Arrrrgh!! A Pirate Toy Chest (and a little Idol…)

One of my BFFs contacted me a couple weeks ago about doing a pirate treasure chest toy box for another of her friend’s baby shower.  I was SO excited!  I absolutely LOVE doing projects for kids!  (Have you seen my Puppet Theater, Tres Chic Play Kitchen, and Bugga Boo’s Play Kitchen?)  Creating things for children is so fun, because it gives you the opportunity to really get whimsical.  You get to put yourself in a kid’s point of view and think what YOU would have wanted when you were little.
So I started this project with a large wooden shipping box I purchased for cheap from my hubby’s work.  Doesn’t it look piratey already?!?!

Since it is for a child’s room, first priority is (of course) that it be safe for a child to use and be around.  So the first thing I did was to sand the heck out of the box, making sure all the surfaces were smooth and all the corners and edges rounded.  This actually was the most time consuming part of the project. As I was sanding away, it was exposing an olive green paint under the gray paint on top, and getting down to the bare wood in places as well.  I began the project thinking I was going to paint the whole thing, but when I was done sanding, I LOVED the rustic finish.  It was just perfect for an authentic looking pirate’s treasure chest!
BFF requested that the top of the chest read “Ethan’s Booty.”  (CUTE!)  I created a stencil by simply printing it in a piratey font on plain computer paper, taping the pieces of paper together, and cutting out the letters with an exacto knife.  (Gar!!  Why doesn’t spell check like the word “piratey”?!?!  That’s totally a word…)  I painted the stenciled lettering in a bright deep red acrylic paint, then distressed the lettering with some sand paper.
I decided that the inside of the lid would be a great place for a piratey (ha!) alphabet.  So, in the same font that I used for the top, I printed out the alphabet on some card stock, each letter with a faint pirate ship behind it.  I tore the edges and mod podged them to lid.
The final touch was sewing a liner for the inside of the chest.  I don’t know about you, but I think liners for toy boxes are a must-have.  There’s always crumbs and junk of all sorts that ends up at the bottom of toy boxes, and it’s nice to have something that’s easily removable so you can dump the junk and be back in business.  I found this perfect red and black striped cotton material at the thrift store, and it was only $3 for 4 yards!!  Steal!!  I sewed the liner and attached velcro to the edges to make it easily removable.
When I was all done, I did several layers of a water-based Polycrylic, to make sure the whole thing was good and sealed and child-safe.
Here’s how it looks all finished up!

Another MUST I forgot to mention.  When you’re making something to be used as a toy chest, you need to buy lid supports to keep the lid from falling down on a little one.  It could really cause serious injury if you don’t.  You can see the lid support in the second-to-last picture above.  I believe it’s called a friction lid support, and you can get them at the hardware store.  They were brass which I painted ORB.  I used one on each side of the lid, because this one is HEAVY!!


Linking to a few lovely parties:
Remodelaholic, Finding Fabulous, Miss Mustard Seed, My Backyard Eden, The Shabby Nest, Funky Junk Interiors

Paint Chip Mosaic Art

Well, this week on The CSI Project, they’re having a Hardware Store Challenge.  This is a project that I did many moons ago for my own hall bathroom.

At the Goodwill one fine day, I came across a lovely ornately-carved wooden frame, housing a hideously ugly old Ozark barn painting that someone’s beloved grandpappy probably slaved over.  (Sorry grandpappy…)  The frame is nice sized for the space in there (26” square) and for the $2.50 price tag, I couldn’t say no.  My hubby deleted the before picture (don’t they always?), but it looked a little something like this:

I had the idea to create a mosaic, right over grandpappy’s ugly painting using paint chips from Home Depot (free) and some Mod Podge.  I went to HD, nervously approached the paint section, and hurriedly and with a heavy conscience stuffed as many paint chips as I could into my purse that were in the color scheme of my bathroom.  :)  I mostly used the fancy finishes like the metalics and candlelights from Ralph Lauren and such.  It gave the finished product a little more interest than using only the flat colors.

When I got home, I cut a bunch of 1 inch squares from the assortment of paint chips and set to Mod Podgin’.  Here’s how it looks in my bathroom, in it’s GORGEOUS $2.50 frame:

(Boy!  Is it hard to get a good picture in there!!  I had to resort to using the flash.)

Here it is in some natural light (so you can get a better idea of what the colors ACTUALLY look like):

Hopefully next time I’ll have another Twice Lovely project to share.  I picked up this great little desk for $10 and a pretty wonderful table and 4 chairs for $30 (not a set, but I have plans to make them one!) at last weekend’s 50% off Saturday at GW.  They’re are just sitting there, mocking me that I’m not able to get around to working on them.  (Shakes fist)

Right now I’m working on a pirate treasure chest toy box for a friend of mine to give as a new baby gift.  FUN!  Can’t wait to show you guys.

In other (and completely unrelated but equally fun) news, I’m competing this Thursday evening in the local”American Idol” style karaoke contest!  Eeeek!  I’m so excited and nervous.  I love to sing.  (A little Ann Marie tid-bit you might not have known.)  Maybe I’ll get the hubby to do a little video to post…

To a productive week!

 

I’m linking this project to the Hardware Store Challenge at The CSI Project!

Funky Harlequin Side Table

I came across this little side table the other day at the Habitat Re-Store.  It’s nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before, and for $7, I really couldn’t pass it up.  You can see why it caught my eye:

So fun!

I hit ‘er with some Semi-gloss White Rustoleum spray paint, and did those fabulous pulls with some ORB.  Then it sat, needing something.  But what? 

Then I saw this post yesterday from Jenifer of The Magic Brush.  She added some pizzaz to a jewelry chest with a great harlequin stencil on the top.  Hellooooooo inspiration!

