Let's Craft Something!

It's a miracle!  I finished it finally!


When we last left off, my rack was lacking the back, dowels, and those rough edges were still just sitting there being hideous.  Well, I took the back, spray painted it for a nice, even color, and taped off some chevrons to add a little bit of color.


I did eyeball the chevrons so they're not great.  I didn't want to become too obsessed with something that was going to be hidden behind pretty bottles of nail polish.  While the pink was drying, I went out and spray painted my dowels.  (Okay, so my dowels are really just bamboo skewers, but that's neither here nor there.)

 

After taking the tape off, I noticed some of my pink paint had seeped through.  Oh butts.  But then I went and raided my stash of paints to see what could work; I could smooth out the edge with a pinkish color, or just paint over it with white.  Then, I saw this cute little bottle of brown paint -- the kind for fabric that always stays a little raised.




I grabbed a few backups (pink, silver, and white), but when I tested the brown, I loved it.  And I realized I could do cute little chevrons to break up the large chunks, too.  It was great.  Again, my lines aren't perfect, but it's eyeballed.



I hot glued the back to the rest of the rack and started covering my edges with the ribbon that I had bought.


With some Velcro Command Strips, I stuck it to the side of my bathroom organizer and filled it with nail polish.  All of the bottles in my room fit perfectly in there!


Added bonus:  A few days ago, I stole a magazine rack from my garage that was literally just collecting dust.  (I'm not kidding, it was pretty gross.)  I cleaned it up, spray painted it white, and with the help of some Command hooks, I have a place to store my straightener and hair dryer that is neither on the floor nor in my way in the tiny cabinet under the sink.

Total cost for both of these projects:  $2.50.
Foam board:  Free, lying around the house.
Hot glue:  Free, lying around the house.
Paints:  Free, lying around the house.
Bamboo skewers:  Free, lying around the kitchen drawer.
Ribbon:  $1
Magazine rack:  Free, lying around the garage.
Velcro Command Strips:  Free, Nana gave them to me when she heard about this project.
Command Strip Hooks:  $1.50 from Dollar General.

Are they perfect?  No.  Are they functional?  Yes.  Do I love them?  Yes.

I promise I'm going back to regular crafts now that Junk-Free June is over with.  Promise.

So I had this aha moment while cleaning up from my closet shelves.  This little box seemed to be a strangely familiar size.  It took me a bit to realize it was the same size as my bathroom storage shelves.  Then, I had the wonderful idea of turning it into a nail polish rack.


I cut the box and made little shelves, fixed them with masking tape and covered the whole thing in layers of Mod Podge, hoping it would seal the tape in, and make the cardboard sturdier.  I covered it with a few layers of spray paint, and ta da!

No, not really.  The masking tape showed through pretty much no matter what.  I tried more layers of paint, sanding it down to help level it out, and nothing seemed to work.  So, I scrapped it and started over.  I didn't feel too bad tossing it in the recycling bin since it was something I had salvaged anyway.

Take Two:

I noticed these spare pieces of wainscoting that were collecting dust in our garage.  They were all left over from when we remodeled our kitchen, so I assumed them to be fair game.  The only thing stopping me was that we didn't have a power saw.  Thankfully, though, I have a loving boyfriend who does.

I drew out a rough sketch of what I wanted, measured them on the board, and Zach was even kind enough to cut them for me.  (I guess he was afraid of me losing a finger...)  He also suggested that I paint the pieces before I try to assemble it, so I took it home and painted.

Once my layers seemed thick enough to cover the dark mauve color we have in the kitchen, I decided that I was done painting and I could start assembling.  I had planned on using wood glue to hold it together, then going back over it with nails or staples.  The only thing stopping me now was that we didn't have any wood glue.


After a trip to the store where I got my under-bed shoe organizer and my makeshift yarn organizer, I got some wood glue.  I grabbed the clamps from the garage, a cardboard box out of the recycling, and set up shop in the kitchen because it was way too hot to try to do this in the garage.  (Yay Alabama summers.)

I glued the long sides first, and realized that I could match up the lines on the wainscoting lined up great.  Not to mention the fact that they are 2" apart, so I can use them for guides for my shelves.

