Haute Antlers

Last weekend, I went "shopping" in my parent's basement. Say what?  Most of you don't know my parents, but those of you that do know that the basement is my dad's (and the dog's) domain.  It's filled with wildlife prints, a bar and beer fridge, and yes, antlers.  

Which is exactly what I was there for.  Antlers are hot right now, and lucky for me, my dad has a ton of them that he was willing to donate to the cause.

My selection.  And this is just what he had in the house!  He said that he could bring more from his hunting camp.  Um...yes, please!

Why did I want antlers, you ask?  Duh, so I could spray paint them!  Have you not caught on yet?!  Antlers are cool.  They're sculptural, you can paint them any color you like, or just leave them natural.  I can think of a million places that I could use them. And mine turned out pretty fab, if I do say so myself!

This project was about as easy as it gets.  I spray painted the whole thing off-white and allowed that to dry.  Then I went back and taped off the tips, covered the rest in a grocery store bag and spray painted gold.  I painted the skull part (Ew, that sounds so gross! It really wasn't.  I mean these antlers were dated 1984, which is almost as old as I am.  It's not like there was anything gross left) by hand with Martha Stewart's liquid gold leaf craft paint, since it was too difficult to tape off. 

Side note: This was the first time I used the Martha paint.  It was amazing.  I'm actively resisting the urge to paint everything in sight. 

It makes a nice little addition to our family room bookshelves, don't you think?

And a wide shot, so you can see the entertainment center area.  I like how they stand out on the red walls. 

Never one to quit while I'm ahead, I decided that my first set of antlers worked out so well that I would paint one more for the living room.  This room has a much cooler color palette, of dark purple and gray, with turquoise accents.  

So this time, I decided to paint my antler turquoise, and use silver spray paint in the tips.  I added a stripe of black craft paint to define the line between turquoise and silver.  

Another home run in my book!  However I had some trouble deciding where the antler should live for the time being.  

I tried it on a little accent table.....It looked great!

And then in one of the speaker stands that flank our TV stand....also looked good in there!  I imagine layering some other objects behind it, if that were to be its final resting place.  

And finally, I tried it as part of my coffee table vignette....also fabulous!

It looks great everywhere!  What's a girl to do...

I'll probably make another one :)

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Keeping it Real: How I Ruined (and Restored) a Lampshade

Unfortunately, not all of my little projects turn out to be masterpieces the first time.  Or even the fourth time. And I think its only fair to show my failures along with my success.

Cause I'm keeping it real!

And since none of you got my little 'keeping it real' reference the last time I made it (you really disappoint me, people!).....



 So anyway, there are plenty of times that my little 'tranformations' go a little south.  Case in point, the butt-ugly lampshade on our floor lamp in the living room.

So why would I buy a lamp with a lampshade that I'd describe as butt-ugly in the first place? Because the lamp base is awesome and it was on clearance at Pier 1.  Obviously.

I just don't know what they were thinking with that shade on this lamp.

When I bought the lamp, I told myself that I would simply buy another lamp shade.  Wrong.  You probably can't tell in the picture, but this lamp shade is huge.  Finding another drum lampshade in a similar size, style I liked, at a price I was willing to pay turned out to be impossible.  Believe me, I looked.  For like a year and a half.

In fact, lampshades have sort of been my nemesis lately.  I have two lamp bases that bought without shades and flipped over the summer that I have also been unable to find suitable shades for.  I guess I should have learned my lesson with this shiny silver, feathered beauty.  

Nope.  I rarely learn lessons the first time around.  

Anyway, I saw some blogger inspiration of painted lampshades and decided that I should give it a shot.  The lampshade is made of non-porous, thick, paper-like material, so painting it seemed like a good option.  I decided to spray-paint it a new base color and attempt to free-hand a chevron pattern.  I was kind of going for an imperfect look, so free-handing it seemed to be a good idea.

Spray painting the shade was easy enough. The color felt too bright to me, but I anticipated the silver chevron toning that down a little bit.....

....which it did.  I achieved this look by dipping the top of a pointed, foam craft brush in silver paint and dotting it along the shade in a chevron pattern.

While not perfect, this turned out OK. Plus, I had kind of been shooting for imperfect.

So, I should have stopped here.  But no...

....after a few days, the imperfections in pattern just seemed to be glaring at me.  They were all I could see. So I decided to thicken up the chevron stripes, thinking that would somehow make the imperfections less glaring.  

So I used Silver Leaf Rub N' Buff and my finger to color in alternating chevrons.  Big mistake.  Big.  Huge. (can someone PLEASE get this movie reference?!).

It looked like a kindergartner finger-painted it.  No lie.

