Table For One...Plus Another

Since I haven't accomplished much this weekend, I decided to make it Project Sunday! I have a few things that I wanted to work on, including the Iowa Hawkeye table. 

What started out as "Project Sunday" almost turned into "The BF is going to absolutely kill me Sunday". THANK GOODNESS I paint over an old curtain when I'm in the garage. I was painting the table legs, turned the table, and knocked over an almost completely full can of black paint. ARGH! Luckily, all of it spilled in the middle of the curtain so no harm done...except to my ego. How embarrassing; I've never done that before. :/

Whoops!

After the BF helped me clean up the mess (and save most of the paint) it was back to work. I painted the table legs for the second time. Hopefully that'll do it for the base of the table. 

Now, for the tabletop! Yay! The fun part! So, to start off I traced a tiger hawk off the internet. My drawing skills are so/so but I decided if I wanted it to look great, I'd have to have some sort of official template. After tracing the outline on to tracing paper, I placed the paper on the tabletop and traced it again which made nice indents in the wood. This worked out great, except I had to be REALLY close to the wood while painting the outline, to make sure I was right on. Next time I'll probably use transfer paper so the lines are easier to see. 

I painted around the outline of the tiger hawk with my black paint and a very small paintbrush. (Disregard the paintbrush in the picture, that's the one I was using on the legs when I gracefully knocked over the paint...) 

Yay! 

After the outline was done, I used the big paintbrush to finish off the first coat of black on the table top. And...wah-lah, the table is almost finished!!

Hopefully I only have one more coat of paint on the top and I'll be ready to work on the drawer. Until then, I hope you had a great weekend! :)

Table for One

Aren't garage sales delightful? I'm sure the bf is afraid of what "project" I'm going to find when we head out for a day of shopping at other peoples' houses. ;) 

Last summer, I found a cute little table that I thought would be the perfect project. It was a simple side table with a single drawer that screamed out that it needed a little love. The $5 price was perfect so I mentioned to the bf that it would be perfect in the Hawkeye room. (This is the key...I just let him know how it would be if it were somehow Iowa Hawkeye themed and it gets to come home with me...)

Last summer was hot. When I say hot, I mean blazing hot. The grass all died, I (and by that I mean Greg) had to water the flowers every day, our poor dogs didn't want to be outside, I didn't want to be outside. So, the table sat...and sat...and sat... 

(Scene change: Spring 2014) This spring has been cool, NOT 105 degrees, and has been perfect for working on things outdoors. 

So, my little table is finally ready for a new life. First, I took it all apart so that the top of the table is removed and the drawer is sitting to the side. I used the electric sander to remove the finish and smooth out the nicks and dents. Then, I painted the entire thing (minus the parts you won't see) with white primer. When that was finally dry, I had to sit down and think about my color scheme; I decided on a yellow tiger-hawk, a yellow base, and black legs. 

Primer and first coat of yellow.

 After the yellow was dry, I taped off the legs and painted them black.

Black legs!! 

Next step will be to paint the top of the table black, with a yellow tiger-hawk. My last step will the the drawer. I know I want to be creative with it, but will figure that part out later. Until then...

Uncommon Grounds...Smells Delicious!!

Well, the new coffee shelf is officially complete! Here's how it was finally finished:

After gluing on the loose piece that fell off (with Gorilla Glue, of course) the shelf was ready to be painted. I chose a maroon-ish pink color since I'd used that on a previous project for the kitchen. (I haven't blogged about it, but I turned a picture frame from Goodwill into an awesome grocery list chalkboard to keep near the pantry. MEGA-helpful when trying to write my grocery list.)

I used the same color for both projects. It just made sense... (Don't judge my randomness of items!!)

 I painted the shelf once, sanded it again, and painted it a second time. I always feel like two coats is a must, in case I miss a spot, and sanding it after the first coat makes it smoother in the long run. After the second coat, I shaded part of the front with a dark maroon craft paint. Really, no one will notice but me; but I felt better knowing I put a little detail into it. :) 

Done with both coats of paint.

Once it was dry, the bf and I tried to figure the best way to hang it on the cupboard. I was all about using a saw tooth hook but he wanted more stability so opted to get some 3M Velcro hangers. He cut them in half lengthwise and secured them to the back of the shelf and TA-DA!! Ready to be hung up! 

The bf surprised me by having it hung up and ready to go when I got home the other day. I was so excited to finally put the project to good use. Luckily I discovered that we have exactly 7 different boxes of K-cups in the cupboard so this project couldn't have worked out any more perfectly. I was SO excited to fill it up with coffee and tea. 

Finished!!!! 

Uncommon Grounds

Don't you hate when you go to make a cup of coffee, only to open the cupboard to a terrifying mountainous view of K-cups?! You attempt to pick the one out that can be  easily reached. Unfortunately, due to the Jenga-like qualities of the coffee cabinet, the flavors that have been pushed to the back have to stay there. You know they must stay there, otherwise you might accidentally brush your hand against another flavor, only to start an avalanche of individual coffee packs that end up all over the kitchen floor. 

No? This doesn't happen to you? Is this just me?!

The newly cleaned and "organized" coffee cupboard.

The first step to solving the problem was admitting that I had one...so the bf and I cleaned out and reorganized the coffee/tea cabinet. This helped a little, but only a very little. I decided the next step was to go on the hunt for something that we could use as a display for the available flavors in the house; to be hung in the kitchen, for EASY access to the coffees and teas.

