My End Table is FINALLY done!

One night I was watching a movie upstairs in the media room with my hubby and I realized that I didn't have anywhere to put my popcorn and drink if I was sitting on the end.  The search was on!  First, I found some great scrapbook paper to Mod Podge onto a piece of furniture.  I have never refinished furniture before so I didn't want to spend much money on the furniture.  I stopped by every thrift store that I drove by for over a month until I finally found the perfect "canvas" for my art.  I drove by a thrift store that I didn't know was even there, made a U-turn and ran in.  I went to the back of the store and immediately found this little gem for $3.99.  YUP... three dollars and ninety-nine cents!!!  I couldn't believe it!  I snatched it up and took it up to the check out.  Sure it was a cheap piece of furniture with a little damage, but it was perfect!  The only thing really wrong with it was a small warped spot on the top.  No big deal.

The first thing I did was sand all the stain off of the legs.  The rest of the end table was a wood veneer, so all I could do to it was rough it up so that it would hold the primer a little better.

Next, I spray painted Kilz primer on the entire end table.  My media room has deep reddish maroon curtains in it, so I was lucky enough to find a clearance paint sample at Home Depot for less than a dollar that matched my curtains perfectly.  After the Kilz was dry, I painted a coat of the maroon paint on.

I wanted a distressed vintage look, so banged it up with washers strung on a small rope, a hammer and nail and the sharp edge of a screw driver.  I read on the internet that if you use wax on the base coat of your paint and then paint over it, it is much easier to remove the paint from the top for distressing.  I tried a tea light candle, but it just crumbled.  I found a white crayon in Sarah's crayon stash that worked great.  I colored on the maroon paint in a few spots.  Then I spray painted the table a dark brown. (I had to do this in the garage at this point because it was cold and rainy outside.... I did the "hold your breath, point, spray and run back inside method").

Once the brown spray paint was dry, I took a fine grit sand paper and steel wool to distress the paint.  To remove the paint that I used the crayon on, I just used the edge of a screw driver and gently scraped the paint all over.  In those spots, the paint simply chipped off. 

Next, I cut out the scrapbook paper to fit the table and Mod-Podged it on (LOVE that stuff!)

I read (or rather, watched) some helpful hints on the tutorials on Mod Podge Rocks blog.  If you are new to Mod Podge, I would highly recommend watching.

 And finally, it is dry.

And then, put together.

It's the perfect size for the spot at the end.  I LOVE it!

Isn't this scrapbook paper great??  I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and knew it would be perfect for our media room.  After a year, we still don't have any art on the walls up there.  There is more scrapbook paper in the pack, so I plan on Mod Podging it to canvas to hang on the wall.  Here is a link to the see more of the paper on Tim Holtz's blog.

Linking to:

Sarah's Heart Chart

One of the blogs I follow is called "Women Living Well".  It is done by a Christian stay at home mom.  Last week she did a vblog titled Positive Parenting Tips.  It was very inspiring.  One of the tools she uses to encourage good behavior is called a Heart Chart.  I thought I would make one for Sarah and see if it could help us encourage better behavior from her.  I went to Joann's fabric with an idea of what I wanted to do, but no real plan.  I wandered around the store for well over an hour thinking and looking at everything.  I finally decided on a wooden plaque and some wooden hearts.  Sarah was excited when she got home from school and we set off to work.

Sarah painted the larger hearts pink

I wanted it to have a distressed look, so first I spray painted the base with a dark brown paint and wiped it off with a paper towel (didn't have a stain, so I improvised with the spray paint), next I painted it lime green and finally pink.  I also painted the smaller reward hearts the lime green color.

Here is everything painted.  I used scrapbook paper for the center of the board.  I distressed the painted wood using sand paper.  In some spots I went all the way down to the wood (which was sort of stained brown from the brown spray paint)

Notice how the paper on the left looks nice and new.  It didn't look right up against the distressed wood.  I tried a couple of things on a piece of the paper that I trimmed off.  Sanding the paper with 400 grit sand paper worked perfectly!  I was so happy with the way the paper turned out.  I wanted it even more distressed in a couple of spots, so I used a tiny bit of water on my finger.

Sarah wanted me to use the Mod-Podge with glitter in it for the big hearts.  I used the regular Mod Podge to glue on the scrapbook paper. I used a hot glue gun and glued the big hearts on the board and glued ribbon on to the small hearts.  I picked up some upholstery tacks at Home Depot to hang the tacks on.

Here is the finished "Heart Chart" 

Each of the small hearts is worth 1 heart and the bigger ones at the bottom are 15.  Sarah and I came up with ideas about how she earns hearts.  Some of the ways are getting ready for school on time with no one having to yell at her to get a move on, getting to bed when she is told, sharing and basically just doing what we ask her to do.  She can also lose hearts by not doing what is asked of her and pestering her sister.  We also wrote down what the rewards are.  She can turn in 30 hearts for Baskin Robbins ice cream, 45 hearts gets her a dipped waffle cone and 60 gets her a milk shake.  She also decided that she wants 1,000,000 hearts will get her an i-phone!  Fine with me ;-)

Sarah's Crafts

There is a place in Modesto where you paint pottery and then they fire it for you.  Sarah has been wanting to go there for a while, so a couple of weeks ago when David was out of town, we had a girls night date and went painting.  We had a great time.  We missed Mackenzie and wished she would have gone with us, but I guess a boyfriend is more fun on a Saturday night than mom and Sarah.  Go figure!

