Toolbox Rescue!

When my dad passed away I kept a fair bit of his stuff that was either overly sentimental or useful.  Falling into the latter category was his tool box.

It however did not meet my standards for aesthetics - especially if I was going to move it to my new condo!  I had to give it a bit of a makeover!

To show you where I started, let's take a look at the original, shall we?

Not so pretty.  Very orange, very stickered!

This was my childhood contribution I'm pretty sure!  Hahahaha.

STEP 1: REMOVE THE STICKERS

When I started, I just started peeling them off.  This wasn't the best idea because they left the glue behind and I spent a lot of time goo-gone-ing them.

When I got to the really stubborn ones, I googled some solutions.  What worked for me was to heat them up with a hair dryer.  They came off really easily, glue and all.  I wished I would have done that with all of them from the beginning.

Starting to look better already!!

STEP 2: PREP

All I did was give it a good wash/wipe down with soap and water and tape off the hardware.

STEP 3: PAINT

I gave it about 2-3 coats of spray paint.  I think this is what I used (is it terrible I can't remember?!)

I also gave the inside tray a quick coat to make it all shiny and new too!

And there you have it! All ready to use in my new place!!


   
       

 

ReStore Fun

The other day I went to our local ReStore because I was actually looking for a light fixture for the hallway, but had fun just wandering around.

If you've never been to a Habitat for Humanity ReStore I highly recommend it.  It's a crafter's dream!

This is what I was actually looking for:

A light like this.  Unfortunately these ones were black, and I was hoping for brushed nickel.  I find that at our ReStore, because there's so much construction in our city, often you can find brand new items in boxes that were left over from condo developments, etc.

All of these get me excited for summer...

I want to put those flameless tea lights under them in the garden!

Source: theartofdoingstuff.com via Jill on Pinterest

Look at this little cupboard door

I would want to make him into something like this Flamingo Toes

File cabinets anyone?!

Look at all those fun colours!!

Definitely the place to pick up random tiles for cheap...

I want to do some sort of tiling project for outdoors!

There's also all sorts of paint

I find that my Home Depot doesn't have much for mis-tints, so this place would probably be a better bet for me!

They also have some furniture sometimes.  Check out these pieces screaming for a little love:

Pinterest Project#3 - Photo Board

Here's another Pinterest project!

This one is by Jamielyn from I {heart} Nap Time and shown off at Infarrantly Creative.

I made 2 of these, one for each of my grandparents for Christmas.  

Again because this is a Stashbusting project, I used acrylics I had on hand.

I painted the boards as well as the clothes pins, cut out vinyl with my Silhouette, and glued on the clothes pins with Gorilla Glue.

Voila!

For my grandma

For my grandpa

I put the same picture hangers on these that I did on my other letter sign.






Again, another almost free project - I had to buy the clothes pins ($1 for a bunch) and the picture hangers, the boards, paint, and vinyl were all on hand!

Pinterest Project #1 - Creative Wrapping

I have a whole pin board just on gift wrapping! This year I started to make some of my gifts really pretty and was stashbusting at the same time, but then ran out of time at the very end, so I did use a little bit of "real" wrapping paper.

This one combines 2 ideas:

Source/pin

I wrapped it in old patterns...I may or may not have a giant box of them that I'll never use... (3 of those boxes have fabric, and the one my left hand is on is FULL of patterns!)

And then I stamped the clothes pin with my sister's name!

Source/pin

This one is just a Lush shopping bag turned inside out, stamped, and tied with a reused ribbon!

Thanks for taking a look.  I really liked using things that were going to be thrown out anyway as wrapping!

For more cool wrapping ideas, check out my pin board!




     

Play Make-Up

Two years ago I found the coolest tutorial ever.  It was for faux make up for kids.  It was on Not So Idle Hands (I love her blog - so glad she's back at it now! This is one of the first ones I started reading!)

I've been saving my make up containers for a while now to give this a try.

The first thing you need to do is clean them up really well with soap and water (I also used a toothbrush just to get into those hard to reach places!)

Next I took some of my nail polishes that I don't really use/that are getting old.  Picking up cheapie stuff from the dollar store would work too!

After giving the polish a good shake, carefully pour it into your containers.   If you can, do this outside.  It will be smelly (unless you have low VOC nail polish!)  

Pour carefully, or else....

I just picked it out and tossed it because the bottle was empty.

When doing the bigger ones, I found that it looked "ugly" when I poured them, so I gave them a little swirl with a q-tip to make them look prettier. 

I also mixed 2 colors for the power compact (again, swirl with a q-tip)

Note that they shrink quite a bit as they dry, so you might need to top them up after the first "coat" dries.


Voila! No-mess make up for those little girls in your life! Include some make up brushes and you're set!

Make sure you check out Not So Idle Hands.

Linking up to:
        

Help & Advice Needed! Aka more tile coasters

My obsession with tile coasters continues with this grey set.  The plan was to use these at work and continue decorating my cubicle

This time I wanted to use my silhouette! I JUST learned how to use the trace function and it blew my mind a little!  (WHA?! You mean I can cut out any image I want?!)

I found a quatrefoil design I liked and cut it out of white vinyl to fit my coaster.

(hard to see here, but...)

(a little easier to see once I removed the stuff I didn't want)

Using transfer paper I stuck it to my coaster

And then removed the transfer paper leaving my nice little stencil

I then painted it in with yellow acrylic.

The problems began when I started taking off the vinyl.

It looked great, but the paint didn't want to stick to the coaster.  :(

I'm not sure what to do with this now.

Do I:
1) Continue on, and then put a million coats of sealer on it and pray it turns out
2) Peel off everything including the existing paint and....
        2a) Spray the coaster with some medium so that the paint will adhere to it and start over
        2b) Try again with spray paint instead of acrylic
3) Ditch the idea all together because I'm considering going for a green/white/zen kinda feel for my desk


Let me know what you think.  I have one half finished coaster sitting here and it's driving me nuts!