Crafting in the Dojo

Nightstand Makeover

2011-04-21T22:19:00.000-07:00

I got my nightstand from my mother, who had used it for years before she gave it to me, and before that, it was a table in our living room while I was a baby. This table is easily 30+ years old, and never been touched up. It's been used and loved and abused nonstop the entire time.

Finally, it was time to fix it. Both for the purpose of my bedroom makeover -- which is going to be a project long in the making, cuz we're poor folk, and I gotta work with what I got -- and just plain making it look better, I busted out the primer and the paint and went to work.

Here, we have the before... and I didn't realize how dirty it was until I was editing these pictures. I washed the whole thing before painting with Oxyclean and water.

Once I got it into my craft room/office, I realized that the stains were even worse than I had thought.

I did like the handle on the front, it would just need a new color once the whole table was repainted. Fortunately, I had my handy-dandy Oil Rubbed Bronze by Krylon handy to paint it later. (It seems to be the color of choice among many craft bloggers.)

So I did a coat of primer and two coats of white paint. The handle got two coats of the ORB as well, and we have the finished product!

I got it in place in my room, and the various decor onto it, and I realized that the lamp definitely needs touching up. I think I'm going to spray the body with the ORB as well, but I'm not really sure what to do with the shade. I like the shade, but it'll definitely need to be white. Perhaps with a red trim, to tie it into the red/white/black theme I have slowly being put together in the room.

While going through the photos in my camera, I did find a few that hinted that my youngest (he's 22 months old) might have gotten his his hands on my camera... perhaps.

I linked up!!

Dining Room Tour

2011-04-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

HOUSEography is hosting a House Tour Room-by-Room party. I meant to check in last week with my living room, but ~~I was too lazy to clean~~ I forgot to take pictures. So this week, I'm joining in with my dining room. Calling it a tour is kind of amusing, because I live in a double-wide, so it's really more of a glance-in and see it all than a tour, haha.

Here, we have my dining room! It's still fairly plain, not much to it. It's a rental, so I can't change a whole lot, so I make do with what I can for now.

You can see into the dining room from the main area of the house. I believe it was actually designed to be the "breakfast nook", but we turned the original dining room into a work area for my husband, because there's a very light cream carpet installed in there, and I have two small boys who make a lot of mess when they eat.

Here's the view of the dining room from near my front door. That doorway off to the left in my dining room is the laundry/utility room, and the back door. I don't really like the white door with the grate that is installed there, so I got one of those curtain rods, similar to a shower curtain rod, and have it held up by a pair of white nails in the doorjamb and hung a sheer curtain in the doorway.

Off to the right is a doorway into my kitchen. And we have the view from the kitchen to my dining room.

That trunk there by the door, I picked up at Ross for $25. We store soda and juice and whatnot in there, before we put it in the fridge. Easy access!

My table is by Better Homes and Gardens, bought it last year from Walmart. Unfortunately, we've already had one chair break beyond repair, and another two have their rungs coming out on the bottom that my husband needs to fix. So we have those two older chairs sitting on the side for my sons to sit in in the meantime.

We almost always keep the curtains in the dining room closed during the day, because our house is on the same property as our landlord's business, and it's located right behind our house, and the employees often look in our windows, so for a hint of privacy, I keep the curtains closed until they leave around 3:30.

With the windows open, we have this awe-inspiring view:

Pretty amazing, huh?

So there we have it! I don't know yet what all I'm going to do to fix up the dining room yet, it's really pretty far down on my list of priorities, altogether.

Bird Pillow

2011-04-16T16:03:00.000-07:00

I've mentioned previously that I'm redecorating our room, using a red, black, and white theme. I don't know what it is about those colors, and I know they're really popular these days, but I love how they all look together. Between my tie pillow that I made and the cherry blossom painting, I've gotten started with the transformation, albeit slowly.

