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!

My Office: a WIP!

Now that I'm officially an attorney, they let me move into a bigger empty office. I've started redoing it little by little. Of course I forgot to take any before pictures of anything. *sigh* But, I would still like to share with you the parts I have redone so far. First, the walls were covered with an off white patterned wallpaper that was very dingy in most places and covered with stains in a few. I liked the texture of the paper, so I primed it and painted over it. I chose Yukon Gold (PPG). It brightens up the room nicely without being overwhelmingly yellow.

Here's an example of the wall texture. The color isn't quite right on this pic, but you get the idea!

This one is closer to the right color and shows my "message center" next to my desk. The basket holds my billing sheet and phone book. The green "message" board is an old tin T.V. tray that I punched a couple of holes in with a hammer and nail and wired to hang. Messages and stuff stay on there with magnets. And then of course there is my white board calendar.

This is directly across from my desk. It's a sitting area for clients. The framed quote is something my mom made. The owls were a gaudy gold color so I spray painted them black. I definitely think I need more touches of green and red in here. The black and yellow is a little stark by itself.

Here's a shot of my desk for an idea on color. It's really nice dark cherry walnut toned. It matches well with the other tones in the office. It's L-shaped. Unfortunately, that's all I have done for decorating in here do far. I have a blank wall behind me, one across from the other side of my desk, and an empty spot on the same side as the message area. I plan on hanging my various diplomas up on one of the walls. I really need to find some artwork that incorporates all the colors I have for the rest, but so far no luck! I may have to come up with something creative and make my own.

Do you have any ideas?

Happy Crafting!