project – Page 6 – A Smith of All Trades

Twice-redone bird candelabra

October 5, 2012October 2, 2012 Jessica Smith

Two or so years ago I found the neatest candelabra at a thrift store and I just had to have it. The problem was, it was black and red — so not my colors. Either way, I picked it up and brought it home. It stayed black with red birds for at least a year, probably because we had a lot of red decor from both being Maryland grads.

Forgive the photo — I didn’t have a craft blog two years ago — but if you look in the top right of the photo you can see my candelabra in its original state on top of the cabinets in our rental home.

When I finally got around to painting it, I chose an ivory paint for the branches and a navy paint for the birds. It was definitely an improvement, and stayed this way for at least a year.

But let’s keep it real, I’m an aqua girl through and through, so my little candelabra needed another update to fit into our home. I pulled out some paint to take this candelabra to the next level: A lighter blue for the birds, a bluish-green for the leaves, and black accents along the branches.

I really like the more rustic look of the candelabra now, and I think it will fit into our home and decor much better now.

Moral of this post: Just because you’ve refinished something once, doesn’t mean you can’t do it again!

Craft Projects

Smith sign project

July 23, 2012 Jessica Smith

Hey blog world, heyyyyy.

The hubster and I had a lovely weekend at the beach hanging out with some of our best friends, but today it’s back to work and back to crafting 🙂 Oh darn.

I’ve been slowly working on a project, revamping a Smith sign my mother-in-law gave us that she had hanging out around her house. It was pretty ugly — the font is just horrifying — but I figured I’d give it a go.

Um yeah, talk about not matching much that we own. So, I primed the whole thing with white paint, which took a few coats. I then stopped my project altogether because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next.

When I was finally inspired to take the next step on this project, I started taping off stripes horizontally on the sign. I then painted every other section Behr’s Contemplation, the same color we have in our family room. I had to be really careful around the edges of the word, which I left white.

When I started this part of the project, I figured this would also be where I left it. But sometime was definitely missing. So again, I let my project sit until I had more inspiration.

Finally I figured out what I wanted to do. I’ve been playing around with EnviroTex Lite, which is a gloss that hardens on whatever surface you pour it on. I really like the way this stuff looks (wait until you see the other project I’ve been working on!), so I decided to fill the letters of our last name. So, I mod podged a single line of beads in every letter, then poured on the EnviroTex and waited for it to dry.

In the meantime, I ran over to Super Hobby Lobby World Land (that’s Brian name for it) and picked up some sweet ribbon with a silver accent in it. I pulled out my glue gun and started striping the ribbon in between each green and white stripe.

Once it was all on my sign, I let everything dry overnight. Here’s the finished product:

I hung it right by our front door. It looks really nice against our gray walls.

Quite the improvement over the ugly brown sign I started with, wouldn’t you say?

Craft Projects

Revamped silver trays

June 28, 2012June 27, 2012 Jessica Smith

As another fun project from Craft Day this past weekend, Amy, Carrie and I spiffed up some old, silver trays we found at the thrift store.

This project was quick and easy, and the finished product was super cute. First, we cleaned up our trays with silver polish.

Once they were all shiny and new, we cut out paper for the insides of the tray. Once the paper was cut out, we put thin layers of Mod Podge on our trays where we wanted the paper to stick.

Then, we placed the paper on top, smoothing out all of the bubbles. with the bubbles all M.I.A., we coated the paper with another layer of Mod Podge.

I did two coats on mine, trying to wipe the excess off the edges so it wouldn’t leave Mod Podgey residue on my trays.

Tip: Be really careful when smoothing our your Mod Podge. Carrie had a casualty on her tray, removing part of her map. Australia is now “Autralia” and what we yell when craft projects go awry.

Once the trays were dry, we added chalkboard contact paper embellishments to a few of our trays. Who knew chalkboard contact paper even existed (Answer: Carrie)?

How cute is Amy’s tray!? I love it and have total tray envy. She’s planning on hanging it up and using it as a Vacation Countdown for her and her hubby’s upcoming trips!