But I didn’t have a harlequin stencil at 6pm last night when I decided to do this project!  (As my kids and/or Spongebob would say) BARNACLES!!  I turned to the internet where I found some great tips on creating a harlequin pattern.  I graphed out my harlequin design (see the how-to below) and hand-painted it with a flat brush and some acrylic craft paint.  With some post-painting distressing, here’s how she turned out!

So here’s some tips if you’re interested in creating a harlequin pattern like I did.  First, I drew lines from top to bottom and side to side to find the middle point.  I found out online that a the diamonds in a harlequin pattern should have a 1:2 ratio of width to height.  For my table top, I decided I would make the width 2 inches and the height 4 inches.  Once I had the middle point, I began to graph out the table top in 2 inch by 4 inch rectangles, like so:

I then found the mid-points of each side of the rectangles, like so:

Then, connect all the mid points to make your diamonds, like so:

I marked the diamonds I wanted to paint, so I would screw it up after all of that.  :)  Then it’s just a matter of doing the painting. 

It was a little tedious, but worth the effort, in my opinion.  Here’s another look at the fabulous finished product:

Lots more to come in the near future!!

Linking to:

A Soft Place to Land, Domestically Speaking, Bobbypins Boardwalk, Miss Mustard Seed, Funky Junk Interiors, Tatertots and Jello

 

I’m linking this project up to the Paint Challenge at The CSI Project!

Red Hand-painted Dining Set

I’m back!  You miss me?  And do I have a great project to share today!

But first, some very exciting news!  I’m guest posting on one of my favorite blogs today!  Beckie at Infarrantly Creative has graciously invited us on over to her place to share what we do with her readers!  If you haven’t seen Beckie’s blog, you really must.  I love it.

So onto the latest project…

I recently acquired a solid oak, round pedestal table and a set of four wrought iron chairs from two separate Roadkill Rescues.  The table was rescued from the free section of Craigslist and the chairs were in front of someone’s house on a neighborhood yard-sale day with a free sign on them, so I pounced.  :)  They were, of course, destined to be a set.

I always feel so uninhibited when the material I’m working with didn’t cost me anything!  It’s such a breath of fresh air!  So, I really wanted to do something fun and something that I loved with this set.  I took a chance, held my breath, and thought RED!!  (Well, it is my favorite color.)

I was really inspired by Miss Mustard Seed’s (another bloggy favorite) lovely guest room.

I love the touches of red, with the white and naturals intermixed, but I especially loved the clever way she used the jute upholstery webbing to trim out the curtains and tie up the faux roman shade (genius!!):

And Martha used it too for this rug.  (If it’s good enough for Martha and Miss Mustard Seed, it’s most certainly good enough for me!)

Since the caning on the backs of the chairs was pretty trashed from being in the weather, I removed it all and replace it with woven jute upholstery webbing.  So here’s my finished dining set a la Miss Mustard Seed (complete with hand-painted details):

Isn’t our willow tree purdy?!?  We’re in our small window of green in Arizona before the scorching temps turn everything brown and crispy.  I’m soaking it up while I can.  :)

Hope everyone has a fantastic day!

Linking to:

Funk Junk Interiors, Finding Fabulous, Reinvented, Miss Mustard Seed

 

This project is also participating in the Paint Challenge AND the Martha Stewart Inspiration Challenge over at the CSI project!

A Funky Lamp Transformation and Tutorial

During my same Goodwill Dollar Day excursion last week, I picked up this fantastic lamp, marked $18.99 for one little eensy weensy dollar.  (Squeal!!)  The harp with a great brass finial to match the brasswork on the lamp was also a dollar, and the shade also a dollar.  Get out your calculators!  With the fabric, paint, and ribbon already on hand, that brings the total for this project to a whopping $3.  Shut up!!  I know!!!

Here’s her beginnings (I almost forgot to take the before pic!  You’ll notice I had already started pulling off the bottom trim):

Check out that to-die-for brasswork on the base!!  LOVE!

I gave the glass on the base a coat of semi-gloss white, but what makes this project so unique is the shade.  (Now, I may or may not have designed the shade to tempt a certain cousin of mine who now owns the Springy Chair and Endtable.  It may just be that I have a ton of this fabric still and thinks it’s fabulous.  The world may never know…)

Here’s the beaut now:

Another up-close look at that brasswork… GORGE!!!  (tm Thrifty Decor Chick)

In case any of you are wondering how I did that shade, here a mini tutorial:

First take all the fabric and trim off the shade, leaving just the metal skeleton.

Then I spray painted the metal frame white.  I cut rectangles of fabric the same size as the sections of the frame of the shade.  Then sewed 1/2 inch hem along each edge, so the finished panels float in the middle of each section of shade.  With an exacto knife, I cut small little slits at each of the four corners of each rectangle to feed the ribbon through.  For each section of the shade, I began by tying the ribbon on to the top of the frame, then I threaded the ribbon through the small slit at the corner, wrapped the ribbon around the top of the frame a few times before threading the ribbon back through the hole at the opposite corner and tying the ribbon again to the top of the frame.

 

Repeat this process for the bottom of the section, and you end up with your finished section of shade looking like so:

Make sure you singe the cut ends of your ribbon with a lighter so they don’t unravel.  Repeat this process for each section of the shade, and you finish up looking like this (tah dah!!):

Hope you enjoyed my first attempt at a tutorial.  It’s really hard to remember to take pictures along the way!!  Hats off to those of you who do them all the time!  :)

 

This project is competing in the Fabric Challenge at The CSI Project!

 

Linking to:

The Shabby Nest, Remodelaholic, Funk Junk Interiors