Craftiness

Yes. I said it. Craftiness. Of course, if you know me you know that I love crafts. It's my therapy. It's in my blood. I love to paint. I love to putter. I love being creative. The one problem besides time and money? Pushing my ADD aside so I can actually finish one project before beginning another. There are so many lovely crafty people out there and I keep visiting the blogs and coming up with ideas for our house. It's addicting! I can't stop! Thank you for letting me get that out and not judge. What a relief.

My first order of business (or so I thought) was to repaint the salmon pink dresser my BFF Tam gave to us.  Of course I did not take "Before" pics. Sorry about that! But trust me when I say it was salmon pink. I decided to re-purpose this dresser into a sideboard for my dining room, but could not - would not put it in there looking the way it did (no offense Tam but you know what I mean).

So because of my lovely boys (Michael Cox-Terry and Brian O'Neil Terry), I found http://rebelreclaimed.com/. If you love re-purposed, funky eclectic stuff stop now. Do not visit their site. Oh okay visit them on Facebook, but you can't say I didn't warn you! They are amazing. I would redecorate my whole house in their stuff if I could. They no longer live in Nashville (curse you!), I have to settle for looking at and drooling over their items. Do you know how many keyboards I have had to replace because of drooling issues? And now I have to try to recreate some of it myself. I blame them. But I digress...

The Salmon Pink Dresser Project
I took the salmon pink dresser and painted it aqua blue. Then, I took a dry brush and randomly dragged white across the blue. Have you ever dry-brushed anything? I was scared, but my sister-in-law Malissa kept telling me it was so easy. So I just jumped in and did it. What's the worst thing that could happen? I would have to repaint it blue. It came out lovely (thanks Malissa!). At this point El Diablo did not understand why I needed to do anything else to it. He could not see my vision. See in my house I am the visionary...it's a tough job, but I take one for the team. I'm good like that. So I dry brushed dark brown the same way I did the white.

The last step was to polyurethane the dresser and then line the drawers. I lined the drawers with black & white non-adhesive contact paper I purchased at Target. As you can see I have not "finished" it as I still have not found the right knobs - I know they are waiting for me at http://www.worldmarket.com/!

Sorry for the sideways picture, however, the picture turned when I added it to the blog. Go figure. A techy I ain't. Oh and you can ignore the floating fingers of Baby Punk - she loves the camera that one.

The Cake Stand Project
The next project I wanted to do is a cake stand. I have never owned a cake stand in my life. My BFF ironically owns two dozen. (Okay, that may be a tad exaggerated - but I doubt it). She was horrified to learn I did not own one. She certainly wasn't horrified enough to give me one of hers I'll tell you that! (I know what you're thinking - How Rude! Thanks for being on my side.)

Of course I have looked at cake stands at Target and Wal-mart. The problem is, I don't want a cake stand that looks like I just bought it and the cake stands that I found on the Internet were upwards of $50. Um. I didn't want one that bad. So off I headed to the thrift with my lovely ginger-hued friend Laura. She was ever so patient while I tried to explain to her what I was doing (she's a much better visionary than El Diablo). I got home with my purchases, so excited to begin and found all I needed was...

Me:  "Umm...honey? Do we have Gorilla Glue?"  El Diablo: "What do you need it for?"  Me: "A project I'm working on." (insert audible sigh and I swear I heard his eyes roll..) I ignored it because that's the kind of wife I am.

My hero, my love swooped in and saved the day - providing me with all the Gorilla Glue a crafty gal could need. "I want it back" he stated pointing at the bottle in the best no-nonsense voice he could muster. "Of course! Thanks honey!" I replied with my big innocent smile full of shiny teeth while batting my eyes (I'm a multi-tasker). He walked out without another word. He gets me. I love that fella.

All you need for this project is 1 candlestick and 1 plate of your choosing and Gorilla Glue. It took me about 2 minutes to put it together, combined with drying time of a couple of hours), I had my very own cake stand. Here is the finished product:

Oh and see the corner of the rose painting? The signature? Yes, right there above the birds. That picture was painted by my beautiful and talented grandmother Elaine Vick Reyes. I told you being artsy is in my blood.

The final cost of my cake stand? $4 (minus the free Gorilla Glue). Isn't it lovely? It makes me giggle!

And yes, I have many more projects on the horizon, but have vowed to do one project at a time until completed. Yes, completed. Well...um...maybe mostly finished?