At the same "barn sale" where I purchased the Hawkeye clock, I also ran across a decoration that I thought might be just the thing to solve the Jenga problem. 

It's a wooden, uh, decoration...I guess. It comprised of wooden blocks that spell out the word 'Welcome' (or 'Country' if you flip it around) all housed within a wooden framework. Each section where a block is sitting, is just enough room for me to insert one single K-cup. 

To get started, I tried to remove the blocks from the framework; unfortunately, this was beyond my skill set. I had to employ the amazing services of my bf who removed each of the wooden letter blocks (which were securely glued down). I'm not sure why one would need THAT much glue on each block but with a little elbow grease, he was able to get them all unstuck. 

No more blocks. Phew!

Next came sanding...sanding...and more sanding. I didn't really think about how difficult it would be to sand it all without taking it apart. Trying to sand inside each section proved to be super fun, but I made it with out too many troubles. One of the ends was loose and came undone, but otherwise, it was just time consuming.

Oops.

I originally wanted to stain the new shelf in a dark stain, but somewhere during its life it must have gotten wet. Unfortunately, there's a few watermarks on one of the long outer pieces so plan B is to paint it instead. 

The faulty piece was glued today and should be dry enough to paint by tomorrow. Stay tuned for more details!!

Hawkeyes for Life...Complete

Well, this is officially a project complete! 

Both coats of primer/paint on the hands finally dried...even in the rain we've had ALLLL day long. I put the hands on the clock, inserted a battery, and (tick, tock, tick, tock) we have SUCCESS! 

All that elbow grease paid off and the clock is spic & span & ready to tell the time. It'll likely end up in the "Hawkeye" room. (For those that know us, know that we're a Iowa Hawkeye household). :) We're huge fans, fanatics really, and this will be an excellent addition to the growing collection!! 

After vs. Before

Until next time...

Hawkeyes for Life

So, the bf and I were hunting for garage sales yesterday when we came across a sale listed on Craig's List. The listing said that it was a large building filled with antiques and such. It sounded enticing so we decided to check it out. When we pulled up, we were greeted with a property out in the middle of nowhere, Iowa with tons of, uh, 'stuff' all over. And when I say 'stuff' i mean TONS of 'stuff'. Yikes! I'd call this more of a barn sale because it was literally a giant Morton building filled to the brim with things.

We searched through (i.e. tried not to trip over...) all of the goodies looking for that diamond in the rough. We came across a winner; a clock that definitely needed saving!!

It's an old Iowa wooden clock that I searched for online, but haven't been able to find any real information about it. It looks like it's probably from the 80's...but I'm not 100% sure on that. It was dirty...really dirty...

I wiped it down and washed it up hoping that the clock mechanism would work. But, when I put in a fresh battery, nothing happened. So, my first task to dismantle the entire clock. I tore off the hands and threw away the clockworks, then dismantled everything else.

I even came across a fun surprise! Behind the Iowa clock face was one for the Purdue Boilermakers! This makes me wonder if this was originally a clock kit. Otherwise, I'm not sure where the extra face came from.

Super cool! 

I sanded down all of the wood to remove the old finish, stain, and dings. I cleaned the plastic face protector and tried to clean the Hawkeye face itself, but unfortunately somewhere along the line there was water damage to the paper so it was stuck to the plastic. Pulling it off to clean it completely would have ruined it, so I left it alone. Once sanded, it all looked much better!

I did one quick coat of stain on it in 'Early American' and it looked good as new!

Since the clock mechanism was KO'ed, I went to the local hardware store to pick up a new kit. Unfortunately it was too hard to see the gold hands against the Hawkeye background so I primed the metal hands in grey and painted them black. The hands are currently drying so it should all be finished later today. :)

Once it's finished...I'll be sure to let you all see the end result!

Boy Meets Girl

"Where do you want to eat?" "I don't care..."

"Where do you want to eat?" "I picked last time..."

What do you want to eat?" "Where do YOU want to eat...?!"

"If you don't pick a restuarant, i'm going to just keep driving..."

Sound familiar? I'll admit that I got the idea from something I saw on Pintrest, but I changed it up a bit. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, but finally got the gumption to make it happen. Welcome to my newest crafty project to make life easier and more interesting!! I haven't actually named the project yet, i just keep calling it "the sticks". So, "the sticks" are going to be painted craft sticks with names of different restaurants on them. Whenever my boyfriend and I decide to go out to eat, we simply decide on our price point and then, wahlah , we'll draw out a colored stick and eat where it says. No more arguments or indecision when we've decided to go out for the night. :) I'm so excited to get this one done!

For supplies, you'll need:

3 different colors of craft paint

a paint brush

jumbo craft sticks

a sharpie marker

brush on (or spray on) varnish

I've decided to paint the sticks in red, pink, & white. Each of the three colors represents fast food, middle ground, and higher priced restaurants, respectively. Once the sticks were painted and dry, I took a sharpie and wrote on the name of a restaurant. Then, once the sharpie was completely dry I finished it with a brush on varnish to help them last.

Once I have them all done, I hope to display them in a cool jar or other fun glass vessel. (However, I have yet to stumble upon the perfect container.) I'll be sure to make another update when I'm all done!