Revamping a TV Tray

Before the move I revamped an old TV tray my parent's had in their closet so I could use it as a side table on the other side of my bed.  Really easy and cheap project so stay tuned!

Started like this

Sanded the whole thing down, unfortunately mine was pretty old and pretty cheap. It had quite a few water marks on the top which made painting a little more difficult. 

I gave the whole tray several coats of while spray paint.

I then taped off the top where I wanted the stripes and painted them.

Then all you've got to do is let dry and remove the tape.  You may have to touch it up a little after the tape is removed.  When I took the painter's tape off it removed a bit of paint.

Wah-La! Cute side table.

To see how I made the magnet board in the back you can go here.

Chevron Fail

This summer when I was spending time at my parent's house before the move I decided to to a couple of DIY projects for the new house.  One of them was revamping a cork board.  I had seen a few things I liked on Pinterest and thought it might be fun to do a chevron pattern on the cork part and paint the frame.  Okay, let me just tell you, I know that chevron is all the rage but I had never actually attempted to draw it out and for some reason I found it a lot harder then it probably should have been.  First off, let me just say I failed geometry in high school, angles are not my thing.  Secondly, Rose Art cork boards are cheap for a reason, the cork on the top layer comes off very easily when pulling off painters tape.  Anyhow, everyone has their DIY fails so I thought I would share mine.

Starting out

Tapping out the chevron

Clearly helping

Painting the cork

Crooked chevron pattern with some missing paint and cork.

It's really not all that bad.  The righthand side is obviously where it is most noticeable but I figured it's a cork board, things will be pinned to it and it'll be covered up half the time.  Plus isn't perfection overrated anyway?

But honestly, if anyone has any chevron pattern tips that may make my life easier in the future that would be awesome.

Envelope Holder Revamp

I shared with you a few days ago that I bought an envelope holder at a local thrift store for $5 and I planned it revamp it so it wasn't such an ugly color.  To see the post about when I got the envelop holder look here.

Now, here is what it looked like before.

It was an ugly color; some areas were lighter then others for whatever reason.  The box is actually plastic although it looks like wood.  I had some white spray paint in the garage and decided to spray the box white.  Here is the box afterwards...

I think the white makes the design on the front stand out more too.

Revamping a Target clock

I've been looking for all sorts of cheap knick knacks to revamp lately because I'm moving in August and as most of you know twenty something students don't exactly have all the money in the world to furnish a home.  My mom gave me this old clock she got at Target a few years ago, she had broken the glass around the face and wasn't using it any more so I decided to redo it and make it look old and vintage.

Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the clock before I redid it.  I asked me dad to help me talk it apart so I could paint it and before I could take a before picture I turned around and the clock was in pieces. Thanks dad I guess for helping me out so quickly.  To give you a visual, beforehand the clock was a boring silver color and had cracked glass around the face.  It looked similar to this clock without the bells on top.

Because the glass was broken I just took it out and threw it away.  I then took all the silver pieces that I wanted to paint and laid them out on a piece of cardboard then primed them with a spray primer to help the paint stick.

I let that dry for about fifteen or twenty minutes before applying white spray paint over the primer.  I didn't need to worry about doing it perfectly because I was just gonna scuff it up later!

I let the white paint dry for a few hours while I went in to watch the hockey game. (Yeah LA Kings Stanley Cup champs!) After it had dried I took a piece of sand paper and scuffed up the edges, feet and some of the back to give it an old shabby chic look. Then I put it all back together and wa la! A cheap clock from Target is now a vintage decoration!