Finally Thursday! Even though I had Monday off of work, it still feels like it should be Friday. My week is ALL thrown off!
Today I wanted to share with you a fun DIY project that I started two weekends ago and finally finished Tuesday evening.
First I will give you the back story on how this project got started.
Two Saturdays ago I had “early dog duty” (M. and I switch off on the weekend days of getting up early to take the dog out so that we can still sleep in on the weekends). I woke up bright and early around 6:30 am, brought the dog out and noticed our lovely recycling pile stacked up outside of our apartment building. On the very top of the heap was a black, red and gray “board” made of plywood and smaller plywood squares. One of the smaller squares had actually fallen off of this “construction”. I looked at it in the pile and had the following thoughts – 1. WOW! That thing is UGLY. Who thought THAT “painting” was goo
d?! 2. Those colors are terrible. 3. Hmmm…I love DIY projects and that thing might be something fun to paint. 4. I’m trying to redecorate my apartment right now so maybe I can use that thing for something...it is free after all. 5. WOW! That ugly piece of art is actually pretty big…and might be the perfect thing to hang on my blank hallway wall. 6. I need to get this thing upstairs!
So yeah, first thought – WOW! That thing is hideous, but when you have a creative mind (like I tend to think that I do) you tend to see things in a different light. So with Thatcher on his leash I looked around to see if anyone would see me pick this “thing” off of the pile and lug it back into my building. Shoot – there were groups of people coming from both direction
s of the sidewalk. I thought, “what the heck, it’s 6:30 am on a Saturday, where are these people going?!” After I waited a few minutes the people cleared away and finally I had the perfect moment to snag the piece of “art”. BUT OF COURSE, right as I go to pick it up, the recycling collection truck pulls up. I gritted my teeth for a moment and then proclaimed (to the trash man who really couldn't give a *BLANK*), “I’m taking this thing to paint,” grabbed it off of the pile (including the detached plywood square) and lugged it up to my apartment.
I ended up going for a run after bringing the “art” upstairs and hoped that M. wouldn’t be awake u
ntil I got back so I could explain what that hideous thing was doing in our apartment. M. is no stranger to my “trash-to-treasure” ways, and he knows that I like to re-do things. He wasn’t really all that surprised when I explained to him that I had found this in the recycling pile. Either way, I had the “art” and it was time for me to decide what I wanted to do with it!
Since I’ve been wanting to re-do our apartment, and since I’ve been wanting to incorporate more color into our space I knew that I needed to go with something that wasn’t in my ordinary “color choices.” So I went with something completely different than I would usually choose for home design…LAVENDER and FUCHSIA. Yes, I know, it’s kind of girly…ok, it’s a lot girly, but I added a great gold shimmer paint to make everything a little more….well….not girly?! I’m not sure if the gold really achieves a less girly look, but once I have the whole apartment finished, I think it will fit perfectly into my whole
plan. I do think M. is a little worried about the transformation though…but rest assured, M., I will definitely be mixing in some more masculine pieces for you!!
So I went with the color lavender because I’ve been having a “thing” for it over the last few weeks. Don’t know why, but I have. So we headed off to the Home Depot, picked up my paint color, "Pixie Violet", and then some accent shimmery gold paint (too die for!) and set home ready to work on my project. First things first…M. nailed on the missing square and I sanded down some of the rough areas on the p
lywood. After sanding I wasted no time and got to work with the paint. The first few squares went well, but once I headed into the “red” squares…bad news bears. The guy who painted this (I’m assuming it was a guy because it was simply one of the ugliest pieces of “art” I have ever seen and of course the ugliest pieces of “art” have to be done by men, right?!) used two different types of paint…acrylic on the black squares and oil paint on the red and gray squares. Yuck. After a second trip to Home Depot to pick up primer, I came home, re-sanded some of the squares and then started back on my painting. Finally the board was completely lavender. 
Next step was to figure out WHAT I wanted to paint on these squares. I had already set out some “ideas” early on, but I wasn’t really positive what would look the best repeated over and over. I ended up choosing a quatrefoil design because it was going to be simple to paint, but still gives bold look when repeated. I crafted a “stencil” out of a printed out quatrefoil and a piece of cardboard. I penciled in the stencil on my b
oard and got to work with my base gold color (not the shimmer paint). I just used an acrylic gold paint that I found at Michael’s Craft Store. I actually tested two colors and the one I used had a better, brighter, gold metallic look. After painting on all of the quatrefoils the next step was a second coat and then a simple coat of the gold shimmer paint. WOW – this gold shimmer made these things look AMAZING in the light.
I had already paint-taped the squares around the edges and simply used those edges as guidelines for my corner accents which I decided to paint with
a bold fuchsia color. The reason I chose the bold fuchsia was because while I was painting I had my floral arrangement nearby and I thought the fuchsia and lavender looked really chic together. I don’t have a photo of the flowers and the lavender board together, but I’m re-posting the floral arrangement photo so you can get the general idea of where my inspiration came from.
So I painted the corners, and felt like they still needed one last touch. I
rimmed each of the corners with the same gold shimmer paint that I accented the quatrefoils with and BOOM – I was finished! I peeled away the painters tape and was so excited with what was in front of me.
I am waiting to hang the piece in my hallway since we want to make sure the nails are long enough, but what do you think?! Trash to treasure?! I love the way the piece turned out and think the gold metallic paint looks great since at every angle you get a little different “view” of the artwork! Plus - it was almost completely FREE The photos don't really do it justice...plus I was using my i-phone.