Last night, I experimented with another pillow. I was inspired both by Janlynn-Sewmore's Wordy Bird pillow and by a pillow I'd seen at Walmart.

I knew I wanted to have a pillow with a bird, matching the color scheme I had chosen, and I loved the branches idea as well, but until I saw the Wordy Bird pillow and read the post, I wasn't really sure how to go about doing that. I loved the simplicity of the whole project, and remembered that there are many ways to accomplish the same outcome.

I had originally bought some white and black patterned fabric for the main body of the pillow and some fun, flirty white fabric for the bird, branch, and leaves. But once I adhered the white to the Heat n Bond (AMAZING stuff, by the way!) and cut the shapes out, I realized I didn't really like the design on top of the body of fabric. I wanted subtle, but it was disappearing into it. So I decided to go opposite of subtle. I'd already made one mostly black pillow, but I decided to just go ahead with the second one.

I really wanted a bird on it, and I love the one on my header here on my blog that I took that and drew it out onto some cardstock to use as a template in cutting out the fabric. I made up a pair of leaves, because I kinda figured the leaves in the header were a bit too complex for me for my very first time using Heat n bond, and wasn't sure how it would turn out, detail-wise.

After I ironed the design onto the pillow, I decided it was still lacking, so, inspired again by Janlynn's pillow, I cut a strip of the same fabric I'd used before to sew along the top and help add to it, and I cut out a flower from the fabric and Heat n Bond left over, and sewed a button into the center.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out! And it goes nicely with the other pillows I have so far!! The pillow with ties, as I showed before, and the other pillow is an envelope case I sewed to cover those really ugly pillows I'd bought before.

I really have GOT to come up with a better way to photograph my projects. Because seriously, unmaking my bed to remove all the pattern from my comforters to show the pillows is kinda messy looking.

I linked!

Redecorating a Wall Hanging

2011-04-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, my mother gave me this picture for my wall. It didn't really match my house, but the flowers were pretty, so I hung it in our bedroom to fill the blank wall. We've moved a couple of times since then, and I just kind of carried the picture around with me, never really getting around to hanging it again.

Finally, I looked at it one day, and realized that while I loved the flowers themselves, the basic picture had to go. It was a little worse for the wear, having been somewhat beat up over time.

So in a fit of inspiration, I took it apart, painted the mats -- not as easy as it sounds, surprisingly -- and the frame, and painted a new image for inside the frame. (My first real time painting something like that. Fear not, the tulip picture is still safe and rolled up in my craft room closet.)

I focused a lot on the black, red and white theme of the decor that I'm planning for my bedroom, as you can see. I just used regular acrylic paint. I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out, particularly for a first-time. And altogether, it cost me nothing to do, as I already had everything on hand.

A quick recap:

I posted:

And I shake my basket on the catwalk

2011-04-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

The other day, I saw a sign posted on one of the many blogs I follow -- I can't recall exactly who posted about it -- and fell in love! The sign, originally made by The Handmade Home, was witty, cute, and so fitting for those of us who tend to avoid doing our laundry.

I HAD to have one for my own laundry room. My laundry room isn't nearly as big or gorgeous as hers -- quite the opposite, and really too awkward to get a decent picture of, but I'll try another time -- and I'm not brave enough to try framing mine yet, but I liked the basic idea.

So, I painted a board of plywood that I got at Michael's -- it wasn't very large -- and painted it green first, and then an antique white. I printed off a font that I really liked with the words, stenciled it onto my board, and painted. I wanted a soft look, so I used a toothpick to paint the words on. (Also, my small paintbrushes suck for detail work.) VERY TIME CONSUMING. Then I sanded the board a bit. It still lacked a little something, so I grabbed some mini clothespins I had, glued them on, and my floral wire, and twisted them into mini hangers. (Floral wire is VERY SHARP. Be careful, or you'll end up stabbing yourself in the thumb and bleeding everywhere like I did.) A little hot glue later, and voila!

