Plaster Paint Co. Projects

Good morning! A few Saturdays ago my friend Christi W. and I took an all-day furniture painting workshop at The Plaster Paint Company in Catoosa, OK. (You can click HERE to read about the mother-daughter team that started this company, as well as check out their fantastic products and projects.)

Christi and I started out with old pieces of furniture that we picked up at local thrift shops...I brought a chair:

Christi brought a side table:

We began by selecting the Plaster Paint colors for our projects. I chose the color "Jewel" for my chair, and Christi chose the color "Dahlia" for her table. The beauty of Plaster Paint is that there is no prep work on the piece you are painting...so we were able to dive right in to painting our projects:

I debated on whether to paint the cane work on the seat of my chair. The cane was in great condition, which is kinda rare when you find an old chair, but I decided that I wanted to paint and age/distress the whole chair, so away I went with painting the cane:

Here are our projects with the first of two coats of paint. You can see how nicely the Plaster Paint covers the previous finishes. While our paint dried, we enjoyed a catered lunch from The Olive Garden - yummy!!

After lunch we added a second coat of paint, and once it had dried we lightly sanded/distressed our pieces, added dark glazes to antique the pieces, and then applied a couple of coats of liquid wax. Here's how our finished projects came out looking:

I LOVE how these pieces look now!! Christi put the side table in her guest room where her colors are grey and yellow-gold. I put my chair next to the whirlpool tub in my master bathroom to hold a basket of bath goodies:

I purchased some additional colors of Plaster Paint, and I am currently working on turning an old drawer into a cute and comfy dog bed for my sweet little Tony:

I know!! He's such a cutie, right?!?!?! Anyhoo...stay tuned for the upcoming post of the drawer dog bed that I am making for him!

Have a FANTASTIC week!!

Seek and Ye Shall Find Framed Art Tutorial

Good evening, friends! This post is going up later than I had originally planned because I got busy and didn't get everything typed up until now.

A while back while rummaging through the clearance stuff at Hobby Lobby, I came across a cool antique-reproduction door knob plate marked down to just $1.00. It was missing the glass knob part, but I knew that I could end up making something neat with it, so I bought it. Hobby Lobby sells glass knobs too, so I used my 40% off coupon and got it for about $4.00.

Here's what I ended up making with it:

I think it turned out so pretty, and it looks great in my guest room! Here's how I put it all together:

Start off by gathering all of your supplies. I purchased the plain wood frame at 50% off at Hobby Lobby as well, so it ended up being $2.00. I had some paper flowers, lace, scrapbook paper and other embellishments on hand, so I laid those out to see what I liked best:

I ended up changing my mind about the original flowers that I had pulled out of my stash to use, and ended up going with 3 burlap flowers that I had bought at Hobby Lobby on sale for 50% off as well:

Begin by tracing the shape of the frame onto scrapbook paper and cut it out:

Glue the paper onto the wooden frame using a 2-way glue pen or Mod Podge, and allow to dry. Once dry, carefully sand the edges with an emery board and sponge brown ink over the paper to give it an aged/antique look:

Using a scrap of coordinating lace, tie a pretty bow and glue it to the upper right-hand corner:

I cut the burlap leaves off of the flowers and then glued them to the lower right-hand corner of the frame. I used the wire picks that I cut off the back of the flowers to make curly stems. (Just wrap the stems around a wooden pick and carefully slide off; shaping how you like and then gluing to the frame around the flowers.)

Because the door knob and plate were SO HEAVY, I ended up having to use some of my husband's JB-Weld to attach it to the frame so that it would stay adhered. (It took 24 hours for the JB-Weld to dry, but that's okay because that baby is on there to stay now - LOL!) Although you don't see it in this photo, I also attached an antique skeleton key to the lower part of the plate using large Glue Dots that I carefully shaped to the edges of the key.

I found and printed the inspirational Bible verse, (Matthew 7:7), from the internet, and cut it out to fit into the hole of the frame. So, this pretty project cost me about $10.00 to make! Here's another look at my finished project, showing the skeleton key that I attached:

Thanks so very much for dropping by my blog today! Have a FANTASTIC Friday and a WONDERFUL weekend!!

