Cedar Chest: Before and After Transformation

For today's Thrifty Thursday project, I want to show you a cedar chest that I was able to transform for a very small cost.

The chest had a very worn surface, and was missing some veneer on the lower leg part.

I liked the texture of the trim and the detail work. But I knew that whether I painted it or removed the finish, I would lose some of the detail.

Because of the missing veneer, I decided painting would be the best finish.

And because of this damage too...

First, I primed everything with a bonding primer. I like Bin 123 latex primer, but Kilz and Bullseye work well too.

Then, I coated it all with latex satin paint in a pecan color.

 Then, using latex glaze, I mixed some of a darker brown paint with the glaze and streaked it on. I kept a rag handy to wipe excess off.

 Be sure to streak with the grain.

 And on the detail areas, wipe some off to show contrast.

When it's all done, I will coat it with a few layers of poly. That could be water or oil-based. I also like to coat with a layer of Minwax finishing wax when everything has cured. It gives it a smooth, nonsticky finish.

You can do as much or as little on the glaze as you wish. I haven't had a chance to do the poly yet, so I'll post a pic when that's complete.

I had all of the paints in my stash of leftovers, so the project cost me nothing but time.

Old Book Turned into a Pumpkin, Fall Decoration

Its What Would You Do (WWYD) Wednesday. What do you do with old books?

Recently, I spoke for a women's event and gave a presentation on trash to treasure decorating. Here's a shout out to the women at Cornerstone Church in the Twin Cities!

For a craft session, one creative gal taught us how to make a pumpkin from an old book. How fun!

This one is made from an old hymnal. First, we ripped off the covers. That felt naughty. Then we started cutting the pages. Even naughtier. I had to cut a few pages at a time, but here is the finished shape.

It doesn't really matter how perfectly identical your pages are, as long as they are sort of similar. Then, I roughed up the pages a little...meaning I sort of crumpled them a little. Then using an ink pad, I rubbed a little burnt orange ink on the edges of the pages. And colored the spine with brown marker to look like a stem.

 And when I stood it up and fanned it out, it looked like a pumpkin. I glued on two silk leaves at the top.

I decided to put it on a shelf and have just half a pumpkin. You could rough the pages more to make it full enough to bring the two edges together and make a whole pumpkin, or use two books put together. 

 I put it on the mantle shelf.

What a fun trash to treasure project for fall! With different sizes of books, you can make all sizes of pumpkins. And at my class, some of the ladies spray-painted theirs with a light mist of orange spray paint to make them more festive. I decided I liked mine more white. If you cut them right, you could probably make apples from smaller books too.

What else have you done with an old book? Feel free to leave a link to your blog post about a T2T project with old books with the link gadget below.