✥DIY Anthro Zinc Letter w/Foil✥

A few little issues at hand. We finally had a sunny afternoon- but alas it was too windy to spray paint off my third floor balcony. I currently have 5 unfinished projects around the living room and kitchen. This drives me crazy. I'm a "1 and done before you move on" type a gal.

Now, onward to a real, live, actual completed project.

Can you believe it?

Typography has been huge for awhile now. I bought this 12' cardboard B from JoAnn's almost a month ago. I originally planned on doing a moss covered PB inspired  look, but after sitting with the idea for awhile it didn't feel like me. I think I like to look at other people's, but it's not really something I love.
Does this ever happen to you? It's hard sometimes to see all these good ideas and then edit them down to what you would chose if you had to pay full price for it.

Longest intro ever, but I decided I wanted a metallic letter. Something that looks like steel, not fake paint steel. ;) Anthro has these sweet Zinc ones- prices range from 18-98 bucks.

There are several tutorials online for faux zinc painting-mostly a black or blue base with silver paint on top.

I wanted to experiment with something else.
I used aluminum foil, putting shiny side towards the cardboard and mod podged it on.

For a good final result you want to do the edges first and you want to make sure they are well adhered- no bubbles!
 As you can see, I did the top first and then the edges and did NOT like it. Fail!
So plan B- edges first, then top.


First: Put a sheet of foil, shiny side up, on a cutting board, then put the letter on top of that. Then cut around the letter with the knife. Remove the letter and carefully finish cutting through the foil wherever needed. Make sure you use a new blade and use a ruler for the straight portions to get a clean cut. You don't want the foil to crumple. I have heard from others that if you handle the foil a lot or if it's not cut out carefully then the end result won't look right.
  Once the foil letter is cut out, it can be laid on top of the cardboard letter. I sealed it with a coat of mod podge over the whole thing.

Note: if the aluminum foil was wrinkled from handling it or from cutting it out your results will look like an aluminum foil letter! NOT a zinc one!

I had some wrinkling when I applied the mod podge, a similar effect to when you use it with paper. This light wrinkling is fine and adds to the textured look of real zinc.

After the Mod Podge I wish I could say I was 100 percent stoked with the result, but at this point I thought it looked too plain.

I dry brushed a little black paint on- and then kicked myself. Did I just end up faux painting after all that?
Yuppers.

This is the end result.
Now I'm happy with it- amazingly, it does look like metal. That layer of mod podge changed the feel of the aluminum foil tremendously- in a good way!

If you go to the Anthropologie site and click on the zinc letters, then zoom in you can see the texture is very similar.

Yay!

Thanks for looking!
Can you believe all these features? I feel so lucky!


Check out these Awesome sites who GENEROUSLY featured MY PROJECT!!

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party page.

I'm also linked up here.

    

 

DIY Crate & Barrel Mercury Glass Lamp

This lamp on the left was my dream lamp- the lamp on the right is my copy.
The inspiration comes from Crate & Barrel and I heart it big time. Too bad it's 239 buckaroos for ONE!
I searched high and lower for something even close to this gorgeous without success.
Then I was listening to Nate Berkus and heard hm say something about DIY mercury glass finish (this is pre-blog days). Umm, I had no idea this was possible- but there are several tutorials online like here and here .

So obviously I decided to make my own. I figured it would cost be $100 for two lamps. I planned to buy glass kitchen canisters (using two tall ones like these), lamp kits, a fancy pants drill bit and of course the mercury glass faux finish.

 

 But fate struck and I found these glass lamps at the thrift store.

I do not love the shape the same way I loved the square inspiration piece- but I thought it was worth a try, especially cause it's hecka cheap and will save me 50 big ones.

I really wish I would have looked a little bit closer at the metal portions of the lamp. Soooo rusty! Who would buy these? Picture my two thumbs pointing right at me, "this guy!"

Ugg.

The base of the lamp didn't just unscrew- the lamp had to be completely taken apart. If you run into this, it's pretty easy to figure out-but you want to start with these screws up at the top- the ones holding the wires to the lamp.

Just unscrew those and you should be able to start stripping all the pieces off. This is what I had when both lamps were completely deconstructed.

I sanded the heck out of all the rusty pieces and bought a special rusty metal primer. Honestly it was not my favorite- but at Walmart there weren't  a whole lot of options.

