actually the second collab Sam From DIY Huntress and I partnered on this summer. The first was that segmented round coffee table Foureyes Furniture helped us build. 

While I was on the east coast last month, Sam and I took a road trip down to Philadelphia to learn from woodshop master/ best teacher ever - Erik Curtis. Erik took Sam and I under his wing and showed us some more advanced woodworking techniques. We learned SO MUCH! It was awesome. All three of us created our own version of the same project, which I'll be sharing in a few weeks. So keep an eye out! 

EASY No Sew Tufted Bench Hack | Video Tutorial

*This post is sponsored by Arrow Fastener. I have been compensated for my time and provided with product or payment in exchange. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Remember 2013 and how everyone had to have a tufted headboard? That was back when I was building custom furniture for other people and I got a lot of practice making them. I wrote a Easy Tufting Tutorial years ago (I was a baby blogger back then. Don't judge the horrible photography!) but figured it was time to finally publish a video. 

Even though styles seem to be moving more into contemporary waves, I think tufting is classic and still has a place. I built a simple, modern upholstered bench from some leftover plywood and was able to incorporate a tufted cushion. Check out the video below for the full process or to see the pretty photos and get more info, keep scrolling.