Furniture Upcycle

Here's the latest project! I had a blast refinishing upcycling this old desk into something more beautiful! 

Here's the before picture. Actually this is not quite the desk as you can see mine has a writing slide-out in the front. But being somewhat scatter brained as of late (I'll blame it on the baby) I forgot to take a picture of the before. However, this is almost the same thing. Pine desk from IKEA. Super boring, and kinda ugly... and definitely doesn't match the house decor or vibe we are aiming for around here.

SO.... I crammed it into my little craft room out back. This is a lovely space to work in. It's a little tight for furniture projects, but its all windows which feels awesome and I have a great view of the "mountain" to beat! This room used to be a deck that someone enclosed up with windows so it's a bit of solarium kinda feel. We call it the "inside outside room" and it's the perfect place for your mid morning coffee break. When it's not full of projects that is.

The supplies I used for this upcycle included:

stain: dark walnut (by minwax) This is my go to colour when I want something nice and dark but not too red or grey. It's perfectly warm, but still definitely brown. 

applied with a rag and just rub it right in!

paint: AURA edgecomb grey (by benjamin moore) This was leftover paint from our master bedroom. I originally though I was going to distress this up a bit, but after getting the paint on there I liked it so much I just left it clean. Nice and creamy without being yellow. It compliments the top well. 

applied with a brush. It took 1.5 coats,  but the wood was raw when I started so it really should have been primed first, but I didn't have any kicking around.

Lastly I sealed the top with a semi-gloss varnish to give it some durability and water resistance. I'm so happy with how it turned out! It's NEVER this clean and ALWAYS covered in papers, laptops and other signs of life, but I had to take advantage of the moment ;)

And just for fun a close up of my typewriter. Passed down from my dad from my grandmother. It needs a little bit of a tune up, but it still works. In fact this was the guest book at our wedding!

Now go get creating!
Sarah

Glass Jar Picture Frames

Catching up from last week's missed "Pinteresting" craft of the week.  

I like this because the photos are so easy to change (easier than picture frames even! - and that's saying something) AND you can keep adding to your collection whenever you get an interesting jar. I'm particularly smitten with the tiny jar from a sample of maple butter my sister gave me once <3 p="">

DIY Hanging Mail Organizer

 

This was the first thing I pinned onto a board entitled "Organize My Life Beautifully"... and then promptly didn't organize my life at all... instead I switched jobs, bought a new house, moved, and had a baby and my life got a little less organized. However, we are settled into our new place and my son is now almost 7 months are we are getting back on track. In fact I think all the boxes are even unpacked now!

In any case this was a CHEAP (and easy) project that fulfills a need. My counter & desktops typically have been looking like this as of late: 

And I kinda wanted them to look more like this:

Enter the Hanging Mail Organizer. I should also mention that aside from hating clutter, I also despise dusting. Something I think was perhaps was drilled into my subconscious after many spring cleanings and visits from Grandma throughout my childhood. Dusting was the WORST job! So I didn't want a mail organizer that was another filing system to sit on the desk, but something I could hang on the wall and not have to dust around.  This one was straightforward and and inexpensive.

Total Cost: $1.00 (for the picture frame which I picked up at the thrift store)

Lucky for me this frame already had the perfect worn chabby-chic style I was looking for so I didn't even have to take the time to paint it. But I've seen this done with lovely vibrant colours as well. Really you can make it fit with whatever is going on in your house.

Supplies Needed:

Picture Frame
Fabric  to fit the size of your frame (& trim if you desire)
Staple Gun or Glue

Step 1: Cut your fabric to size with enough spare to wrap around the edges.

Step 2: Accordion fold to create pockets (whatever depth you desire) I wanted deeper pockets for mail, but you could also use more shallower pockets for jewelery or keys, or business cards. And line up any trims desired.

Step 3: IRON. As mentioned in previous posts. I dislike ironing with a passion. But in this case it will only even have to be ironed once and it makes a big difference to the final project.

Step 4:  Staple (or glue) your fabric around to the back. A Staple gun was handy for me, but my staples were a little deep so they poked through to the front. I had to staple close to the edge to hide them
behind the frame. It worked. Next time I would use shorter staples, or a glue gun would probably do the trick just fine!

Step 5: Assemble, Hang, Organize!


Finished Project!

Pin, Lose or Draw? Let me know what you think :)

DIY Never-ending Note Pad

Since I am definitely an old-school kinda pen and paper girl who still uses a grocery list at the store and only very recently made the switch to an e-calendar (mostly so that my husband and I would be on the same wave-length again) this appealed to me :)

Actually it reminds me of my grandma who, when I was a child, I remember having one of these hanging off the wall in her kitchen. Who'd thought to make their own! Now I won't have to take the time to fold and rip pieces of computer paper into appropriately sized smaller pieces that I can clip to the fridge to keep my running grocery list on.

All you need is a roll of paper (any office supply store), a piece of wood, a scrap of scapbooking paper, an elastic band, some glue or tape, a ribbon, and one of those black monster clip things... (what are they called?) It comes together QUICKLY! Like maybe 15 min. Quick and Simple.

So here was the "Pinsperation" for this week's DIY. A hanging never-ending notepad.  And the end result on the right beside it. I think this is a winner :)  (Just ignore the awful peach colour walls in the photo... that will be another weeks project)

 

Jewellery Board Update

A little update on a project from a couple weeks ago. I did eventually get around to adding the burlap/lace bit that I wanted to on my jewellery board. I like it much better :) I originally had found some ribbon scraps that I threw on this piece just to give it a little something extra, but I never did like how it ended up... messy (and not the "cool, purposefully placed messy" just "I found some scraps and threw this together messy")

Envelopes!

