Thrift Gift Facelift Upcycled Jewelry Box

Posted on May 8, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

Have I got a fun treat for you today! Joanna and I are teaming up to bring you a new challenge! Thrift Gift Facelift! Here’s the deal.

1. Partner up.
2. Hit up the thrift store in search for an item to gift to your partner. Your partner will do the same.
3. Give the item a facelift.
4. Post your reveals on reveal day!

So, welcome to the first Thrift Gift Facelift! This month we’ll show off our facelift projects and in the future we invite you to play along.

Let’s get started. Joanna found this little cutie for me!

Perfect for a mom of two little girls right? And for the bargain price of $5.99.

Good bones. In good shape. A little dirty.

Perfect for a Pinterest Challenge!!! Sherry from Young House Love and her crew issued a Pinterest Challenge and I’m always up for a challenge! Wait, is it cheating to combine two challenges? Nah, as half of the Thrift Gift Facelift team I say no.

Of course I thought this little jewelry box needed some paint. And then I stumbled across these gorgeous little jewelry boxes on Happy Day Vintage and I realized it didn’t just need paint. It needed flair! I was ready to upcycle my jewelry box!!!

First things first. Primer and an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.

And check out this beauty now!

Ain’t she cute?

Oh, what’s that? A little surprise up top?

A little stencil action going on there! Though considering this lives on the new Expedit in the playroom and Cupcake is just over 3 feet tall she can’t really see the cute little heart. Yet. She’ll get taller.

Wanna see the inside?

Peek-a-boo!

I gave the inside a good cleaning. I took the necklace hook off to paint. Man was that tricky. And then post painting I had to put it back on. Man was that tricky. But it was the only way to get in there to paint. I opted not to paint the hook, though, as it was plastic, I couldn’t unassemble it and I thought painting it without unassembling would “glue” it in place so it wouldn’t spin any more.

But it’s perfect for holding little girls’ necklaces. And the drawers are perfect for little bracelets.

Speaking of drawers, they got the stencil treatment, too. It was a little tricky working around the knobs, but momma figured it out.

I would have liked to give the knobs a bit more of an upgrade, but they were permanently attached, so I had to work with what I had, so they got some contrasting white paint. And the jewelry box was done!

Cupcake loves her new upcycled jewelry box! She has never played with her jewelry as much as she has the last few days since the jewelry box has taken it’s place in the playroom.

I love that it goes with the color scheme I have planned for the room. Want to know the colors? Of course you do.

Simply Aqua and Hint of Cherry, both by Valspar, but color matched with Glidden since I happened to be at Home Depot returning something else, had the color swatches in my purse, and had just finished painting the room gray and was ready to bring some color in!

OK, now I’m rambling. So, what do you think? If you were an almost 3 year old girl would you be playing dress up more often, too?

And what do you think of the Thrift Gift Facelift challenge? Are you in?

Don’t forget to head over to Joanna’s blog Midwestern Bite and see her Facelift project, too!

Linking Up!

Playroom Phase 1

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

What started out as an unused, catch all room is well on it’s way to becoming a playroom for the girls. I’m super excited about this project. I never wanted to make this room a playroom, but I really wanted the living room back. And really this room was not being used. It held my desk and all my Thirty-One stuff, but it mostly just collected odds and ends. Oh, and I hated the color.

Hold on to your hats people, here comes the mess!

Oh, so dark! And cluttered! My desk was always a mess. This was the landing area for all my reusable shopping bags. The bag of stuff that I removed from the CR-V before we traded it in. Leftover wood from the bathroom shelves.

Cake stand anyone? Photography props. Sorority project supplies.

The pile o’ things to be donated in the corner. The room things went to die. Not a functional use of space.

Just with the room cleared out and a fresh coat of paint it makes a world of difference!

