Hand Painted Tile Dresser Redo

I guess I never got around to posting this. I don't remember when I actually finished it. Apparently at least 3 years ago before my daughter was born. I still love it though! It serves as my nightstand and shoe storage right now.

I no longer do projects for DecoArt. Apparently I wasn't good enough at staging Pinterest worthy photos. So now I just make projects for myself or gifts for family and friends and I am perfectly fine with that.

From original post written about 3-4 years ago: 

Last fall I had picked up a small dresser that was placed on the curb. I was looking for something small to go in what I had hoped to turn into a guest room. Right now the guest room is on hold so the dresser just sat there getting no attention. Here you can see this sweet little dresser in all it's untouched glory. Straight from the curb where it was destined to end up in a landfill. 

A couple months went by and my little dresser just sat there feeling unloved when DecoArt posted a project to paint a piece of furniture with some interest other than the typical chalky finish. So finally the project of redoing this little dresser was moved to the front and it was going to get it's much deserved love. 

I decided I wanted to paint the drawer fronts in mosaic tile pattern so off I went searching the internet for some mosaic tile inspiration. I was found this pattern of tile from Wayfair and knew it was just the perfect thing!. So I drew up a similar pattern and adjusted the scale of the tile shape to fit my dresser drawer fronts. I couldn't quite match the soft blue of the tile with the paint I had on hand, but I really love the combination of the vibrant turquoise and cobalt blue that I already had. 

For all the painting instructions and tile pattern template you can check out the project tutorial over at DecoArt. 

The original hardware on the dresser was removed and received several coats of a gold enamel spray paint. The top was too rough to salvage so I covered it with three 1 x 8 boards that were cut to length, stained, and screwed to the top of the dresser from the underside. 

Even the inside of the drawers received some love with Chalky Finish paint in Serene and some decoupaged scrapbook paper for the bottoms of the drawers. 

DIY Home Decor Projects

Looking for some fun and easy home decor projects to brighten up that winter gloominess?

Some of my projects were recently posted on DecoArt's projects page so I wanted to share them here with you. Just click through the links for a complete tutorial on how to make the project.

Mixed Media Treasure Box

This one will be listed in my Etsy shop soon! 

Country Cottage Earring Organizer

This one will be listed in my Etsy shop soon! 

Reclaimed Wood Wall Art

Want to order one just like it? Just contact me and I will be happy to make a custom order for you!

DIY Dot Wine Glasses

I'm here to share another Christmas gift today! This one was a set of hand painted wine glasses for my cousin. They were so incredibly easy to do! Seriously, you have to give it a try!

~ Supplies ~

• Clear wine glasses 
• DecoArt Crystal Gloss Enamels: Turquoise, Blue, White, Crystal Glitter
• Pencil with a new eraser, paper craft stylus, rubbing alcohol, lint free cloth

This project is so easy that it in no way requires a tutorial. I picked up a package of four wine glasses from Walmart to make these. Super cheap and yet beautiful wine glasses are the result! 

So here is how it goes. Take your lint free cloth and use rubbing alcohol to clean off the wine glasses. You want to make sure that all the oils and such are off the surface. Pour some of your paint of each color onto a palette of some sort. Take your pencil eraser and dip it into the paint then press the eraser onto the glass. Repeat to add as many large dots of each color as you like.

Then take your paper crafting stylus and dip the ball end in the paint and touch it to the glass. Repeat to add as many small dots as you like.

Then just allow the paint to air dry for four days. Then place the glasses in a cold oven and heat it up to 275°F. Once at 275°F bake for 30 minutes. When your time goes off just shut the oven off. Do not remove the glasses. Just leave them in there and forget about them until the oven is completely cool.

You're done! Now just wrap them up and give them as a gift. Or keep them for yourself! If the paint is allowed to cure properly and baked per the instructions on the bottle you should have a dishwasher safe finish. I'm still chicken and wash them by hand though...

What do you think? 

Tropical Flowers Painted Storage Box

I hope you are ready for an awesome project! I want to share with you how I changed a plain wooden box into a piece of art that will brighten up my desk space.

Before Christmas I'm on a run to Michaels to pick up supplies for some last minute gift projects and was browsing around the store when I saw this amazing oval shaped box and instantly thought that it would be perfect on my desk to hide all those pesky cords for cameras and phones and headphones. I'm trying to do what I can to make my home a little more organized but also throw in some pretty accents too. So I put the box and some paints into my cart and headed home. After all the craziness of Christmas was done I had some time to finally work on my plain wooden box.