I wonder what kind of "art" I’ll find in the trash next time?! :)
Today I wanted to share with you a fun DIY project that I started two weekends ago and finally finished Tuesday evening.
First I will give you the back story on how this project got started.
Two Saturdays ago I had “early dog duty” (M. and I switch off on the weekend days of getting up early to take the dog out so that we can still sleep in on the weekends). I woke up bright and early around 6:30 am, brought the dog out and noticed our lovely recycling pile stacked up outside of our apartment building. On the very top of the heap was a black, red and gray “board” made of plywood and smaller plywood squares. One of the smaller squares had actually fallen off of this “construction”. I looked at it in the pile and had the following thoughts – 1. WOW! That thing is UGLY. Who thought THAT “painting” was goo
d?! 2. Those colors are terrible. 3. Hmmm…I love DIY projects and that thing might be something fun to paint. 4. I’m trying to redecorate my apartment right now so maybe I can use that thing for something...it is free after all. 5. WOW! That ugly piece of art is actually pretty big…and might be the perfect thing to hang on my blank hallway wall. 6. I need to get this thing upstairs!So yeah, first thought – WOW! That thing is hideous, but when you have a creative mind (like I tend to think that I do) you tend to see things in a different light. So with Thatcher on his leash I looked around to see if anyone would see me pick this “thing” off of the pile and lug it back into my building. Shoot – there were groups of people coming from both direction
s of the sidewalk. I thought, “what the heck, it’s 6:30 am on a Saturday, where are these people going?!” After I waited a few minutes the people cleared away and finally I had the perfect moment to snag the piece of “art”. BUT OF COURSE, right as I go to pick it up, the recycling collection truck pulls up. I gritted my teeth for a moment and then proclaimed (to the trash man who really couldn't give a *BLANK*), “I’m taking this thing to paint,” grabbed it off of the pile (including the detached plywood square) and lugged it up to my apartment. I ended up going for a run after bringing the “art” upstairs and hoped that M. wouldn’t be awake u
ntil I got back so I could explain what that hideous thing was doing in our apartment. M. is no stranger to my “trash-to-treasure” ways, and he knows that I like to re-do things. He wasn’t really all that surprised when I explained to him that I had found this in the recycling pile. Either way, I had the “art” and it was time for me to decide what I wanted to do with it!Since I’ve been wanting to re-do our apartment, and since I’ve been wanting to incorporate more color into our space I knew that I needed to go with something that wasn’t in my ordinary “color choices.” So I went with something completely different than I would usually choose for home design…LAVENDER and FUCHSIA. Yes, I know, it’s kind of girly…ok, it’s a lot girly, but I added a great gold shimmer paint to make everything a little more….well….not girly?! I’m not sure if the gold really achieves a less girly look, but once I have the whole apartment finished, I think it will fit perfectly into my whole
plan. I do think M. is a little worried about the transformation though…but rest assured, M., I will definitely be mixing in some more masculine pieces for you!!So I went with the color lavender because I’ve been having a “thing” for it over the last few weeks. Don’t know why, but I have. So we headed off to the Home Depot, picked up my paint color, "Pixie Violet", and then some accent shimmery gold paint (too die for!) and set home ready to work on my project. First things first…M. nailed on the missing square and I sanded down some of the rough areas on the p
lywood. After sanding I wasted no time and got to work with the paint. The first few squares went well, but once I headed into the “red” squares…bad news bears. The guy who painted this (I’m assuming it was a guy because it was simply one of the ugliest pieces of “art” I have ever seen and of course the ugliest pieces of “art” have to be done by men, right?!) used two different types of paint…acrylic on the black squares and oil paint on the red and gray squares. Yuck. After a second trip to Home Depot to pick up primer, I came home, re-sanded some of the squares and then started back on my painting. Finally the board was completely lavender. 
Next step was to figure out WHAT I wanted to paint on these squares. I had already set out some “ideas” early on, but I wasn’t really positive what would look the best repeated over and over. I ended up choosing a quatrefoil design because it was going to be simple to paint, but still gives bold look when repeated. I crafted a “stencil” out of a printed out quatrefoil and a piece of cardboard. I penciled in the stencil on my b
oard and got to work with my base gold color (not the shimmer paint). I just used an acrylic gold paint that I found at Michael’s Craft Store. I actually tested two colors and the one I used had a better, brighter, gold metallic look. After painting on all of the quatrefoils the next step was a second coat and then a simple coat of the gold shimmer paint. WOW – this gold shimmer made these things look AMAZING in the light. I had already paint-taped the squares around the edges and simply used those edges as guidelines for my corner accents which I decided to paint with
a bold fuchsia color. The reason I chose the bold fuchsia was because while I was painting I had my floral arrangement nearby and I thought the fuchsia and lavender looked really chic together. I don’t have a photo of the flowers and the lavender board together, but I’m re-posting the floral arrangement photo so you can get the general idea of where my inspiration came from. So I painted the corners, and felt like they still needed one last touch. I
rimmed each of the corners with the same gold shimmer paint that I accented the quatrefoils with and BOOM – I was finished! I peeled away the painters tape and was so excited with what was in front of me.I am waiting to hang the piece in my hallway since we want to make sure the nails are long enough, but what do you think?! Trash to treasure?! I love the way the piece turned out and think the gold metallic paint looks great since at every angle you get a little different “view” of the artwork! Plus - it was almost completely FREE The photos don't really do it justice...plus I was using my i-phone.
I wonder what kind of "art" I’ll find in the trash next time?! :)
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