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 😉

Do-It-Yourself Fun: Chapter 1

Well, I know I was supposed to have pics up of Eldest’s room today. Unfortunately, she was ill on Friday, which meant “convalescing” all weekend, and by “convalescing” I mean playing Skyrim™ with her dad while her mom finished off the projects.

*Grumble, grumble*

Anyway, one of the things she wanted in her room was mercury glass. I myself love mercury glass. It is so pretty and old fashioned. But there was NO WAY I was going to pay $80 for a small vase at Pottery Barn™. Not. Happening. I thought about scouring the thrift stores, until I saw this tutorial at Katie’s Rose Cottage Designs, and I thought to myself, I can make that!!

You’ll need:

• cheap glass vases, votives, or whatever you can get at the Dollar Store.
• Krylon Looking Glass Spray Paint™
• spray bottle with a one-to-one mixture of water and vinegar
• paper towels
• well-ventilated area and plenty of coverage for the workspace

First, make sure you have cleaned the item well. I wiped them down with alcohol on a paper towel. Next, shake the paint vigorously, and apply an even coat, or as even as you can, onto the outside of the glass. I had tried doing the inside, but I didn’t get the old shiny results I wanted. After spraying the paint, just spritz the item lightly with the vinegar/water solution, enough to let beading form. Wait just about a minute, and then take a paper towel and gently blot the bubbles and beads of solution. Voilá!! The spray prevents the paint from adhering! Keep spraying paint and solution in as many layers as you wish. I did only two layers for the results I was wanting. This was the bottle before:

Those pretty bourbon bottles sure came in handy.

And this is the same bottle after:

I have plans for this….

I shall update the post with a pic after the Sun decides to make an appearance. Oh, and don’t think I stopped at just one glass bottle.

Can you say “Christmas decor??”

I didn’t go overboard. I just decided to do all of that particular project at once, so that I could concentrate on the rest of her stuff without distraction. All in all, I spent less than $5 on the spray paint, and had plenty of random glass stuff waiting for a ride to Goodwill, so the total expense of this project was well below $10, which is far better than one small vase for $80.

Best part? It was very therapeutic, sitting out in the hot sun, spraying, blotting, spraying, plotting…. 😉

UPDATE AS PROMISED!

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… 😉

It’s Almost Over

I DON’T WANNA LEAVE!!!!!!!!!

Ok, whining over. Had to be done.

This past week has been great downtime. Kids have enjoyed being by the lake, and as for Hubby, he has been fishing every day. From the balcony. And he has been successful!! First few days he got catfish, then yesterday and today it was carp….HUGE carp. The carp was for catch and release, since I don’t eat that stuff, but last night we had fresh catfish and it was sooooo goooood!!!

Yes, that’s the tub. Anyway, Hubby is still fishing, hoping for General Sherman to take the bait so that we can enjoy catfish for the next two months or so. Tomorrow we return home and enjoy a day or two off from our vacation.

One always needs a vacation from vacation 😉