DIY: Large Painting On The Cheap

So we all know art can be uber expensive, and hard to find in the exact look or colors you want right? Right! <---That's you shouting right w/ your fist in the air because you can totally relate. I'm going to show you how I fixed this problem for myself.

Here is my $10 piece of perfection. Found here. He asked $15, I offered $10 & you know the rest.

I really loved the details. And would you know, IT'S FREAKIN PLASTIC! That makes it light weight and easier to hang w/o using anchors. And let's be honest, you & I both know it's a print w/ some kind of plastic stuff to add texture. The guy asked if I was sure I wanted it, lmao, w/ a are you crazy look. He had no clue!

After a scrub down with an old toothbrush I gave it the Valspar spray primer treatment and let it sit until the next day. Then I spray it w/ a few coats of flat Porcelain Valspar spray paint. I also primed the print with a white Zinsser spray primer.

Originally I was going to paint the print w/ chalkboard paint for my little girl's room, but it was way to big for the little wall that was waiting for it. So it's going to my empty mantle. I looked at Mantle and said, "Mantle I know your the focal point of our living room, the first thing we see when we walk in, it's your time. I'm here." Well not really. But that's how I felt.

I pulled out a craft tray, some cheap craft paints I had on hand, and a chipped plate. I only used a few colors (black & white included to lighten or darken the main colors).

After drawing some wavy lines to look like seaweed I started to sporadically (learned that word watching Clueless) filling in my weeds. I used light turquoise, dark turquoise, tan, & yellow. Yellow was used to mix w/ the blues to create greens and teals. Tan was used to tie in the mocha colored sofa I have. I did go back and layer some paint. It took me a little time but I felt my way through this. It kind of evolved on it's own.

Voila! Here it is over my mantle. It pulls in all the colors I have used in the living room so far. (Ignore the chairs in the photo. They will soon be used for the dining table. And they are Robbins Egg Blue not funky filthy blue :o)! )

Here is a better close-up. You like?

The hardest thing was drawing the curvy lines. I swear to you it almost gave me a headache trying to balance them on both sides. Looking back I could of skipped that. So for $12 ($10 painting, $2 for new painting brushes & everything else on hand) I had a nice large custom colored painting that is perfect for my living room.

I linked up @ The Single Nester & Poppies at Play

DIY: Glamorous Desk

Though this $15 desk didn't start off so glamorous, I knew it would be perfect for my room. I already had an inspiration pic saved for just this project. Lets' get started on how I did it.

My $15 CYS Desk

Some left over paint from the Little Girl's Vanity Project that I stored in an old jar in the fridge.

I did the usual Sand/Prime & Paint. I used Valspar spray paint primer (I now use Zinsser which is fab!) & $1 flat white Color Place spray paint. Remember what happened when I used white Rustoleum Professional spray paint? That was a pure pisser offer. I will never spray paint a whole piece of furniture white EVER. AGAIN. Okay now on to the details. Since I don't know how to paint a straight, or curved for that matter, line I used a saucer to draw my curves.

After marking 3/4 in. up each side (see those 2 little dots?) I drew my semi-circle starting on the mark I made. I then connected the dots using frog tape & measured up another 3/4 in. and taped across from that. This was to make a straight band connection the semi circles. I had to free hand paint the semi circle, which was fairly easy with a wide tip cheap craft paint brush.


I also did the same thing for the top drawers. Only I used smaller saucers & measured a 1/2 in. since the drawers obviously cover less space. The square drawers I just did a band with 1/2 in. measuring.


After adding little shadow lines (which were also free handed as you can tell) using black craft paint I let the desk dry about an hour. I then started layering on wipe on poly in gloss. I did a total of 4 coats (1 coat every 2-3 hours) for extra shine! I let the desk sit overnight and added some .80 cent pull rings.


Voila! What should've taken a couple of days took me about a couple of weeks. Sad right? I told you I have to get a handle on these DIYs.


A view from the top.


See how I just traced almost completely around my saucer. I thought it would frame the knob nicely. What do you think?


Here look closer. You see my shaky black line?





Shine baby shine!


Don;t worry I didn't neglect the sides.


Here is the inspiration pic. This is from Mrs. Howard Personal Shopper.

Is it a huge improvement or what? Do you have anything you completely changed? If so please paste your link in the comments section!! I would love to see :o)

Linked up at :Poppies@Play (all sorts of goodness there! Check it out..NOW :o) !) , Mrs. Mustard Seed (It's a furniture party..hurry & link up {furniture..duh}, then check out her blog!!)

Taking On To Many Projects

I know I oughtta be shamed. I am. I have been working on about 50 different projects at once. Not really fifty, but a bunch. Here's a few...a desk, the infamous girl's room armoire & a painting. The 2nd one for months. It's done, but not done. You get my drift? Here's the desk. In the same predicament. Before of course.


Here it is almost done. In my kitchen for the past 2? weeks. Do you start to many projects and then end up leaving some on the back burner? I'm sick of doing this. I'm so irritated. Just that one word sums it up. Sorry if I don't post tomorrow. I really really need to take care of some unfinished business. Capisce? (I would have totally said that in my Don Corleone voice).

And about the antique sofa, I did some explaining and extreme apologizing. And they pitied this fool :o) I get to pick it up tomorrow. Okay so it's not going to be mine (hubster wasn't having it). It'll be going in my mom's house. My mom is going to let me reupholster it, which is why I need to get a handle on these projects. I need to move on to reupholstering things (which I've gotten really good at)! Talk to you soon.

Hoarder? Yep. But It's ONLY $50!

