It's the little things that count

A couple of months ago I bought this little garlic storage thingy at Goodwill. It's made of terra cotta and I'm pretty sure it's for baking garlic in the oven.

Pictured below:

I don't bake garlic, or at least I never have done so I opted to paint it. I used metallic acrylics which I have a collection of. These paints, available at crafts stores are so pretty and priced cheap enough so you can buy plenty.

When it was done I sprayed it with extra glossy clear spray sealer. For 99 cents, it's now pretty cute and I'll use it to store garlic in.

I always manage to find little gems in the Goodwill that I can actually do something with. When I picked this up I could just imagine how cute it would look all painted. I especially love the little garlic on the top. There is no question as to what this item holds, if you get my drift.

Christy

01 02 12

Strange things happen when you're painting

I purchased these three word plaques in Kirkland's the other day. My plan was to hang them

over my daughter's bed which currently has nothing at all over it. Her walls are rather dark so these three items needed to stand out somehow, so I decided to paint them.

Most things that need to be painted require some prep work. Sanding always helps the paint to adhere better to the item. This is especially important if the existing piece has a shiny finish. You need to sand it down just a little so the paint will grab.

When I bought the plaques home I took them down into my shop and immediately sprayed them with spray paint, completely forgetting to sand them down. Later when I went to see if they were dry, I noticed that the paint had not adhered well......ugh.

The only way out of this would be to sand it down (I had only done one so far) and repaint it. As I started to use the sandpaper I realized that the effect that I was creating looked pretty cool. Here is what it looked like.

I actually like this, so I'm going with it. I repeated the process for all three of them. After they were finished I applied a clear coat of spray sealer-glossy. When I sprayed it on a yellow color appeared in several areas and that looked good too.

It's interesting what can happen when you least expect it.

Somehow one of them landed up outside......................not sure why, but I thought the picture was cute.

Here they are hanging up on the wall where they were intended to be.

There is always a way to make something match up.

Christy

01 02 12

Thrift Store TV stand Makeover

I wanted to remind everyone that this subscription to Lowe's Creative Ideas is a totally "free" magazine that comes to you four times a year. It's filled with some great ideas, tips, new products and more. If you haven't signed up, go here and start getting it free. This issue includes 7 quick room redos, tips for transforming your home for the holidays and new ways to work with lights. Every once and a while they include a $10.00 coupon for a $50.00 purchase.

Just thought I would remind you.

So this week I finished up the television stand that I bought at the Goodwill. It was $12.00 and looked like crap. I knew though, that this stand could be made into something nice enough to put into my den. I had been passively looking around at tv stands, but quite frankly they are expensive.

Looks terrible, right?

This is what I thought when I first saw it. I'll sand it down, add some trim to certain parts and re-spray it black. I really liked the idea of having those cabinet doors. I can hide stuff back there that I don't want to look at anymore like remotes (all 50 of them), movies and things like that.

I started by giving the stand a good cleaning then sanded it down and sprayed it black.

I used one of my favorite products, Rub & Buff to add some gold accents around the door and also on the handles. Use your finger to apply this stuff, it's great. You can read more about this product here.

I added two pieces of trim to the center shelves (they were kind of beat up), so it would hide the damage and add to the piece. These were glued and nailed with small tacks to the unit.

For 12 bucks, you can't go wrong. It serves a purpose, looks nice and even has some storage.

Ah.........the thrift store find!

Christy

01 02 12