A Little Christmas Decorating Idea...

Good morning, friends! I hope that you had a very happy Thanksgiving! Ours was nice and quiet, here at home with just Mike, Justin and I, as my guys did some deer hunting in between feasting. (Yes, they even hunted in all the rain we got - lol!)

So while my fellas were out of the house hunting, I began putting up Christmas decorations. While decorating the top of my piano with a few snowmen, I had an idea! I have an old church hymnal, so I turned to "O Little Town of Bethlehem", tied a pretty red bow and added some berries to mark that page, and then placed it on the music stand on the piano...so simple and pretty!!

I love how cute this little display turned out! If you don't have a church hymnal, you can purchase or download sheet music with a Christmas hymn and decorate that before adding it to your music stand as a decoration.

Thanks for dropping by today. Be sure to check back later this week for a tutorial on how to make a cute and inspirational frame for yourself or to give as a gift!

Have a WONDERFUL week!

A Simple Little Monogrammed Jewelry Dish...

Good morning! With the holiday season right around the corner, I've been thinking about gift giving. Although I've got my Christmas shopping pretty much done, (and wrapped too!), I've got some birthdays coming up, so I've been thinking about the gifts that I'll need for those.

A while back I saw some cute little monogrammed bowls for holding jewelry on a dresser, which gave me an idea on how I could make something similar for gifts. Here's the dish that I created, using a mini cupcake stand, to display on my dresser. (I think it turned out much cuter than the regular little bowls that I saw for sale - lol!)

I purchased the sweet little porcelain cupcake stands for this project at Marshall's. They came 4 in a pack for only $7.99:

I also bought some letter decals at Hobby Lobby. You can get different colors like pink, green, etc., but I liked the basic black letters for this project:

I washed off each of the cupcake dishes with mild soapy water, and then hand dried them before applying the decal. That's it! SOOOOO simple!! Here's another photo of my dish...I'll be making more of these to give with some pretty jewelry to friends and family with upcoming birthdays. :)

Thanks for dropping by today! Wishing you a TERRIFIC week ahead!

Blessings,

Country-Style Towel Holder

Happy Monday, friends! This weekend I worked on a project for my pal Robbi R., and it turned out so cute that I just had to share it with you!

A while back Robbi purchased a rustic, country towel holder that was made from an old cutting board and a pastry blender. She showed it to me and told me that she was planning on giving it to her oldest daughter for Christmas. I mentioned to her that I thought it would be really cute to attach a handwritten recipe card to the upper portion of the cutting board, and that using one of her mom's handwritten recipes would be a nice touch! She agreed, and I offered to add this embellishment to the gift for her.

First off I scanned the original recipe card, printed it onto cardstock and cut it out. I then used a fun, vintage looking piece of scrapbook paper and coordinating cardstock to mat the recipe onto:

Using Mod Podge, I carefully adhered each layer of the mats and recipe card to one another:

I then used Mod Podge to attach the matted recipe card to the cutting board. I really love how cute this turned out, and now I am on the lookout for an old cutting board an pastry blender so that I can make one of these for myself!

Thanks for dropping by my blog today! Wishing you a SUPER week ahead!

Blessings,

From Picket Fence Scraps to Shabby Chic Photo Frames

Hello!! I promise that I had every good intention to get this post up on Monday, but time got away from me and I'm just now able to sit down with my laptop to show you a trash-to-treasure project that I've been working on:

A while back my hubby was working on a fence project, and had several scrap pieces of the fence lumber left over. He was tossing them into the trash, (silly man!!), and I rescued the pieces because I knew that I would eventually create something with the scraps. I ended up using a few of them to create a cute, shabby-chic photo frames, so I thought you'd like to see how I made them.

I started out with several scraps of fencing, some Elmer's school glue, acrylic paint and a couple of sponge brushes:

I wanted to give the paint a crackle finish, so to do that inexpensively I first applied a coat of Elmer's glue to the wood, using a sponge brush to coat the glue evenly across the wood:





I let the glue set for about 5 minutes, then I applied a quick coat of acrylic paint with another sponge brush. It's important to only put a quick coat of paint over the glue; don't keep painting over the glue or you won't get the desired crackle finish that you're wanting. The paint application doesn't have to be perfect...after all, you're wanting an aged/distressed finish in the end. :)

 

As the paint dries, you'll begin to see the crackling finish appear. (Note: if you want more crackle in your paint, once everything is completely dry, repeat the steps above until you've achieved the finish that you like.)