As if it's not bad enough I just unloaded a few things i was hoarding the weekend I bought the craigslist stuff, I am heading out to buy a freakin sofa. $50. I keep thinking bad idea b/c I still need to reupholster a few chairs. But $50!! Someone tell me it's a really bad idea. Please!

Some fabric & pretty paint and this could totally replace the brand new sofa we just got in our living room.

It was an ebay buy for $200. It was sold by a furniture company whose client decided they didn't want the piece after all. It is a beautiful color and fantastic feeling fabric. Buuuut (you knew this excuse was coming) it is to dark & modern for my living room. If it were a used piece I would be open to painting the trim light beige and upholstering it in light beige velvety fabric. It's not. So I won't. What should I do?! I have an hour an a half to back out of the sofa situation. Should I?


**UPDATE**
The Old Ball & Chain (What I call hubster when I'm angry {which btw I'm fuming}) was supposed to get off of work at 2 p.m., well he didn't. He brought his @ss home at 4:30 p.m.! You see a problem right?! Same problem I ran into. I think you know the outcome. I'm off for some retail therapy. First stop The Mall. Yep & Old Ball & Chain w/ kids in tow are coming. He has some making up to do.

p.s. I swore to myself I wouldn't be too hard on him. He leaves in a week. He'll be gone for a year. Back to Afghanistan. *tears inserted here* Please pray for his safety.

Horchow for Craigslist Follow-Up

Let me start of by saying when I walked into the foyer (which was the size of my den) there was this cherry blossom wall paper up. BREATH. TAKING. The owner said she saw it in a Domino magazine and wrote to request who made it, then ordered it. Que the music "Must be niiice" (by Lyfe Jennings) Needless to say there were gorgeous furnishings everywhere!

And now I must say, I am the proud owner of these two mirrored chests. $300 for both was a heck of a deal. I did a pretend order on Horchow and it came out to some $1700 after delivery. Yeah Horchow my mother called, she said you can kick rocks for those prices.

So it gets even better. How can it get even better? Well let me tell you. I was trying to waste time while my Hubster grilled dinner by perusing Craigslist again. Jackpot! I found TWO bergere chairs in East Memphis (area I searched) for $100!! Here is the pic they provided.

Here they are in my Momma's living room. They were custom reupholstered, very well if I might say, and are in FAB condition! Get this, same seller! So it gets even better..shut the front door right?!

The seller emailed me some pics of other items they were selling. This chaise for $40 (click the highlighted words for original prices..duh right?) & so much more.

So when we went to pick up the bergere chairs the seller (husband this time) told us to just take the chaise for FREE!! (Though I had just handed him the $40 already :o( )And he asked if we had wanted this entertainment center for FREE too!! Don't let the shabby pic fool you. This set is Fantabulous. I'm actually taking a break from repainting it to write this post. Hubster thinks it's perfect for my son's room.

He didn't want to lug it up to their 2 tier attic...yes folks 2 tiers. Que that music again. I got another email from the seller with some pics attached of a buffet & chest. She also had a Natuzzi leather (sofa, love seat, chair & ottoman) set for $200, a little girl's custom painted bedroom set, and more. If only I had the room.

<

p.s.

We had to drive home that night! We didn't get home until 3:30 a.m., unloaded the truck by 4 a.m. and hubby got 1 hour of sleep before getting up for work at 5 a.m. But as my mom has said before, "It was such a good deal though." That's another Craigslist story though.

Using Painters Tape Twice?

I've finally bought some expensive @ss rather impressive frog tape. Finally? Yes, finally. And I must say it is worth every half a penny that it cost. Half? Yes, half. I say that b/c I need to stretch every penny I have. I'm such a hustler that I can turn 1 penny into 2. Get out of here right?! You know that's what being broke & jobless does to you. Anywho I am finishing a couple of projects this weekend and have been using my new tape (I know you don't need a picture of it b/c you know what the heck I'm talking about.) not once but twice.

Yes I use the flip side of my tape. Don't you do that too? I mean in this economy isn't everything getting the 2nd go around? (For those of you giving used undies a 2nd go..that's just wrong on so many levels.) I must say though, that line is as crisp as the 1st time the tape was used!

Okay now my cheapness has completely boosted my "I'm Getting Over" ego. So I give it a 3rd go! Yes I did.

Yeaaaa...pretty freakin fug. Not a good look for a small box, but not bad if it were a huge wall & still a hella better looking than what the blue tape does.

So using the tape twice went FAB..3 times not so much. Have you managed to use yours more than 2 times? Anything else you've used over again? Let me know, I need to save as much $$moo-lah$$ as possible.

Glamorous Chanel Print-Offs

I have the worst time finding images to print off for free (yeah I'm cheap like that) that are gender friendly. Some that I like are too feminine for the Man of the house. I have to have a good balance of masculine & feminine.

Last year I was up all hours of the night, not unusual for me, browsing flickr for images. I collected a handful of images that I had wanted to print off. (Is this illegal? If it were, would that really stop me from pushing print? I think you know the answer to this one.)

While looking at my inspiration file I came across some forgotten favorites.

I had wanted to frame 4 of these images and hang 2 on each side of the bed.

My dilemma is should I go with these images that make my heart burst with memories of old Hollywood glam or go with something more punchy in color like these?

I found these while browsing stock.xchng. They have tons of free images you can download. Be careful though, browsing will easily suck you in for hours! The first image is of Key West's seascape. (Key West is home for me). I would only be printing off 2 of these prints and framing them in some frames I bought at Home Goods. I really don't know which way to go :o( Glam Chanel bottles, which my heart just loves or bright tropical prints, which totally covers the fun shockingly bright I miss my hometown side of me. HELP!