It's cloudy, cold, and gloomy here in Kansas so I wanted to bring a little bit of bright tropical color into my desk space. So I took this plain but awesome wooden box and painted it up with some tropical looking flowers and some bright colors!



So are you ready to see the finished project??? I'm super excited about it! Here it is!

It's always nice when inspiration hits and a project comes out exactly how you saw it in your head. Now, lets get on to the how too part. Take a look below to see all the goodies that you need for this project. 

~ Supplies ~

• Artminds Oval Wooden Box from Michaels
• DecoArt Multi-Surface Satin Paints: Cottonball, Flamingo, Deep Turquoise, Chartreuse, Night Sky, Lemon Zest, Dark Scarlet, and Metallic Gold
• DecoArt Media Satin Varnish
• Painters Tape, Stylus, four wooden beads, hot glue gun, 5/8" angled paint brush, plastic container for a palette

I started off by painting two coats of Flamingo paint on the inside of the box for a fun and bright pop of color. 

Next up I painted two coats of Deep Turquoise on the outside and the rim of the box and lid. 

Now it's time to add some flowers. I put together a video for you so you can see how I painted all the flowers and leaves. It would have been way too difficult to try to describe it with text and it end up making sense to anyone other than me. 

After the flowers were all nice and dry I put two rows of painter's tape around the lid to leave about 1/4" line around the lid. Then I put another piece of painter's tape about 1/4" up from the bottom of the box. After the painter's tape was pressed into place real well I covered the stripes I wanted to paint with some DecoArt Media Satin Varnish. Why you ask? Well, no matter how well you think you have the tape pressed down there is always a little that bleeds underneath. If your first coat is a clear sealer then what bleeds underneath is clear and it seals up all those gaps to keep your color from seeping under the tape. That and if I didn't use the painter's tape I would have a really wavy line of gold rather than a nice straight line...

After the sealer dried I added four coats of Metallic Gold. I wanted to have a really solid gold stripe around the lid and the bottom of the box. Four coats seems like a lot, but it dries really quickly so I was able to put the second coat on the first line after finishing up the first coat of the bottom line. All in all it probably took about 20 minutes to apply all four coats then remove the painter's tape. I had a couple places where the gold still bled through the tape so I just touched that up real quick with more Dark Turquoise. 

As an afterthought I decided to grab some wooden beads from my stash and paint them with a few coats of the Metallic Gold paint. Then I just hot glued them onto the bottom of the box for some gilded feet.

Once all the painting was done I finished it up with a coat of the DecoArt Media Satin Varnish just to protect all my hard work. Now I'm ready to put it on my desk and fill it up with all those things I want to hide in my pretty box!

I am so very happy with how my flowers came out! (Squeal!) All in all the project only took about 3 hours total including drying time. This paint goes on so smooth and dries really fast so it makes it easy to start and finish a project the same day.

The pop of pink on the inside is just so much fun!

Now a look at the before and after...

Don't be afraid to pick up something that needs some love and use some paint to brighten up your space with fun colors and functional storage! Americana Multi-Surface paint is available in Michaels. Visit the DecoArt Multi-Surface website for more crafting ideas and inspiration. Did you know that you can use Americana Multi-Surface on glass and metal? Or use it to brighten up an organizer, or create a fun sign or canvas to hang in your home!

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. The project, photos, and opinions are entirely mine. 
Linking up to these parties. 

DIY Custom Monogram Art

Sometimes it can be difficult to think of awesome gifts for my sister. She is pretty awesome so I wanted to make sure that I had an awesome gift to give her. However, the budget for Christmas was pretty tight this year so I knew I wanted to make her something. She had a custom monogram on her Amazon wish list for a while so I thought I would give that a try. This is the end result. I would say it was a success! Time consuming, but a success. 

I took a scrap of 1/4" thick plywood and drew some fancy curly swirly letters on it in pencil to create her initials. I made sure that as many of the swirls came in contact with another portion of the wood as much as possible so there were fewer weak areas in the wood. Then I took a cordless drill with a 1/2" drill bit and drilled at least one hole in inside each of the areas I wanted to cut out. You have to have a way to get the jigsaw blade into the wood after all. 

