First up are the cardstock 3D wall art pieces I made for the nursery. After making-do with Winnie the Pooh decals for so long, I finally decided to give the nursery a more original look. I came across a picture of these on Pinterest - taken from the Etsy store Gosh and Golly. They were whimsical, adorable, slightly boyish and perfect! However, I'm cheap (read: Scottish), so I opted to make these instead of buying them. Now, if you wish to make these, I have some tips. First tip: don't bother making them - just buy them. They'll look way better. Second tip: if you insist on making them, don't cut with scissors. Use a straight blade and a cutting surface. Third tip: Better yet, use a Cricut with some sort of a balloon template. The real neat part is the 3D, which is done by making 2, folding them at 135 degree angles, putting in some strategic slits and assembling. Fourth tip: save your money on the Cricut cartridge and just pay the $30 from the Etsy store!
They were quite finnicky to make, and they look kind of rough up close, no matter how hard I tried, but they are still adorable. I can't find my sticky tack, so I'm still in the process of hanging them, so the picture above is a completed scene, but the picture below will have 3 more balloons and a few more clouds around it.
Secondly, and more significantly, I finally got around to those nightstands that have been haunting my basement since I bought them last fall! Matt kept telling me that he thought I'd never get around to them and I (finally) proved him wrong! I unsuccessfully tried stripping them with a gel stripper, but after 3 coats and 2 hours it was making zero difference (maybe it was the type of paint? I really don't know why it didn't work - but if you do, let me know!) Anyway, I was so determined to get them done that I got up at 6:30 this morning and started sanding. And sanding. And sanding. It was a lot of sanding. And I wasn't even stripping them entirely!
Since I was painting them and not staining them, I opted to just take off the sheen of the paint and take it down to the primed layer in some of the grooves. Still, a lot of sanding. After about 2 and a half hours, I felt like the sanding was good enough. I cleaned the surfaces, got the kids settled with some games, and then went to painting. I did one coat of primer across all of the surfaces. This was the easy part. Next came the trickier bit where I did my first coat of white paint. I used melamine paint for the white because a) these are for kids, and b) we had a lot of it kicking around. Melamine paints on thicker than a normal paint, but it's super cleanable on furniture and very durable. It does get quite gummy quite quickly, so I had to work fast and make sure I got it on evenly the first time. I had to take a break at this point to deal with a potty issue (not mine) and I grabbed some breakfast (finally). Then I went out with a new brush and painted on the accent color onto the drawers and the trim. I actually had to go get a sponge brush to cut in the trim (after gooping dark brown paint onto places that it shouldn't have been! Whoops!). I went back out after a little bit and did a second coat of the accent color. This evening I'm going to pull the stands into my kitchen and give them a final coat of each color (and a quick, light sanding to get anything off of them that they picked up outside - like pollen from my mayday tree). I've got my dreams for the tops, but I have to let the paint cure for a week before I get to even try that, so now all I can do is try to figure out what types of drawer pulls I want!
I am so, so glad that these things are finally getting done! They've been looming for so long, and they'll help make my boys' rooms look so much nicer! Yay for being productive!! Now, how about some Angry Birds?
Mrs. VanderLeek ;)