The view from the dining room. The color on the walls is Going Gray by Olympic. I love me some Olympic paint. Great coverage, no stink. We picked up an Expedit at IKEA over the weekend for toy storage. I liked the glossy while Expedit, but I didn’t $20 more like the glossy one, so we just went with the regular white. And while I would have loved to find a fun piece of furniture to refinish for toy storage I don’t think I could have found a piece as functional as the Expedit. Seriously, this piece of furniture is awesome. It’s great for a craft room, play room, living room…..any room!

I still need to touch up some paint inside the window seat area, recover the cushions, figure out what I want to do for curtains, put up a light switch cover, hang some art work, clear out the construction mess.

As you can see Cupcake has already taken to playing in here. That girl loves to sit at her table. And she made me some cupcakes in her kitchen. She didn’t finish the dishes before she went to bed, though. I’ll have to get on her about that.

See what I mean about functional? These Your Way Cubes from Thirty-One fit perfectly in the Expedit and I love the colors in the print. I can’t wait to bring in some more of these colors throughout the room. Each of the cubes has toys in it, but there’s still room for more (which is good since Cupcake has a birthday coming up!).

So that’s how far I’ve come in the last week with this room. We have a ways to go, yet, but I’m excited about how light and bright the room is. And there’s plenty of floor space for the girls to play. I’ve got a pile of boxes on the front porch being picked up this morning and we got our living room back!

What do you think so far?

Ugly Frame Facelift

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Heather Hawkins

I’m sure you’ve seen the ever popular “buy inexpensive awesome frames at the thrift store and spray paint them until they’re awesomer” pins right? Yeah, people, stop buying all the awesome frames at the thrift store. I want one. I’ve found a few interesting ones, but none of the really awesome ones. I picked up this little number back in the fall.

It’s not super awesome (though the picture inside is, right?) but it would do. Bonus points because it was easy to unassemble.

And then it sat unassembled waiting for spray painting weather. Seriously, Midwest, give me more spray painting days in the winter!!!

The frame is plastic, so I picked up plastic spray paint.

And I sprayed it. And I hated it. So again it sat around waiting for more spray painting weather. A month later……..

I went silver with it.

Finally happy with the frame I got to work on the glass with some chalkboard paint. And strangely I was hungry for a shake and some tots when I was done.

And since my roller was covered in paint and the top of my desk was looking a bit beat up I put a few coats of chalkboard paint on it, too.

After a little chalkboard priming I made my to do list on my new framed chalkboard.

Two of the 3 things on my to do list got done that day. Can you guess which two?

I like it! I’m going to miss that hazy lake scene, though………..

Check out the Link Parties page to see where this post may have been linked up!

Disaster in Progress

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Heather Hawkins

I really need to get moving on Cupcake’s new big girl room. The room used to be our guest room, which I’ve moved into the computer room (and if I ever finish the window treatments in there I’ll show you the final results). It has since become the junk room. All the extra stuff that was in the computer room needed somewhere to live since I made hubby clean out the closet in there.

So here’s what I have to work with.

This is the view from the hallway. Yeah, there’s a bunch of junk in here. The only things staying are the dresser and the lamp shade. This room is just not fit for a 2 year old!

Anyone need a queen sized headboard, two large side tables or an old lamp? I’ve posted them on Craigslist. And you can see a little bit more of the dresser that I refinished. You remember the dresser, right? It received a coat of white paint and new hardware (I went with option #2). It has two spots that need touched up because the boys hauling it up dinged it, but I forgive them, since it was a tricky job to get that large dresser in through that narrow doorway. Now the big chunk of wood missing from the door frame………….

I just really need to get the junk out of here so I can get some paint on the walls. I’ve got a painted bed in my garage along with some fun accessories and they can’t come out of there until the painting is done. Which means I can’t park my car in the garage (and we all know I HATE that!).

Anywho, now that I’ve shown you my mess I’m hoping it’ll light a fire under my butt to get moving (of junk out of the room). And pick out a paint color. And buy paint. And actually put paint on the walls. I’m tired just thinking about it.

What projects do you have going on?