When the glue dried, it was warped and both of the sides were tilted inward.

Take Three:

Whilst browsing YouTube for completely unrelated things, a DIY nail polish rack video showed up on the related videos.  "I'll see how they did it," I told myself as I clicked it.  It was a pretty good video, actually.  She used foam board, which I happened to have two large sheets of from when I was thinking about my World of Warcraft cosplay.

I kind of merged two tutorials.  I took BluSuga's video tutorial and mixed it with the PaperCastle tutorial for the shelves.  What I ended up doing was cutting slits in the sides and shelves so I could make them interlocking.  I thought this would make it a little more stable.  I took some panel board nails and reinforced them on the sides, then hot glued another side strip over it, just to make sure. I took it out and spray painted it white just to cover any imperfections.


Right now, I have the frame with it's rough foam board edges.  I wanted to wait to make sure everything was glued and that I liked it before I cut the back.  Once I get it done, I thought about doing a pink and white chevron design on it for just a pop of color since it will be against a white surface.  I'm also going to add some white dowels to the front just to make sure the polishes don't slip out.  I also plan on covering those rough edges with some ribbon that I picked up.



That's my WIP right now.  Well, one of them at least. Hopefully this will be done soon and I can share with you it's awesome glory!

I know you guys are probably already tired of hearing about my closet catastrophe, but I'm determined to clean the clutter and open up to organization this month!  That's right.  These things have been slowly driving me crazy, but I'm going to get them done so that I can move on to more important and more enjoyable things!  (Like maybe finishing that stupid plarn bag...)

So when we last left off with the closet, I had just installed my new shelves and hung my clothes back up.  Which was still amazing, but those darned sweaters that were folded at the top of the shelving unit was driving me insane.  Though they were folded, it still looked sloppy -- which makes sense because bulky sweaters usually don't like stacking nicely on one another.

You may have remembered me talking about wanting to put baskets up, but complaining about how expensive they were.  After poking around on Pinterest for a while, I ran into several dollar store crafts.  I took it as a sign and ran over to our local Dollar General.  (I wish we still had our Dollar Tree, but oh well.)  I spent a while debating their clear plastic totes, which isn't quite what I wanted, but almost settled for.  I turned around and the best thing jumped out at me.


A hanging closet.  I know, I know.  I was going for horizontal space, not vertical.  The dimensions were absolutely perfect if I turned it on its side.  Four feet long, twelve inches high, and twelve inches deep.  It was the exact amount of space that I had on the top shelf.


The only drawback was that it was made almost entirely out of cloth and looked like it would have fallen on its own.  But alas!  Only two shelves down were plastic clothes hangers.  I picked them up, judged the size, and decided I could easily cut them down and use them as plastic supports.



About an hour and $6 later, ta da!  A brand new sweater shelving unit that all of my folded sweaters easily fit into -- even the bulky ones!  (You know, for the maybe three days that it snows in Alabama...)


While I was at Dollar General, I also bought a picture frame.  Intending to keep my walls mostly clear, I thought my closet would be the perfect place for one of those chicken wire jewelery holders.  Again, this was another Pinspired craft, but it was set in motion when I saw chicken wire at Zach's house in their garbage left over from building their chicken coop.

A frustratingly long time later (because I had to go with the cheap picture frame) and $8 later, I had a new chicken wire picture frame to hang my jewelery on.

I daresay I'm nearly done with my closet.  The last big hurdle there is my shoes...still.

Turn what?  Into what?  Yeah, that's right.  Turn your phone into a projector.  That's not even the best part!  You probably have all of these things around your house already.  So it really could be free!  And it's only seven small steps!


I found this through Pinterest and had to search for the original so that I could at least see the text.  I like to be able to see and read what I'm supposed to be doing; it's just one of my tutorial preferences, I guess.  Unless it's a YouTube video or something that I could just play again.

All you really need is:

1. Shoebox
2. Paperclip
3. Smartphone
4. Magnifying glass or large lens (which you can get at the Dollar Tree)
5. X-acto knife or something of the sort
6. Electrical or duct tape

By the materials needed and the photo above, you could probably already piece it together.  Still, here is the link to how to turn your phone into a projector on Photojojo.  So clever.  I have to try this.