For the mercury glass look- you wanna buy Looking Glass spray paint. I found it at Robert's for $19 and at Michael's for $12. Not bad with the 40% coupon.

I used a tutorial myself- but here's the basics-

(1) Cover the outside of your piece of glass and tape it off

(2) Evenly spray water on the inside

(3) Do several light coats of spray paint
4)Depending on the amount of desired "chipping" either let it dry naturally- or wipe it while it's wet and a lot of finish will come off

(I let mine dry naturally as my inspiration doesn't look very "chippy".)

Now for the goods- THE TIPS. 

✴I used the spray paint outside and could not have been in more ventilated space and I thought I was gonna pass out. It is WAY WORSE that regular spray paint. Wear a mask!

✴I did at least five coats. I didn't wait over night to do them (who's patient enough for that?) but you should wait a few minutes between coats, or you WILL get drip marks. Mercury glass should not have those!

✴My FAVORITE Part: real mercury glass has gold, tan and even black show through when it wears.
I waited a day and then used gold craft paint on a sponge brush to paint over the mirror spray paint. The paint on the brush acted as a paint thinner and I was able to distress the finish exactly how I wanted.
I used it very lightly in some places, not at all in others, and then heavily in a few spots.Then finished up with a few dispersed spots of black.

 I have to say, I LOVE this touch! It made a huge difference!

I  have a pair of these lamps now...but need to work out the matching lamp shade thing! Remember this dirty, thirfted Restoration Hardware shade? I think that cleaning experiment worked pretty well.

Hope you guys liked this one-cause I sure did! Oh yeah, grand total came in at 30 for two lamps, paint and one shade- I figure I'll be done in another 15 or twenty dollars.

✥ Condo Cat's Backyard ✥

I really can't imagine that others will find this project helpful- but you just never know and it has been a HUGE success in our home.

First, a little background-
When Z and I were newlyweds and living in a small Hawaii apartment we got this cat- his name started out as Mother Freakin' Precious- because he was just so precious to us (and it was fun to have the Vet say it aloud.)
Now we call him Pud (no clue how that came about?) He is all things good about cats, but with none of the bad. He does not startle, he is not scared of strangers, he is not finicky, he's basically GREAT!

Everywhere else we've lived he's been an indoor cat allowed to go outside for the day. When he's not allowed out he becomes a melancholy, depressed and meows...A LOT. Sad. But we live in an area where he would be a kitty cat pancake if we let him outside so we can't. Instead, we gave him a peace offering. 

Without further adieu-Pud's condo backyard. We went to Lowe's looking for a huge planter. Something we could throw some dirt and sod into.  We ended up with the biggest barrel we could find. It was a little plain and didn't have holes for drainage- but we thought we could take care of that. We brought it home and drilled like 10 holes in the bottom. At this point we could already tell it was going to be a success. He was in kitty cat heaven!

 After a few days I decided it needed some sprucing up. I painted stripes of my favorite accent colors, using paint I already had around the house. First doing the blue and green, then the white.

I liked it, but felt it looked too perfect. I took some 220 grit sandpaper and distressed the edges. All the while Pud sat in his "backyard" while it was on the counter! Too funny! He's in love!

Honestly, we are in heaven with this project as much as he is. He never meows to go outside anymore, although he does meow to go on the deck. ;-)  He LURVES it, big time!

Pud was Featured!

All this for under 20 bucks (bucket, sod, dirt)!







I party HERE-

Knock Off Decor Rocks

Have you all been to Knock Off Decor?

If the answer is "no"- you need to make it a "yes" double ASAP! 

It is basically the best site to learn how other bloggers have done knock offs from our favorite brands, i.e. Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Anthropology, you get the idea. You can browse by store or by project type, I bookmarked three projects in a row when I was looking through.

Check these great ideas out:

Do you guys love this as much as I do?

 Would stinkin love to own this- so making it may be in my future! ;)

Holy creative! Can you believe this is paper and cardboard?!

I am beyond thrilled to have two of my own projects featured!
It was winning the Miss America contest- well, actually- it was more exciting than that- it was like winning the lottery! Couldn't believe my knock off silver shells and turquoise lamp were good enough to make the cut!

So get on over there and check it out!

Mason Jar Soap Dispenser

Last week I shared with you guys this pic and my tutorial on these Pottery Barn inspired silver shells.

Since the jars are the dominant counter top design I thought I'd add another jar, turned into a soap dispenser.

This project was a breeze. 

