Transform Dollar Tree's Ordinary Brooms Into A Mudroom Essential With This DIY

The poet E.E. Cummings referred to spring as "mud-luscious" – what a way to romanticize the sticky, dirty reality of what spring weather will do to shoes and boots. Leave the remnants of outdoor escapades in the mudroom with a smart DIY that relies on a trio of Dollar Tree broom heads. Solidified in a cement block with bristles up, broom heads become an effective and inexpensive shoe-cleaning brush for your mudroom, porch, or garage.

Make this with two or three Dollar Tree Essentials Wide Broom Heads, a bag of cement, and a flexible mold. Grab a bucket, a drill with a concrete mixing paddle, a magic marker, and a plastic container to shape your cement base. Save a step by purchasing a product like Quickrete Concrete Mix that works simply by adding water rather than mixing first. The broom heads are just a bit larger than 12 inches in length and 5 inches in width, so the mold you choose will have to accommodate at least two of these brushes.

Keep in mind that the larger the cement base, the heavier it will be; that will make it less likely to move while you're scrubbing dirty shoes against the bristles. A clever way to reuse your plastic containers in your home is by upcycling one as a mold for the cement. Great candidates are the lids and bases of deli or bakery containers. The plastic lids that come with large disposable aluminum pans can also work well.

Remove the piece on the broom heads that fit over the top of the brush. Set one broom head bristles-up inside your mold, and mark on the side of the mold the height of the brush's plastic base. Before mixing, take some precautions to avoid a concrete mistake that could leave you in serious pain: Keep concrete dust from reacting with the moisture on your skin, eyes, nose, and mouth by wearing protective gear.

Mix up enough concrete to fill the mold. Measure the volume up to the marker line first so you'll know how much concrete to make. Pour in the mixture, and wiggle the mold to ease out air bubbles. Press the broom heads into the concrete far enough so that the mixture covers the base of the bristles. Let it dry for the product's recommended time. Keep your mudroom clean by setting your shoe and boot cleaner on a mat to catch inevitable stray dirt.

To make a shoe and boot cleaner that has more scrubbing power, all you need to do is add more concrete to your mold. The shorter the bristles on a brush, the stronger and more durable they are. Yet, adding more concrete might make your shoe and boot cleaner too bulky. You can pull off the same trick with hand-held brushes meant for intense scrubbing. Lots of hand-scrub brushes have handles that should come off before sinking them into concrete. A hacksaw or a jigsaw should be able to cut handles away with no problem.