Refashioned Jewelry

I'll just show you the crazy before I show the good stuff.  This is a PORTION of my jewelry stash.

Earrings.

New stuff.

Necklaces.

Working on some refashioning.

Basically, I have a ton of thrift store pieces that I bought on auction or over time.  By auction, I mean a box of used costume jewelry, site unseen.  I buy some new stuff from the craft store OR on sale at retail, to refashion.   If it is on sale and covered in charms or has lots on dangly parts...I am all over it, since each of those dangles could equal a new piece of jewelry.  Even the hopeless pieces have clasps and jump rings that I can use for other pieces.

So anyway, I worked a few pieces tonight, since my meetup group cancelled out at the last minute.  I had promised the daughter that I'd make her some dangly earrings....so I had to deliver.

Small photos are the "before" pieces.

Before and after on this one.  I just added the star to jazz it up for the daughter.

The daughter was so excited to see me whip out the first pair of earrings in about 5 minutes, I am sure we will working on some more of these together soon.  Probably tomorrow night.

Washi tape decor

Remember this hot mess?  I have a boy and girl in the same room and have had the worse time trying to cohesively decorate it since she wants princess and he wants all boy.  So I gave up.

Talk about a hodge-podge!!

Then I had my friend over to help me with staging ideas.  She suggested emptying the room of all clutter and decorating with one color on both sides that neither of them could really fight over.  I had already said I would take down the existing mismatched curtains and put up full white sheers to make it cohesive.  But white  on the purply-blue walls looks so girly.  As a way to accommodate boy and girl, she suggested going with GREEN.  Perfect with the white to pop against the purply-blue walls.  BTW, that purply-blue was my initial boy/girl compromise color....it definitely worked.  

So I have to add some green decor, green bedding, de-clutter, touch up paint, finish the dressers, blah, blah, blah.  Lets talk about the fun stuff.  The bedding is the next project on my list but let me show you what I came up with for the decor.

Funny that you can't see in any of the photos from before but I had three of these little white shelves over each bed.  She suggested painting them green.  I agreed, but solid green is just too plain for me.  So scrapbook paper to the rescue again!

I had the daughter trace the shape of the shelf onto the back of various sheets from this scrap pack - 24 times!!!!

No really, she did about 15 and I did the rest.  I had to cut them all out. Whew!  

I used white glue to adhere the paper.  I did not dilute it as I would have to decoupage since the paper was thick and I just wanted to stick it on there.  No too worried about protecting it and I had other plans for the edges.

WASHI tape!  I glued the paper on one day, let them dry and then went back with the WASHI tape to edge it out.

Since my paper cutting skills aren't perfect, I wanted to cover the imperfections with the tape so I let the excess hang to the outside.  A few corner clips and it laid down nicely.  Because it is a papery tape, the wrinkles in the tape lay nice and flat when you press them with your thumb.  If you are really OCD, you could make clips in the tape all the way down.  I won't lose any sleep over these wrinkles.

I also trimmed down each side to clean up those seams.

I like the contrast of leaving the inside white.  See my project supplies still piled up in the background?  Busy, busy, busy.

These with the polka dots will go on the daughters wall.

These with the "racing stripes" will go on the son's.

Hopefully I can complete the bedding next and pull it all together to show a finished room.

Painted rugs

This project is one that I actually did as the first "work on a project" meetup, so you are seeing them out of order.  The first project meetup was actually a bust, no one was able to show.  With the weather here lately, I knew it would be hit or miss.......but hey, I scheduled it since I'd be working this project anyway.....and having it scheduled made me work the project.  So win-win.

Here is what inspired me to try this....from Pinterest.  Not sure if it is woven or painted but it made me think of paint so I decided I must try it.  Of course I couldn't find a stencil of that design or that big.....so I wung it.

The one rug, I decided would be a try-me since it had more pile than I think is usual for a painted rug.  And the price is bearable if I totally screw it up - free!  This remnant came from a garbage pile where the neighbors put pieces when they were recarpeting.  This is a remnant of the new carpet, not used.  But hey, I am not above that either, depending on the purpose.  The other pieces I grabbed are in my attic now, forming a nice walkway over that darn splintery plywood floor.

This other rug, was a $10 rug from Home Depot.  It has the pile I was expecting for trying out rug painting.  And this price is also bearable if I totally screw it up.

I've had this stencil forever and finally get to use it. Everything I saw in Joanne's was tiny.

I want to say he was my helper,  but two pounces and he bounced.

I got this tiny stencil from Joannes....part of my winging it.

I decided to just let the creative juices flow.  A little here, a little there....

Not bad....

.....so far so good.

SHAZAM!

Now to do it over and over.  Thank goodness for my little helper.

We had fun!

After you did it once the paint on the stencil directed the color.

Cool huh?

I plan to add a fabric border to bind this rug.  I'll update the finished photos when I can get to that.  I will be using this in the master bath.



I planned to use the low pile berber in the kitchen.  So I went with a more subtle color scheme.

 I just used the gold and touched it lighly with the orange for highlights.

I did smudge a little.....hey, gives it character.

Now, you can feel the dry paint on these rugs....the higher pile one moreso than the berber.  For my purposes, its not a problem.  I plan to spray them with scotchgaurd  for protection, just as soon as I can remember to buy it, but so far, so good.

If I wasn't about to list, I would totally paint my stairwell carpets with stencils.  Who cares if it is rough....it would cover the traffic patterns and look awesome.  And the roughness would just add traction.  I've seen painted stairs but it would be so loud here with these darn kids with no carpet on the stairs.  I will remember this when I am in my new house and so house-poor that I can't afford to recarpet the stairs.  I'll just paint the carpet....with oops paint, of course!