Re-use, Re-do, Re-purpose

Do it yourself. That is the "in" thing to do right now.  It's cost effective and gratifying all at the same time. Well, people, I have done it myself a lot lately. A couple of things needed to be done. And some other projects were just for fun. I'm almost 99% positive I am finished with projects for the next long while! Here is what I have been up to for the last 2 weeks...

The first thing I did was repurpose a Crown Royal bottle. I found this little project on Pinterest. Britt likes Crown, so we always keep some in our liquor collection. All I had to do was paint and distress the bottle and I have a pretty knick knack sitting in my kitchen. {The tutorial calls for chalk paint, but I used regular paint from Home Depot and it looks juts as good to me.}

Spray paint one good coat of metallic gold.

Brush on your choice of paint color. Mine needed two coats. 

Let it dry.

I used a medium steel wool pad for the distressing. 

The next project was Pinterest inspired, but I put my own spin on it. I saw a tablet {iPad} holder for the kitchen--to rest your iPad with your Pinterest recipes pulled up, duh. Someone had taken a cutting board and added a ledge for the tablet to sit on. We don't have an iPad right now, but hopefully we will get one for Christmas. In the mean time, I will use my creation for a good, old-fashioned cookbook when I'm working in the kitchen. I ordered a wooden cutting board from Bed Bath & Beyond, we bought a dowel from Home Depot, I used left over paint from the nursery, and ordered a cool monogram decal from momogramart.com.

Paint cutting board with two coats of paint. 

Once paint is dry, screw in dowels.

Add a monogram decal, and wah-la! I've since used this and it serves its purpose well!

Next on my list of things to do was find something to hang over our grill on our deck. I looked all over for some type of wrought iron wall decor, but anything I found that I actually liked cost a fortune. I'm not into paying a lot for things right now considering our circumstances, but the OCD in me needs everything house-related to be finished. I just can't explain it. I can't handle unfinished-ness in our home! Britt's parents have been storing a lot of our and Kelsey's belongings in their basement. Since we are now in Atlanta and Kelsey moved into her own apartment, Britt's dad cleaned out the basement and made us all come over to see if there was ANYTHING we wanted to keep. If not, he's giving it away--I don't blame him! The point of this story is that I found something in the basement that I could use to hang over the grill--an old window. It was one I had actually given to Kelsey a few years ago. She doesn't use it anymore, so I might as well take it back, right?! I brought it home, went to Michael's and bought some Martha Stewart glass paint, and came home and painted the glass panes. Now it is hanging over our grill, and our deck is complete. Thank goodness!

Have you ever bought a piece of furniture with the intensions of redoing it? Who hasn't? I know I have. I bought a wicker night stand when I was still in college at a consignment shop. It was white, and I knew I could paint it to give it a better look. I think I paid $20 or $30 dollars for it. For whatever reason, I never got around to painting it. Perhaps I'm not  a huge fan of painting wicker. Who knows. Anyway, once we moved and I was cranking out projects like it was my business I decided there's no finer time than now to paint that bad boy. I went to Home Depot and bought a bottle of Rust-Oleum spray paint, satin nutmeg, to be exact. I came home and painted the nightstand in no time. {One bottle wasn't quite enough so I ran back to Home Depot and got one more--that did the trick.} I say it every time, but it amazes me what a good coat of paint can do for a piece of furniture. I love how it turned out!

I forgot to take a picture of it before I started, whoops! 

The finished product!

Whew, last one. I found this shelf on Pinterest and wanted it so badly for our baby's nursery. I got the bright idea that Britt and his Granddaddy could build it for me. They could have, but once we started drawing plans and calculating what supplies would cost, it seemed silly to try and recreate the shelf. Instead, we went on a hunt for something similar {that didn't cost an arm and a leg}. I expected to search forever to find the perfect shelf, but thankfully in one Saturday and after visiting only two antique/consignment stores we found a winner. It was in our price range, and it was on sale. Score! We had leftover Annie Sloan chalk paint from two previous projects {Britt can no longer complain about the high cost of the ASCP because we completed three projects with that one quart of paint!}. We used it to paint the shelf, and I think it turned out beautiful.

Blah.

So much prettier! 

What's left of our ASCP...just enough for possibly needed touchups! 

I'm not sure I have anymore projects left in me--at least not for a while. Perhaps this was part of my "nesting". I am just relieved that everything is finished and all of the crafting supplies are put away and out of site for a while. I truly get a sense of satisfaction from doing projects. I hope I inspired you to do something crafty soon. There's bound to be something in your house that can be repurposed or redone! 

Happy crafting--Jess