Do-It-Yourself: Steampunk Accent

It is amazing the stuff you can use to give a room a Steampunk vibe. So far I have concentrated on the Victorian side of Steampunk, and now I will show you an easy tutorial on how to add a large Steampunk accent.

Because with Steampunk, you have to have presence!!

You will need:

• PVC pipe, 4 inch wide, 5 feet long
• PVC 4 inch coupling
• PVC 4 inch 90* elbow
• Rust-Oleum Universal Hammered in Copper
•  Two corks
• Sharpie™ marker
• E-6000

Set up the pieces of PVC on a tarp in a well-ventilated area.

Once you wipe them clean of dirt and dust, apply a thin streak of E-6000 to the inside of the coupling and the elbow, and connect the pieces. Allow them to set for about 30 minutes.

Do-It-Yourself: Old to New

Note to self: I will NEVER undertake such a room makeover again. At least until next Tuesday.

One of the items Eldest needs in her room is a small bookcase. It was a piece we acquired in Germany, solid wood and unfinished. It took a beating and kept on…. holding books just fine. But it didn’t really fit in with the look she wants.

Nice, plain, utilitarian… boring. But really, all it needed was a nice coat of paint and something that made it pop. Her room furniture is a nice espresso color, so I went with Rust-Oleum Universal in Espresso Satin, which is a very close match. Just painting it wouldn’t give it the Oomph! it needs to stand out though, but I didn’t want to put decorative pipes and stuff on the top, when she needs to use bookcase to hold her lamp as well. And then it hit me: decorate the inside of the bookcase!!

And so, I did!

I found a backsplash option that was bronze in color. The backsplash is sold in sheets, and fortunately made of flexible plastic. This was the second most expensive item I purchased at about $20, but since it was going to make a big impact, it was worth it.

And yes, I did adhere it with E-6000, but you can use any silicone glue made for it.

Total work time was about two hours plus curing time, and total cost of the redo was about $26. I had a few pieces of the façade left to fashion part of her wall display. It was a bit more money but well spent, and now I’m thinking of redoing the other unfinished bookcases in the same manner.

I just hope I’m done getting stuff at  Lowes’. They already know me by name 🙂

Do-It-Yourself: GIVEAWAY!!!

Ok, so lately I have been going a bit nuts over DIY stuff. As soon as I am done with Eldest’s room I will get back to other fluff. But for now, I am enjoying the whole repurposing/ recycling/ redoing bug I have acquired. Seriously, I keep walking around the house looking for stuff to alter or repurpose. Only the dogs are safe.

Last night I was trying to decide what to do with a small jelly jar I had, courtesy of my SIL two Christmases ago. It had been hiding in the back of the pantry, behind the spaghetti container, which is a tall Tupperware™ thing that obstructs my line of sight, given how short I am. So…. I looked around, and thought hey, maybe I can make jelly! Yeah, that ain’t happening. I rummaged through the Box O’Stuff™ chock full of fabric and sundry items, and then it hit me.

A cute little sewing kit!!!

So, all y’all have to do is comment on this post in the next 24 hours with a wish that you want to win it. That’s it! At the end of the day (actual 24 hours), I will do the whole names-in-the-hat thing and let Little One choose. I can’t let one of my dogs choose because they may end up eating the whole hat.

I know I suck at this, but bear with me. It’s my first giveaway. Enter as often as you wish, since I don’t get that many peeps over here, and good luck 😉

Giveaway closed!!

Thanks so much for commenting, and I will post the winner tomorrow!!

Do-It-Yourself: Chapter Two

Yesterday, I showed you the faux mercury glass I made for Eldest’s room makeover. I admit I went a little overboard, but like I said, I had other stuff to do, so it was best to get it out of my system so I could move on to the other accoutrements. Doing these went a lot faster, but a couple required curing time.

Which is just as well, since Eldest STILL hasn’t finished her room.

*Grumble, grumble*

First up, I have to let you in on the secret of my success:

This stuff glues glass!! AWESOME!!!