I LOVE making & receiving handmade cards and handwritten letters. I'm pretty lousy at the handwritten letters part, but I have a stash of cards just ready to have the perfect occasion come up to send them. When I sit down to make one card I often end up making a few more just because the creative mood as struck. 

If there is one thing to be said for store bought cards though is that they come beautiful bound with matching envelopes the perfect size to store its contents. Oh Hallmark...

I have a whole board on Pinterest devoted to fun card ideas, and have lately realized that there are some mighty cool envelopes out there as well just ready for the making. So I decided to try a couple different styles. Here you go, let me know what you think, if you would use one over the other and definitely pass on some other sweet envelope designs that you have come across.

Envelope #1

This envelope was EASY PEASY and looks beautiful and intricate upon complete. It's really so simply.

• Cut out 4 circles on the paper of your choice
• Fold in half
• Overlap them like closing a cardboard box
• Glue in place
• Done :)

I added some fancy fibers & ribbons to fancy this one up a bit, but you could definitely just fold it down and be done with it if you were in a rush. I also think this would be pretty sweet with multiple different papers, textures, and colours to add some pizazz. You can have some much fun with this design. 

Another BONUS to this one is that it's almost like a little gift box! You could stow a pair of earrings or other small gift inside the envelope to add that little something extra :)

I will definitely be using this design again in the future. You can easily make any size you want. Mine was big, but I think some small ones would be uber cute too.

Pin, Lose, Draw? Definitely a WINNER!

Envelope #2

This was was also so simple, who knew that the HEART was the secret to the perfect envelope shape! 

Envelope #2 took me back to elementary school where I first learned to draw a symmetrical heart. 

1. Fold the paper hot dog ways (as opposed to hamburger fold)

2. Draw half a heart

3. Cut out = automatic symmetry

After making your heart shape fold in the sides, fold up the bottom, glue in place, VOILA! You have pretty much the quickest, easy, envelope ever.

I dig this one a lot. But I did notice a downfall... I cut my heart on a 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper and my ending envelope size was not as big as I was expecting... You definitely couldn't fit a normal size card in there, but you could fit a lovely handwritten note for sure. AND if you knew ahead of time your envelope size you could make a card to match (not to future crafty self...)

Pin, Lose, Draw? I vote this one a WINNER due to least materials, quickest time, and ease of making. But it's not my favourite for a special occasion.

Well folks, there you have it. Two different envelope styles. I'm pretty stoked to stockpile my envelope stash to match my card stash now. May I (and you) never again get into the pickle of having a card without an envelope :)

Jewellery Wall Organizer

Okay... So I think I'm a day late here. However I'm going to say its because of the holiday weekend :) I think I pinned this sometime last summer, but never had the wall space to hang it up so I never bothered to make it. But in in our new place I have more blank walls and less character molding so I have room to finally do (and then display) some of these things. 

The motivation behind this project is the fact that I HATE CLUTTER... that being said I have plenty of it. Fail. However, this stellar project will get rid of all those cardboard jewellery boxes sitting on my dresser and display my adornments in a place that hopefully means that will get worn a little more often as I am reminded of some of the beautiful pieces that I have.

Again, I prefer not to spend lots of $$$ on these projects as I have all sorts of "junk" & scraps lying around the house waiting to be turned into something beautiful. So this project cost me $0.00 so far. I think I might go find better ribbon option for the top though 'cause I'm not happy with the outcome currently, but I'll have to search around a bit for what I'm looking for. Until then the ribbon concoction on the top is a temporary fix.

Here was the progress:

1. Found piece of plywood (from my husbands garage deconstruction - reconstruction to music studio project). Wrapped in scrap fleece interfacing from a diaper bag & tone on tone ivory damask fabric from some pillows I did about 5 years ago... Is that a reasonable length of time to hold onto scraps? How often do you purge your scrap supplies? The interfacing gave it a little cushion. I didn't want to add too much batting and make it look upholstered, but I did want a little softness.

2. Ironed the fabric (don't want those creases and didn't think they'd pull out when I stapled the fabric) I pretty much despise ironing and normally I skip it whenever possible, but I thought it might be worth it this time.

3. Stapled my fabric onto the ply. Start with the middle of top & sides, and then work towards the corners. Corners are tricky, but I think I have it down now and really like my technique.

I'll outline the corner technique here:

1.  Working from the middle of top and sides evenly stretch out your fabric. You shouldn't really need to pull any from the corner, just make them look tidy.

2. Using an origami fold like this squash fold, gently fold down your corners.

3. Staple each side and then the top to get a triangle. You can then add a couple more staples and/or trim the extra fabric.

4. You're done! (Sometimes it takes a couple tries to be happy and no weird wrinkles on the top, but if you just use the three staple technique it's less to un-pick and re-do each time and then when you're happy you can add the extra hold if desired.

To finish 'er off:

1. Next I had some old hardware kicking around from when I replaced the kitchen hardware in my house (again about 5 years ago) I cleaned it up and placed it around the board until I was happy.

2. I made some pen marks where I wanted my holes and then cut the fabric with a utility knife so the drill wouldn't rip and pull the fabric while I was drilling my holes.

3. Drilled the holes and screwed in the hardware.

4. Hang & Decorate :)

I just had some old ribbon kicking around that I added as a decor to the top, but I'm not happy with this modge-podge of ribbons. I think I'd like to add some burlap and lace for that rustic/pretty feel. I think it'll go well with the damask too. I'll keep you posted when I find what I'm looking for.

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