You NEED a jar with ring and a lid, a sharp cutting tool and a pump.

You may want epoxy too.

First cut the plastic bottle around the top, making sure not to damage the ribbed potion the pump twists onto.  See down there?☟

Then trace the circumference of the ribbed portion onto the metal top. Use a sharp cutting tool to cut out the circle- I used an Exacto knife. Then I used a drill with a metal tip to smooth out the edges.
This step is optional- but I had the needed tool (the bit), so why not?

You want the two pieces to be a pretty tight fit. I really had to push it into place. At this point you can decided if you need it to be water proof, i.e. leak proof. If this is a concern for you, like maybe there are little ones on the home, then use epoxy to seal the two pieces together. Wait the prescribed drying time and you've done it!

This took me about 10 minutes and zero dollars! Gotta love that!!

- Becca -

I party HERE-
and also here.

Perfecting Nail Head Trim

I don't know if you all noticed, but some of trim was crooked on my headboard.

I bothered me- a lot. Pretty much kept me from loving the project 100 percent. But it IS totally fixable, that is if Joann's would keep their trim stocked!!! I bought trim for the THIRD time to get this project perfect.

Here is my before-remember my excitement with the finally, finally finished headboard?
Well, day after day, these areas were all I could focus on.

 Thankfully, fixing it is not all that difficult.

To fix the trim what you want to do is grab the nail head with you needle nose pliers like this:

See how I'm holding the pliers on top of the strip- so the tips of the pliers are NOT touching the fabric? This is key to protecting it from damage. You can actually pull or wiggle out the nail heads but the top of the nail will probably be damaged. Can you see it on this photo?

So after the tacks that were securing the crooked portion of your line are pulled out will will be able to move the strip into the correct place. To do this push down with the foam and fabric in one hand and move the trim to where it needs to be then secure it with new nail heads.

Easy fix and it looks so much better!

Too bad I was too lazy to make my bed and take all the pics over. Aah!
At least it's finally finished....for real this time!

Thanks for taking a look!

 - Becca -

Linked up at these great PARTIES!
and more specifically here and here. 

Cleaning Thirft Store Lampshades

Today's post is featuring adventures in decontaminating cleaning thrift store lampshades! I have been sitting on several lamps that need major makeovers- but the weather is REFUSING to COOPERATE! 

I haven't been able to spray paint a thing for a WEEK!

Since I plan to remake several lamps, for two of them I thought it would be interesting to buy thrift store lampshades and try to clean them. I found some fabric lampshades to go with the bases. One looks pretty cheap- like a Walmart shade or something, and the other is a Restoration Hardware find, yay!. They both have visible stains/dirt and I can recover them if need be- but wanted to explore cleaning methods first.

HOW TO

1.] To clean a lampshade you should start with vacuuming it or wiping it with a dry cloth. Since these shades were visibly dirty I skipped the first choice and started with the next safest for fabric.

2.] You can mix some water and dish washing detergent in a 1:4 ratio with an egg beater until foam forms.  FYI- If your shade is silk the Internet says only to use Dreft or Ivory Snow, not dish soap. Apply foam to the whole shade and wipe with a clean cloth. If you only wet part there may be some fabric discoloration. This method is perfect for delicate materials and for shades that have glued on trim which will not hold up to water.

This probably would have worked for a shade that is lightly soiled. Something that hasn't been dusted regularly (or ever like my home!) and maybe some of the dust has ingrained into the fabric. If that method doesn't work you want to go extreme!

3.] Fill the bathtub with water and some dish soap and DUNK the shade making sure it is fully submerged each time. Don't leave the shade in the water! Pull it out and use a cloth to work the soap into the shade, especially any stains! You can then hang it to dry on the shower rod.

I washed the Restoration Hardware shade first and my experience was that this shade held up to the water well. It could easily withstand the washing. I dunked it quite a few times and worked soapy water all over the fabric. It turned out looking pretty good.

The cheaper shade had a much lower water tolerance. I dunked it about the same amount of times and then tried to scrub it but it had pulled in too much water too quickly. I let it sit to dry out but it was too far gone and the form was ruined. I would suggest scrubbing the highly soiled areas and then dunking the shade only once or at most twice if it's of a poorer quality.

So, umm-you can see the results for yourself. Here's an updated image of the lampshade today- if you want to know how to recover a lampshade, check it out! Hope this helps you guys!

- Becca
  Linked up here.