Then I carefully used the jigsaw to follow the curved lines. This took quite a bit of time. Since I was using 1/4" plywood I had to hold the wood out past the edge of the table to cut it and support all the weight of the saw with my hand rather than letting the weight of the saw rest on the wood. 

Let me tell you it was pretty scary when I got to the K. I knew it would be the weakest point so I started from the M and worked towards the K. But cutting out the pieces that met in the center of the K I was basically holding my breath hoping and praying that it didn't break at that point. I was several hours into cutting this thing out and I would have been so irate if it broke then. But all was well! Here is the finished cut out. A little sanding and I was ready for paint!

For the simple frame I bought some chair rail molding from Home Depot and used the router to cut out a notch for a plywood back to set in, cut the corners to a miter, then glued and stapled the frame together and clamped it up. I wish I had taken a picture of the frame all clamped up waiting for the glue to dry. Then I just cut another scrap of plywood and glued it inside the frame.

I would also like to note that I did this entire project on my own without the hubs. Although he had shown me how to use the tools on other projects.

The monogram letters got a coat of gold paint. I used DecoArt Elegant Finish Metallic Paint in Emperor's Gold. At first I thought it was too orange-y of a gold rather than a gold gold. But I kept on going (mostly because I didn't have time to find another color of gold paint and re-paint it. After three coats of gold paint it was totally gilded and ready to go. I really like that you can still see the wood grain of the plywood even though it looks like it was cut out of gold.

The frame got two coats of DecoArt Americana Decor Chalky Finish Paint in Everlasting then a coat of the Americana Decor Creme Wax. Once I set the gold letters on the white frame the gold looked perfect and you could practically hear angels singing (maybe it was just the Celtic Woman Christmas album that was playing... but it totally had the same effect). 

Now gold is one of those trends that goes in and out. So I wanted to make it easy to remove the letters and repaint them when gold goes out of style again. To attach the letters onto the frame I just put two of the Command Picture Hanging Strips (kinda like velcro, but not) together and cut them into about 1/4" wide strips. Then it was just peel and stick to add a bunch of these velcro like pieces and just press it onto the frame. 

A couple of hanging loops screwed onto the back and I was done! Thankfully it was nice enough (28 degrees and overcast but not raining) to take the finished project outside to get some photos. Then it was ready to be wrapped. 

All in all it was worth all the work to see how excited my sister was with her fabulous wall art. I was worried it would be too big since it ended up being about 28" x 40" but it works perfectly over her desk. Since we already had the plywood and some of the paint I just ended up having to by the chair rail trim and the Chalky Finish paint. That's what I call a score!

Linking to these parties. 

DIY Ruler Growth Chart

I'm back!!!! It's been a while since I've done a post on a project. But now that the holidays are over it's time to share all those Christmas presents that I spent all of December working on. My brother-in-law and his wife had a beautiful baby boy this past July. Since I don't get to spend a bunch of time with the new mom due to work schedules and such I really didn't know what to give her for Christmas. So I went stalking through her Pinterest boards and came across a pin of a giant ruler growth chart. It was so absolutely awesome and adorable! So I knew I had to make one for them.

The funny part was, I showed my husband and he asked "why would you want that?". Then I had to explain to him the purpose of a growth chart. I thought everyone knew what a growth chart was. Although my parents just marked it on a corner of the wall in the house. But this one is better because you can take it off the wall and move it with you without having to re-do the marks!

I started of by searching Pinterest and then Googled DIY Ruler Growth Chart and came across this tutorial at Wilder Do's. After getting lost on their blog oohing and ahhing over various projects I called it a day. It's such a huge relief to know what you're going to make. So I followed the tutorial and laid out the marks and numbers on a 1 x 8 that was 7 feet tall. I started off with the 6" mark and worked my way up.  

For the number templates I simply cut out some Times New Roman numbers that were 3" tall and cut out some stencils from card stock. I used the card stock stencils to trace the numbers onto the board. Then I used my wood burning tool with a chisel tip to outline everything. After much trial and error I found out that my soldering iron gets much hotter than the wood burning tool and that worked better and faster for filling in the lines and numbers. I know... I could have just painted on the lines and the numbers, but I really liked the color and texture that the wood burning added.

