DIY Upcycle

I bought three 'matching' gold frames. They didnt match. The two that did matched were turned into abstract art. The one that was left over I turned into this romantic heart (maybe its because I was researching valentines day gifts this morning)

I took the print out of the frame, removed the glass and and realized the back print wasnt even close to white. It was brown cardboard. I needed to get a piece of paper that was a bit cleaner.




I grabbed some wrapping paper that I had kicking around (I am a wrapping paper nut. SO MANY USES) and cut out a rough size




I mixed up some red/white paint, gave it a swirl and drew a heart with a paint brush. It didn't look great so I grabbed a sponge and drew the same heart shape but the sponge made it a bit wider.. which is more of what I was going for.




Let it dry

Then I put it back in the frame. Because it was a bit bigger I trimmed the extra flappy parts






TADAAAAAAAAAA

DIY Abstract Art

When I go to a thrift store, one of my FAVORITE sections is the painting section. Usually it's really bad prints from the 80's, but I've learned to look at the frames and not the content inside the frame. Next time you go to a home decor store in your area, check out the price of frames. I paid $5 bucks each for these golden babies. NOW, I thought the three of them matched. Turns out one of them had a little bit of a different frame. And once I noticed it, I couldn't un-notice it, so I put the odd one away in my storage closet for future DIY's and started working on my twins.



The nice things about these prints is that when I flipped them over, they were pristine white. A perfect surface for colour. In the past I've brought frames home and when I turned the print over there was dust. and a signature. and a 4 year olds hand writing. These are all charming but not a surface I'd like to paint over. 

I'm not an artist. I'm not. I mean sometimes I read something that Oprah says and I think I can create anything but at the end of the day.. I'm just not. So me giving you advice on how to paint isn't going to happen.. that's just not me. I took yellow and white, started white at the bottom, yellow at the top and then mixed them together in the middle. After that I shook some gold glitter/sand I picked up at IKEA for god knows what reason, sprinkled a bit on, NOTE: I left the edges of the paper white. I find this gives it a more polished look once it goes in the frame compared to painting to the edge.




Then I took this little yellow tool thing... (I don't even know the proper name for it. Hubby has lots of little tools hanging around that I use) I grabbed some black paint and made tiny lines in the same spot on each of the posters.





Once I let the paint dry (about 2 hours, I had some pretty big chunks of paint on there and I didn't want to squish them once the glass was put on)


Putting the posters back in the frame was a little tricky. I glued the edges of the frame back together JUST to be sure. I didn't want to hang them up, have them fall onto the floor and hit a cat.

Please don't judge my plant. I watered it immediately after taking this picture.

Makeup Box

If any of you are like me, you have a bag/box/container/drawer of makeup you move around your house, find a mirror, plop down and do your makeup. I've even been known to take a mirror of the wall, prop it on a chair and use it to put my face on. My hubby hates it, its messy, and it keeps me dreaming onfthe day I can have a vanity, with a beautiful antique chair to sit on and birds singing above me. BUT for now, I needed a solution. I had bought this bor $5 from my local thrift store to do the whole "break CD's and glue them to a box" idea that's on Pinterest. I tried it, I got about 15 pieces in and realized this was going to take alot of time. Alot of time that I don't have. So as I'm staring at my mess of glue and broken cd's trying to think of what else I could use this box for, it came to me. MAKEUP STATION. I already had a little square mirror, and I have lots of paint sitting around the house.. so why not? I took my box over to my kitchen sink, scraped off the pieces I had glues on and wiped the box down.

First, I removed the gross blue velvet from the box. It came out pretty easy, which surprised me as I was expecting it to be like pulling teeth.

At this point I painted the outside of the box red, the inside white. As I was painting it white I started to think about how dirty the white paint is going to look once makeup gets inside the box. So I went into my storage room and grabbed some cute gold polka-dot wrapping paper and glued it to the bottom. I also took some gold glitter and Mod Podge (by Mod Podge I mean the homemade kind)

I had this mirror already so I grabbed some super glue, glued the 

mirror and let it dry over night.

TA-DA, it may not look organised (it isn't).. but until I get my vanity and singing doves, it works.