Cabinets, Trunks and Other Old Things

Oh my...the list goes on and on....

 

 

My husband's aunt had an auction as she is moving in with one of her sons and therefore needed to get rid of a lifetime of stuff.  I bought this little kitchen cabinet with granite top for 12 bucks...I know it looks rugged but THIS is after I cleaned it up some...you should have seen it before. The inside bottom board was rusted from cans of old paint. I plan to paint it but haven't managed to get that done yet!  This picture below shows the inside after I removed all the old wood with rust attached and put down a shelf liner....I'll probably put in a new board at some point! 

 

 

Next we have my next crazy purchase of the day.......TWO very old trunks that are in pretty bad condition on the outsides!  The insides are really surprisingly in pretty good shape.  Can I redo these?  I'm not sure....Oh, Pinterest....I'll have to visit you soon to see what might be possible.

The one on the right is actually in the best shape, inside and out so I plan to redo that and see if I can use it near my front door. Will have to see what it looks like when I finish.

 

The material is sort of a thin metal covering so perhaps after I sand it then it could be painted or covered with something (contact paper, fabric?) I believe both date back to the late 1800s so I shouldn't be surprised at the condition plus they were stored in a shed.

 

You can see that the wood on the inside is actually in pretty good condition.  I bought both for 25 dollars so even if I can't manage to get them "pretty".....I haven't wasted much money!

 

I hope to be back soon with some AFTER pictures....or at least some completed project...otherwise this to do list is going to get out of control!

What I Created This Week

Being creative is not just about pages in a book. This week I took my creativity outside. Together with my husband, I created a garden table. It's just the perfect height for tending to the plants. We have added our tomato plants and bell peppers, mini sweet peppers and cilantro so far. I love this table.

Here's my koi fish that was old and rusted...and I got him for FREE....then I spray painted him. Spray paint after all is a girls best friend!  He is just the right touch of color in the little corner garden behind the garage!

Let's recycle....a wine bottle tree. I still need to add more bottles but I'm waiting for some different colored ones!  I'm also creating a wine bottle border on one of the beds so ....hmm.....guess we better get to drinking!

Garage Sale Finds=Craft Projects

See this sort of hideous white and pink house....well it's not hideous but it's not for me! It can actually hang on the wall (shudder) and it opens up to reveal some shelves inside.

Well today was the City Wide Garage sale here in our town and so I'm always on a mission to find "junk" to turn into something cool! This house caught me eye right away but what could one do with it? My daughter (quick thinker that she is) suggested spray painting it black and turning it into a haunted house for Halloween. As soon as she said that I could envision it...so I grabbed it up and waited to see the price (because it didn't have a sticker) I mean I wanted it but it would still depend on PRICE. Guess the price...........25 cents. Yippee....it's mine and will become my September project here at The Creative Spirit. I'll share with you the photos (good or bad) of how it turns out and we will se if it is a quarter well spent!

Paper Trees

It's Christmas in July at Magical Holiday Home and I'll be making TREES all month long and perhaps a few ornaments also because our theme this year is...."Oh Christmas Tree!"
This week my feature is paper trees. I found this idea on a couple different blogs so I thought I'd try my hand at it too!

First I went in search of some oldish looking paper because I wanted to make some vintage looking ones. Behold an old church hymnal....perfect. The trees were easy to cut out but fanning out the branches wasn't as easy as it looked! I still need to fluff these a bit. They actually look better in person than they do in the pic.
I am thinking about making several more of the smallest one to go with my vintage Christmas houses.

Tinting Bottles

So I am redoing my office at school in a beach cottage theme therefore I decided to try my hand at tinting some bottles.

The two rippled ones are ones I bought at the Dollar Tree store because I liked the ripples. The other three are tinted and painted.

I read that to tint bottle you could use a little watered down modge podge and food coloring. There were two methods I discovered.

One was to pour the mixture into the bottle and swish it around to cover the inside completely. Next turn the bottle upside down for five mintues and then right side up for five minutes and last of all to bake it on the lowest temperature in the oven for like 20 minutes. This would hasten the drying process.

The second method was to use a sponge, paint brush or rag to paint the outside of the bottle with the modge podge solution.

I first tried the painting one. I liked the look with a rag not a brush because the brush left too many brush strokes. I liked the frosted look. As it dried though it didn't seem quite dark enough so I decided to also pout the mixture inside and coat it. I did not put the bottle in the oven but let it dry. This left a slight ring around the bottom of the bottle but doe not take away from the over all effect.

I tried doing the pouring inside the bottle without painting the outside but I didn't get the same frosted look. So for me a combination of the two methods gave me the look I desired.

The white and blue bottle is spray painted (I read it would make it look like milk glass but mine didn't). I used a sponge to add some blue paint. I'm not crazy about it but will try painting again on another bottle

More Wooden Letters

Here's another set of wooden letters I decided to finally do something with! These JOY letters were bought on clearance at Walmart. They are actually white letters meant for a child's room, so you can spell out their name. I wanted to decoupage them and meant to use either different kinds of wrapping papers or scrapbook paper. Then when cleaning out a shelf in the craft area, I found this vintage looking scrapbook paper and decided to use it! I really do like how they turned out. They will look cute hanging above the vintage Christmas village!

Do you have a craft lingering in your "to do" pile. If so NOW is a great time to create it!