Anything Can Be Art: Old Bicycle Parts

This was a fun & easy project! When I first put up the floating shelves above my TV credenza I only had a concept for one shelf and not the other. One shelf displays 3 turquoise vases from Crate and Barrel. I bought them this past summer when the credenza and shelves were only a vision in my head! I was coming up empty for the second shelf until I found a very cool and inexpensive picture frame at Target. It is gray, yellow and white and has vintage looking bicycles all over it. Thought it was a good way to bring some yellow over to that side of the room. The frame wasn't enough to fill up the shelf, though....so this is when the idea of bicycle parts on the shelf came to me! But not just regular bicycle parts...high gloss yellow and white bicycle parts! Are you still with me!?!?

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

Fun vintage find....yellow patent leather coaster set! Cool, huh!?!? I found these at the Ravenswood Antique Mart in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago. This antique mart is a very fun place to browse, but most items were very much over my price range! I guess that is why I only came home with these coasters! ha! Seriously though, I would recommend taking a cruise around this store if you are looking for some high quality mid century items...everything in the store is in really great shape or has been restored. Quite a bit of furniture and tons of accessories and vintage jewerly. It is a real antique mart where different vendors have "booths" in the space...so the items are coming from several different sources. I have made two visits and both times would say that all vendors are displaying pristine things with a price tag to match!

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!

Ta Da! Transformed Credenza

You know when you have a vision...you can just picture something in your mind and that is how you want your room to look...that was me with my living room. I had a vision since I moved in of a very long, low credenza up against one wall. A piece with some open and some concealed storage. I was picturing some floating shelves hung above it on one side and a flat screen TV on a stand off to the other side. Needed something to replace my old IKEA 3-piece "entertainment center" pictured here...



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...

Anything Can Be Art: Pet Photos!

Anything can be art! It's true...

I recently assisted my mom with a simple, easy and inexpensive artwork project. She took a few photos of her dogs and then I took the digital files to Sam's Club to get them printed. Sam's Club is great because they have the photo kiosks that are so easy to use to play around with your image until you get it looking exactly how you want. For the look we were after, I zoomed in on the dog's heads and turned the images into black and white using the kiosk. I was able to get the two 11x14 prints for $7...a steal! (Bonus: they were ready in 1 hour!) My mom bought the black frames with the matting for $18 each. Total cost of the project was about $43!

What do you think? Cute, huh!?!? Black and white pet photos could add a little whimsy and fun to almost any room!