It "Changed"!

Don't you love garage sales? I try to limit myself stopping at them because I will always find something that I want to drag home. I couldn't help myself when I stopped at a friends sale and saw this baby changing table:

She wanted $20. I offered her $10, but she said that she was having another sale the next weekend and if it doesn't sell I could have it. Well, you guessed it, she called and told me it was all mine! I knew right away it would make a perfect beverage/serving cart for down by my Tiki Bar.
First thing I did was cut the front sections on the top and bottom. I decided to leave the one in the middle:

I wanted to find some cute bright contact paper to cover the shelves, but did not see what I was looking for. I found this dry erase contact paper and decided it would do the trick:

I went to my stash of paint and found some blue, yellow and red. I mixed the yellow and red to make an orange and ended up buying a small can of light green for the leg pieces. I started painting the top blue. Several coats and it looked fine. When I went to paint the light green, I found I was having trouble covering the wood. So I decided to go ahead and prime the rest of the table:

I used yellow for the middle and the mixed color orange for the bottom. Here is my finished beverage cart. It will be perfect for our next pool party, don't you think?

So the next time you are at a garage sale, don't look at what an item is, but what it could be. Happy hunting!

On a Roll!

The Mason Jar lights gave me inspiration to make another project. This took no time at all. I used an old handsoap pump that I was not using:

I punched a hole in the lid, slid the pump on it and used a hose washer to keep it steady:

Put it together with the jar, added soap  from dollar store bottles and presto!

It really does not look as blue as in the last picture. Here it is a bit farther away. I love the added functional decoration!

Bathroom light update.

My master bath is still a work in progress. I did add a couple of new items from last year. I made the canvas on the wall and bought the desktop for 5 bucks at a garage sale, painted the drawers to match the room. I think it adds a little punch to my vanity.

 

Here is my latest project. I can't take credit for the idea itself, I found it on Pinterest. I took these mason jars I bought last year:

I used a screwdriver and hammer to poke a hole in the lid as so:

It will be a new fixture on this light:

Here is a close up of how the lid went on:

I only did one to make sure it would stay up and that I liked it. I kept this one up for around a month:

 

 

This past weekend I did the other two. I painted the lids to match the light fixture and glued them with Ev6000 heavy duty glue. The light bulb holds them up too so no worries of them falling.

I love it! :

 

 

Hopefully we get new flooring and shower door soon, and my master bath will be finished!

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.