furniture upcycling projects

So, this spring I finally decided to tackle some of the furniture painting and upcycling projects I have postponed.

KITCHEN ISLAND

I picked up this dresser few years back in our neighbourhood. It was in pretty bad shape, needed some frame work and the top was totally gone.




So I took both sides off, replaced them with new wood, sanded the whole thing, strengthened the structure and painted it all. 


The interior was bright red and I wanted to go white, so it took a good primer and several coats of white paint, but I finally got it there. The doors and the sides have been painted with Fusion Mineral Paint. 

It is still missing a top, as I need to add some bookshelves to the ends to make it double the size. Then it will serve as my kitchen island.

GUEST BEDROOM NIGHT TABLE

The next project was a small nightstand. The surface of it was in pretty bad condition, so I decided to paint it and wanted to try some decoupaging on this piece. The sides had perfect rectangular shapes, that I could fill with paper. Looking it now, I think I should have painted the piece lighter, as the contrast between the decoupage paper and the piece is a bit hard, but this is what it is now.

ENTRYWAY STORAGE BENCH

The third project was an entryway storage bench. We keep our grocery bags in this unit, and it can also be used as a bench (a bit high, but works for taller people).

ENTRYWAY SIDE TABLE FROM A SHELF

Then I made a small entryway side table out of an old white floating shelf. It needed extra support as if you would lean on it, it would have fallen off the wall, so I bought some prefab legs from the hardware store and painted them the same colour as the shelf.

ENTRYWAY SIDE TABLE

I also painted another side table at our entryway (you think one side table would be enough, but we actually have 3 tables and the storage bench in our entryway!!!)

IKEA CHAIR

Then I wanted to test Indian Inlay Stencil. I knew it is a bit finicky, but I didn't want to try this stencil on a major piece of furniture without practising with it first. This was the first piece of stencilling, where I did more than just the top. I found it was tricky to keep the stencil on its place, specially on the narrow legs. So I would next time use a stencil adhesive to keep it down better. I guess I should also work with my patience. I'm always in a rush to get the item ready, so I'm really having hard time waiting for the previous stencilling to dry before tackling the next section.

IKEA chair painted with Fusion Mineral Paint and Indian Inlay Stencil

CRAFT ROOM TABLE TOP

And then I did something for my craft room also. I did an new tabletop out of an old desk top. I painted it with Fusion Mineral Paint and then stencilled a lace pattern on top of it.

Golden Brusho butterflies

These cards were inspired by Dena Albec. They use Beautiful Day stamp set and Brusho Crystals.

I first embossed the butterflies (on both cards) in gold embossing powder on Shimmery White card stock (Shimmery White is the best card stock to use with Brusho crystals).

I also gold embossed the sentiment on Dabber Denim Card stock for one of the cards.

Then I coloured the butterflies with different techniques. The first one I sprinkled brusho on the card and spritzed it with water. I added some water on the butterfly wings with aqua painter ti cover the entire butterfly with colour.

The second card I used aquapainter to add water on the spots where I wanted yellow colour, and then sprinkled Yellow Brusho on those areas. Then I added water on the areas where I wanted green and sprinkled Moss Green on the butterfly. I tried to keep the colours away from each other. Then I added Prussian Blue to the centre parts of the butterfly wings.

Magical Day

Here is another card made using the 'Magical Day' stamp set and the matching thinlits.

The background is made using Brusho Crystals. On this, I sprinkled the crystals on the card stock, and then spritzed it with water. You can see that the centre of the paper got quite wet, and the crystals blended more, and at the edges, the crystals make more of a splatter design. 

This card also has some dazzling diamonds. 

Here are some random Brusho techniques. These will become cards at some point.

This one I watered the paper with aquapainter, and then sprinkled the brusho (Prussian Blue and some Brilliant Red)

This one I sprinkled Prussian Blue Brusho on the paper and then sprized it with water.

This one is my favourite!
I sprinkled Brilliant Red and Yellow Brusho on the paper and spritzed it with water. Then I let it dry completely, and then drew some swirls on the paper with aquapainter and sprinkled some more Yellow Brusho on the paper. You can actually also paint with Brusho! Just use a piece of plastic (or a clear block), sprinkle some crystals on it and use your aquapainter to pick the colour up!

Celebrate You!

I love this 'Celebrate You' thinlits die, available as a Sale-a-bration freebie, when placing an order of $120. Don't worry, you can get it also later this year, as it will show up again in the next annual Catalogue, at the beginning of June 2018. It has 3 dies, two of which have been used in this card. The third spells 'amazing' which I'll show in the next post.

