Tag: stain

Craft Projects

Jewelry Holder: Glass knobs

Jessica Smith

Look what I brought home from work!?! We just had 42 boxes of our alumni magazine delivered a couple of weeks ago on this beauty of a pallet. I quickly called “dibs” on the pallet (no one else wanted it… can’t imagine why) after the delivery guy left and took it into my office, where it happily resided for a couple of weeks. I finally took it home last Friday, and was originally going to use it as nail gun practice. But, when I started to mess around with it, I changed my mind and quickly crafted a new plan.

I pulled out my jigsaw and started cutting off a few of the boards. I took them inside to sand them down a bit and decide exactly what I wanted to create.

Once my board was smooth, I cut it down the middle where the two screws held it to the middle support board of the pallet — right through the holes!

I sanded, sanded and sanded some more until my half boards were super smooth.

Next, I stained a piece of wood a light shade of gray before applying a coat of poly to the top. I let it dry overnight. Then, I screwed in three adorable glass knobs (four if you count the one I shattered by tightening the screw too much… oops) and attached a ribbon.

With that, I had a totally recycled jewelry holder — wood, knobs and all! I literally didn’t have to buy a single supply for this project — I had everything sitting around in my craft room, and, of course, my free pallet. Bahaha, that’s the best kind of craft! So excited.

I think I’ll have to make a few more of these for that Trash to Treasure fair, don’t you think?

Spoiler alert — I already made a second one, but the hangers are so much cooler. Check back later to see it!

One last thing… Here’s a fun fact, for all of you people who are on the lookout for pallets — they aren’t the nicest thing in creation. The wood is jagged and splintery, the screws are warped and they are often falling apart…. but man are they fun to work with if you get the chance! There are two sitting in our loading dock right now that I am oh so tempted to take, but I think I’ll finish tearing this one up first :p

Furniture

Stained and striped coffee table

Jessica Smith

Ahhhh, another project so long in the works.

My dad brought me this old table from my aunt’s house in Cincinnati. I wasn’t crazy about it at first — it is extremely heavy — but it started to grow on me. Plus, it’s way nicer than the Ikea table dad got us from a yard sale. So about a month ago I started to refinish this piece.

I really like the lines in the top of this table. I noticed right away the vertical lines in the table top, sandwiched by two horizontal pieces of wood. I had the idea to stain every other plank a dark gray to give this top some pizzaz.

So I went off to Home Depot to pick up some stain — I tried a new stain, Varathane, which I really liked. The polyurethane is particularly awesome.

I sanded the top of the table and then taped off every other slat with blue painter’s tape.

Once I taped off the table, I stained the contained slats a smokey gray using a sponge brush. I waited 10 minutes, then wiped off the stain.

Once the gray was finished, I started to apply the black stain over top of it. The black stain turned out to be more of a dark brown, which I liked. If I had done a second coat of stain, it probably would have been a bit more black. But I liked the contrast between the gray and brown.

This is where I stopped about a month ago — whoops. Between house-warming parties and jam-packed weekends, I just didn’t have the time to tackle this project.

Luckily, I had time this past Sunday to complete this project.

I took the table outside and flipped it over to stain the underneath.

I scraped the little stain drips off the underneath of the table, then stained the bottom black. I let it dry for a few hours, then applied several coats of matte Varathane polyurethane for the table.

I love this table now… it looks great. It feels great. I love the poly finish much better than glossy finishes I’ve used in the past. And, it looks fabulous in our living room. So pleased.

Side note… Has anyone tried the new panorama feature on the iOS 6 software for the iPhone. Look at this sweet picture of our family room.

Isn’t that fantastic? The room doesn’t look too bad either 😉

Furniture

Refinished side table

Jessica Smith

Don’t you just love when you turn something you hate into something you love? That’s exactly what happened with this project. I semi-inherited this side/end table, taking purely for its usefulness, not its looks.

I’ve had it for a few years now and finally came to the point where I had to refinish it or donate it. So I gave refinishing it a try.

First I used furniture refinisher to remove some of the existing stain.

It didn’t work like I imagined it would (pretty certain it was user error), so I still had to sand a little bit. Then it was time to stain. I picked out a black stain with polyurethane already in it. A few coats later, and my table was good and black!


It was still missing something though, so I pulled out a stamp I had and painted it silver with a small green accent flower in the middle. I stamped it on each of the corners to give the table that extra something it needed.

Now I think the table is quite charming! It looks pretty good next to our sofa, too.

 

I’m sure we’ll eventually get a matching coffee table and side tables, but until then, this little piece will do just fine!