3 drawer upcycle project

Here is a fun project I did last week while preparing for the Artwalk (which, by the way, totally gobbled my time and attention, sorry for the bloggy neglect!) I needed display shelving for our booth and didn't want to spend any money. I remembered we had an old waterbed set with a six drawer pedestal base, so The Welding Man helped me with this recycle/upcycle project on three of them. I've seen clever drawer redos in blogland and knew we could knock this one off "toot sweet."



I asked him to install a shelf in each drawer, putting each one at a different height. And since I was up to my eyeballs in other projects, he primed and painted all three drawers. Whattaguy! This is a redo that can totally be done by anyone out there even if you don't have an accommodating Welding Man in your household. What's that Christopher Lowell used to say before he went Hollywood on us? "You can do it!"

So here is the first, a pretty turquoise blue number to which I added some very cool scripty tissue paper I'd saved for projects such as these. After first crumpling up the paper slightly then smoothing it out to cover any small irregularities in the wood, I Mod Podged it down. You have to have a gentle hand with tissue paper because once it is wet and stuck on, you CANNOT move it. Also, do NOT touch the wet tissue until it is dry. A piece will lift off on your fingertip. Don't ask me how I know this. ;0)


The tissue came in two colors, so I used the darker shade for the horizontal surfaces and let it dry thoroughly. Then I glazed all the edges, inside and out, with burnt umber acrylic glaze and wiped it down. Lovin' it!

Eggshell white paint and torn up music sheets came next. The music came from an old, beat up Mozart play book for school bands, just a quarter at the local thrift store! I used the page edges on the straight edges for a neater look. So cool! And I still have plenty of music sheets left.

And after the burnt umber glaze on all the surfaces. Ooh, I love this one too!!


And finally, flat black paint and some black and white scrapbook paper in a damask print. Unfortunately my seams did not match up the pattern as well as I liked, so I made some casual, fuzzy edged black stripes to "fool the eye." How Goth/Twilight/Vampire/Halloween does this look, I ask ya?

And across the top, where there was a little divot in the wood, I filled it and covered it up with a strip of the same paper, with joints perfectly matched this time. Then a little bit of sanding and a bit of black paint dry brushing, and this one is ready to go, too. I sealed all three with several layers of clear acrylic spray and I love the way all of them came out!!

And here they are all dressed and ready to go on day 1 of our Artwalk booth. I made a few color matched accessories for them and had a great time playing around with the displays. I put price tags on them in case someone really, really wanted them but in the end I kept them. They will be going in my refurbished craft studio soon, and I can't keep from smiling every time I look at them.

The whole thing was done with supplies I already had from previous projects, so I didn't have to spend any money, and that makes me feel happy and smart. Love that! Annnnd, I still have 3 more drawers. Gotta love that, too!

I'll be joining up on the blog parties on my sidebar, playing a bit of catch up this week. Hope to see you there!