Saturday, January 11, 2014

Trash to treasures

Approximately 2 years ago, my close friend & I decided to try our hand at selling some of our creativity.  We'd been scrap-booking together for ages & then we became Pinterested.......which helped inspire us on sooooooooo many levels as well as made us ask the other a bazillion+1 times regarding various projects we'd pinned "why didn't we think of that???!!!" 

Several hundreds upon maybe even thousands of pins later & countless hours of oogling over scads of images got our creative juices flowing like the grand rapids.  We began hitting thrift stores, garage sales, & estate sales in search of buried & dusty treasures.  Sometimes we got super duper lucky......sometimes we found odds & ends we knew we could use to finish a project.......and sometimes we didn't find squat.  But, we always had some good ole' fashioned sister bonding time :)

We've been into the upcycling craze for a while now.  I've gotten friendly with an electric sander in my shop which has led me to become pretty handy with all kinds of techniques like antiquing, glazing, distressing, & waxing.  I've gone to work more than once at my real jobs with traces of paint, stain, or wax peeking out from under my nails or embedded in my cuticles - thank God for mineral spirits & lacquer thinner!

Today, we have our upcycled & hand crafted goodies in a couple of places locally.  We are constantly on the lookout for hip, slick, & cool ideas......here are a few things we've sold in our booths.......

I picked this table up at a garage sale for cheap cheap cheap....





I sanded it, painted it & then used a stain to get into all the
nooks & crannies after distressing it w/a chain.  
I chose to use some of the stain going opposite of the wood grain
on the sides in order to give it a unique look.
I loved the bun feet on this piece. 






I picked up this little 3' stand  from a garage sale.  Sanded & painted this baby.  I decided to do something original with the top so I tore up brown paper sacks, modged podged them to the top, 
added a little stain to accent the edges, then my hubby applied an epoxy to the top to seal it.  BAM!  
Ignore my foot in that bottom picture.  






 This was an unexpected surprise!  I had created a canvas a few months prior layered with coppers, espressos, & rust colored paints, added layers of coordinating papers along with some stamped images.  Left on a shelf uncertain how to complete it for several months.
Bought a bag of spools at....you guessed it......a garage sale with no intended purpose.
Inspiration struck one day or maybe one night while pinning......it all runs together.......I'm old........

EUREKA!!! Wrapped the spools with cute ribbons & lace, glued those puppies into a heart, 
hung some keys from the top of the heart, added some metal goodies to the corners, 
& hubby built the frame giving it a black glossy paint job & I drybrushed a bit of 
gold paint on the frame for some added pop.....TADAAAA!!!



  

 

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