written by threadslinger

Aye, it has been way to long since either one of us posted on this site. I could run the gambit of typical blogger excuses, but honestly life just got in the way. This does not mean that this site is dead, far from it, and to prove it I am going to share with you all one of my favorite crafts.

The decoupage mirror is one of the first crafts I did and I fell in love with it. Every single one of my closest girl friends and even my boyfriend, had one made for them. Its great because you can personalize it by picking out magazine images and words that remind you of that person and almost always, they are touched with how much you “got them.” Plus, I think this is one of those fun crafts that borders on art.

Materials

Paint
Mirror
Picture frame
glue (any will do)
magazine cut outs
modge podge
paint brush

1. Paint picture frame desired color, this is so that if there are any gaps in your magazine placement it looks better. Plus, painting, yea.
2. After paint drys, take magazine cut outs and glue them wherever you want, some people like to put them in perfect squares, while other like to cut out different shapes, its your choice.
3. After magazine cut outs are glued down use paint brush to spread modge podge over magazine cut outs, this seals in the cut outs and makes it so they don’t care. You should try to do it all in the same direction so that it doesn’t look streaky.
4. After your modge podge dries, glue mirror in the center of the picture frame and you have your own personalized mirror.

**Also, to make up for not posting for awhile I will show you one of the things that has caused my distraction and, if you have a heart, you will go awww and forgive me.

written by marieann

I am so into chocolate and teal these days. I found this awesome skinny dresser on the street near my house and I had to have it (I love NYC for awesome free finds). I took it home and after a couple of months of slowly working on this and planning, I refinished it. I am very happy with it and learned some very important lessons. This dresser is pretty self-explanatory but I have some tips on how to make it (and things NOT to do).

Supplies
Furniture to refinish
1 quart of interior paint (I chose semi-gloss, but more on the choice of paint later)
Scrapbook papers
1 qt of ACRYLIC polyurethane (do not get the plain kind because that has an amber tint to it and will change the color of your paint/papers)

Tools
Fine grade sand paper/block
Paint brush
Allene’s glue (or some other TACKY glue)
Circle cutter (in the scrapbooking section of stores)

Instructions
1. If you have any pulls or hardware on the furniture, remove all of them.

2. Sand the piece with a soft grain paper. I have a few hints here. First, if you are painting with a darker color, your wood does NOT have to be completely raw again (assuming you’re dealing with a pre-painted piece of furniture; if you are painting over a piece that had previously been stained you DO have to sand it totally clean). Also, do NOT use a really coarse sandpaper as it will put mini scratches into your wood.

3. Wipe the whole thing down with a wet rag (or those awesome little sawdust picker upers).

4. Paint it! This is probably obvious but in case it’s not, paint with the grain of the wood and also be sure that you smooth everything. You do NOT want bubbles of paint (check the edges of drawers, etc. because paint tends to pool there). DOUBLE coat it.

5. Here’s the fun part. Cut out lots of different shapes from your scrapbook paper. Glue them to your furniture using Allene’s glue. Be sure that you press all the edges down. It is normal that your paper might have very tiny ripples in it because of the moisture in the glue. This will go away.

6. After everything is dried solid (I would wait over night), coat everything in THREE layers of the polyurethane. Be sure to read the directions and also do it in a ventilated area.

7. After you let it dry very hard over night, screw back in the pulls.

8. An alternative fixture note: I had originally planned to paint the shapes onto my furniture after the chocolate house paint dried. However, I found that my acrylic paints didn’t stick to the chocolate paint. Because I used semi-gloss paint, it just slid off. This looked horrible and this is why I chose the paper (which ultimately I liked much better). If you would like to paint on your details then you must use a matt house paint. This is fine because you can buy the acrylic polyurethane in gloss and make that effect if you like it.

written by threadslinger

Over the summer (thanks to my good friend 2 buck Chuck…well more like 3 buck Chuck in NYC) I drank a lot of wine. And, for some reason I always saved the corks. At first it was just a few stacked on my microwave, but pretty soon they had to be moved to a coffee mug, then a bigger coffee mug and finally, a zip lock. I needed something to do with all these corks I had and so I was inspired to make this wine cork board. It is super easy to make and only requires that you drink a lot of wine, who can say no to that?

Materials
Wine corks
glue
Old picture frame with the glass and picture parts taken out (this is for the shell of the corkboard.)

Directions
Arrange corks however you want so that they fit inside your frame. Then glue down and your finished you have your very own awesome wine cork board. A little tip, it is cool if you glue the corks so the label shows because it then can serve a pratical function of a cork board while at the same time showing off your awesome wine taste.