Black and White Mod Podge Stool Makeover (With Tutorial!)

A few weeks ago, I had a friend coming over to see my house for the first time. I was (frantically) cleaning the morning before she was supposed to come. (Clarice, if you're reading this, that's a total lie. My house is always immaculately clean. I was lounging on the couch eating organic, designer doughnuts and pirouette rolled wafers without making a single crumb and miraculously not taking in calories for hours and hours before your visit. I swear it.)

I was cleaning the bathroom, and I decided that my white stool was never going to look clean on top and that painting it white was the worst decision of my life. Because, clearly, paint weighs out over anything else, including the credit card debt I started accumulating in college. Nope, nope, white paint on this stool--MUCH, MUCH worse.

I bought it for $5 at an antique shop, and it was clearly someone's shop stool. It had drill marks down through the top. But, I liked it. I think it has charm.

The Before:

The After:

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

A Pretty for My Living Room

The living room of my house was the first I designed in my head. I lost sleep over the thing! I did sketches! I spent hours virtual shopping. I've researched couches and searched and searched for the perfect one. I even posted a mood board of sorts before we even bought our house--you can find it here. I've since changed my mind about the couch. About 30 times.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Picture Ledges (from scrap wood--so basically free!)

David and I are nearly finished with a huge project in the basement family room, which I will show you very soonish. I'm very excited about it and I will give you a clue--it's made out of wood. Soon, my friends, soon.

Anyway, we had some scrap pieces, so I commissioned David to build me some picture ledges out of the scraps. Which apparently annoyed him, as I wanted him to do it while he was building the other thing he was building. I was helping with the other thing he was building here and there, but I was also sitting around sometimes, so I thought it would give me something to paint.

He built them out of MDF and cut the groove in them with the table saw. Then it was a matter of nailgunning the pieces together.

Then I painted quite a few coats.

Then I bugged him again to help me hang them. Apparently, David is a methodical builder who likes to do one project at a time, finish it, and then move onto the next project. I didn't realize that. Technically, I was asking him to help when he wasn't working on the other thing he was building, but oh well. He was nice about it, but he usually doesn't betray that much annoyance with me.

Which reminds me of this morning, actually. I got up when he did (I usually get up right as he leaves for work) and he was in the shower) and I knocked to get into the bathroom. I drank too much water last night right before bed, so I had a bladder about the size and approximate weight of a bowling ball; I hate getting up at night and I probably should have anyway. He was definitely annoyed when he asked what I wanted (we don't technically have a master bathroom--it's across the hall). I said I wanted to use the bathroom and he told me to go downstairs. No way was I using that pit. I make the kids clean it unless we are expecting company (then I double clean it and use highly concentrated cleaners before I will touch it), and I'm not sure when the last time I made them clean it was anyway. We have three boys. Enough said. The bowling ball was staying until he got out the shower.

Apparently he thought I was Maxton.

Anyway, here's some of the stuff I put on it. You can see how I made the dragonfly frame here. The tree and the monogram letters (they are hard to make out in the bottom left corner; I need to set them on something) are from Hobby Lobby. The bird is from Dollar Tree. The frame near the monograms is getting an ampersand and the other two frames will get photos of David and me as soon as I figure out a way to scan our wedding negatives. I never could get my negative scanner to work and I got rid of it.

I don't particularly want to take it to a developer, as it's a medium format negative and I'd like to get them all done and I've only seen 35mm offered. I'm sure I could have it done for a fortune. I'd rather do it myself, but I'd like a negative scanner that would work with my existing scanner and would work with my medium format negatives and I have no idea where to find one. Our photographer let us have the negatives after 5 years--how awesome is that! Just need to have them digitized to make them really useful.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Bedside Table Makeover

Greetings, Faithful Readers!

I have not posted in a while. I have a lot of excuses for this. I'm about to bore you with them. I was finishing up last semester. Enter braggy brag time. I earned an A in my Organizational Effectiveness class. I earned an A- in my Public Speaking class. That minus is making me very, very mad. I could get all ranty about it. I did get all ranty about it to my family. Very often. They are sick of my ranting. I will not bore you with the ranting that I can do. It is impressive ranting. Have you noticed that I am a perfectionist? I am a perfectionist.

Then we did the Christmas thing, which was very nice. I love Christmas.

I have been doing projects. I have been taking pictures of projects. The pictures that I have been taking are not very good pictures due to my broken camera situation, which I have ranted about before (see major themes of this blog lately: perfectionistic tendencies, ranting, broken equipment. Funny, I thought I was writing a crafting blog. Whatever happened to that, anyway?) These less than good pictures have made me reluctant to post to the blog, because I want to show off my projects in the best possible way (I'm thinking that if you google perfectionist, I will be among the top hits).

