Shabby Shelf

Projects have been a tad slow for me over the last wee while. I have loads of ideas and inspiration jingling around in my head but it tends to get to the point where I have so many projects going on that none of them actually get finished - how many others suffer from this infliction I wonder?

Anyways I've had a project for the hallway planned for ages. I wanted to make a pinboard from an old frame, a shabby shelf with hooks and some kind of table for underneath.
The pinboard idea has changed numerous times and is now nothing like a pinboard nor is it finished.
The table for underneath the shelf is still sitting in the shed and still looks exactly like what it is - a pine chest of drawers.

The Shabby shelf however is complete - Tada!

This entire shelf started out in life as a drawer - yep a drawer! A drawer that came from the pine chest I was given and the remainder of which will make a nice little table for below the shelf.

Basically I took 2 drawers apart, took the pine knobs off the front and used the fronts as the shelf ledge.
The first one I did I painted 'Patio Brick' and then went over with 'Oyster' from Laura Ashley paints (I picked up a tester pot for 50p).
Unfortunately when I sanded it down for that shabby look it ended up looking pink - so not the look I was going for. I'm not sure if it was the sanding down that created the Pink hint or the Laura Ashley paint having a pinkish tinge to it, either way - Urghhhh!
So I sidelined that shelf and then made another one, this time painting it 'Cloud White' and 'Oyster' and then sanded it down for that shabby look.

For the corbels I got the idea from a fabulous website called 'Not just a Housewife'. I'd bookmarked those corbels intending to make them just like Stacy but for the life of me I could not get one to resemble the other and lost patience. In the end I decided to use them as end brackets instead.
I cut these corbels from scrap wood with my trusty Dewalt jigsaw after I made a template by drawing the shape on paper first, cutting it out and using these to draw round.  They then got the same treatment and paint colours as the shelf top.

The back board was the back board from the drawer I took apart and made the shelf with.

Next I painted 3 of the pine knobs from the drawers in 'Patio Brick' and sanded them back a tad before fitting them to the back board.
During this process I came up with a simple idea for holding the knobs while painting them. Up until now I would awkwardly hold them, drop them more often than not and have to paint or spray them in sections.
So I drilled 3 extra long screws all the way through a piece of scrap wood (the sides of the drawers) and then screwed the knobs on making it super duper easy to paint and not having to sit on anything while they dried. Seemples!

 

Remember the shelf I first did that turned out Pink?  Well I didn't want to just waste it so I joined it back to back with the new shelf top and it gave the ledge that chunkier look - score!

So there you have it, my new shabby shelf.

Thanks for taking a look.



This post is linked to:

'Finding Fabulous'
'The Shabby Nest'
'Miss Mustard Seed'
'Craft Junkie Too'
'Thirty Handmade Days'
'Remodelaholic'
'Craft Envy'
'Nifty Thrifty Things'
'My 1929 Charmer'
'A world of crafts'
'Craftomaniac'
'Keeping it simple'
'The southern institute'
'Ginger Snaps Craft'
'DIY by Design'
'Under the table and dreaming'
'Not Just a Housewife'
'Sassy Sites'
'Funky Junk Interiors'

Shabby racks & home made stencils

I'm right in the middle of making over a sideboard I picked up from the charity shop for a fiver a while ago but in true crafty person style I can't resist doing the odd small project alongside the larger ones while the larger ones are drying.

I recently showed you 'these' coat racks that I made and made mention in that post of a rack that was still undergoing some work.
Well it's finished and here it is:

I followed the same method as the previous coat rack regarding 'Patio Paint' colours but I then fixed this rack to another length of wood that had had the same 'shabby' treatment.
Before giving the coat of varnish though I added the text 'May every Journey Bring you Home'.

The last text I added to a 'shabby' project were 'these' letters for the bathroom but that time I used a paintbrush to do the text. This time though I needed more flexibility due to all the squirls so decided to risk the 'sharpie' pen. I much prefer to use 'sharpie' for text but it doesn't flow very well on these paints for some reason and I had to keep scribbling on paper to get the flow back - very annoying and very time consuming. I couldn't have done this sort of flourishy text with a brush though - well I could, but it probably would have looked naff!

Once the whole thing  had dried I gave it one coat of satin floor varnish and took extra care not to spend too much time brushing over the text because in my experience 'sharpie' tends to bleed.


