The World's Ugliest Dresser

When Eliza was officially potty trained enough that I felt confident getting rid of the changing table, I went in search of an awesome dresser to make over.  Now, I have a serious love affair with yard sales, and I envisioned finding the perfect vintage dresser, something with great lines or fun details that just needed sprucing up.  But I was striking out in a major way, in spite of the insane multitude of yard sales that sunny Saturday morning.

Then I pulled up to a yard sale and saw this:

Cue horror movie music now...

I thought, 'That has got to be the world's ugliest dresser.'  I had to check it out.  It was a rock solid dresser in very nice condition, but man was it ugly!  No details, no pretty girly lines, just laminate, not anything that I had envisioned.  But the owner did say he'd let me have it for $10.  I told him I'd pass and went along my merry way.  Further searching yielded no results, however, and I could not get the Ugly Dresser off my mind.  It was like a challenge, calling out for me to try to turn it into something beautiful.  Plus I'm really cheap, and the thought of getting such a nice quality (you know, for laminate) piece for so cheap, which I then wouldn't feel too bad if I totally ruined, was just too enticing to resist.

So I brought it home and started mulling over ways to make it awesome.  I had a few different ideas, but nothing really clicked until I thought "STRIPES!"  (It was actually surprising that wasn't my first idea, since I have a major obsession with stripes right now.)  A few coats of paint and some hardware later, here is the new dresser!

This project took a little time, but was not complicated.  Here is how I did it:

1.  Clean all surfaces really well.  Give them a light sanding (just to rough up the laminate surface a little bit).  Wipe down to remove dust from sanding.


2.  Apply a coat of Zinsser 1-2-3 Bullseye Primer.  *This is the key for painting laminate furniture!*  This primer is made specifically to coat slick surfaces like laminate and give the paint something to hold on to.  It is seriously awesome stuff.  An important thing to remember, though, is to not overload your brush or roller -- the primer is really thick and sticky but dries fast, so if you get globs of it on your piece it will be hard to smooth them out.  Let dry for a minimum of 1 hour.

Don't mind that little nightstand -- I just decided to paint that as long as I had my supplies out.

3.  Paint base color.  Mine is Behr Bleached Linen, because I had nearly an entire can leftover from doing my kitchen.

4.  This is the only tricky part.  Decide how many stripes you want, and divide the width of your drawer by that many.  I wanted 13 stripes (7 pink, 6 white).  Try not to bang your head on the driveway in frustration as you try to figure out how to equally divide 31 1/8" by 13.  Well, that's not difficult -- the answer is 2.394230.  But they don't make a mark for that on most rulers.  I probably marked and remarked the stripes on the first drawer 10 times trying to get it worked out.  I finally figured out that if I made the two pink outside stripes 1/8" wider, the rest could all be the same.  Unfortunately, unless you're some kind of crazy math-or-measuring genius, it's probably a matter of trial and error.  Once I finally did figure it out, it was very simple and fast to do the rest of the drawers (it took me the better part of an hour to figure it out, but only about 15 minutes to mark and tape).  I used a pencil to mark where the stripes should be at the top and bottom of each drawer, then rolled painter's tape for each stripe.

5.  Put all drawers back into the dresser to see if they actually line up.  Do a little happy dance when they do. Then be glad it's 6 in the morning and none of your neighbors are out to see you.  Wonder if it's so cute with the green stripes that maybe you should just leave it that way...

Just a note -- when I went to paint the stripes, I ended up putting another piece of tape in between each set so that the white stripes were completely covered.  It saved my sanity because I didn't have to worry about pink paint getting onto the white stripes.

6.  Using your base coat paint, paint over the edges of the tape.  This will seal the edges of your tape, making sure that you won't get any bleed when you do your stripe color.

7.  Paint your stripes!

8.  Remove tape.  Do a HUGE happy dance (complete with fist pump and "Whoohoo!") when you see how awesome your stripes look.  Then realize that it is now the afternoon and several neighbors are out in their yards, but hey -- they already knew you were weird.

9.  Add hardware.  I forgot to take a picture of this step, but it was very simple.  I made myself a cardstock template the exact size of the pink stripe, then found the center of it by folding it in half both ways (super scientific, I know).  I laid that template on the pink stripe, then drilled a hole through the center.  Repeat for all drawers, then screw in hardware.  Easy peasy.

Voila!  The World's Ugliest Dresser turned super fabulous on the cheap.  My cost for this was:
Dresser: $10
Paint and brush: $10 (Thanks to a Groupon for Kwal paint), with TONS of paint leftover for other projects.
Hardware: $12 (I got these at Hobby Lobby -- they have knobs 50% off very frequently)

So don't pass up a good deal just because it looks ugly -- a little creativity and elbow grease can transform anything!