After everything was burned in I coated it with three coats of Minwax Polyshades in Pecan with a satin finish. I was running out of time so the fact that it was stain and polyurethane all in one step made it the go to product.  

Then it was just a matter of letting it cure completely and wrap it up. I even wrapped up the hanging hardware with it, so there is no excuse for not getting it hung up. 

Thank you April from Wilker Do's for showing me how to make this awesome project! I will definitely be pinning and building some of the other projects you've shared! 

Linking up to these parties. 

Dressed Up Desk Organizer DIY

I scored this fabulous desk organizer at a flea market recently and wanted to dress it up a bit. The dark faux wood was just not doing it for me. So I took some Krylon Gloss White spray paint and went to town. I didn't get a before picture of it, but it is exactly like this one that I found on Etsy. But I managed to snag mine for just $5. 

It has some great leaf detail on the front that looks like carved wood. Such a fun pattern and texture as long as you can see past that ugly faux wood coloring it originally had. 

So after cleaning it up with some soap and water and letting it dry I sprayed several coats of Krylon Gloss White spray paint until it was nice and covered. I think it was four or five thin coats. 

I took some retired designer series paper and cut it down to 3" long, then cut it to the width of each of the sections in the organizer. A little bit of DecoArt Decou-Page did the trick to glue down the patterned paper. Then I coated the entire thing with about four coats of a Krylon gloss sealer. 

Now it just sits pretty holding lots of my tools on my work table! I love being able to give new life to things that might otherwise end up in the landfill. 

Have you been working on any upcycling lately? Or DIYing any garage sale finds? 

DIY Upcycled Sewing Desk

My upcycled super cute and functional garage sale sewing desk is finally done!

For the last several years this is where I have been sewing when I do sew. It's just a cheap plastic folding table with a set of plastic drawers to hold some of my fabric hoard stash. This nice large table also ends up as a catch all that requires 20 minutes of shifting stuff around so I can sew. It also had the tendency to bounce up and down if you started sewing too fast.

A few weeks ago I scored this old sewing desk from a yard sale for only $10. It was sturdy, didn't wobble at all, but needed quite a bit of love. If  you follow me on Instagram you may have already seen some of my in process photos, but in case you didn't here they are! This is what it looked like right after I brought it home. I love the shape, size, and details, but boy it definitely needed some love and sand paper.

It had house wire wrapped through the holes for drawer pulls! Um... I guess it works, but not for me.

So I took it all apart and sanded everything down then filled the holes in the drawer fronts with some wood putty. After the wood putty dried I sanded them again and added just one hole in the center for the drawer pulls I wanted.

Then I got to painting. It seemed like it took FOREVER to get this all painted! I think it took me about three weeks from start to finish. Remember, I work full time so I really only had a little bit of time in the evenings to work on this. But I was so excited to see it complete.

Here it is with the desk portion all nice and white. It took two coats of primer and two coats of Behr Ultra Pure White. This is when I started to really get excited.

And this is what my craft room looked like for three weeks while trying to get this finished. Yikes! What a mess! With very little room to walk around everything too...

Are you ready to see what it looks like now? After what seems like 5000 coats of paint.... here it is!

Here is the materials rundown.
Behr Ultra Pure White

Behr Iconic Sky (drawer fronts). Such a pretty shade of light aqua.

Behr Deep Blue Sea (inside/sides of drawers) to add a fun pop of color. Here you can see my magnetic bowl with my pins that I picked up from the hardware store in a set of magnets. I gave the rest of the kit to my husband. I just wanted the little magnetic bowl. Also a pretty green bowl to hold those thread ends that you clip off as well as other random trash while working away.

I just can't get over how much storage this sweet little desk has in it! I can fit all of my sewing essentials with plenty of extra room.

There is even one large drawer on the bottom right that I have tossed all my fabric scraps in. 

These adorable drawer pulls from HomeDepot.com (this is not a paid advertisement. I just love 'em!)

The white paint was left over from another project and the two shades of blue I bought to re-paint my craft room and I just haven't done it yet. So you could kind of say it's left over from that right??? I'm going with that route.

It is just paint, and it will wear naturally, and I'm totally okay with that. I love how much storage I have now instead of just those three little plastic drawers.

You can't have a great DIY project post without a before and after.....

Now I can't wait to start sewing more!

Linking up to these parties.