Tag: shiny

Craft Projects, Holiday

Shiny pumpkins

Jessica Smith

My pumpkins from Dana’s shower still have life left in them, so I transitioned them from fall to winter this weekend with some Krylon metallic spray paint.

Pumpkins_silver

I went out early yesterday morning and loaded these babies up with silver spray paint. I really liked how they turned out, so I grabbed some of the mini pumpkins from inside.

Pumpkins_silverandgold

I mixed it up with the minis, using both silver and gold.

Pumpkins_Silver1

I was impressed with how shiny the Krylon paints came out and was thankful that each pumpkin only required one coat. I am the messiest spray painter, so I would have been all silver, too, if the pumpkins needed more coverage.

pumpkins_silverandgold1

Once the pumpkins dried (I left then outside to dry all day, so I can’t say how long it took, exactly) I put them all at my front door for a cute little fall/winter display.

Pumpkins_doors1

I wondered if anyone would notice, since our front “porch,” if you can even call it that, isn’t visible from the road. But I had Dana’s bridesmaids over last night and they oohed and ahhed.

Pumpkins_doors

The metallic pumpkins look so cute with my winter wreath, too! I wonder how much longer the pumpkins will hold out — with the chilly weather, I’m hoping to have these shiny beauties for a few more weeks.

… and I’m looking for more things to use the Krylon spray paint on. IT’S JUST SO SHINY. SPRAY ALL THE THINGS.

When Thanksgiving is over, I’m definitely going to have to find another use for it.

Furniture

Refinished buffet/sideboard

Jessica Smith

Meet my buffet. Or sideboard. Whatever you want to call it.

I picked this baby up in a thrift store a few months ago on a Thirft Store Thursday excursion.

It needed some love, and while it took my awhile to give it the love it needed, I am happy to share that this beauty is beautiful again!

Buffet Before

The piece was in rough shape. It was missing the entire back, the hardware was dated (and in some cases, missing!), the casters were uneven and broken. But the bones were great. It is an all-wood piece, so I knew with the right care it could be transformed.

I worked on this piece over several months, so I was really bad at taking pictures. Here’s what I did to refinish this bad boy:

  1. New hardware: I ordered new black hardware for the front of the buffet. This included three drawer pulls for the faux drawer fronts and three hanging handles from the shuttered doors. Since this piece is older, the existing hardware was oddly sized, so I had to re-drill the holes to attach the new stuff. I went with black to pick up the black hinges on the front of the doors. It looks like this hardware has always been on this piece, which is nice.
  2. New casters: I didn’t want to replace the casters on this piece because the old ones were super cool and old. I actually am saving them, just in case I Can use them in the future. But only three of the four casters were useable — the fourth split in half so the entire buffet was wobbly and slanted. Not cool. So I grabbed four new casters, popped the old ones out and popped the new ones in.
  3. Spruced up bottom: I removed the bottom of the cabinet, cleaned it up and sprayed it black. When I put it back in place I also added another piece of wood underneath it for extra support.
  4. New backing: Can you tell what backing I used for this piece? It’s peg board! I wanted to use the pretty, cutout tin but it was hella expensive. Instead, I picked up a sheet up peg board at Habitat Restore, sprayed it black and cut it down to size. I screwed it onto the back to close up the buffet and give it a finished feel. The black peeks through at the top, again picking up the black in the hinges and the new hardware.
  5. Refinished the wood: I’ve talked about this product before and I’ll continue to use it because of the results I always get (This is not a sponsored post — I just love this stuff!) I used Howards Restor-A-Finish to bring the wood back to life. This stuff gets rid of light surface scratches, colors in deeper scratches so they aren’t as noticeable and just gives wood a beautiful sheen. I did the Restor-A-Finish once when I got the piece a few months ago, and again yesterday. The results are stunning, especially on the scratched up side. I followed this by a waxing with the Howards Feed-N-Wax.

Ready for the finished version?

Buffet After

BAM!

That scratched up side? Well, it is scratched up no more.

Buffet Side refinished

The peg board? Thoughts?  I was skeptical, but I really like it. I like that it is black, versus a shiny, silver tin. I think it goes better with the piece overall. Win!

Buffet Top Detail

And look, a back! Woohoo! It’s amazing what not being able to see through a piece of furniture does for the overall look of said piece of furniture.

Buffet After open

I’m glad I’m done with this buffet. It is great to be able to get it out of my craft room and out there for the world to see (dramatic much?)!

Thanks for stopping by to see the transformation today. Happy weekend!

Craft Projects

How to NOT glitter shoes

Jessica Smith

I don’t often talk about projects that are total flops, but I had an oober flop of a project last night that I thought I’d share in case anyone else is thinking about trying it. I had an old pair of black pumps that are SO comfy and SO beat up, so I wanted to try my hand at glittering my shoes with Mod Podge.

IMG_2541

Well, it was bad. Really bad. I had skimmed some other tutorials on how to do this and finally was ready to part with my pumps and try it out, hoping for the best.

Turns out I followed a bad tutorial. Meh, oh well!

Here’s what I did:

I Mod Podged sections of my shoes and spread thick layers of glitter on top before shaking it off.

IMG_2543

After I had the whole shoe glittered I let it dry for a few hours.

And here’s where I went terribly wrong. Dun dun dunnnnnn.

Once my glitter was dry I wanted to secure it to the shoe so it wouldn’t fall off as I walked. SO… I put Mod Podge on top of the glitter to seal it on the shoe. DO NOT DO THIS! Haha. Please. Don’t.

Mod Podge Shoes Gone Wrong

By sealing the glitter with Mod Podge I pretty much took all of the shine and sparkle out of the glitter. Boo.

By the time it dried, my shoe was so boringly black with no sparkle at all… ugh, such a fail. It also had a terrible texture to it

To make matters worse, even though I tried to make it better, I painted the tops of my shoe, the heel and the strap gold. Ugh. Bigger mistake.

Mod Podge Shoes Gone Wrong

Ugliest. Shoe. Ever.

Thankfully, I took this project one shoe at a time and didn’t waste any glitter or Mod Podge on the other shoe. Not so thankfully, I ruined my possibly awesome shoes. Oh well!

After looking around the interwebs to try and figure out just where I went wrong, it looks like a lot of people seal their glitter shoes with a clear glaze spray. That’s what I’ll be trying next time around.

Anywho, I figured I share my mishap since there seems to be lots of glitter shoes on Pinterest. If I can save another project from going awry then that’s a good thing!