It glues fingers too, so be careful. E-6000 is my go-to glue for the stuff I never want to move again. Anyway, while at my neighbor’s estate sale, I noticed they had a small bell jar for $1. Hey, the Victorians were notorious for having specimens in those, right? So, I did the next best thing, because there was no way I was trapping a bunch of insects.

I simply punched out butterflies out of different colored cardstock, embossed them randomly, hotglued a small stick to the bell jar base, and then hotglued the butterflies onto the stick. DONE!! And no butterflies were harmed in the making of this bell jar display.

I also acquired a round silverplate serving dish for $3. Admittedly, I was actually going to use it for serving, but then I got a better idea. Monogramming became popular in large Victorian families, for obvious reasons. It was popular with my youngest sister too, until she remembered that all of us had the same initials. Eldest had a small block letter laying around the floor in her room, so I decided to put it to good use.

For the monogram sign, I painted the letter black, then adhered it to the dish with the E-6000. After curing for about 24 hours, I adhered the ribbon with more E-6000, reinforcing with duct tape. It looks so nice with the patina, which is great because that meant I didn’t have to polish it.

One thing I didn’t purchase was a gorgeous hurricane candle holder. It was way out of my price range, and I just couldn’t justify it. But it did give me an idea to make my own itty bitty little hurricane!!

I bought a round votive holder and a small candlestick at Dollar Tree™, and used E-6000 to glue them together. After curing for a couple of days, you have either a small hurricane to show off small pretties, or a wine glass, which is why I adhered the rose to the glass. No chance of using it for imbibing.

Total cost of these: less than $10, including the random stuff I had around and the E-6000. One tube of that will take you far, trust me.

And so will the fumes, so use it in a well ventilated area 😉

Trash to Treasure

My neighbors are moving, and decided that their new abode would never contain the amount of furniture and sundry stuff they owned, so they decided to have an estate sale. He fixes and collects clocks, so you can imagine the bounty he had.

Also imagine being inside the house when ALL THE CLOCKS STRIKE TWELVE.

After the ringing in my ears subsided, I made my way over to the crafting room, which in truth is a detached garage. MORE CLOCKS!!! But boy howdy, did I score!

LOOK AT ALL THOSE GEARS AND COGS AND GOODIES!!!

Just the thing for a collage for Eldest’s room. Oh, and they had a small table that, with a bit of care, will fit right in. Time for me to jet, since I still have to turn my Dollar Tree™ finds into Victorian Steampunk masterpieces. I’m pretty sure I’m more excited than she is, but I don’t care. As long as she leaves some of it behind when she moves out 😉

Thursday?? What the…??

I was so busy yesterday, I completely forgot to post fluff. Let’s face it: this blog is just fluff, but sometimes that’s what you need because there just isn’t enough Calgon™ to go around.

Anyway, yesterday I decided to go around town looking for cheap junk items of small value to alter for Eldest’s room. As y’all may recall, she wanted me to Steampunk the whole thing. Well, that’s hard to do when she keeps it looking like Hurricane Ike hit it.

And that, my friends, is a VAST improvement over what it was like only two days ago. Because you can walk around the room!! Yes, that’s a strip of duct tape on the corner. And she does write on the little mirrors. By the way, I warned her I would be posting a pic of the DMZ room, so this won’t freak her out. Much… Anyway, today I get to paint PVC pipes, cut up corks and foam insulation board. Oh, and do some fake mercury glass, because I am NOT paying out the nose for that stuff when I can easily fashion my own.

I can’t wait to finish her room, and then I will be waiting impatiently for her to move out so I can take it over 😀

Pinterhell

I swear to all that is holy, I had to have been a magpie in another life.

A lot of my friends have Pinterest accounts. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t access it. Anyone can, and it is made easier by the addition of sections, such as “home decor”, “foods”, “posters”, etc. A friend of mine posted a really cute idea for a table centerpiece, which necessitated I click on it, which then took me to a board called “Miscellaneous crafts & DIY for the home“.

Three hours later, I awoke from my daze. Two hours after that, I returned from the local craft and hobby store after getting supplies for numerous projects: felt flowers, “mercury” glass, paper flowers, tissue canvas project, lamp re-do, etc. The best part: I already have so much crafting crap, I didn’t need to buy a lot!

