East Coast Creative: CWTS Round 1 Link Party

East Coast Creative: CWTS Round 1 Link Party

I've been featured!

Check it out, my game table is featured on the Roadkill Rescue blog!

 RoadKill Rescue

Another Trash to Treasure

Our city has bulky trash pickup for each subdivision 4 times a year. My subdivision days are every 2nd Wednesday in February, May, August and November. They are some of my favorite times of the year! You put out your stuff curbside the night before and it is picked up the next day. It is funny to see all the pickup trucks driving around Tuesday night looking for "stuff". We had a "pile o crap" at our curb and by the time the city picked it up, there were only 2 items left. Needless to say, I am one of those people rubbernecking when I see a pile by the curb. I found this lovely specimen last Tuesday eve.

Nice isn't it? I knew right away that it was going to become a game table to use when my grandsons come over. I decided that I wanted to paint it with a homemade chalkpaint with a recipe I found on Pinterest of course! I have seen lots of furniture posts using this paint and knew I wanted to try it myself. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of plaster of paris mixed with a 1/2 cup of hot water. Then add 1 and 1/2 cup of any paint. I used some paint I had leftover from painting my kitchen years ago, the plaster of paris was leftover from some kind of project my daughter probably did as a kid. (Did I mention I don't throw too much away?)
 It made way more than I needed for this project.

After mixing it altogether it looked like this:

I began painting and I was not sure if it was going to look red enough. Sort of reminded me of Pepto:

So I found some brighter red in my stash of paint and added it to the mix

After painting the bottom with the red chalk paint, I taped off the top .The middle was going to be painted with chalkboard paint to which I would make a painted checkerboard.

I painted the top outside edge with a light grey chalk paint that I mixed up with the same recipe above.

I used chalk and a ruler to draw out my checkerboard I wanted to put on the top and painted the squares with the grey. I was not too concerned with it not being exact since I wanted it to look old fashioned.

Here it is after painting:

 I took some sandpaper and roughed up the edges and the checkerboard to give it an aged look. I then stained it with some old Minwax dark stain I had. After that dried, I used Minwax natural furniture finishing wax. I applied a light coat with a soft stencil brush I had and then buffed it to a nice sheen.

  I think it turned out great don't you?

 And here it is in my family room waiting for the boys to come over to play.

Happy 2013!

Hello everyone and Happy Belated 2013. I have not had a chance to post in a while. During the holidays I was swamped with canvas and letter frame orders. Busy is good! I want to share some of the things that I have made lately. The first one is an idea I thought of to give my neighbors for Christmas. So, during the fall when they were not home, I went out and took a picture of the front of their homes. Here is the picture of my neighbors home to the right of me:

I designed this picture and made a canvas of it:

 I did not take a picture of their canvas, but here is the one I made for myself:

This next one is a wedding idea a friend wanted me to make. It is called, "First Dance" Beautiful isn't it?

Then another friend asked me if I could make a canvas with the poem called, "Broken Chain" I ended up making three different ones. Here is one for a co-worker who lost her dad last year:

Check out my facebook page for other ideas.https://www.facebook.com/DillonsDigitalDesigns
 Now back to work!

Thanks for checking out my blog.

Master Bath Part II

Pool season has been over for about a month now so I have had time to get back to my master bath I have been working on. I decided to do something with the big giant mirror and counter you saw in my earlier blog post: http://dillondigitaldesigns.blogspot.com/2012/06/master-bath-redo-part-1.html

I went to my neighborhood Lowe's and had them cut two boards the width of the mirror and four the length of the mirror. I taped off the middle of the mirror and painted it to match my walls.

Then I stained the boards with an acrylic brown that I used on the bread box makeover that sits on the counter to hold the hair cutter and power strip for the hair dryer and put a coat of polyurethane on them. I attached them to the mirror with Liquid nails and held it up with duct tape over night while the glue dried. Hard to picture that it is still one giant mirror huh?



Next it was time to do something about the vanity. If you have never heard of Giani Granite counter top paint, you will have to give it a try for counters you need to update but aren't ready to spend big bucks. Here is a link to their website: http://gianigranite.com/
As you can see above, I already painted the backsplash so I did not have to paint around the wood frame.
First you put on a basecoat:

Then sponge paint the other 3 mineral colors. I used the chocolate brown kit.
I did not take a picture of the sponge process, but here is the finished result:

Sorry, the pictures are a little blurry, but the counter looks fabulous in person! Next project is to get rid of the crappy shower doors you can see in the mirror and  new flooring.

Truly Trash to Treasure

The other day I was on my way to work and passed something I saw dumped at the side of the road. Of course I had to turn around and check it out. I took it home to see if I could do something with it. It had a bent leg and another bent piece in back but I can't pass up free!
Here it is:

I walked it around the house setting it down in this place or that to see if it would work somewhere and decided that it should go on my front porch. Besides my pool area in back, my porch is one of my favorite spots to relax.

Now it was time to fix up the cart and my milk can which I have been meaning to paint for a while.
I found an old board in the garage, cut it to size with my trusty circular saw.

I got the idea here Ask Anna to make the design for my board.

I painted the board an ivory color with some brown accents. Then I burnt the edges of my paper to age it. Be careful if you try this. I wet my kitchen sink and light it with a bbq lighter a little piece of the edge at a time over the sink. Then I modpodged the paper to the board and added a bit of the brown paint on the paper. I put a coat of modpodge on it and then after it was dry, I sprayed some polyurethane over it for protection since it was going to be outside.
Here is the finished board on the cart:

 Next it was time to paint the cart and milk can. I used Krylon flat black paint

While they were drying I worked on making a stencil for my milk can. I designed and printed out our address on a piece of paper

I grabbed some contact paper I keep on hand. I found that I could see the design under the contact paper, so I used a marker to trace the design and an exacto knife to cut out a stencil.

I stuck it on the can and used the ivory paint to stencil the number on the can.

Here are the finished projects.

Did I mention that I love my porch?

I think the cart is a nice added touch. Best of all it only cost 10 bucks! Four dollars for a can of spray paint and six dollars for flowers. From the side of the road Wednesday, to my front porch today!

Tailgate Table Time (with apologies to my Georgia friends and family)

So we have always been Mizzou and Georgia football fans. My daughter, her husband all live in Athens, home of the Georgia Bulldogs. She frequently has bought us Georgia apparel. Now Mizzou and Georgia are in the same SEC division. While this is exciting, it puts me in the middle. Now I am a Mizzou fan, but I do have a small spot in my heart for my daughters home team, Anyway, today is the BIG MIZZOU/Georgia game and we have tickets! We will be leaving to go up to Columbia in an hour. I was getting tailgating supplies together and realized we never have a table to just set our drinks or dips on. So I grabbed this old TV tray I have had and decided I should paint it.

 Got out some old black spray paint

Found me a nice pic

Then I used my trusty ModPodge and glued it to the tray and put two coats over it.

I sprayed it with two coats of poly:

Looks good!

Well, gotta go! Off to Columbia. GO TIGERS!