To see the rest of the room, check out this post.

I'll be linking up to these great parties!

My happy kitchen :)

A few months ago I posted here about some makeovers I had been doing around the house in an effort to get it spiffied up to sell.  I showed you how I transformed our kitchen from this:

Snoozeville, right?  To this:

SO much better!  I love how bright and happy it turned out.  I promised then that I would do another post about the decorations above my cabinets, so I when I saw the kitchen linky party over at Love Stitched I thought now would be a good time to actually do it!

I tried a bunch of different things before I did all this.  I had live plants up there for a long time -- what a mess!  I tried some pretty grapevine stuff... well, it was pretty in my head.  Then nothing (as in the first pic) for a long time because I just couldn't figure out what to do.  Then at last, I was inspired!

First, some closer-up pics...

Starting from the left, here is what you'll see.  The plates are definitely the big-impact pieces in my kitchen.  I wanted to add plates as bright pops of color, but I did NOT want to pay the $8 and up for the plates in great colors with fun details that I had been finding.  I found these plates at DI (our local thrift store) for 50 cents - $1 each and spray painted them!  I added paper from the Cosmo Cricket "Early Bird" line -- the colors (red, yellow, and turquoise) were perfect for the vision I had in mind.  (Keep scrolling down for a tutorial.)  I've also been working on my old glass jar collection every time I go to DI, and I filled a few with fake fruit and another with styrofoam balls that I covered in strips of the same patterned paper as the plates.  And see that funky pitcher way over on the right?  My brother brought me that guy as a present from Hungary!  Even though he really doesn't match the style of everything else, he's a permanent fixture in my kitchen!

Oh, and I really love this sign above my pantry.  It's from Adorn-It.



This lineup is a mixture of thrifting (canisters), deal shopping ("Blessed" sign for $2.50 at the Scrapbook Expo), As-Is (white enamel pitcher from IKEA for $2), hand-me-downs (that little red baking powder container came from my grandma's house), and one "splurge" -- the awesome turquoise strainer came from a little consignment shop and was a whopping $20.  Don't laugh -- that's the limit of my budget for one piece and I felt totally luxuriant buying it.  :)

Oh, see those glass tiles above?  Those are cheap little frames from IKEA.  They used to be on our living room walls, but I just cut paper to fit and hung them above the stove for a very cheap backspash-ish idea.  I cut the birds out of red vinyl and adhered them to the glass.  I left room for a vinyl phrase in between the rows, but I still haven't hit on quite the right words.

Mostly more plates here, but I also wanted to show you the cool cauldron.  That was a wedding gift from Dan's aunt.  It is really heavy iron.  At Halloween, of course, it takes center stage in the decor, but right now it's the home of the red rooster I bought at TJ Maxx because I have a weakness for polka dots...

**Just a note -- after I took these pictures, I was freaking out a little bit about how white the cabinets were.  But I didn't want to go all crazy with glazing or anything because I wanted to keep it clean.  I took some 60 grit sandpaper and did just a little distressing on all the edges, which helped a little, then I went over everything with a coat of rub-on poly.  Magic!  Just adding that extra layer really toned down the brightness and it looks just like I envisioned now.  Here's a picture -- I couldn't replicate the lighting conditions, so hopefully you can at least get an idea:

Thanks for hanging in there!  Now, a brief tutorial about spray-painting plates so you can create your own custom awesomeness!

1.  Go to the thrift store and dig through stacks of plates.  Don't worry what color they currently are, or what hideous patterns they might be sporting.  You are looking for shape and texture.  I found some with really cute scalloped detailing or pretty flowers or fruit shapes around the borders.
2.  Clean the plates really, really well.
3.  When they're dry, give them a coat of spray primer.  Repeat as necessary to cover aforementioned hideous patterns:

In this picture, all but those awesome sunflower plates are already primered up.  Those babies took several coats to cover. 

4.  When the primer is completely dry, spray paint away!  As always, quick, light coats are the way to go.  But you might be impatient like me and prefer to blast them in heavy coats, in which case you will get some dripping and such, but you won't care because they're going up on top of your cabinets and no one is going to look that close... oops...

5.  Add paper to centers if desired. At this point you could mod-podge over the whole thing to give it a more finished/cohesive look, but I wanted to be able to easily re-paint and change out the paper if I decide to do something different in the kitchen.

So there you have it!  All these little touches make my kitchen happy, and that makes me happy every time I see it. :oD  Thanks for looking!


And no, it's not really that clean 99.9999% of the time...

My "grown-up" Christmas trees...

When I saw this tutorial on Shanty2Chic (via Infarrantly Creative), I knew I had to make my own ASAP.