It was about 1am when I took this picture, so it's a bit darker. If I brightened it up, it would have lost the details... I could take another picture in the light of day... but I'm lazy.

I linked up!

What is now a whoops...

2011-04-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

I took a brave step. I bought a pair of throw pillows, sight unseen. I figured, hey, I tend to like most of this company's designs, and the pillows are on clearance for $1.99! How bad can they be???

Oooh. Oooooooh... OH. They're bad. They're like little old lady who made them out of an old ugly shirt, left them in a back corner and they got dirty, and haven't been washed yet bad. OOH they're bad. At least I only spent $1.99 on them, and I can always use them as pillow forms and make pillow cases for them. I already know what color scheme I want to go with, now I just need the fabric.

Boy, I wish they weren't so ugly. Ah well.

Spring projects

2011-03-31T13:33:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to come up with some projects that I can do with what I have. I have so many odds and ends, and not a whole lot of room to store them, and not much money to buy new things, so I wanted to see what I could do.

I was reorganizing my bookshelves in my living room and found that I had a large empty spot when I was done, so I found an old candelabra that Mr Mojo had given to me a few years ago, and then I scrounged up some eggs that I had left over from other projects -- I don't have any primer spray paint, so they got left the way they were -- and some Spanish moss that I also had, and put the two together. A little bit of hot glue to form the nest shapes around the eggs. They aren't glued to the candelabra though.

And then, I still had a LOT of book pages left over from my pantry project, and lots of cardboard, so I cut out a wreath shape from the cardboard -- you don't need a foam wreath form after all! -- and using a lot of hot glue, I attached the pages to the shape. Then using some spray paint, I gave it a bit more color, and then glued ribbon to the back.

Altogether, I had all of the parts I needed for the projects, so both ones cost me nothing. Yay!

I linked!

My trip to Salt Lake

2011-03-31T13:16:00.000-07:00

I don't really like going so long between blog posts, but I promise, it was for a good reason! I spent the last week down in the Salt Lake area attending a conference for special needs advocacy, and it was AMAZING.

And of course, because I was in the area, I went and visited Temple Square.

One of my favorite parts was visiting the Church History Museum. I had gone with a couple of my cousins and their kids, who really enjoyed playing up in the new children's area of the museum. While they did that, I wandered through the other exhibits upstairs. There were a few paintings that really drew my attention that I would LOVE to have prints of. I don't know if they're available in the store downstairs because it was Sunday, so it wasn't open.

I just couldn't get over the gorgeous rich colors in this painting. I wish I'd thought to grab the names of the paintings and the artists so that I could find them more easily. The photo really doesn't do the actual painting justice.

This one was gorgeous too. The imagery is breathtaking.

This one is even more incredible in person, there's so much texture in the way it was painted, it's incredible.

This one, I actually had to check that it wasn't a photo. It's an oil on canvas, and it's amazing. I sat staring at this one for a while.

It was an amazing trip, and I saw several friends and lots of family while I was down there. I heard no few amount of times that I should move down there, and maybe someday, I will!

An amazing deal!!

2011-03-20T13:27:00.000-07:00

For anybody looking to find some awesome deals for their bedroom, I just wanted to share these awesome finds with you!!

Both of these I found through DealsPl.us and was tickled pink when I saw them, I just had to share them with you guys!

First, a sueded comforter, normally $39.99, on sale for $6.29, and through the DealsPlus website, you can get an additional 10% off and a free shipping code!!

And second, 16 inch rectangular toss pillows, normally $20, on clearance for $1.99! Through DealsPlus, you can also get a free shipping code! And there's a variety of different color choices! Awesome!

If you take advantage of either of these offers, PLEASE, let me know!! I'd love to know what you think!

DIY Book Clock

2011-03-17T13:40:00.001-07:00

I was inspired today! So, despite Mr Mojo banning me from starting new projects until I finish all my old ones -- hey, most of them were just barely started anyway! -- I picked this up, and it only took me about an hour to do. (Mostly because I'm too stubborn to just go get a different apparatus with a longer stem.) Easy as pie!!

We happened to have a spare copy of Green Eggs and Ham laying around. I don't know why we've kept two copies all this time, but we did. And now one of them has been put to another use!

What you need:
- A kids book, not too thick, definitely hardcover
- An old clock, or clock parts – can be bought fairly inexpensively at a craft store
- A drill
- An Xacto knife
- About an hour

I had a clock that had been given to me, but that I had never used. I took it apart for the purpose of painting, but found that I was rather more interested in just taking the clock mechanism and putting it somewhere else. So I took that apart – fairly easy to do with several clocks, though some don’t come apart quite this easily. I believe this one came from Target. I also had my spare copy of Green Eggs and Ham available.

Using an old stir stick, I lined it up from corner to corner to help find the approximate middle. You don’t have to use the middle, I suppose you could go off-center, if you wanted to.

I marked the spot where I wanted the clock to be with a marker, and drilled through the book. (I’ve seen crafts like this where they removed a few pages first to wallpaper around the book. If you wanted to do this, I would really recommend doing so before you drill a hole through the book.) It took me a few drill bits to get the right size for the whole post to stick through the book. It will all vary depending on your clock mechanism. Trial and error is okay!

Because the book is thicker than the post on my clock, I stuck the post through the back and traced around the mechanism so that I could cut a hole out the back of the book for the mechanism to sit in, to push the post further up.

Then I cut out the hole using a box cutter. (Yeah, that’s my left hand… it was a very awkward picture to take, because I am really not left handed, but taking a picture with my left was even harder.)

You may want to clean up the edges a bit, depending on how messy it got. Lemme tell you, mine got really messy. BUT, the mechanism fit!

Because I still needed a bit more space to get the post to fit through, I used my Xacto knife to cut some of the pages around the shape in the back. I probably cut through most of the book, because I apparently have a very stumpy post. However, if I didn’t do this, the hour hand would not have fit.

Then I used hot glue to keep the mechanism in place, as well as around the pages of the book to keep them from pulling apart.

I added the hands to the clock and drew the main four numbers, and dots for the rest of them. (I know it’s not a perfect circle… but it’s for my kids’ room, so I don’t know that they’re necessarily going to care… I hope.)

Voila! Book clock! Add a battery, and you’re done! (You may have to add something to the back for it to hang on the wall, or perhaps a way for it to stand on a bookshelf, but that’s really up to you.)

And last, but not least… a video to prove that it works!

I linked up to these parties:

Designer Garden VIP Party

The pantry project – Finished for now

2011-03-16T16:58:00.001-07:00

Finally, I have the pantry done. Altogether, it took me about a week-ish to do.

The only thing left is to get new handles, but I have yet to find handles for it that:
A.) Fit the current holes in the doors.
B.) Are what I’m looking for.

But for now, the rest of the pantry is DONE, and I can finally get it out of my craft room! Yay! (My counters have been overloaded in pantry innards for the whole time I’ve been working on this.) If you missed it, I put up a post yesterday detailing most of the work I did in this project.

Again, the handles suck… but I don’t have any other handles for it right now.

We have the faux antique hinges... the balsa wood painted black, and then spray painted with Krylon's Oil Rubbed Bronze, and then a very light dusting of Sparkling Canyon.

The scratching on the hinges could probably have been avoided with patience, and I'll probably go back and fix them later.

And finally, the finished product fully opened.

And here it is, in its place, in use. Doesn’t it look awesome??? I couldn’t be happier. (Isn’t it amazing the difference that a different room/light can make on something? Look how much brighter it all looks in the kitchen than it did in my craft room! You can see the difference in person as well as in the picture!)

I know, compared to so many of the craft projects that I’ve seen SO many other crafters take on, this is kinda sad, but that’s okay! It’s my first big project, and I’m proud of myself!! (I’m also sort of wondering if perhaps finding some poly and putting a coat of that over the paint might project the paint from scratching a bit more?)

Total costs for the project:
Caraway Seed paint by Kilz, quart sized - $5 at Walmart (clearance)
Balsa wood - $1.99 at Michaels
Book for the decoupage - $.25 at library bookstore
Total: $6.24

Everything else, I already had on hand.

I hope you all like it!!

I've linked to:

>

An exciting find

2011-03-16T15:11:00.001-07:00

I’ve been a very casual thrift shopper for a long time, but never really looked at things for their potential much until recently. And today, I’m THRILLED to say, I found a TREASURE!!

Today being Wednesday, it was 50% off the entire store day at St Vincent de Paul’s. Normally, I don’t hold my breath as far as anything I might find there is concerned, but as I was wandering around their lot, I found THIS beauty:

Totally untouched by the rain that we’ve had the last few days, no mold, just a little bit of dust, a bit of dirt… It’s amazing! The best part? It was being sold for $20, but with 50% off, I got it for $10. Oh yeah… pretty awesome.

The paint is peeling, so I’m going to want to remove that, sand it, and repaint… but beyond that, I have no idea what to do with it yet. Mr Mojo made me promise not to start any new projects until I finish the pantry at the very least, which I’m hoping I can have done tomorrow at the latest.

Color me tickled pink, purple, and a little bit mauve!

Further Into the Pantry Project

2011-03-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

(BEWARE: This is a very picture-heavy post!)

For those of you who may recall (because I post SO OFTEN, how could you possibly remember what it is that I posted a whole two posts ago???), I decided to take on the redesigning of my pantry. I got tired of the OMG IT'S SO WHITE, and felt I needed to repaint it. Most of my house is all renter's white, and until I own a home, I can't just repaint the walls to fix that, so for now, I paint what is mine to mix things up.

A refresher on what the pantry USED to look like:

Picture it with boring flat white doors and handles, because I forgot to take a picture before I removed the doors. Whoops.

I decided to paint the body, the doors, and the fronts and bottoms of the shelves a lovely dark taupe color called Caraway Seed by Kilz. It took me two coats and a few days to get all the parts painted, dried, touched up, etc. But I LOVE the results.

Then I started to really get creative. I was inspired by a post -- I don't remember where from -- where another blogger had built a door at the bottom of her stairs, and put faux antique hinges on the front of it -- so I picked up a board of balsa wood (final prices on this whole project will come in the finish post) and measured it out into quarters for the plan.

Then after LOTS of drawing, trial and error, I came out with a shape I liked. (Thank goodness for those quarters!) I wanted kind of an old-fashioned, beat-up look, so I used my hammer to kind of beat the pieces up a bit.

And then I painted them black, with plans to spraypaint them a bit more later. I also painted the real hinges black, again, planning to spraypaint them later. Honestly, I don't know that painting them will make much of a difference at all, so it may have been a total waste of paint and time.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time tearing apart three books -- when I could have gotten away with just one... I feel like I've performed some horrific sacrilege -- for the next part of my project. Honestly, when I pictured what it is that I wanted to do, I had imagined REALLY white book pages, but I couldn't really find anything like that affordable for me, so I got an older book. I wasn't really thrilled about it, but once I got started, I liked the results, and I think it really fits the old-fashioned look I'm trying to really get with this.

Using Mod Podge -- and a LOT of it -- a sponge, and the book pages, I lined the inside of the pantry and the tops of the shelves. After I got through half, I was honestly tempted to just stop. It was very time-consuming!! But my friend Taylor was here, working on her own craft next to me, and didn't really give me the option of stopping. And I'm really glad she did.

Part of the way into it, the handle broke off my sponge, but since I didn't really want to ruin one of my brushes, I kept trucking on through with just the sponge itself, getting a LOT of Mod Podge under my nails. Seriously... not fun.

It took a few hours, but I finally got it all done.

I had wanted to do the spraypainting today, but it's raining and very wet outside, so I'm going to have to put that part of the project off until it's dryer outside.

I'm really excited how this is turning out!! I can't wait until it's done, and I can put it back into the kitchen, and see how it looks in use!

I posted:

A front door transformation

2011-03-12T16:00:00.001-08:00

While waiting for paint to dry, and between chores around the house, I thought about the wreath out on my front door, and how – while I love the wreath – it can’t look very good on the door as it stands.

Front door BEFORE:

With a wreath in front of that?? Ridiculous. Messy. Uck. But the Private Residence sign is a NECESSITY. We live on a business lot, in front of a business, with a parking lot for a front yard. No sign = random strangers walking into my house. (We try locking the door, but it’s an unusual lock, we have no key, and locking means we aren't’ always able to get back in.)

I had bought a cheap picture frame at Walmart for $3 the other day while picking up paint for my pantry project and had it sitting around, but wasn’t totally sold on it just yet. I decided I wasn’t a big fan of the color and style of the frame on the pantry, and I was struck by inspiration!! I could remove the signs from the door!

I grabbed some scissors, removed the frame leg – the thing that can make it stand on its own – and wrote out a quick note similar to the previous, and used Gorilla Glue to adhere a strong magnet to the back of the frame, and voila!!

Front door AFTER:

MUCH much better, don’t you think?? I’ll probably manage to print something out that looks nicer later, but for now, that works just fine for me!

I linked to:

My first really big project: Tackling my pantry

2011-03-12T12:56:00.001-08:00

I have a pantry. We bought it when we moved into an apartment that had NO storage space. Just a simple white particle board, two door, four shelf cabinet.

And I’m tired of the white. It’s been white for years, it’s boring. So I decided to change it. I’m inspired by so many of the blogging ladies, I’m changing it up! I decided on KILZ color Caraway Seed, a sort of dark taupe. It’s a really long process, because the paint takes a while to dry, so this will definitely be a multi-day project. But I do have some photos to share of the process thus far!!

Here’s my pantry Before. Picture this with white doors – I forgot to take a picture before I removed the doors – with white plastic handles – which I might very well replace.

Here’s the fronts of the doors painted with two coats. That’s the color, and I LOVE it!! I painted them last night and let them dry overnight.

My snack, because everybody needs fuel for a quasi-long-term project, yes? Yay for Costco! (This post not sponsored by Snickers… unless they want to sponsor me!)

Lifted the doors to paint a coat on the backside, and the bottoms of the shelves have one coat as well. Yay!

My goal is to have this done by the end of next weekend. I have a girlfriend coming over on Tuesday, and I’m hoping to do a big chunk of the project that day, we’ll see!

Easter Wreath

2011-03-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

I finished my first real project!! I'm so excited! It is a project that's morphed in my mind through various different stages, having different ideas of how I want it to turn out. First, it was just going to be a recreation of a wreath I saw somewhere else, a foam wreath with Spanish moss glued on it and Easter eggs glued on top of that. But you know, I could never find any foam wreath forms!! Granted, I've been somewhat avoiding craft stores, because I end up spending too much at them.

But today, I came across a grapevine wreath at Walmart for only $3.50! And I was inspired. A variation of the original wreath I had in mind, and some of these variable wreaths I've seen some of the other bloggers do, with the ability to change up the wreath for the season and holiday. BRILLIANT.

So I brought home the wreath, grabbed some spare fabric that's about the same color as the moss, some floral wire, some silk flowers I had left over from a trip to the Dollar Tree, some ribbon, the Spanish moss, and some plastic eggs from the Dollar Tree, and had at it!

I didn't take any pictures of the process, but the wreath was originally just a bare vine wreath. I cut out strips from the fabric and literally tied them around the wreath and cut the excess fabric. Using my hot glue gun, I glued the moss to the fabric so that I could easily remove it later with less mess.

Then I wound the ribbon around the wreath and glued the ends together. I made the bow using ribbon and floral wire and then secured it to the other ribbon with hot glue and kept it more firmly in place with more wire.

I tucked the flowers into place without really securing them -- though I may go back and do that later -- and the eggs had holes in them, so I just stuck the wire through the holes, wrapped it around the wreath, and voila!

The finished product:

The bow:

The back, showing the fabric tied around (holy camera flash, Batman!):

There's paint all over my fingers, I'm in the middle of repainting my pantry -- it's just a simple particleboard, two-door pantry, but I'm tired of it, so I'm changing it. (So many craft blogs inspire me!) Also, yes, haha, the door is labeled "Door". I labeled several items around my house to encourage my son to read. Yay for creativity!

Honestly, compared to so many other projects I see, it's not great, but it's my first real project, so I wanted to share! So, I posted this at:

Trial and Error - Filing Cabinet-style

2011-03-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

Going through and reading so many of the different crafting blogs out there, I'm struck by... jealousy? Envy? I don't know...

These ladies -- so many incredibly talented women! -- completely change the look and feel of their homes with a little bit of trim, a coat of paint, and more! I'm limited by the changes I can do by the fact that we rent, though someday, I would love to own a home. For now, though, I can only change what I have in my home.

My current project is a filing cabinet. It's a black metal filing cabinet that I've hauled around for a few years, but never dressed up in any way, just having it around simply for its function.

I don't remember who wrote it, or if it was tweeted or posted on Facebook, but somebody yesterday said something about livening up a dull filing cabinet with some paint and/or wallpaper. It inspired me!

So today, I took apart my filing cabinet -- it isn't fancy, just a $30 cabinet from Walmart -- and emptied it out. Two coats of primer and one coat of satin white interior house paint later, and I have it here in my craft room, resting on flattened cardboard boxes, drying. I've painted the handles a soft spring green, and I have a wallpaper boarder that I'm going to somehow incorporate onto it.

But now I'm concerned. Through the priming/painting process, I've noticed that it's nicked/scratched easily, exposing the black metal underneath. I can't help but wonder if I should have perhaps sanded first?

I put a layer of Mod Podge over it, hoping to make it stronger, but I really don't think that has made any difference, and I'm too afraid to try it to find out.

Am I right? Should I have sanded first? I don't know... I guess I'll just have to find out. Trial and error? Fortunately, it doesn't take too much paint and primer to do this. Just all of one afternoon.

My first step into the world of crafting

2011-02-27T23:23:00.000-08:00

I'm a craft blog junkie. It's something that I've kept under wraps for a while, but I finally have decided to come clean. For a long time, I've just looked and been in awe, but I finally want to branch out and start a little crafting of my own!

For now, I'm armed with simply a sewing machine, a bottle of Modge Podge, some scissors, a small container of straight pins, a few scraps of fabric, a very small selection of wood projects that need painting, a few acrylic paints, some paint brushes, and a few other odds and ends that I've collected over time. Nothing even CLOSE to the craft rooms that so many of the blogging ladies that I've been reading have, but someday, I'd love to get something like it!

At the moment, the room that I plan to turn into my office/craft room is occupied by a family that needed some place to stay, but they'll be moving out in a few days, and at that point, the transformation of the room will begin! I hope to photograph my way through the transformation so that I can share it on here!

Already, the room has gone through very big changes in that it used to be my "BLACK HOLE ROOM" where everything was shoved to hide it, but now it's an actual functioning room! However, any changes I make to it can't be huge, since we're only in a rental. I don't know how long we'll be here, but I don't want to make any lasting changes that might cause my landlady to have a fit. (We never know with her...)

I'm looking forward to crafting and getting to know other crafters!!