While the paint is drying, I painted a paint stir stick in the same color. It will be used as a base on the photo display:

Here's a photo of the crackle finish on a couple of the wood scraps...I just love how amazingly simple this technique is and how fantastic the results are!

Now to decorate and assemble the frame display...

I purchased several little burlap flowers at Hobby Lobby, which just so happened to be on sale for 50% off. I thought they were a pretty good deal at just $1.00 each. I cut the wire stem off of the back. (Don't throw those away yet, though, as you'll see how I used the stems in this project...)

I wrapped and tied some jute twine around the base of each of the painted wood pieces, using a little dab of glue on the backside to keep it in place:

Next up, using some E6000 I attached the burlap flower to one corner and a small, painted clothes pin to the other corner. I set these aside until they were completely dry:

Once the embellishments were completely dry, I laid the painted stir stick at the base of the lined up fence pieces, and marked off with pencil on the stir stick exactly where I wanted each fence piece to go. Using more E6000 on the bottoms of the fence pieces, I attached them to the stir stick and then allowed everything to dry thoroughly. Here's another photo of the finished product:

Oh! I almost forgot! The wire pieces that I cut off of the bottoms of the burlap flowers have now become curly-vine accents to the flowers. I twisted the pieces around a toothpick; then carefully slid them off and used a dot of glue to attach them. I also added some pearl-head corsage pins for a little extra detail.

Here's a photo of the display with pictures of my great niece Kayle and 2 of my great nephews, Jack and Ian. (Aren't they just so cute??)

I then got a little more creative and decided to make a few more of these photo display frames...

This one is for a single photo and uses a little metal clip, instead of a clothes pin, to hold a photo in place. I also added a couple of old wooden spools, buttons and tiny silk flowers as embellishment on the outer edge of a paint stick that was cut in half for the base. (Once again, I used E6000 adhesive to hold everything in place.)

I also made one using a tiny little bird nest with artificial eggs as an embellishment:

I REALLY LOVE how cute these turned out! I've got several more wood scraps from Mike's fence project, so I'll be making some more fun projects like this one, for sure!

Thanks so much for dropping by my blog today to check out what I've been up to. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

Blessings,

Dollar Tree Pumpkin Makeover

WOOHOO!!! Today is the first day of fall, which is my very favorite time of the year! This coming weekend I'll put up my fall decorations, but I decided to work on a little project this past weekend to get a head start:

I started out with 5 painted Styrofoam pumpkins that I picked up at the Dollar Tree:

They were very bright orange and shiny, and I thought that a little aging/distressing was in order, so I mixed up a little black and brown acrylic paint with a bit of water to create a wash to cover the pumpkins:

Using a sponge brush, I applied the wash to the pumpkins and then dabbed off the excess paint with a paper towel:

After the paint wash dried, here's how the pumpkins look...the shiny orange is gone and they've got a nice, antiqued look to them:

Since I planned to put these in a little garden cart in my front flower bed, I didn't want them to blow away as the fall winds kick up, so I placed a wooden skewer into the base of each pumpkin so that I could secure them in the garden cart:

I wrapped a cardboard box in plastic shopping bags, covered the box with straw, pinecones and artificial leaves before placing the skewers into the cardboard box to secure the pumpkins in the cart:

I think they turned out pretty well, and even better, I've only got $5 invested in this seasonal display! When the end of the season is over, and it's time to start decorating for Christmas, I can just toss the pumpkins if they look bad.

Here are a couple of pics of some of the decorations that I put out on my front porch:

I've got the materials to make a new fall wreath this coming weekend, but for now I just put up the one that I already had:

Be sure to check back next week to see the new fall wreath that I'm making this weekend. I hope that the rest of your week runs smoothly and that your upcoming weekend is TERRIFIC!!

Blessings,