Funky Find Friday: Bright and Modern

I'm normally a vintage, shabby chic kinda girl. But recently I've seen the beauty in bright post modern pieces. Today's Funky Find Friday features some bright pieces that could be seen in any modern room.

First up, pillows like this one from Mi Casa Bella on Etsy.

The store has this pattern in several colors and sizes. Check out the store for lots of modern designer pillows.

Check out this great bright, modern and inexpensive artwork that Little Things Brings Smiles created for her husband:

Love that idea!

Check out this bright modern living room makeover featured on HGTV.com:

Bright and Modern is growing on me more and more all the time!

For another bright modern space, check out this loft on Apartment Therapy.


Well I don't think I could personally do my entire house in bright modern style, I am now seriously considering turning my office/extra bedroom into this look.

Check back tomorrow for my bright modern project.

Happy Crafting!

Old Microwave Stand Redo

So I was a busy beaver last weekend. Not that I actually got any cleaning or baking done like I planned, but I got lots of other stuff done. ;) The project that took me most of the weekend was a rehab of an old microwave stand. I am trying to actually clean and organize my craft room (porch) so that all the jewelry stuff is together, all the paint, etc. This stand sits in my craft room and is great for doing projects on since it has a drop leaf on it. (My mom gave me this for free. Woot!)

Here's the before:

And one with the leaf up:

Pretty ugly, eh? I was originally going to paint it an off-white, distress it and antique it, but at Junk Bonanza (see posts here and here), I saw several pieces that had been painted turquoise and distressed and antiqued, so I decided to go for it.

First I removed the hardware from the drawers. Then I sanded the whole piece with a palm sander. Then I painted the whole thing with cheap but effective paint from Walmart (Color Place: I believe the color was just called turquoise, I'll check and get back to you).

Here's what it looked like with a coat of paint:

Whew, that's bright! But don't worry, I'm not done yet! I took a piece of sandpaper and hand-sanded all the edges so they looked like this:

Then I took a foam brush and brushed on a dark walnut stain we had leftover in the garage. I put on the stain in small sections and then wiped it in circular motions with a rag. I did this over the whole piece and then let it dry. I didn't like the way it looked (still too bright), so I decided to brush on another coat with a bristle brush and just work it into the wood with the brush alone. This worked much better! To show you the difference, I took a pic of two drawer fronts. The bottom one is the one done with a rag wipe, the top one is after I used a bristle brush. Huge difference!

You can also see I spray painted the hardware with a hammered bronze spray paint (Rustoleum brand). When I put on the second coat of stain, I did it right over the hardware too. I think it helped it look much more aged.


Here's the finished product:

(Ignore the still messy craft porch. That's the cleaning I didn't get to this weekend.)

I love the result! That walnut stain definitely darkened up the turquoise paint a lot!!! What do you guys think? The whole project cost around $4. The only thing I bought was the half gallon of paint and I only used about half the can. I'm thinking now I might have to paint my tall freestanding cupboard in the craft room the same color!

* I plan on posting this tomorrow over at Shabby Chic Cottage for Transformation Thursday.

*Also linking up over at Infarrantly Creative's Roadkill Rescue Party!

Happy Crafting!

We went shopping!!!

Considering the place we are in life, Hubby and I have never really bought any brand new furniture (with the exception of a cheap crappy futon which doesn't count). Everything has always been used and/or hand-me-down. We needed a couch desperately. Our living room seating consisted of two of these:

Sure they look nice, but there is no padding in them whatsoever. We're talking very uncomfortable. Plus, with two club chairs, there was no cuddling while watching a movie and to stretch out, you have to lay on our rock hard floor (I'm pretty sure there's no carpet padding under there.) So, after saving up some dough and looking at 5,000 couches over the span of the last six months or so, we finally bought one this week. We bought it from A & W Furniture* right here in town. Although we did not purchase it at their regular store, but from the clearance warehouse across the street. We picked this one up for $399 plus tax. I thought is was a good deal. It's brand spanking new and comfy. (Although Hubby is slightly disappointed there are no recliner ends.) So, without further ado, I give you our brand new couch:

Isn't it great? It's just overstuffed enough to be comfy with out being obnoxious. The color is a nice tan. I am worried about it a little over time being too light and showing stains, but we'll see. We had two nieces and a nephew over last night and a weird stain appeared out of thin air. *sigh* On the bright side however, I was able to wipe it right off the microfiber faux suede with nothing more than a warm washcloth. I hope it works like that forever! ;) I plan on rearranging the living room to fit the furniture better when we don't have to have the air conditioner in one window. Which has been most of the summer, but you know what I mean. So, what do you think of the couch?

