Upcycling furniture for the craft room

For the past year, while I was having difficulty sitting comfortabley,  I have been working on getting more organized in my craft room. I accomplished this in 10 or 20 minute segments, and will have other posts coming up about these projects.

Today I want to show you the beauty of chalk paint on old, mismatched furniture items that are suitable for storage in the craft room.

We had a dark stained pine bedroom suite when we were first married. Forty-five years later, it was really showing all the nicks and scratches that were created over the years by various house movers. Although we were reimbursed for the damage and  replaced the furniture, I kept this one dresser from the set, to use in the craft room. It has lovely deep drawers that easily hold card boxes from Michaels.

My first thought was to chalk paint the dresser white, thereby matching the other painted furniture in my room. But then I read that dark brown or mahogany coloured stains can bleed thru chalk paint, so using an old rough looking  paintbrush, I painted on two coats of KILZ primer. Then I used two coats of Folk Art  Teal textured teal chalk paint that was purchased on clearance at Joannes for $5 a can.  It went on so nicely as it was really thick, and helped to hide the many fine surface scratches. Sadly,  it was a very bright teal and just did not look right in my aqua and teal room.  So I used two more coats of a duller Folk Art "Cascade"  teal chalk paint from Walmart, and then hand painted white in all the cracks and grooves with a fine art paint brush. Two coats of Behr white decorative finishing wax highlighted the white even more so, and I was happy with the end result.

I had a white French Provincial bedroom set that I used in the bunkhouse up at the old RV lot.. When we sold the lot, we had to leave most of the furnishings behind. I was able to keep the desk and desk hutch.

I moved that hutch downstairs to the craft room and painted the outside boards with the same teal chalk technique and then just added a little more paint across the detailing on the front. This hutch was again finished with the white Behr decorative finishing wax.

I had a devil of a time getting a good photo.

Here are some shots of the drawer interiors...
Washi tape and bling on  rolls

Envelopes

More envelopes, varying sizes

Envelopes again...do you think I have enough? Some preprinted card too as well as hessian, aida cloth, linen and others materials and fibers.

I am really happy with the end result. I put two layers of wax on the whole piece and then two more layers on the dresser top. Hopefully this will give a little extra protection to the top, as I usually drag the finished card baskets forward to browse through them!

I had three brushed silver drawer pulls leftover from a previous kitchen remodel. Luckily they fit over the old screw holes. I will have to pick up four more and this project will be done!

September Rudolph Days Challenge

Once again I used Random Org to choose our winner, #13 Michelle.

Michelle, could you please drop me an email to maureenkane@telus.net and let me know which prize you would prefer. Please provide your mailing address too, so I can get your prize mailed off to you.

September Rudolph Days Challenge

Once again, it is time for the Rudolph Days Challenge. Here are the rules for your perusal...

1. The Rudolph Days Challenge will start each month (January to November) on the 25th, and will close at midnight PST, on the last day of that month.
2. The theme is always Anything Goes, as long as it is Christmas.
3. One entry per person and you just need to enter one Christmas card or Christmas project.
4. You may combine your entry with other challenges (maximum of 10 in total).
5. Your card (or Christmas project) should not have been previously posted to your blog. It should be posted to your blog during the current months Rudolph Days Challenge, (between the 25th and last day of the current month)
6. Please link back to or at least mention, the Rudolph Days Challenge.
7. Please leave a comment on the challenge post.
8. The winner will be selected by random draw and announced on the first day of the following month. Prizes will be mailed anywhere in the world.

9. A special draw will be held at the end of the year, in December,  for all those who submitted a card or project every month that year, January to November.

Our design team ladies have been busy creating lots of inspiration for you!

First up is Sue Tossell at Sue's Crafty Corner blog.

Sue has made a gorgeous Christmas Bauble themed card. Love the beautiful turquoise colour used here. I think I spy a little mirri card here too! When I was a kid my Mum always had this style of ornaments (baubles) on the tree. I used to love their "pushed in" beauty. Now, I go around the thrift shops looking for this style for myself. I have them displayed in a crystal bowl, to showcase their old fashioned charm. 

If you pop over to Sue's blog, you can read about how she made it and leave her some love!

Next up is Jenny at Cardsarus blog.

Jenny has made a fabulous Red Truck and Christmas Tree card. I love the look of these truck themed stamps. They have an old fashioned charm that many of us remember from having old trucks like these...or at least our parents did!
I think Jenny has done a fabulous jopb of creating the snow. If you pop over to her blog, you can read just how she made it, methinks! Be sure to leave her some love while you are there.

My card is Christmas tree themed as well. A bit more modern and not sure that I will do it again. I have been trying to use some of my unstamped stash and this card is one of those...

This card is a series of three Christmas tree images by My Minds Eye, the Winter Wonderland stamp.  As I stamped it off , I decided that it was not a keeper. I am going to donate this stamp to the thrift shop (with a small warning note inside the stamp)  as it was hard to align the center tree so that all the trees were straight.  The tallest tree in particular is sort of tilted at the top and no matter how many times I straightened it on the block, it still tilts so that the stamped star is off kilter. I hid this with the red star topper, but truly it is not worth the agro to use again. I was so wrapped up in correcting that issue, that I missed the fact that the other trees are not quite sitting level either,,,but that is due to operator error!  

The colours and choices of the DP and even the theme of this card, were made with the envelope in mind. A while back, I purchased some preprinted envelopes, mostly 5x7 but a few other sizes as well, at our local thrift shop. If my memory is correct, they were only a dollar for a fairly large bag!  Wherever possible this year, I plan to use up some of these envelopes.

The background DP is Here Comes Santa Claus, by Doodlebug. I used a strip of Carta Bella, Merry and Bright,  for the central border. The wee presents that run along the border strip have a bit of aqua  in their packaging, so I matted the image with Joanne's aqua blue glittered paper. A second mat of red glitter paper was added as well, for just a bit more sparkle.

I randomly scattered the smallest green diamonds on the images and also used pale gold teensier diamonds to accent the tree stars. These are Scottish diamonds as they were bought in Inverness on our last visit to Britain! They are a long narrow sheet of individual diamonds and I bought silver as well as gold. It is hard to get the really teensy ones like these over here, without paying a fortune.

The sentiment is Elizabeth Craft, cut from a Joanne's green glittered card snippet and glued on top of  second cut of a green mirri card snippet, for some added depth. A couple of green diamonds balanced out the design.

I used a snippet of blue card for the inside of the card and stamped my favourite generic Christmas  sentiment by Inkadinkado.

Our presents this month are a choice of this Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Christmas Blueprint 2 stamp, CMS168

or this Creative Expressions Festive - Industrial Chic Gear Flower Die