Tag: navy

Craft Projects

Baby Brother sign

Jessica Smith

My good friend Carrie is expecting her second son in September and I am so excited for her and family. This baby has been dubbed “baby brother” throughout her pregnancy (her last baby was nicknamed “Kermie”) and she jokes that it should be his actual name.

Using scrap wood from my console table project, I made her a sign for her little one’s nursery using the nickname.

Spare Wood

I pulled out a piece of wood that actually broke off where it was laminated/glued together to the other boards. (Hopefully that doesn’t happen to the larger sheets of wood I used for the tables). I sketched out “baby brother” and then immediately sanded it off because I didn’t like it.

I opted to freehand paint it instead.

Baby

I did “baby” in off-white and cursive.

Painted sign

Then, I painted “brother” in navy and a print handwriting.

I added a few dots of the opposite color to each word as a cute little accent.

Drilled hole

Then, I drilled holes in the top two corners large enough to string rope through.

Before adding the rope, I stained the board with a light weathered gray stain.

Stained word

This really helped the off-white paint pop.

Stained sign

I put the rope through each hole and knotted it so it wouldn’t pull back through, then hung the sign up to dry. Since it will just be hanging on a wall, I didn’t bother with poly.

Hanging to dry

I gave her the sign on Thursday and she loved it!

Baby Brother sign Carrie

I can’t wait to see where she puts it in her nursery and I can’t wait to meet her little boy 🙂

Furniture

Before & After: Run-Down End Table

Jessica Smith

My latest piece for A Slap of Paint was a doozy. It should have been an easy flip, but I botched it big time. Luckily I was able to fix my mistake.

I started with this end table that I picked up from Habitat Restore. I can’t tell you how much I love that place.

Navy Side Table_Before

 

To fix this piece up, I removed the table top and sanded the heck out of it.

Table Top

Then I stained it using a black Varathane stain. I coated the top in poly and set it aside.

I painted the bottom of the piece in navy chalk paint. I mixed the paint myself using Paint Minerals. It turns any flat paint into chalk paint. The best part — you can paint your pieces without sanding them down first. Awesome!!

Painting in PRogress

Two coats later and my piece was painted and beautiful. I wanted to do a layer of protective coating on the piece, and I should have used wax, but I didn’t. I coated the entire piece in polycrylic, effectively ruining the beautiful paint job. See, the polycrylic dried and bubbled and made the whole piece a hot mess.

Bummer.

Once everything was completely dry, I sanded the paint job so I could start fresh.

Thankfully, the second round of navy paint covered beautifully. I didn’t totally mess the whole thing up after all. Phew.

The second time around I waxed the painted portion of the end table down. Right choice.

Even though this was more work than I anticipated, it turned out beautifully.

Navy End Table

The knobs were also from restore for $1 a piece. Woo!

 

Furniture, Thrift Store Finds

Before & After: Navy Dresser

Jessica Smith

I fell in love with this little beauty the moment I set eyes on it in a thrift store. I had to convince my thrift store buddy of its worth, but me, I saw the vision immediately. The lines are beautiful, the handles are awesome, but the old wood in chipping condition… not so hot.

Dresser Before

I knew when I bought this piece that I wanted to paint it navy. I thought the brassy handles would pop beautifully off of a navy facade. So I used Paint Minerals and some dark navy paint to turn this….

.

Cruddy table corner
Drawers painted and drying
Shell of the dresser

… into this!

Navy Dresser Complete

I opted to coat the whole piece in Varathane polyurethane. This isn’t typically recommended for chalk-like paints, but since this dresser will likely have stuff resting on the top I wanted it to hold up well. Now most bloggers will tell you to use polycrylic versus polyurethane when going over paint, but not me. I hate HATE hate polycrylic. I’ve ruined two projects using polycrylic and I don’t intend to ever use it again over paint. Not everyone has this same experience and maybe I’m doing something wrong, but it does not work for me. I definitely recommend using the Varathane brand of polyurethane because it dries beautifully.

Enough of my polyurethane spiel… After everything dried, I put the hardware back on. I love the result. Can’t believe I got this beauty from a thrift store for less than $10!