HOMEMADE STENCILS:

I've also had to do some stencilling for that cheap sideboard that I'm revamping. I looked everywhere on the net but couldn't find a stencil that I felt would look right and then remembered some wallpaper that I had bought for 50p to line the inside of a wardrobe I was vamping. (another finished project for another day)
The pattern was exactly what I wanted so I traced the image and was half way though cutting it out when I realised it wouldn't make a stencil. Duh!!! The positive and negative parts weren't compatible and I ended up with a just a big gap and  couldn't for the life of me figure out how to alter the pattern to make a stencil. So I sulked instead!
It was during this sulk that I had one of my rare 'lightbulb moments'. I was sat staring at the wallpaper on the feature wall in our front room (It's one of those wallpapers that looked better on the roll than it does on the wall) and I realised the whispy flower would make a great stencil.
So to make the stencil I traced the flower with greaseproof paper and then traced that tracing using a 'sharpie' onto one of the flimsy plastic office file holders you can buy dirt cheap. I bought one for 40p at Tesco and cut it in half to give me two stencils.
Once that was done I used a craft knife to cut it all out. This took an age and 2 days later I have still got a numb forefinger from the pressure.
You could use a stanley knife (exacto knife) but I found it really difficult to get the curves correct with one of those.
I have a craft knife that has many different blades and I found a very narrow one worked best.
*A little tip: move the stencil as you cut as much as you can, it makes life so much easier than trying to trace it with a knife and you're less likely to run off the edge.

That's the finished stencils all cut out.

Next I masking taped it to the internal back of the sideboard. Alot of people recommend spraying it with repositionable adhesive first but I hate the stuff and refuse to use it - I can just imagine the mess I'd make with it.
I actually made two stencils for this flower, 1 was the actual petals and the other was the stem. If I'd tried to make this with one stencil then I would have ended up with a lot of flimsy areas and would definitely have had to use the spray adhesive to get a decent fix.

This image shows  the  second stencil attached over the top of the dried flower pattern.
I didn't use a proper stencil brush for this project as I didn't have one, I just used a stiff bristled 'Harris' brush.
*Top tip: If you're doing it the way I did then be extra careful with the brush. Make sure you stipple accurately and don't press too hard or the bristles could go under the stencil. Also do not overload the brush - when you first dip it in paint stipple it out on waste paper to remove the excess before hitting the stencil. Finally, when you peel the stencil back check the underneath for any bleeding and clean it if need be before repositioning.

That's the final dried stencil.
The colours I used are Laura Ashleys 'Duckegg' matt for the flower and Laura Ashleys 'Apple' matt for the stems. Both paints were tester pots I picked up for 50p - bargain!


Thanks for popping in.



Linked to:

'Skip to my lou'
'Boogie Board Cottage'
'Sugar Bee Crafts'
'Sassy Sites'
'Tip Junkie'
'Not just a Housewife'
'Ginger snap crafts'
'Night Owl Crafting'
'Bear rabbit bear'
'Kristens junk Drawer'
'Ask Anna'
'Making the world cuter'
'Sew can do'

Age that coat rack

I officially love the shabby chic look now, it's taken me an age to appreciate it but I got there eventually.
I've only done a couple of small projects so far, the first one being 'these' letters for the bathroom and my latest finished one being these coat hooks.

I bought these coat hooks a few weeks back because they were only 99p each otherwise I wouldn't have bothered as they're not really the style I was looking for. But, can't pass up a bargain right!

So next I had to figure out what I was going to do to them - enter my new found passion of all things shabby!
Basically I aged them the way I did with the bathroom letters i.e 1 coat of 'Patio Paint' in Wrought Iron Black, 1 coat of Cloud White and 1 coat of Daisy Cream.
I then had at them with sandpaper until I achieved the look I wanted.

This is how they turned out

Sorry there's no picture of them in their final positions but one of them isn't finished yet as I'm going to mount it onto another piece of wood and add some lettering.
The actual finished one is on the bathroom door but TBH I'm not 100% happy with how it looks in position, hence no picture.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a quick looksee.



Linked to:

'Craft Junkie Too'
'Crafts keep me sane'
'Craft-o-maniac'
'The Southern Institute'
'A world of crafts'
'EasyPeasy Grandma'
Funky Junk Interiors' 
'Craft Envy'