No Turning Back

A few days ago I read a blog by Bev at flamingotoes . She had posted about a starburst mirror for her dining room. Well, we all know I love my sunburst mirror I made for my bedroom. Well when I saw Bev's, I had to have one...isn't it pretty?? Good job Bev!



Flamingo Toes

 Well, what this girl likes, this girl makes...so I went about gathering supplies...I thought this would be sooo easy...hit a few thrift stores, gather up a few spoons, knives, forks..what could be easier?? Well, let me tell you...I had a hell of a time trouble!

I hit my favorite junk store first (Class n' Trash on South Main St)...there I found a crap load lots of butter-knives. I had to spread them all out to find a few that matched

Luckily they know me there so it wasn't a big deal to take over the floor like that (thanks Diane & Mike). I ended up with these..pretty nice, huh?

The amazing thing (at least to me) was that their spoon & fork collection was nonexistent less than impressive. I think there were a few random forks (half of which were plastic) and maybe a random spoon..yes, that's spoon, as in singular! Aye, now what? Off to the Salvation Army...OMG! are you serious, all they had was ONE fork...yeah, ONE!! (Side note, I did find some clear contact paper for another project..YAY!) So anyway, what the heck is going on here?? So then I said Goodwill will solve my problem..nope! Savers..oh, no, not them either! I found a few forks at Yellow Brick Road in Carmel, but other than that...NOTHING! This was turning into a FAIL...In the end, Grandma saved me again. She let me pilfer her utensil supply..woo hoo, hooray, for grandmas!!

So now that I had all my utensils ready..I cut out my cardboard circles...I went the "el cheapo" route like Bev did..I figured, if it worked for her, it would work for me! Silly naive girl!

Bev & I both cut out two circles and hot glued them together. I also added masking tape around the edges, so that the edges would look cleaner.

Next I had to choose a layout for my utensils

I numbered them so that when I took them off, I'd know which order they went in..I'm a control freak smart like that. (but not smart enough to wash them before putting the tape on...yeah, tape comes off in water..duh!)

Anyway, once you figure out what pattern you like..start hot gluing them down...

and when you're done with that...add more glue..no, no...way more than that! We're talking MEGA glue!

Nice, huh? Yeah, I know..it looks yucky, but it won't for long....

Now, here's where I deviated from Bev's startburst design. Instead of putting a plate and mirror in the center, I wanted a monogram. After reading House of Hepworths 's blog and seeing all her wonderful "H" monograms, I realized that my new initial (the very wonderful Z) didn't get its fair share of the spotlight, so I wanted a white Z on a black background...

I printed out the Z I wanted from my computer and made a stencil

I printed it out on cardstock & taped the back of the paper with masking tape to make it a bit sturdier

All I had to do know was put the stencil over my painted wooden circle & paint over it with white paint

Now if you're impatient like me, the paint will smear when you lift off the stencil..I suggest you wait until the paint is dry. Learn from me people...

This is what it looked like when it finally dried

I sealed it with Mod Podge

Those lines dry clear, no worries.
 I placed my monogram on the utensils and got ready to glue it down. It should have looked like this

Did you notice I used the word should? Well, that's because it didn't work. The utensils had stayed glued at different heights so it was an uneven surface. After thinking on it a bit, I channeled MacGyver and came up with the idea to cut out an inner circle to even things out.

I think Richard Dean Anderson would be proud! So I glued that down and added more glue for my monogram...

FAIL..epic FAIL!! Apparently the "wood" that the monogram circle was made of didn't get along well with hot glue..what?? I though hot glue was the sh*t best!

What to do now?? Well, no turning back...the next day I went back to Class n' Trash & picked out a plate

This one was made of metal. I taped off the rim because it had a nice silver edge & I didn't want to spray paint over it. Instead of black I chose Oil Rubbed Bronze by Rust-oleum

That little wire thing is the plate hanger that I also sprayed because I don't like that you can see them against the plate once they are hung.

After the drying time, I stenciled my Z again.

and again, I pulled the stencil off too early so it got a bit messed up smudged on the top curve. Darn my impatience!

And I will admit I glued the plate onto the base before it was dry. I had already smudged it so I figured oh well...After all the set backs, I wanted this sucker up on my wall already...

and here it is...

I think it looks better than the wooden one, no?

Have you ever had an "epic fail" turn into a "better than the original"??