See, I had these paper mache trees that I bought years ago from Oriental Trading.  I always intended to do something cute and whimsical with them, but they just sat, unloved and uncrafted, in their box in the top of the closet.  Until now!  I've been loving all the natural, vintage-y Christmas decorations out in blogland this year, so I decided I was going to make myself some Christmas trees just for me!  Pretty much all our Christmas decor is the fun, bright, whimsical variety, which I love, but you gotta switch things up sometimes, right?

For the tallest tree, I cut 2" wide lengths of linen (I think it was 45"), folded them in half, and pressed them.  Then I sewed a basting stitched down the non-folded edge, then gathered each strip, just a little.  Starting at the bottom of the cone, I hot-glued each strip around and around the tree.  I think the big tree took 3 strips.  The star on top is a kraft paper-mache ornament from the craft store.  I was going to do something fancy with it, but I decided it was very happy staying kraft paper.

For the middle tree, I used a border punch to create 1 1/2" strips of paper.  I cut V-shaped slits every few inches so that I could fit the paper to cone as I wrapped it around.  I crinkled up the paper before hot-gluing it on, just to give it more texture.  This one took about 1 1/4 pieces of kraft paper.  After the cone was covered, I hot glue pearl bead "ornaments" to the tree.

For the littlest tree, I used the same technique as the big tree, but instead of fabric I used one of those cheap bolts of lace from Joann's.  I think the whole bolt was a dollar at most, and I only used about half of it.

Now, my intention when I started was to use the little pot bases that came with the trees, but they just didn't have the elegant vintage touch I was looking for.  Luckily I had already scheduled a trip to Star Mill in American Fork.  It's an amazing antique/junk shop, and it is my new happy place.  I found this PERFECT spindle for $1.50, just begging to be turned into tree trunks.  Well, I've never been one to crush the life dreams of inanimate objects, so of course I had to take it home and cut it into three fun tree trunks, which I then hot-glued to the cones.

But then, alas, the trees were so top-heavy they could not stand on their own.  I thought about gluing them all down to a plank of wood, but I wanted to be able to arrange them independently.  I hunted around my craft room for ideas... CD's covered with kraft paper?  Too flat and too boring and not vintage enough.  Empty ribbon spools?  Too much work to unspool ribbon and find it a new home, and then still not super stable.  And so on... Finally, inspiration!  One of my little hobbies is designing and cutting snowflake ornaments out of wood with a laser cutter, and I happened to have a little stack of unpainted snowflakes that worked perfectly as bases for my trees.   

(Happy sigh...)  Don't you just love it when something you've envisioned turns out even better in real life?  These make me happy every time I go through my entryway!

I hope you are all having a delightful Christmas with your families and giving yourself time to create something beautiful!

 

P.S.  I'm entering this in the Kraft Journal's Holiday Challenge -- if you love kraft paper like I do, you should go check it out!

Our 'Muy Fabulosa' Wedding...

If you're a long-time follower, you may have noticed that my postings have not been what anyone would call frequent over the past couple of months... but there's a very good reason, I promise!  My wonderful little sister Emily got married last month, and I was working like a crazy person on all sorts of decorations and goodies for her big day.  It turned out so beautifully -- it was worth every minute!

In the beginning, Em & Luis had chosen to use a damask pattern as the theme for the wedding decor, with the colors black and white with a little red thrown in.  I used that inspiration to create their wedding invitation:

And this is how the wedding reception looked!  (Everyone say "Ooooooooh!" together now!)

We did the reception at Highland Gardens Reception Center in Highand, Utah, which was just gorgeous to start out with. Emily's new hubby Luis' family is from several Latin American countries, so we took a few of those traditions as a jumping off point for our decor.  My sister-in-law Caitlyn's mom Jeralee was the visionary behind all this, and I was so happy I could help make it all come to life.  My mom and Jeralee got these damask table toppers and borrowed all sorts of silver pitchers and containers from generous family and friends and filled them with roses to make these gorgeous centerpieces.

We made approximately a gazillion of those tissue paper pom-poms to hang around the reception area, which was truly a labor of love by several family members and friends who are NOT crafters but pitched in awesomely.

My biggest contribution was the white paper papel picado banners hanging above the tables.  They are traditionally cut by hand out of tissue paper, but I wanted to customize them, make them a little sturdier, and give them a cleaner, more modern feel to match the damask theme of the wedding, so I designed 8 custom banners and then cut each one with my Cricut (using SCAL).  I cut over 200 of these babies, so my Cricut was smokin' by the end.  Here's a closeup:

And, just because I can't help beating a dead horse, here's what the designs look like without background distraction...

