Hi, guys! Here's a cute little furniture upcycle to try. A starry, starry side table, made from an old unwanted drawer.
The backstory: I saved a bunch of naked vintage drawers from the demolished kitchen of my old adobe fixer-upper.
I've been daydreaming for a year about ways to use them, and these little side tables are the first project I've actually completed.
My favorite thing about them is the reverse-stencil effect, which shows some of the natural wood. The circles on the large drawer, and the stars on the skinny drawer, were created in the same way.
The DIY: find some big paper stencils, and pop out the center shapes. (Of course, you could easily make your own templates from cardstock. I just happened to have these big stencils handy.) Stick them to the natural wood surface, and spray paint around them. Here are my circles on the natural wood drawer back:
To adhere my shapes to the drawer backs, I used just a few bits of double-sided tape to loosely stick them down. Caveat: that wasn't a perfect method - some paint did get in around the edges. For these rustic l'il tables, I didn't mind! But for a crisper edge, I'd make sure to tape all the way along every edge. You could also use removable spray adhesive.
Then spray paint like mad, covering everything that isn't a paper stencil shape. For the little white table, that's all you need to do! Adorable, no?
For the two-tone blue table, there's one more step. I popped the stars out of a bunch more stencils, and laid them out on the surface to decide on placement.
After I marked the locations, I just used my star stencils and a pouncer (well, a piece of kitchen sponge, 'cause I couldn't find my official pouncer) to stencil my stars in blue.
Hope you enjoyed this one, let me know what you think!
I have seven drawers left, and a couple more ideas for later. Maybe, in a year or so, I will get around to one of 'em. For now, I must really try to talk myself into thinking about attending that meeting of Procrastinators Anonymous I've been putting off.
See ya!
Today I digress. Instead of a jewelry project, I thought I'd brag on a small workspace makeover.
Here is where I make all my jewelry.
It's an old vanity table that belonged to my great grandmother. I love the scraped and worn patina and never want to refinish it.
It's quite a small work surface, though. And all my frequently-reached-for tools, findings and oddments reduced and cluttered the space even further. What I really need - what I've always hankered for - is a big rolltop desk. One with lots of cubbies and drawers and shelves. But I don't want to give up Grandma Eva's vanity. And I don't really want to spend money on a rolltop desk.
Over the weekend, I found this cute, semi-useless object at a yard sale:
It's a kitschy kitchen wall shelf. With three li'l spice drawers, and a plate rail on top. For a dollar, I couldn't resist!
I bought it with no thoughts of what to do with it...maybe I'd paint it white and hang it near the front door or something. Then a thought struck. (Ow.)
Check this out! Again, my workspace before:
My workspace after!
So much better! With everything tucked away or lifted up off the work surface, my desktop suddenly feels luxuriously large. With elbow room! Plus, I love how the worn, scratched patina of the spice shelf matches the old vanity.
I didn't do anything fancy to attach it; in fact, I didn't attach it at all. The shelf unit simply leans up against the wall. It settled into place with a slight backward tilt, and is totally secure and stable.
I betcha there are similar little kitschy shelf units at a thrift shop or yard sale in your immediate vicinity. If you like this idea, may you go forth and find them.
But wait, there's more!
Spice racks on the brain, I scurried out and bought two of these (with matching spice jars) at my neighborhood thrift shop.
They settled in just perfectly beside the wooden spice shelf, and voila!
Perfect storage for small jewelry findings, beads, scrapbooking supplies, or any other oddments you may happen to work with in your own creative life.
Those are seed beads and bugle beads in my spice jars. Handy dandy, eh?
Almost as good as a rolltop desk. And the whole makeover cost $3. Spicy!