Happy Crafting!

*Featured on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition!

Funky Find Friday: Personal Finds

For this week's Funky Find Friday, I want to show you funky stuff I've found and what I did with it in my own house. Some things I refinished, others I just used in different ways and some things I use exactly as they are meant to be. On with the show and tell:

I found this neat vintage blue shelf at an auction. I knew it would work great in my blue and yellow bedroom, but it needed a little something. So, I painted the outside of the frame a grayish white and distressed it a little. Now it holds my cobalt glass collection and a few yellow accents above our bed. (Please ignore the awful wallpaper behind it. We rent this house and the paper in the bedroom is very dated.)

This has to be my favorite find ever. The town I went to college in has "spring cleaning week" every year. You can throw whatever you want on the curb and it will be picked up for free. I used to relish that week! I would spend hours driving around with my friends scouring for "upgrades" to our collage furniture. (My Mom and I actually still like to go curb shopping here if we can make it!) This is the front off an old piano that was smashed to bits. It made me sad to see the piano in that state, but on the other hand, I took this front and ran with it. I screwed in four ordinary coat hooks and TaDa! Instant alternative to a full hall tree. Other notable finds from spring cleaning week include(don't have pics right now, will get soon): a stained glass window (that's right!) with only one tiny broken piece of glass, antique dressers, blue mason jars...the list goes on! Incidentally, my Mom and I went to spring cleaning this year and found no less that three piano's thrown out!

I guess I find my entire setting above the kitchen cupboards fun and funky, but the best find has to be the tea kettles. One is copper and the other aluminum. I got a whole box of these babies at an auction for $1 and split them with my Mom.

I made this funky find (formerly a vintage pillowcase) into a great over the shoulder bag. This bag works great for a green shopping bag or library books. It's hard to tell in the pic, but there is a tabbed pocket on the front. The straps are simply the sides tied in knot and it's lined with yellow and white gingham.

These cute owl bookends I found in a thrift store. They are plaster and were formerly painted 70's gaudy gold (you know the one I'm talking about, they put that color on everything from mirror frames to wall sconces. Blech!) I spray painted them black and now they hang out on the bookshelf in my office.

That's all my funky finds for this week. Have you had any funky finds lately? What did you do with them?

Happy Crafting!

Ask and You Shall Receive: Refinished Chest of Drawers

I had planned on doing this project for awhile now to put in my new office and finally decided to get it done last night while hubby was at softball. I noticed today that Kelly from Tearing up Houses left a comment on my last post to "show her the furniture" (okay that's not exactly what she said, but it's funny, right?) ;) So that's where the title of today's post comes from. But enough yapping and on to the refinishing!

I had this black chest of drawers that's really cute from Target's Global Bazaar line a few years ago. The finish on the top started chipping quite badly. The rest is in good shape, so I thought I'd just refinish the top somehow. Of course I forgot to take a picture before I started sanding, but this is what it looked like after sanding:

All those wood colored spots were what was chipping originally, so you get a pretty good idea of what it looked like. I thought I could try and paint the edges and then decoupage a 12 x 12 piece of black and white scrapbooking paper onto it. So I started painting with Apple Barrel Brand "Barn Red" and it looked like this:

Hmmm....the paint isn't really covering the wood spots where the finish chipped off very well. But, I decide to plow ahead anyway. I take a mustardy (yes, I think it should be a word) yellow paint (also Apple Barrel, but can't remember the exact color) and wet brush it over the red while it's still wet and I get this:

The effect would be perfect and exactly as I wanted...if those wood spots weren't there. So I decide I'm going to have to decoupage the whole top, but of course, the top is approximately 16 1/2 inches square, so one scrapbooking sheet isn't going to cut it. My office also has yellow in it, so I figure I'll do a border of mustard yellow paper and then put on my black and white piece in the middle. So, I start measuring and cutting the yellow and arrange it like so:

Hmm..this pic is a little blurry, but you get the idea. I used Mod Podge mixed with a little water and a foam brush to apply it. (Also, ignore the uneven edges, that part gets covered up anyway.) Next I put on the black and white paper:

Then I sealed it with two separate layers of the watery Mod Podge letting it dry between each layer. Finally, I sealed it with a layer of full strength Mod Podge and let it dry overnight. Then, today, I put it in my office:

This pic shows the wall color nicely, but the next one shows the cute leaf drawer pulls better:

Whew! My quick and easy project took me a lot longer than I planned, but then again it seems they always do! ;) I hope you enjoyed this post. Tomorrow for Funky Find Friday I actually plan on showing everyone some of my personal funky finds and what I did with them.

Happy Crafting!