Oh, and in case you're wondering...this whole project only set me back a few hours and some grey hair about $7, give or take a fork or two... so thanks Allison (House of Hepworth) & Bev (Flamingo Toes). I hope I did you proud. Thanks for the inspiration

~Bernadette



Linking To:

flamingotoes
Under the Table and Dreaming
todayscreativeblog

Because Grandma Gave It To Me, That's why!

Years ago my grandmother gave me a three drawer dresser because I happened to mention that I thought it was cute...

Right away she said, "You like it? Take it." She says that all the time, so you have to be careful about what you complement her on. If you tell her you like her blouse or earrings, same thing. "You like it? Take it" Suddenly she's insisting you pack a bag with all the things you said you liked. Aye, Grandma!

Anyway, she gave me this dresser and for years it served as my tv stand in my bedroom. When I got married, it was one of the things I wanted to take with me, but I knew it needed a little bit of a makeover.

Here it is before: (I forgot to take a picture of it before taking the drawers out)

See? It has a cute shape, but the paint has got to go!! Pronto! Grandma says that a friend of hers painted it black for her. The paint looked like a dark chocolate color..somewhere between black & brown..closer to yuck, after all these years of tv holding... It looked so beat up & old that several people told me I should just junk it and buy a new one.

Of course I said, NO. As in no way Jose..uh-uh! Not gonna happen! Grandma had given me this dresser & I was going to make it beautiful...even if it killed me. In case you haven't realized yet, I don't like being told what to do or not to do for that matter...I have a bit of a problem with authority if you must know. lol..just kidding..I'm a total sweetheart...hmm..what to believe, right?

So if I was going to prove people wrong...it was time to get down to business.

I took the drawers out and stripped the paint off. My plan was to strip the whole dresser body & drawers so that I could stain it to match our other pieces of furniture in our bedroom. Our other stuff is a deep red mohogany.

three drawers & ugly brown knobs

that bubbly stuff is the paint stripper going to work

So after many, many, many coats of stripper on the drawers, I realized that stripping the dresser body was going to take waaaay too long..

So PLAN B was born...I decided painting the dresser body & drawers was the way to go. When DIYing, you have to have a plan B because plan A doesn't always work. In fact, I find that it hardly ever does, but that's ok.

I decided to paint the body the same color of the accent wall in our bedroom, Valspar's Flint (a deep grey,) partly because it would stand out against the lighter wall color & mostly because that happened to be the paint I had handy. Now I mentioned that this is an old dresser, right?  So the drawers were a bit...umm..we'll say..falling apart, crumbling in my hands...loose?...Nothing this DIYer can't fix & definitely nothing I'll admit to the "non-believers!" Those people that said it couldn't be done; that is wasn't worth the effort..ppfuh! What do they know?? Nothing, I tell ya!

So I glued all the seams so that they would be re-enforced and my undies wouldn't fall out the bottom..That would be bad! After the glue dried, I started painting the drawers first since they were already stripped & sanded. I had sanded out all the dings & scratches using a 220 grade sandpaper for my Black & Decker Mouse sander...I love that thing. Its the only kind of mouse I don't mind having in my house. The others send me running!!
Here's what I used:

After setting the drawers aside to dry, I started in on the body of the dresser. I still wanted a bit of the red mohogany, so that this piece wouldn't completely clash with the other furniture in the room. I decided that no matter what the top of the dresser looked like, I was going to stain it. I stripped it, sanded it &...found a bunch of permanent stains. Grrr..I knew they were permanent because I tried, repeatedly, to sand them out...didn't happen. Oh well, I had already said I was going to stain it no matter what, so I wasn't going to move on to plan C. I was sticking to plan B & that was that!! After sanding the top,  I lightly sanded the body & then painted the body it's cool new "flint" color.

This is what the top looked like:

Can you see the stains??

Ahh..there they are! Still, they aren't that bad...really!

Especially when you compare them to this other beauty mark:

Maybe the new drawer pulls will distract the eye from the missing corner..you think??

See? What missing corner?? Barely even noticable!

I don't see it anyway..

This project took a bit of time since the rain and my CTEBVI conference got in the way, but I think it was so worth it. I love having something that belonged to my grandmother. I mean, I know its not from when she was a girl & it really has no sentimental value for her, but it does for me now..it was grandma's & now it's mine..someday it'll go to...I don't know..some possible child yet to be born, who knows?!

For the time being, it'll live here:

Lots better, right? I certainly think so..I bet Grandma will too...

Ahh...feels good to be finished..

Wonder what else I can re-finish...hmmm...

Linking To:

skip to my lou

missmustardseed
bluecricketdesign
It's a Keeper Thursday

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