And, crappy blogger that I am, I forgot to photograph it!!  I think I was so grossed out by it and in such a hurry to get rid of the atrocity that I jumped into changing it without thinking to take pics.  Sorry :(

At that point I decided to cover it with fabric.  I spent a few weeks looking for fabric that woudl be thick enough in a color or print that I liked.  As luck would have it, I found a brand-new Threshold white cotton tab-top curtain for $3 at my local Goodwill.  The fabric was nice and thick, and there was no way that I could have bought that much fabric for less than $3.

So I cut a length of fabric that was two inches wider than my shade (one inch overlap on both the top and the bottom), and wrapped it around my lampshade.  I hot glued the top and the bottom to the inside of the shade, just inside the rim.

And once I got to the end of my fabric I folded about an inch of it over on itself and hot glued it in order to create a 'finished' end.  

This helped create a more finished looking seam.  Which of course I hid at the back of the shade, against the wall!

I'm pretty pleased with the result!  It seems to bring more of a light feeling into the room. 

Notice that Giselle has joined the gallery wall!


Now if only I hadn't taken me two failed projects to get there...

Sigh.  At least I'm keeping the hardware stores in business :)

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Office Refresher

I mentioned last Friday that I'm back to work as a school counselor following summer break.  Summer is a great time to reflect on the previous year and work on making changes for the next year, and one thing that I decided to re-conceptualize over summer break was my office.  Here are some shots of my office from a few years ago, to give you an idea of where I started.. 

 

 

Definitely nothing wrong with it.  It just wasn't very inspiring or welcoming.

Setting up my office at work is always a challenge for me.  I spend a lot of time in there, so I want to make it as welcoming as possible, but I don't really want to spend a ton of money to do so. Also, my re-decorating time is limited to how much I'm able to stay after work or willing to come in on days off.  So getting large blocks of time to make progress is also a challenge.   But over the last few summers, I've been making some progress.

I started the ball rolling last summer, when I re-covered my desk chair and the other two chairs in my office with new fabric.  All it took were some tools to take the chairs apart and a staple gun. 

 

I realize that the back would have looked better if I had sewn actually covers.  But I don't know how to do that, and the back of the chair is up against the wall.  So I decided it worked well enough for me! 

 

 

And then this summer, I decided to 'shop my attic' to find things that I'm not using at home that might work in my office, and spent some time updating these items at home.  This was a total score, as I have a ton of things that I'm no longer using at home.  They are destined to end up in the yard sale or the donation pile, so why not try to re-purpose them in my office?

 

First up,  is this rug that we used to have in our family room.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with it, but we needed two rugs to fit the space in our family room and I couldn't find another identical rug. 

 

 

The problem was, the colors in the rug were not the colors I wanted to use in my office.....So I painted it.

 

Before you think I'm completely weird, let me argue my point. While I wanted an area rug in my office, there was absolutely  no way I was going to buy one because there was no way I was going to find a 5x7 area rug that I liked at a price that I was willing to spend for my office (which was $25 or less).  A rug in my office at work does not have to be soft or plush.  No one is going to be taking a nap on it, no one is even going to be walking on it without shoes.  So it doesn't matter if the rug is plush or soft.  And if I ruined it....well, the rug wasn't being used anyway.  So I went for it.  I decided which areas of the rug I wanted to keep (the beige and the black and green stripes) and then carefully painted primer over the rest.  Then I used acrylic paint in coral and gold on the areas I wanted to cover up.  While it is not perfect, it's not bad and certainly better than no area rug at all. 

 

The curtains that you can see in the picture (and the curtain rod that you can't see) also came from 'shopping our house' for things we are no longer using.  Plus, I found two white throw pillows on the futon in our spare bedroom, and they were really only there because we had no where else to put them.  So I brought those in as well.....and I also painted them :)

 

Using the same coral and gold acrylic paint that I used on the rug, I painted one pillow using inspiration from my confetti vase. I used a foam pouncer dipped in paint to create the dots.

 

 

And for this one, I taped off a design using painter's tape, and painted the rest using the coral paint. Once that was dry, I used plastic cups painted in gold paint to create the rings. The goal was for it to look perfectly imperfect, which I think I achieved. 

 

 

I covered some of the drawers to my filing cabinet, as well as four canvases that I  bought at Target on clearance a few years ago, with contact paper that I picked up at Marshall's last year. I added a wooden M that I had on hand and painted with my coral craft paint to the canvases. I thought some twigs painted the same color might also look good glued on top of the blank canvases, in order to add some texture. Maybe I'll do that once the trees drop their leaves.

 

 

 

Then, I came across the idea of rope-wrapped and painted terra cotta pots while reading House by Hoff, so I made a set for myself to use with my succulents.  April's blog is fabulous, so I'll let you check out her tutorial rather than writing my own. Be prepared, you'll probably get lost in her blog for awhile!

 

 Combined with some items I already had in the office that I spray painted gold,  and some of my books, they make a nice vignette in on my windowsill. 

 

 

 





 

I covered my bulletin board in burlap....

 

 

...spray painted my diploma frames, and some other items around the room...

 

 

 

...and hung some tissue paper poms for some vertical interest...

