the necklaces were framed, framed I say!

I really don't think I could live without my weekly trip to the thrift stores.  It's retail therapy at it's cheapest and G. will sometimes takes the afternoon off work, to come thriftin' me.  

Other than spending quality time with my favorite man in the world - my 2nd favorite part is to raid  pillage browse their collection of previously loved picture frames.

While we were recently remodeling my crafting area, I had to relocate all the stuff in order to organize.  I stood back looking at the wood and glass cluttered walkway and even I found my frame stash to be ridiculous. 

So, while Pinteresting that night, I made the board dedicated to using up the hoarder's stash pile of frames and made a silent promise to myself to not purchase anymore until I cleared out at least 50% of the pile. 

A promise that I may or may not have broke 3 days later.

onto the craft ... 

I pulled out a ($1) frame for my star wars subway art.  I simply spray painted it with an 'aluminum' color, because I find it very galactic and futury.

1 frame down ...

Since that wasn't really anything complicated, I decided to take on a second frame.

I found this ($1) gold, glassless hexagon frame in the pile and immediately had a mental picture flash of the necklace holders I'd seen on Pinterest.

I am not a gold kind of girl.

I'm a silver and red and teal kinda girl.

So, of course this also got a healthy coat of spray paint.  

dark plum

G. screwed in some little hooks for me and I was done

I love it and can't wait to tackle the other frames.

I wonder what other ideas are out there, that I have yet to see for repurposing frames.

anyone .. anyone .. Beuller ? :)

 

kitchen central

I couldn't think of a better title for this project .. so it's simply 'kitchen central'

About once a week, you can find me scrambling around the house looking for a scratch paper to create our 'menu' for the week.

At LEAST once a day, you can find me or the husband scrambling looking for another scratch paper to make a list before we go to the store.

I won't even count how often you can catch me nagging at the husband to do some random thing that I could swear I've asked him at least 5982034 times before, to do ...

So - this is a central board for all of that ... :)

If When I do this again (I won't kid myself .. I wasn't 100% satisfied with it) so, when I do it again - I'll change a few things.

I'll add a ' ... stuff to say ... ' for a message area
I'll make bigger spots to write meals
I'll NOT use a 16x9 frame .. what weird measurements.

Anyhowzers .. this is how it turned out

a crafting area, all my own

As I write this post - my kitchen table, living room coffee table, and computer desk are all breathing a sigh of relief. Gone are the pains of random hot glue gun burns, spurts of paint and exacto blade slices into the veneer.

It didn't take a lot of time and/or effort to convince the hubby that I need a crafting 'hub.'

I merely gestured towards the 10+ years of boxes, scrapbooking folders, and endless crates of coloring/painting/art supplies that took our bedroom hostage, years ago.

Before I knew it, we were loaded into the Volvo and speeding off to our favorite thrift store. It took a total of 4 mili-seconds after I walked in the door, until I spotted an object of my desire. A crusty, old, beat-up, desk ... I loved it. This is the part where we fast forward 24 hours of anxious waiting for a friend to help move the desk.

after we sanded down the (many) rough spots that were on the surface, we covered it in 2 coats of a boring, flat brown/tan spray primer/paint.

This next step might seem a little ridiculous .. but we decided to 'faux' some darker wood onto the flat tan. I know ... "Why on Earth did you re-faux something that was already faux, to begin with?" ... simple answer : "Because we can!"

when it was all said and done, I really like how it looks :)

Looking back .. sanding and painting, priming, then re-fauxing this thing was the easy part. lol Once the paint dried, I realized I had to organize a decade worth of junk into my new, pretty space. There were containers on top of caddies, under folders, boxes and a bunch of mini-drawer systems ... *wipes sweat from brow*

half the 'wreckage' the new 'area' without the 'stuff'

I managed to sift through all the junk and re-organize the crafty bits into different categories. After that, I went and 'splurged' on some new containers.
($2/$4/$6 baskets on clearance from the Dollar Store-yay!)

I love my 'new' craft station! It even has a fishy friend to keep me company on my late crafting nights ... not that I ever have those. *wink wink*