Saturday, June 15, 2013
Before & After: Transformed Tea Cart
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Magnetic Memo Board
Here is what you need for this project:
- frame
- sheet metal
- fabric
- tin snips
- tape
- spraypaint (optional depending on the frame you use)
Supplies before getting started |
Remove glass from frame and cut the sheet metal to the size of the glass. (Wear gloves! The cut metal can be sharp.) |
Wrap your fabric around the sheet metal. I affixed it with painters tape.
|
Ta Da! Magnetic message board for my kitchen desk. Perfect place for a magnetic grocery list pad and a place to put invitations and cards. |
Finished product on my kitchen desk! |
Monday, September 5, 2011
Hallway Photo Gallery
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Anything Can Be Art: Magazine Covers
One of my favorite vintage store in downtown Champaign, Carrie's, has recently carried some reproduction magazine covers framed and ready to hang! Very cool! The store has had a good selection of vintage University of Illinois football programs and I picked up a group of 3 to hang in my office...love them and get lots of compliments!
My mom picked up a pair of reproduction and enlargment Harper's Bazaar covers from the 1930's...they are amazing...vibrant colors and modern images! She hung them in a powder bathroom and they add great color and interest to the small space.
Websites to order magazine cover art:
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Anything Can Be Art: Old Bicycle Parts
I picked up these 3 old bike parts at The Bike Project in Urbana. They are a non-profit organization that operates a small shop and is the only place in town I could find that sells individual parts! I think all 3 pieces cost me about $8. It was fun to root around in the boxes and boxes of parts, but I did end up quite greasy!
All three pieces had some grease and dirt on them, but the smaller gear was a mess! First step was to clean and degrease them. I bought a bottle of Purple Power degreaser and it worked great!
After cleaning and drying, I sprayed them with some white primer and then a couple of coats of high-gloss spray paint...two pieces in yellow and one in white.
Final product up on the shelves with the picture frame...
By the way...the image in the picture frame was something I printed off the internet from a Google search of "vintage bicycle"...makes it look more like art instead of sticking a family photo in there...
I like...I like! One of the fun things about shelves like this is that you can change them up from time to time to freshen up your room or use them for seasonal decoration displays...swapping out items on the shelves can give you small little fun projects as well as allow you to rotate your display pieces so that they all get a little time out for others to see...so, I guess we'll see how long the shelves stay looking like this...but for now, I am really happy with the way they look!
Vintage Find: Yellow coasters
The entire set was in really great shape with no tears or scrathes in the patent leather...and I thought the buckle was really fun too!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Ta Da! Transformed Credenza
I searched and searched some of my favorite catalogs and nothing really struck me...I also hunted on Craigslist for several months...and then the perfect piece was posted. It would need some work to transform it into what I wanted, but it was going to be good...I just knew it. I took my mom along with me to go look at the piece...she needed more convincing that this was really going to look good in my room...but I knew it had a lot of potential! Here is the credenza shortly after unloading it into my garage:
What I loved about it...clean lines, sits up off the ground a bit, clean fronts to the doors and drawers, and it is super long (about 90 inches!). Love! Now here is where the work came in...took off the doors on both ends and removed the drawers and shelves that were inside, sanded the entire piece thoroughly and then painted it black. Wow...the sanding was a tough job...it really took some elbow grease to get the varnish and stain sanded off. The rental of an orbital sander was a must! (About $20 for one day...well worth it!)
The finished product...my vision is now reality...
Of course right after bringing the credenza into the living room it was obvious that a new TV was in order too...went out to Sam's Club and bought one that afternoon! It is a much better fit than the old clunky TV, don't you think? The floating shelves come from Target for $9.99 each. Still working on the arrangement of the items on the shelves...more to come on that later...