I was also in charge of hair accessories for the bride and bridal party.  I made red satin flowers for all us bridesmaids and our sisters-in-law with this tutorial from Stuff & Bits.  This is my beautiful sister Amy and me:

And of course we couldn't leave the little girlies out!  I made these rolled rosette hair pretties for my daughter Eliza (on the left) and my niece Amelia out of the same fabric:

Here's a closer up picture of Eliza with my Dad where you can see the flowers better.  (This is when she found him and asked him to dance -- oh, the cuteness!):

But my favorite was this enormous flower I created for the bride herself, using a technique I actually figured out myself (I know, don't fall over dead...).

 

 As a fun little photo prop, I made this fun-shaped chalkboard.  They took some pictures with "Just Married" written on it, and then I changed it to "Thank You" so we could use those pictures to print custom thank you cards for them to send out.  (This is not the picture we'll use -- my amazing photographer brothers took "real" pictures for that...)

 

 Now, I didn't have anything to do with these next couple of photos, but I couldn't go without showing y'all the cakes.  This was their wedding cake, created by my aunt's sister Dorcas Woodward.  She cut out all of that intricate damask patter by hand out fondant.  That is love, people.  And isn't it amazing?

My sister Amy made this AWESOME sombrero grooms cake, also completely by hand:

I also made them a pretty sign-in scrapbook, but my pictures of that didn't turn out AT ALL, so I will have to steal it from them and show you another time.

Whew!  Just looking at these pictures makes me tired, but so very happy.  Thanks for letting me be part of the fun, Em and Luis!  Love you guys!

Vintage Button & Lace Necklace!

Sorry I've been MIA lately!  My little brother got married and we have been busy busy with family things and also with lots of fun crafts to go with it!  I have lots of fun things to show you, but I thought before I run out the door to the next thing I'd just show you this fun necklace I made for my new sister-in-law's vintage-themed hen party.  I was totally inspired to use my vintage buttons by the button headband tutorial at Little Miss Momma (I made one of those, too, but I'll have to show it to you later).

It was very easy to make and turned out just fabulous.  Here are the steps!

1.  Gather up your supplies: Vintage buttons (okay, they don't have to be vintage, but I used buttons from my stash that I found in the bottom of the sewing cabinet I inherited from my Grandma, which makes it extra special), a length of lace (I believe I had about 30" here), straight pins, and needle and thread.  I also made a fabric flower out of linen.


2.  Tie the two ends of the lace together, then put it on.  In front of a mirror, use the straight pins to mark where you're going to want your button clusters.

3.  Lay your necklace out and play with your buttons and bits and bobs until it's just how you like it.

4.  Sew buttons and such to lace.

All done!  I got compliments on it all night, too!

Gathered Flower Tutorial

My new obsession is making flowers with ribbon and fabric (as I'm sure my hubby can attest as he wades through mountains of material, beads, and glue sticks...).  I've been so inspired by all the great tutorials I've seen online, and now I've come up with one of my own that I'd like to share with you!  I think this method is great because it is easy to do and you can come up with all kinds of looks depending on the material you use.  For this one I used some super light-weight material that I found at DI (our local thrift store) -- a huge amount of this and the blue stuffed into a ziploc bag for $1.  Can't beat that!

Gathered Flower Tutorial

Materials needed:

• A long piece of fabric or ribbon (satin or anything similar – anything that will melt or “scrunch” when heat is applied)  (Mine is about 45”) 
• Needle and matching thread
• Felt circle the size you’d like your finished flower to be.  (This one is about 3”) 
• Glue gun 
• Heat gun or candle
• Embellishment for the middle of the flower (optional -- I had this pretty little angel button in mind, but by the time I finished I decided I liked this one better without)

Step 1

Heat edges of your fabric or ribbon so that it begins to curl and scrunch.  Don’t go too far, but you want it to have an interesting texture.  If your fabric or ribbon already has an interesting texture, feel free to skip this step!  If you don't have a heat gun, you could also just run it over a candle flame.

Step 2

Sew a straight basting stitch down the center of your fabric and gather as you go along.

Step 3

Fold the fabric in half so that the stitch is now the bottom (kind of in a V-shape – only the part you’re holding will stay folded, so don’t worry about the rest right now).  Stitch that to the center of your felt circle.

Step 4

Put a bead of hot glue around the center of your flower, where you’ve tacked down the beginning of your fabric.  Folding the fabric in half as you go (so you get that V shape), press the stitched line into the hot glue.  Continue to spiral around the center in 1-2” increments until you’ve glued down your whole length.

 

Step 5

Finish however you like – I like to add both a pin back and an alligator clip back so I can use it however I feel like, but you could also add it directly to a pillow, a headband, or whatever you’re accessorizing!

 

You're done!

 

 Now doesn't that look fancy?

Just in case you're wondering -- here are the different materials and measurements I used for these particular flowers: