Tag: flat

Furniture

Before & After: Child’s Desk

Jessica Smith

One of the big furniture projects I recently tackled was an overhaul of a kids’s desk. I found this awesome desk at a thrift store, but boy did it need some love.

Child's Desk_Before

I immediately had grand visions for this desk and let me tell you, they didn’t include the mermaid blue, shabby shic look.

So I painted, painted and painted some more. Again, I used a flat white paint and mixed in some Paint Minerals. This stuff gives the paint a chalky finish to it and leaves the surface very smooth. So far, I’m really pleased with how the Paint Minerals works with the paint. You don’t need to sand or prime and it covers really well.

I wanted the book shelves on each side of the piece to pop, so I painted a metallic glaze inside each shelf and then wiped each shelf down with a rag. It created a messy-ish sort of look in each cubby that I really like.

For the top, I painted with a gray-brown chalkboard paint. Some kid is gonna love this desk.

I waxed the whole piece using Johnson Paste Wax. This was my first time using a furniture wax and it left my piece feeling so smooth to the touch.

Check out these after pictures:

Love.

Child's Desk

Love.

Child's Desk Open

Love.Child's Desk shelves

I think this desk was definitely transformed for the better.

Craft Projects, Jewelry

Spoon earrings

Jessica Smith

I was a crafting machine this weekend and tackled a project I’ve been meaning to try for some time now: spoon stamping! I have a bunch of old, silver spoons sitting in my craft room (not sure at this point where they came from) that I was able to break in half pretty easily, and from there went about flattening and stamping both the spoon and the handle.

What you’ll need for this project:

  • Spoons (at least two if you want to make earrings)
  • Pliers
  • Ear hooks
  • Thin chain
  • Drill
  • Mallet
  • Clamps
  • Hammer
  • Metal Stamps
  • Two pieces of wood
  • Sandpaper

First off, break your spoon in half! You can bend it back and forth until it breaks, or get it started with wire cutting pliers. Both ways work. Both ways are fun. After all, who doesn’t like to break stuff?

Your spoon will be rough where the break occurs, so sand the edge until it is smooth.

Then, place your spoon onto a piece of wood.

Sandwich your spoon with another piece of wood and tap on it with a rubber mallet to flatten in out.

Once it is flattened, take the top piece of wood and tap your spoon with a hammer. This will help flatten it out even more. Note: My spoon is all sorts of wobbly in the middle, which I really like. I didn’t try to get all of the wrinkles out.

With my spoon flattened, it was time to stamp it. I bought a small set of stamps off of Amazon, so I pulled those out and got to work. It was pretty easy… just place your stamp where you want it and hammer gently. If you hammer too hard, you’ll see little circles around your letters.

Once your letters are stamped into your spoon, you can fill them with sharpie and then clean off the excess with a dryer sheet or a jewelry cleaning sheet. Both work remarkably well for cleaning up old silver.

Next up: drilling holes. Clamp your flattened and stamped spoon onto your piece of wood and drill through the tops using a small drill bit. My electric drill is MUCH better at doing this than my cordless drill. When your holes are drilled, attach them to ear hooks (I used chains to do this) and your spoon earrings are complete.

If you have cool handles too, you can turn them into earrings as well using the same process.

Happy Tuesday!