All that to say--Da-da-dah-DAH!--here's my bedside table that I made over a little while ago for the master bedroom makeover.

David picked up this little guy for free once while buying something else off KSL (the Utah version of Craigslist--it's actually a local TV channel. Not sure why everyone posts stuff to KSL instead of Craigslist, but we do. Quirky Utahans.)

Yeah, yuck. I love that it has three drawers. I need three drawers. The inside of the drawers looked like this:

Again with the yuck. This picture does not show the dirtiness of this drawer.

So, I sanded it down and painted it black and added some wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby (I geeked OUT when I found out we were getting one nearby--I nearly passed out in the car when David pointed it out to me) with mod podge for drawer liners.

Then I added zebra print drawer pulls, also from Hobby Lobby. My goal is to have a touch of zebra print, a mirror and a clock in each room of the house, so here's the zebra print for the master bedroom.

 

Ahhhhh, much better than the before, even if the pictures are not the best and my wires are out of control. I'm going to work on that. . .

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Leaves Paint Treatment in My Master Bedroom

Ages ago, before we even moved into the house, I planned on doing our bedroom in greys, yellows and blacks. I knew I was going to paint the walls grey, the ceiling yellow, put up crown molding and have a grey bedspread. I've been looking for ages for an acceptable king-size bedspread that also didn't require a 2nd mortage. I happened to find a fuzzy grey one at Shopko for $30 not too long ago, more than 1/2 off. It's basically just a huge throw, but it works for me. I'm just happy it didn't cost $300. Eventually, I want to get lots of pillows and make a cheerful quilt to put at the bottom of the bed. I'm thinking I will probably even knit at least one of the pillows.

So, the throw started a chain reaction. Mostly, I've just painted the bedroom and the bathroom grey. I had the idea forever ago to paint the wall opposite our bed with a huge white graphic vine leafy design, so as I painted the room, I had to work out how to do that too. I was pretty darn proud that I figured out how to get it even, with my low tech painter's tape and poster-board template. It's not perfect, but you all are not supposed to notice that, 'kay?

First, I did some rough white as an undercoat. Probably should have just bit the darn bullet and risked the cracked teeth and consequential dental work and painted the whole area white, because it would have saved me work in the end. You can see how pathetically uneven my leaves are here, so when I did the measured ones, parts of the tan showed through. Eventually, David ended up filling in the whole area white for me for the bottom three sets of leaves.

(KEEP SCROLLING, THIS IS NOT THE FINISHED PRODUCT. DISCLAIMER ADDED BECAUSE OF A CERTAIN PERSON IN THE COMMENTS. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!)

Then, I ran a level piece of painter's tape from ceiling to floor. It was of the 3" wide variety. Then I made a template for the angle of the stems, and measured off the spacing of the stems, and used painters tape again for the width.

Then I made a template for the leaves (and extended the angle of the stems up onto the template so it stayed the same) and traced them on the wall and cut in the leaves in with a paint brush. Which was annoying, but not as annoying to me as trying to tape it off and having the tape bleed. And yes, the tape bled on the stems, so I came back with the brush to touch them up. I've heard about various methods to prevent this, but I've never had much luck with them--so rather than go through that, I cut in when I can and touch up when I can't . Maybe I need to buy better tape.

Repeat down for five sets of leaves and about a million coats, and I got this (which I took when it was still wet; it looks a lot more even now):

Another angle (it has low dressers in front of it now, and it looks awesome!):

All this was done between school assignments. When I couldn't stand to work on school anymore, I would paint. When I could stand to paint anymore, I would work on school. It worked well. David did all of the rolling, bless him. I don't like rolling much. I'm going to show the bathroom soon, which looks sooooo much better!

I'm dying to make some curtains for the bedroom. I have a fabric picked out. I fought the idea of making curtains, but I shopped around and discovered the curtains, they are not cheap. This fact was previously unknown to me. I do not own a single curtain. So, I could have generic yellow curtains for the same price as fabulous, beautiful, graphic patterned curtains. Guess which one I am going to pick. Eventually. When I decide I want to spend $100 on curtains for my two bedroom windows. I could probably do yellow curtains for a lot less if I made them myself, but if I'm going to make them myself, I think I will do the amazing ones.

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Tutorial: My Kitchen Message Center

Our van only has one key.

It's one of those with a chip in it, so it costs insane amounts of money to get a 2nd one made, like $100.

I can think of about a million things I would rather spend $100 on than a key to my van. I know I probably should get one, but it never seems to make it to the top of the list.

Anyway, that's to say that we like to leave the keys in a central location. In our last place, we had one of those boring key hooks, which worked well, but I thought I'd get a little more fancy this time.