Here is Sarah with the "before" picture:

Here she is painting:

Here is Sarah with the finished product.  It is a soccer bank.

 A while ago Ripon had a city wide garage sale.  Sarah had a soccer game that morning, so we got a late start.  We were lucky enough to find a couple of things, one was a paper mache box for 50 cents.  Sarah wanted to Mod Podge it.  She decided to do Starburst wrappers, so off to the store to buy 2 BIG bags of Starburst.  After eating them for over a week, we finally had enough.  I ironed a bunch of them so that they would be flat, but after Mod-Podging them to the box, I figured out ironing wasn't needed.  The inside of the box had some bumpy stuff on the bottom that I couldn't get off, so I crumpled up a couple of brown paper bags and Mod-Podged them on the inside.  After doing about half of the box lid, Sarah decided she was board with it and left it to me.  Should have known.  She loves it and I had fun with it.

Here is the finished project.

I AM the MASTER of the clock! (aka.. Mod Podging a clock)

I know, the title of this post is a little strange, but this clock project I did was a real booger.  I don't have a clock in my craft/sewing room/library/guest room and every time I go to work in there, I have to get up frequently to check the time so I don't miss Sarah's after school pick up time (I know... it would be easier to wear a watch, but somehow, I always for get to put it on).  I didn't want to spend much money, but the only cheap clocks were really.... I don't know... cheap.  I have been Mod Podging things and figured I would fix up one of the cheap clocks to make it look better.

Here is the before picture of the clock.  It's a $5 clock from Wal-Mart.

I took the clock apart and pulled off the face.  Unfortunately, after I pulled off the hands, I decided to put them back on to make sure the clock would still work.  It did. so I took the hands off and when I did, the center pin came out with the second hand.  It didn't work after that.  Back to Wal-Mart for another $5 clock.

I had the perfect scrapbook paper that I had bought for another project.  It is Tim Holtz Ideal-ology Lost and Found stack.  It has lots of really cool vintage designs. If you want to take a look at it, HERE is a link.  I cut one of the smaller clock faces out of the top corner to put in the middle of my clock face.

Since I broke the previous clock when I took the hands off, I decided to not chance it and just work around the hands.  I cut a small hole in the center of the paper and a slit from the edge to the middle, covered the face in Mod Podge then carefully slid the paper in place.  Next I covered the face in several coats of Mod Podge, moving the hands of the clock around as needed.

I bought a fat quarter of a marble looking fabric at Jo Ann's, cut it into strips and Mod Podged it around the edge of the clock on the inside and around the outside rim. 

Next thing I did was put the clock back together.  It didn't work.  I don't know what I did wrong.  I was very careful with it... UGGG!  I was frustrated.  Two clocks down.  I told myself one to go and headed back to the store.  This time I was at Target and found this one for $2.87.  I didn't know what to do with it.  The paper stack I bought only had one large sheet of clocks and the store I got it at didn't have any more.  I really didn't want to start from scratch and the clock from Target didn't look as easy to decoupodge because the outer rim was part of the clock (unlike the Wal-Mart one that was separate)

I started looking at the clocks and decided to see how easy it was to remove the clock mechanism.  I used a screwdriver and they popped right off of the Wal-Mart clocks.  Tried the Target clock and it worked.  I was so relieved!  I put my clock back together, put the battery in.  It didn't work!  It was doing the same exact thing as the 2nd one that didn't work.  I almost cried (seriously).  Wait a minute!  I looked more closely... I had put the same broken clock mechanism right back on the clock (is it time to stop dying my hair blond?).  I got the screwdriver again and popped it off again.  When I did, I broke the plastic piece that holds the mechanism in place. GRRRR!  Only a  minor frustration, though.  Nothing a hot glue gun couldn't fix.  I put the right clock mechanism in, but a battery in and HALLELUJAH it WORKED!! 

After doing a happy dance for the next 5 minutes, I cleaned the glass, put it all back together and hung it up. 

I think I'll do another one for Sarah's room and for the guest bedroom.  I'll post pictures when I get them done.  It will be a while because I finally found a side table (for $3.99!! at a thrift store) to redo for the media room.  I have no idea how to do it, but I know I am using paper from this scrapbook pack (it's what I bought it for). 

Ugly Old Breadbox

About a month ago, Mackenzie decided she wanted to Mod-Podge her door with leopard print (we have never done any decoupaging before so I told her I would have to practice on something much smaller and easily replaceable).  I started with paper mache letters and scrapbook paper.  Didn't turn out too bad, huh?  I did 2 of these... one for Sarah and one for her friend, Bella and Mackenzie did an M for herself.

I'm still not ready for a door, so I looked around the house to see what else I could do.  David and I bought this wooden bread box back in 1992.  It was great then- with the country blue and mauve hearts painted on it.  I have been wanting to buy a new one for years, but haven't found one that I really like that is also functional.  I decided to Mod-Podge it... couldn't look worse than it already did, I figured.  It turned out pretty good.  I learned a few things along the way with both projects.

I'm still not ready to commit to possibly destroying a perfectly good bedroom door, so I have one more project to do first.  We bought a wall shelf and bench set from JC Penny to go in the entry way.  It is really nice, except that it comes with white canvas storage baskets to go in the cubby holes and a white cushion for the bench.  The white looks really out of place up against the wood.  I figured I could get some fabric to Mod-Podge onto the baskets and make a cover for the cushion.  I'll post pictures once it gets done.  Wish me luck!