Armoire Part I

I had been looking for an armoire when we were still living in the apartment because space was really getting low. We found this one on craigslist for under 100 and I figured we could rehab it in some way to make it like new. We had almost finished the rehab when we moved and...

Well we needed to rehab our rehab project.

Here you can see that we painted over the off-white with true white. I will post the next step tomorrow.

A tip for finishing white-painted projects. Traditional oil-based poly will tint it yellow. That was one of our unfortunate discoveries. In order to get true white, or even close to it, you need to get water based poly that says "crystal  clear" on it. TRUST ME!

That being said, the water based isn't as tough for protecting against scratching, so you need to put quite a few coats on. On surfaces that see wear I do up to 5 coats. It's worth the extra work in the beginning!

Stay tuned :)

Posting Again!

I know that I've literally been the worst at posting. Literally. But to be fair, we did move into a house (yay!) that needs a lot (a lot!) of renovations (boo!). So I've been pretty busy. ALSO, I'm definitely posting this because I need your help! I entered an upcycling contest and need your votes to get into the top 10!! Ya'll would be the best if you could go over to:

VOTE HERE!  (you have to click "view more" at the bottom) the thumbnail that you click looks like this and is on the far right: 

NOW TO THE POST!

and find my entry and click vote. Everyday. Until voting ends. Okay, just kidding. Unless you will. 

Look at that sorry old dresser! The reason I picked it out was because it was 15 dollars and I'm cheap. Also it was long and skinny which is exactly what I wanted in a book and toy shelf for Jude. 

First, I stripped it down to the bare wood. Under that white was yellow paint (yikes!) and under the yellow was BLUE. Try to picture that whole thing in blue. I took out the drawers and used some scraps of flooring we had to make shelves. I unscrewed legs from a nightstand that I also got at goodwill (for 2 bucks, mind you!) and painted them light aqua. Then I added trim so that it would have a clean finished look. 

But my favorite part ended up being the doors! I actually filled in stencils with wood glue. I did quite a few layers of it, and let it dry completely. Then I stained the doors and the stain won't stick to the wood glue, leaving the color of unfinished wood as the design. I think it turned out pretty neat! The only thing I had to buy new was the hardware and the trim. 

Jude always picks a different stencil as his favorite. Just goes to show you, you can never trust a two year old. They just don't know what they want in life. 

This is what my entry looks like on the goodwill website. Please help me get in the top then and vote!

Vote HERE!

and look for: 

Frameless Clock

Robert and I had been looking for a clock forever. He is picky about clocks, which is strange because the man doesn't have opinions about practically anything. But clocks? Boy, does he ever. 

Although I know one thing that just always wins him over...the word cheap. 

So we made one, and it was so fun and we both love it. 

All you need to make one of your own is:

-  some wooden letters (we got our from etsy.com, I highly recommend searching MarvsCars on etsy) 

- a clock movement (Amazon Clock Movement) 

- Silver paint, or whichever color you choose (Blick Acrylic Paint) 

First, I painted all the parts of the clock movement separately. I needed quite a few coats of silver arcylic paint, but it was worth it and only took a few minutes per coat. 

Then I painted all of the numbers, which took practically no time at all. You may need to sand them down a little, but that took me about 5 minutes total. 

Once everything was dry I put the clock movement together and hung it on the wall. Depending on the size of the numbers you get (we had 3" numbers that were 1/4" thick) you can make the clock however big or small you like. 

To make the clock perfectly round, I but the 12, 3, 6, and 9 up on the wall first, then just eyeballed the remaining numbers so that it looked nice (I think). 

I attached ours to the wall with just a few dots of wood glue on the back of each number. This way, You can pluck them off when you want to move it. You could also use hot glue, which is even less permanent! 

I hope you like!

New Bed, Part I

I KNOW! I haven't updated in such a very long time. It must be so frustrating for all of my family loyal readers! I told myself that I shouldn't have even created the blog until I had about 100 posts saved up because the last thing that this procrastinator needs is more excuses.  But in one tragic burst of creative thinking, I started the blog. Then I did nothing for months. 

Annyywayyy. 

Since I had my son, I've been on an unending quest to redo our entire apartment. To give you an idea, we got most everything that made up our apartment for free or from a garbage toss (yikes) and I was sick and tired of it all. One thing we did at first was make a headboard. I'm planning on making a bed frame as well, which will be posted later (or at my rate, sometime in 2020). 

I love the look of a tufted headboard. I love the price of a DIY headboard! It was the best of both worlds and also, super easy. We just got a piece of plywood cut to the dimensions that we wanted and then drilled holes into the plywood where we wanted the buttons. 

After the drilling, we covered our plywood in memory foam. I actually bought an egg carton topper from bed bath and beyond on clearance for only a few dollars, which saved tons of money. 