A while back I bought a utensil organizer from Savers for one fifty, which I mentioned in this post. I thought it would make a great message center (I keep calling a message board, which is just confusing, and poor David is thinking I'm talking about something on the computer, whoops).

Well, I did it and it's hanging in my kitchen on my beautiful green wall. It's not quite that bright in person.

I love green and white together, especially with touches of teal. Sigh.

If you're going to make your own, you're going to need:
Square wooden box of some type
Paint
Cork board
Scrapbook Paper
Mod Podge
Cup hooks
Office organizer
Jute
Something cute to go on top

Step One:
Lightly sand the box. Paint and let dry between coats.

Step Two:
Cut out a piece of pattern paper for any areas you might want to cover. Use a light, even coat of Mod Podge to glue it to the box. Let dry overnight, then put on a top coat.

Step Three:
Add sawtooth hanging hooks to the back. I use two on either side for stability. Next, determine the placement of your ceramic bird. Mine was from Dollar Tree and I use a coat of white to freshen it up. You are going to want to put in a screw coming up to set the bird on. I did this because I was worried if it came unglued that it would fall right off. Make sure the screw is the right size. Drill a guide hole and then attach the screw.

Step Four:
Measure where you want the cup hooks to go. Drill guide holes and then put the hooks in.

Step Five:
Now we are going to work on the office organized parts.

I bought one like this from Savers:

They had two identical ones in different colors, so I think they are probably not too hard to find.

I basically cut it apart with a hack saw. First time to use one and it was kinda fun. Once I had three sections, I used the rotary tool to even up the edges a bit. Then I used the spray paint that sticks to plastic to paint them white. Once I had a few coats on and they were dry, I used hot glue and jute to cover up the not so pretty parts.

Step Six:
I knew I wanted some sort of cork board on the back to pin up notes or messages, so when I found these pot holder things from IKEA, I knew they were perfect.

First, determine placement. Use a quilting ruler and a craft knife to cut through the thickness. Dry fit, then glue in place with liquid nails or other strong glue. I used hot glue, but I'm dubious about how well it's going to hold.

Step Seven:
Glue your office organizer parts in place. Glue on your ceramic animal (I used super glue), making sure it will hang flush with the wall. Hang and start using.

By the way, the fun over-sized and pattern tacks are from Walmart.

Cost Breakdown:
Wood Utensil Organizer--$1.50
Paint--Free (I already had it)
Jute--$1.00
Plastic Spray Paint--$3.00
Office Organizer--$1.00
Cork Hot Pads--$2.99
Ceramic Bird--$1.00
Push pins--$6.00
Hooks--$1

Total: $17.49

Sheesh, those pins were a splurge, but they are so cute!

Linking Up Here:


Tales from Bloggeritaville

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.

Eclectic Picture Wall--My Second House Project

I was going to call this my first project, but I guess I have to let my painted laminate countertops be the first project. I feel like it was first, because I started planning for it the minute our offer was accepted.

I wanted to do something really striking on entering the house. I had this idea to do a lot of different pictures on a wall with a monogram in the middle. I actually started gathering and painting frames weeks ago, and the quilling monogram was the last piece of it.. I didn't pay more than a dollar for any frame, except the middle one, which was $5. I did probably go through two or three cans of spray paint. I actually have a cool idea for how to dress up some of the plainer frames, but that is going to wait for later. Right now, I'm loving it.

I totally splurged on those new Command strips, the picture hanging ones which are sort of velcro-ish and you can take the pictures on and off. I'm so glad I did, although it was probably as much as the frames, because they are all hanging pretty straight, will likely remain so, they are easy to get on and off and I don't worry about the kids knocking them off the wall, AND they were a lot easier to put up than putting nails everywhere.

I knew for a while that I wanted to do teals in the living room. The kitchen is going to have some in it too, since the spaces need to relate to each other. One thing I really love about this house is that the kitchen feels integrated into the living space, but it's not just floating around. It has a defined area too.

Anyway, I wanted to paint the wall behind the pictures teal. It was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to do this, with the way the stairs are set up, with the railing on one side and the half wall on the other, but I finally decided to just paint the long rectangle. I think it works pretty well.

One of the hardest parts was narrowing down the pictures. I think I had 72 in a folder once I finished going through all the pictures since we were married. These are really some of my very favorites.

Also, dang, my kids are CUTE!

So, here's the before:

And the after:

That light fixture has got to go! It's ugly and it doesn't even work.

Oh, and if you're interested, here are the photos I choose.

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Blue Cricket

Me and My Bucket

I've started a new blog: Come follow my crafting adventures on my new blog. Find me at: creativeirony.com.