The stamp set on this one is 'Waterfront', from the Occasions catalogue p.48.

The background is made using Brusho Crystals, also on the Occasions catalogue, p.26. 

The Brusho Crystals are a cool way to make different kind of backgrounds, and I've been using them lately in almost all of my cards, just to try out different ways of using them. I'm also planning on doing a Brusho class, maybe towards the end of February, early March.

Also the cut out 'celebrate' is made using Brusho. I splashed Brusho on white card stock and once it dried, I cut out the word using the Celebrate You thinlits.

One of a kind

I love this new 'Magical Day' stamp set!

I got it thinking it will make great cards for my niece, who is into Disney princesses. So far I have made couple of cards with it, and it is so versatile.

It has this cute unicorn stamp, and you know unicorns are such an IN item nowadays.

The pink is 'Blushing Bride and the I used Archival Basic Gray for the sentiment and unicorns. The bakers twine is the new whisper white with silver metallic thread.

The middle unicorn is cut out using the matching die and popped up with dimensionals. I also added one rhinestone on the unicorn. The background unicorns are randomly stamped in different angles.

Stampin'Blends

Stampin'Blends

Okay, Stampin'Up! has brought back the alcohol ink blend markers. You might remember they had these few years back (blendabilities), but they had some problems with the tips drying (they were not airtight). So now they have fixed the problem (??).

I know, I'm a Stampin'Up! independent demonstrator, but I haven't been able to jump this wagon yet. I guess I'm waiting for the verdict, weather they are problem free or ....

I like how they have reduced the nr of pens to 2, instead of the previous 3. I found that the 3 pens were almost too close in tone, so this is much better. 

I also find that since Stampin'Up! introduced the watercolour pencils and now the BRUSHO Crystal ink... there are other colouring options available, so I really don't need another one.... maybe I'll order few next time just to see if I like them....

But click on the link above to see the new colour options!

FINALLY some crafting!!

LOVE that new Painted With Love paper!!! and check out those PRETTY butterflies!!!

Okay, I know it's been awhile since my last blog post. I returned back to Canada on January 7th, but have been recovering from a VERY bad cold ever since. I actually got sick a week before Xmas, and I STILL have a cough!!! And I've seen a dr, got some meds, but still... it just lingers on.

But I must be getting better, since I've been crafting for the past few days!!!
Well... actually I've been busy finishing off a night stand (once it's at its fully finished, I'll post it here).

So this blog post is about crafting.

Yesterday I made a Wi-Fi sign for our guest bedroom. From this picture I blurred out our network name and password, but on the print they are printed with a very easily readable 'PT SERIF'-font. This way there are no questions about what letters, capital or lower case, and numbers there are in the password. You know how some fonts you cannot tell if it's a lower case L (l) or number one (1). But I found on 'PT SERIF'-font it's very clear. I used My Memories Suite 6 -program to make the sign (this is similar to the old Stampin'Up My Digital Studio program (same program developer), but since Stampin'Up got rid of the MDS, I upgraded to My Memories Suite, which gets updates regularly.
(You can still use the old MDS files in this program... too bad you cannot get the new Stampin'Up! images for it).

I also decorated the plain white frame with Washi Tape. The tape is from the latest Holiday Catalogue (no longer available). And the font visible in this picture is 'Jane Austen'.

I've also been playing with the new BRUSHO Crystals (available in the new Occasions catalogue, p.26). The BRUSHO Crystals are Watercolour ink crystals!!
So you can either sprinkle them on the paper and add water (either by spritzing or with a brush, depending on what effect you want), or you can add water on your card stock and THEN add the crystals. The cool thing is that you never know what kind of result you get. Okay, sometimes it can be annoying, as you want to create a certain kind of a background, and the end result is totally different.

On the picture you can see the pink and orange versions. They are created with a brush (smoothing the colour after adding water and the crystals). The others are done either by adding crystals and spritzing the paper, or by adding water with a brush and then sprinkling the crystals on it.

The biggest problem for me with these is that I have to WAIT!!! So I tried different kind of techniques, then let them dry until the next day (you don't need to wait THAT long, but I didn't have the time/energy that evening to finish them). So the hard part was to go back to the created pieces and trying to figure out what to make out of them. You can also add new colours after you let the original piece dry. I have a card coming up on that also.

So here are few cards waiting to be properly photographed in my lightbox. You can see the pink and the orange one used here (oops, one of the cards had decided to open too much... I guess you just have to wait few days to see it).