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Ta-da! It's a Nautical Treasure... Chest of Drawers!

It's the moment you have all been waiting for... here he is!

{humble beginnings}

I was going to post this yesterday, but my computer has been randomly erasing the pictures from my camera for some reason and I couldn't take anymore pics until this morning. 

This project really took awhile for me. I did a few things that were time-consuming. The collage you see are all images of old, nautical 17th century typography, calligraphy, and drawings. It took about two weeks to collect these and get them printable. I found a few from Graphics Fairy that were print-ready, so that helped. However, with the amount and specific types of images I needed, I had to find most of them from other places. That was quite an adventure.

{detail of the transfer images}

 I chose to paint the furniture using a wash I made from Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Louis Blue because the wood was oak and I wanted the grain to show through. The great thing about these transfers is that you can see the wood grain through them because they are transparent. Here is one of my favorite transfers on here... 

 I layered some of them, so you can see the typography behind the image of the boat.

The second thing that took awhile was figuring out how to make these rope pulls cost-effectively. My, that was a challenge! I tried to look up how to make rope pulls, but all the methods I found were a bit expensive to do. The cheapest I found was about $7/pull. Do not despair, though. I put my head together with some people and we found a way to do these for 29 cents a piece.

 

{before + after}

Linked to:

Shades of Amber

Miss Mustard Seed  

 

Teaser Today!

So I thought I would put out a teaser for some of you who are actually starting to read this regularly. (Mom... maybe, my mom?) ;P

This guy is in the works right now, as we speak. What's the finished product going to look like? The big reveal is in a few days! He's almost ready!

Picture This... A Frame Turned Tray!

 

I could kick myself for not getting a before shot of this before I made it into a tray! I got this picture frame at an estate sale for $1. It was brown and dusty and dirty, with an ugly cardboard print of a duck. Nevertheless, it was just what I was looking for and just the right size for the tray that I had in mind to make out of it.

So here is how I made it...

I took out all the hardware, nails, glass, and backing and stripped it down to just the bare frame. I then painted the frame with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.

I bought two drawer handles like this...

{a good manicure is recommended before hand-modeling for blogs ;P}

The handles are the kind that are not flat on the bottom, so I had to drill holes in the frame for the handles to lay flush on it.

Oops!

I drilled a hole through it!!!

The drill I have right now is not the easiest to use. It only has one speed - too fast! Thank goodness for wood putty! I filled the hole with it, sanded over it, painted it - good as new!

Next, I took some board that I bought at Lowes. You can get the board for pretty cheap and they will cut it to size for free for you if you don't have any tools to cut it yourself. And of course, I painted it with the chalk paint, glued it into the back of the frame with wood glue, nailed some small nails into it to reinforce it, and filled any cracks with wood putty.

Now for the fun part. For the graphics on the front, I picked out an image from the Graphics Fairy.

There are tons of ways to transfer these images, but the easiest and cheapest way for me was outlining its mirror image in pencil, then laying it down where I wanted it on the board and tracing over the back of it to get the graphite on the board.

I then went over it with fine tip Micron pen that you can get at art supply stores. Do not use a Sharpie. You won't be able to get it as exact and it can bleed a little. I once made the mistake of using a Sharpie for my very first graphic design project in college and got a "C" because of it! The next time, I used one of these pens and got an "A." Good tools make a HUGE difference in the quality of your work!

Thankfully, this graphic was simple, so this transfer method didn't take too long. If it weren't so simple, I would have spent some money to buy supplies to get it done quicker with one of the other transfer methods.

And of course, I distressed the frame by sanding it and applied Annie Sloan's clear wax. The last thing I did was attach the handles and I used Liquid Nails for that.

And there you have it! A picture frame tray! It started out ugly as dirt (because it was covered in dirt) and endured a few trials and tribulations, but I think it still turned out great! 

Link parties this is posted to ~

A Walk Down Memory Lane

I was going through some old pictures and came across this funny project that I did for a ceramics class in which I used a crackle spray paint as a cold finish. 
 

 

{My li'l Zorro figurine}

If only I had known then what I know now about how to use green, non-toxic finishes! This one was not the healthiest of crackle mediums! I've since found the much more "green" crackle pastes and also, a way to get the crackle finish using Elmer's glue and water-based paint, such as chalk or latex... Much better than the aerosal used on this with lead in it, which you most definitely should not sand! :)

~~~~~~~

About this project... this was actually a 2-part project. In the first part, we were to involve a human and an animal. That semester, I was feeling pretty nostalgic and thinking back to old childhood memories. I chose to make a little girl dressing up her cat, the way my sisters and I used to do growing up...

 I don't have the guts to post that little creation on the interenet right now, though, because now that I look back, I don't really like it! Maybe someday.

This part of the project, though, was to go along the same theme, but utilizing a base for the ceramic object. I chose to make an old looking ceramic cradle. The cat in the cradle is based off of my cat, Zorro - dressed as a baby! ha!

{Zorro}

Before and After

Here is a fun little project I did yesterday. I found this little guy at a thrift store for pretty cheap and painted it. This would be a fun little jewelry box, I think. Again, I used the dark gray chalk paint so you could make designs or put lettering to label them with chalk if you wanted. I was thinking of taking the knobs off and putting them at the top of the drawers so there would be more room to write. And I used some of that trusty Sophisticated Finishes copper oxidizing stuff to age the wire.

 

{Before}

{After}

 {close-up of the wire}

 

 

Finished this thing!

Update from Project-A-Week 1

So I finally finished this drawer project that I found off The Rustic Pig! I actually decided to paint the front with the black chalk paint so you can change up the design however many times you wish! I am using this for a display for pillows, but who knows? It may be used as a bed for Kitty Zorro and he may want his name on it some day! As you can see, it works quite nicely as a pet bed!  :)