 

 

 

 

 

 

...and that's my stopping point for right now.  I still have some empty walls to fill, and I'm sure that I'll come up with ideas for them eventually. 

 

Supplies Purchased with price estimates, as I didn't write it all down along the way)

2 yards of white fabric for chairs (~$10)

1 yard patterned fabric for desk chair (~$10)

3 yards burlap ($8 with coupon)

1 roll burlap ribbon (~ $3)

1 package chevron contact paper ($6)

4 bottles acrylic craft paint ($5)

1 can gold spray paint ($4)

2 packs of tissue paper ($4)

3 small terra cotta pots ($3)

Round pouncers ($4)

 

 

All other supplies were things that I already owned, so the whole "office refresh" project took less than $60 over the course of 2 years.  I'm pleased with that, and feel like I reached my goal of perking up the office without spending much money.

 

 

 So now, I'll start the school year with a more welcoming space and a completely clean desk.  Let's hope the welcoming vibe lasts, because the clean desk surely won't ;)

 

 

 

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The White (and gold) Stripes

Here it is, the post you have all been waiting for.  Ok maybe nobody has actually been waiting with bated breath for this post, but I have been very excited to show this project to you!! 

Remember how I mentioned that I thought the white grommet-topped curtains in our family room could stand to have a little more flavor?  Well, call me Emeril, because flavor them up I did!  BAM!

I spray painted my curtains. 

That's right, you heard me.  I spray painted my curtains, and I liked it.  Here's how you can do it too.

The curtains that flank our patio doors are actually four separate panels.  I took each panel off the rod, laid it out flat on the floor and measured it to help me decide how wide my stripes should be. The length of the curtain was just over 83 inches, and I knew that I wanted to have 7 stripes (4 white and 3 gold, so that the curtain would be more white than gold), so I decided to make each stripe 11.75 inches wide.  The bottom stripe would be slightly wider, but I knew that it would not be noticeable. 

So, I started at the top of the curtain and measured down 11.75 inches, making a tiny pencil mark along the left edge, center, and right edge of the curtain (all 11.75 inches from the top).  Then, I taped a strip of blue painter's tape along that line, making sure that I line up against all three marks to ensure that my stripe would be straight.  Once I had my first line taped off, I measured 11.75 inches down from that (again at both edges and the center) and placed another strip of tape, and so on. 

The thing that I had to remember was that whether the tape should be placed above or on below my pencil mark depended upon whether that stripe would be white or gold.  For the white stripes, I wanted the painters tape to be placed within the area to remain white.  For the gold stripes, I wanted the painter's tape to be placed outside of the area that would be painted gold.  Looking below, you can see what I mean.  The white stripes appear to be thinner than the gold stripes, but that is just because the portions covered by the blue tape will be white when removed.

White, gold, white, gold, white, gold, white

I cannot put enough emphasis on the importance of making sure that you seal the painters tape firmly.  A good seal ensures a clean paint line when you remove the tape and is essential to the success of this project.

Next, I used strips of a clear plastic drop cloth to cover the stripes that were to remain white.  This part was easy; I just cut the drop cloth in the widths that I needed and used painters tape to keep them in place.  Once again, a good seal on the painters tape is essential to ensuring that you don't end up with gold paint in areas that are supposed to remain white. 



Then it was outside for the spray painting portion of the project.  Believe it or not, I just used regular old Rustoleum metallic gold spray paint.  A lot of it.  In order to get good coverage of the white curtain, it took 2 coats of spray paint, which equaled about 2 cans of paint per curtain.  Since fabric has so many nooks and crannies within the weave, I would recommend doing the first coat from one side of the curtain and the second coat from the opposite side.  Using multiple angles ensures that you get complete coverage. 

 After one coat, there was still some white peeking through.

 But after two coats the coverage was very good.

About five minutes after the second coat had been applied, I removed the tape and the plastic strips.   I wasn't quite sure what to expect...but the lines came out AMAZING. Look at those perfect stripes!

Once I had the first panel done, basically all I had to do was repeat the process with the other three panels...with one small exception.  Although I had four identical white curtain panels that I bought all at the same time, they were....irregular.  Some of the panels were slightly longer than others, and if I measured the same distance from the top of each curtain, the stripes might not line up with each other. That would look terrible, and this concern almost derailed me.

  My husband pointed out that the constant was the grommet, since all of the grommets hung from the straight curtain rod, and told me that if I started the first gold stripe the same distance underneath the grommet on each curtain, they would be even.  I could then measure my 11.75 inches on all of the stripes below that.  Which is exactly what I did, and......

 ...they lined up beautifully! 



  I can't get over how much I love them!  I feel like that add depth and interest to the family room.  They look cool next to my patterned chair.  I think they are my best project to date!!

But now I wonder if I should somehow stripe the white grommet topper curtains in the other half of the room? But I worry that might be too much. What do you think? 

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