Craft Room Re-vamp #2 - Ways with Wallpaper ...

Good morning ladies.

Happy Sunday! I hope you all have lovely, lazy things planned for today.

Here is the second installment of "Craft room re-vamp".

... Ways With Wallpaper ...

A while back I picked up three wallpaper books at my local Scrapbox.

They were super cheap and the papers inside were gorgeous.

For months they were propped up against a wall in my craft room and forgotten about ...

 ... until now! 

As we all know, storage for our crafty goodies is essential, and in my opinion, the prettier the better.

I quickly whipped up these A4 sized envelopes using an old, disassembled envelope as a template.

Simple, right?

They now house various templates and patterns.

I never throw away useful boxes.

I have covered an assortment of shoe and toiletry boxes in some of the papers.

I have an easy peasy method of covering boxes, leaving no folds and ugly bits.

Again, simple as can be.

The largest, sturdiest box is now used to organise some of my ribbons.

Somewhere in "Blogland" I saw this idea for ribbon storage and tried it myself.

All you need do is:

Cover your chosen box,

Punch holes all the way around at regular intervals,

Set an eyelet  in each hole, (to allow the ribbon to flow freely and not snag)

Place your ribbons inside and pull the beginning of each length through a hole.

Ta-dah!

I also used some papers to line these drawers...

I brought this little pine chest of drawers on Ebay for £1.99.

Gave it a quick lick of AS paint and cut the papers to fit.

Recently I have also used my wall papers to:

Wrap parcels sent in the post (it's really sturdy after all!)

Make little envelopes for handmade cards

(again, using a disassembled envelope in your chosen size as a template)

and

Cut out shapes to use on Christmas cards!

But, why not try:

Snipping out flowers etc, to use for Decoupage on furniture?

Creating little pouches for handmade goodies?

Covering or creating your own books?

Paper bunting?

Any other ideas, Ladies?!?

I'd love to hear them.

Thanks for reading my waffle today.

Lots of Love

Katie

xxx

Craft room Re-vamp #1

Over the past month I have been giving my little craft room a make-over.

It's a small room at the back of the house, so it's often dark and very cluttered.

My aim is to make it a more inspiring place to be,

by making small (and inexpensive) changes.

This little storage unit was one of the first under the radar.

I've had it for years (I think it came from Ikea once upon a time), It's always been very handy, but not very pretty.

I gave it a couple of coats of Annie Sloan Old White and waxed the parts that weren't to be decoupaged.

Good old PVA was used to paste the patterned papers to the drawer fronts and a craft file to sand down the paper edges flush to the drawer.

These little trays had the same treatment, but here I used a mix of AS Duck Egg and Old white.

I hope you all have a super weekend.

Can't wait to hear what you've all been up to.

Thanks for reading.

Love Katie

xxx

From Shabby to Chic #5 - The dresser gets it!

Let me introduce my dresser ...

She has been with us for a couple of years, brought from Ebay for a steal of course.

She's big, practical (you can only imagine the junk hid away inside!) but not very pretty.

I have been wanting to give her a makeover for sometime. I kept putting it off knowing it would be a big job.

But now I've finally done it...

Before

and

 After

.... aahhhhh .... that's better!

No more ginger varnish, no more faux metal handles!

Still as big and practical but pretty to boot!

What do you think?

It was a bit of a team effort, I had roped my reluctant Husband in to dismantle her and lay the sheets down for painting.

(I promised him a lie in, in return for his services.)

Using Annie Sloan Old White, I gave her two coats, then my Husband offered to take the top to the workshop and sand off all the gingery varnish! Who am I to refuse such an offer?!?

He returned home a few hours later with not only a beautifully buffed and waxed top but 6 little draw knobs too. (Do you think I owe him another lie in now?)

After spending what seemed like an age waxing the paint work (I wish he offered to do that too!).

She was finished and ready to be reassembled.

Pleased as punch with the results.

Thanks for reading ladies.

Love Katie

xxx

From Shabby to Chic #4

My fav so far...

For a while now I'm been itching to get rid of a yucky bit of furniture in our Bathroom.

We need something in there, to store towels and bits and bobs in, so I had been looking around for something new.

Then I remembered this chest of draws my Mum and Dad had given me a few months back. This had been in there bedroom for years (in fact it's been with them longer then any of us have and my elder sister is 34!)

Any way I had it tucked away in the spare room, until I realised it would be just right for the job...

Tah Dah!

(please excuse the toilet rolls! A bit of an essential in the bathroom though, I'm sure you will agree.)

I know before I had a little moan about the Annie Sloan paint I brought, well I take it all back. This time I did the painting indoors (not in the blazing heat of our only hot day) and it made life a lot easier.

I used Annie Sloan's Duck Egg Blue. A quick smudge of wax on top and some polished oak draw knobs (again a total freebies, Dad had them in his stash.)

perfect to sort all our bathroom-y stuff in.

Have a great week Ladies.

Lots of Love

Katie xxx

From Shabby to Chic #2

I've been at it again ...

This time my bathroom mirror

and this book unit were the victims of my paint brush.

I've had the mirror for years and never really liked it, my husband brought it when he broke my favourite one! The book unit I brought recently, £5.50 off eBay (surprise surprise!)

Here they are now...

The mirror has been painted with a satin finish cream paint.

I've heard a lot about Annie Sloan's Chalk paint recently, so whilst my husband was enjoying his fishing holiday last week in Suffolk, I discovered there was a stockist nearby so sent him on an errand. (No Stockists in Norfolk!)

I used Old White to paint the book unit, I'm not really sure if I like this paint, I found it a little difficult to apply neatly and I think it's going to chip off easily.

Any body else used this paint?

What do you think?

Have a wonderful weekend,

Love Katie

xxx