We then simply pulled our fabric (upholstery quality, from Joann Fabrics "Circa Solid Salt") over the egg carton and stapled it to the back of the wood. I should take a picture of the back of it. IT IS UGLY! 

We took our buttons that were simply made from a button covering kit (also from Joann fabric- http://www.joann.com/dritz-aluminum-cover-button-kits-many-sizes/xprd357330/ ) and thread them through the fabric and out through the holes with EMBROIDERY thread. That is important because it is so much tougher than other types of thread. Once the thread was pulled through and exposed in the back, we stapled it down to the wood. 

I love that tufted headboards look so cosy, although I subsequently want to lay in bed all day. Oh well. Life is full of hardships I guess. 

To make sure that we got it to look very cushion-y, Robert pushed the buttons as hard has he could towards the back of the headboard, then I pulled the thread tightly and stapled it. Having two people for this step makes a big difference in how deep the buttons lay in the headboard. 

We just hung it up with D hooks (http://dnaframing.com.au/index.php?cPath=3_19) into wall studs. It was so easy! 

I'm going to get better at taking pictures during the projects and not just after, so stick with me! 

Periodic Table of Elements DIY

The first few posts on Simply Cosy will have tutorials, but not with many "in the making" photos. These crafts happened before the blog existed so naturally I wasn't inclined to show pictures of the middle of projects. Here's why- I'm messy. I can admit it.  Maybe I couldn't admit it before right now but craft blogs are therapeutic so whew. It feels good to get that off of my chest. Either way, you'll have to read if you want to know how to do these and if you're anything like me, you probably have stopped reading already. Oh well. 

My sister married a nerd. Listen, no offense to him, but he's a chemist. That, also, isn't a joke. That's his actual profession. I guess I'm allowed to say it since my husband is an aspiring CPA. Anyway, we were at a mall together when she saw this in the window of Land of Nod: 

And as she stood and marveled long enough to miss her one and only child ripping up the display at the Apple store, and subsequently trying to steal what he broke, I had an idea. That periodic table was 120 dollars. I think that it's cute and all, but who in their right mind would pay 120 dollars for a poster that will inevitably doom your child to nerdom? Not I. But it got me to thinking about a special gift for my melon headed nephew. 

I love the look of the raw canvas, so I bought some canvas at a local art supply store. It was just the cheapest primed and loose canvas- not stretched, just a plain old piece of canvas. Then I got out my trusty roll of twine, my Faber-Castell black brush tipped marker, and an assortment of boy-ish colors. These were the best I've found for drawing on the canvas- they are copic stretch brush tipped markers- I purchased them at Dick Blick. They aren't cheap but they are amazing! 

I also got two pieces of lumber from Home Depot, something like 3/4 x 1. I think I found them in the "trim" section for window trim. You'll also need wood glue and a staple gun. And, I found, a periodic table app on your phone (free) makes it a whole lot easier. 

And with a little TLC and time, you can make your own Periodic Table for all of your nerdy, melon headed loved ones! 

 I actually drew on the side of the canvas that wasn't primed. What can I say? I'm a rebel without a cause. Except that my cause was that the primed side was bright white and looked bad. I drew the periodic table first in pencil then traced it with marker. It was actually quite easy to make sure the lines were straight since the canvas has natural lines. I did everything in black marker and then traced over that with the color coding. (Did I mention that my sister said that her husband would disapprove of the Land of Nod version because it wasn't color coded? It's hard to be the only cool person in a family of nerds...it's cool to have a craft blog, right?) 

After the periodic table was all done, I glued the wood (after I stained it) with wood glue, and stapled the twine to the back of the top wood piece. I then stapled the canvas every few inches on the back of each piece of wood to make sure it would stay nice and strong from the years of use I'm sure it will get.

I'm sorry there aren't more pictures but I think y'all can do it! (yeah, I'm saying y'all now, so deal with it). 

I hope that someone else gives this a try, and send pictures if you do! I'd love to post them :) 

Hello World!

Well the internet may not need another crafty blog site, but I need one! So, here it is. This blog is meant to be all things crafty, or really anything else I like. What that means is that it will also probably feature some dessert posts. Plus, every now and again a post may or may not pop up that features my little jude bug. He’s so cute. He’s my son, not a cat. I figured you probably thought I was a cat-loving spinster who would post every other post on either knitting or cats. Listen, I don’t hate cat people (cough, Maggie)…in fact I love some of them. But, I am not one. I do however have a chubby baby boy named Jude and a husky little nephew named Briasson (who lives next door) that may waddle their way on to the site. Sue me, they are too cute. And if you are really lucky you may even get a peek at their long lost cousin Marin who left for California at 6 months and was never to return from the sunshine state again. He has a melon head. You’ll love him.

But this is a craft blog! I swear! It will be slow going to begin with, but I hope a few people read it and are inspired to do some very fabulous things!