Courtesy of The Shabby Creek Cottage.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Every single time I have good intentions on cleaning up my mess upstairs, something like this happens and all my plans go out the window, which is where Hubby wants to throw most of the mess, anyway. Seriously, y’all remember this, right?

From the mess upstairs that I still have to clean up before Nomstress arrives. Well, guess what? After Pinterest, it miraculously turned into this:

This Pinterest does not bode well for me, I can tell. On the other hand, it does inspire me to create new things with stuff on hand, and gives me ideas for gift-giving. This may be the cheapest least expensive Christmas season ever!!

I just hope no one in my family catches on 😉

Sometimes Psychiatric Help is a Blessing

So I’m told. I have no idea why I wrote that title. Maybe I do need some psychiatric help. Or chocolate.

Anyway, I am going to be working on my little work area upstairs momentarily, in preparation for the coming of Nomstress, Nightflyer, and Rat Boy this weekend. I’m afraid when I start to do some art, and I use that term very loosely, I tend to make piles of my discards and my paints and my embellishments so that the original work area has shrunk by 75%. Working in a space the size of a sheet of notebook paper is not conducive to creativity, so the piles transfer down to the floor, leaving space open for yet more piles.

It’s like the Circle of Life™, only with scissors and glue instead of lions and zebras.

Don’t get me wrong. I can find EVERYTHING. Usually because it’s piled somewhere around the area, but I can still find it, so there’s a method. But I need to clean out a lot of old stuff and organize what I wish to keep. I should start with organization, though. If I start to clean out, then I will have piles and piles and more piles and my guests won’t be able to fit upstairs. My shrink, AKA the gal at the wine section, suggested I get those restaurant racks that are adjustable and shiny. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I already had shelves in the closet, and by that I meant I didn’t want her judging me. Her thing is wine, not hoarding intervention.

Anyway, I shall do my best to clear the area of the gingerly-placed piles of creativity. Hopefully it won’t take long.

And hopefully I won’t get distracted by starting yet another project… 😉

Yay…Me….

So yesterday Hubby was getting the boxes that contained his office regalia out of the garage, and I found even more crap to go donate to Goodwill, because any thought I ever entertained about using the super gem table lamp and the garish silk table covers have gone out the window with his “Omg… you still have that??” look from when he spied it. So, some of the stuff will go to Goodwill, some to my niece, and some to Nicole, because she loves sparklies as much as I do.

Super gem table lamp.

And that is my recycling bin. I’m classy that way. I’m sure my niece will love that lamp for her little one. Hopefully I will have made a big enough dent in the pile that Hubby will not complain for lack of space. After the crap has been distributed or packed up, I shall begin organizing the tools and the books. I hope that the rain continues so that I don’t bake out there. If temperatures rise above 95* F, then I will shove everything out the garage door and pray that someone will come by and pick up their new treasures.

Hopefully before Hubby returns 😉

Findings and Inspiration

A few…. holy cow…. almost a year ago now, I bought two small curio cabinets with the intention of doing something creative. And then something shiny happened and forgot completely about them. I left them in their bag and placed them under the desk for future use, only something always came up for me to do instead.

That’s the curio cabinet in it’s natural state. It has possibilities!! All the little boxes got me thinking about all the little findings I have to fit inside them, each box telling a little story of its own. I kept thinking of what tableaux I could make in each section, the Steampunk screaming at me to go in that direction, but the romantic in me also prodding me to do something a bit more feminine. So far, this is what I have.

Yes, the bottle of poison has charms that say “4” and “Life”. I’m a sick person, I admit it!! But the juxtaposition was too delish to pass up. I keep lightbulbs, washers, nuts and bolts, any keys I find, wire, even screen mesh for use in my altered stuff. I can’t really call it art, though it is artistic. I do know one thing, though. I won’t end up owning it. I seldom keep the stuff I make. I can count on one hand what I have kept for myself!! But the joy is in making it, and in the giving. I just hope it finds a loving home.

But for now, I have to go scour the local hardware store for more findings. You can never have enough copper fittings 😀