DIY Painted Dresser: My First Time Painting Furniture!

Hey everyone! I am really excited to bring you this DIY project: a painted dresser for my basement art studio! I am currently working to pull together different pieces of furniture (mostly stored in my basement) and making them nicer for my in-progress studio. These pieces are mostly left over from old roommates and a lot of them were originally from thrift stores.

I could go on, but basically what I am trying to impress upon you is that these are not nice pieces of furniture 😛

DSCN0709_picmonkeyed DSCN0708_picmonkeyed

Beautiful, am I right?! 🙂

One of the reasons I picked this dresser is that I am trying to get my studio set up and need more storage. But probably the main reason I picked this for my first project learning to paint furniture is that it’s a pretty simple dresser. No carvings, straight lines, etc. It’s a good piece to learn on!

I started out by taking out the drawers and removing the handles. (What of the handles were left to be removed) As you can see, I have plenty of projects to work on after these are done too!

DSCN0729_picmonkeyed

I sanded down all of the surfaces I planned on painting, then moved on to filling in the original handle holes with wood filler.

DSCN0730_picmonkeyed

DSCN0733_picmonkeyed

Once the wood filler was set, I sanded the filled areas down, wiped down the dresser with a clean cloth and then painted it with primer.

DSCN0740_picmonkeyed

The day after the primer was painted, I painted the dresser a deep grey. I ended up putting on two layers, using a fine paint roller, with a paintbrush for the few tricky spots.

DSCN0741_picmonkeyed

DSCN0742_picmonkeyed

DSCN0743_picmonkeyed

While it still needs hardware, it ended up looking pretty nice! Not bad for my first project trying to paint furniture! It’s pretty plain, so I’m trying to find some colorful, fun hardware to install. Maybe a trip to Hobby Lobby is in order? 🙂

Do you have any projects you are thinking about trying that are new for you? Have you ever painted furniture? I still have a lot to learn about this and would love to hear some tips and tricks!

DIY Painted Lamps: Adventures in Spray Painting and Budget Remodels

Hey everyone! This week is the first of hopefully many (but at least 4) weeks of DIY projects for the home! While I have always loved doing DIY projects, I have never taken much time to develop any real skills at them. At least ones that aren’t art-related.

Now I find myself really getting into them and wanted to learn some new skills as well. We have been working on remodeling our house for a few years now and I have started to get a little frustrated at the lack of cohesion in the decor. Most rooms are a mash-up of items from my childhood, ones given to me or left by past roommates, some art projects I’ve made and a few art pieces I’ve collected.

Continue reading “DIY Painted Lamps: Adventures in Spray Painting and Budget Remodels”

Family Time with Kil’n Time Studio!

Family traditions can come from just about anything, and in this case it started over 10 years ago at a (different) paint-your-own pottery studio in Des Moines, Iowa. One of my cousins was getting married and the women on my mom’s side of the family decided that we would go have a pottery painting party as a different style of “bachelorette” party. Except instead of painting for ourselves, we painted things for the happy couple! It was so much fun! And when the next cousin was getting married, we decided to do it again. Voila, a family tradition was born!

Continue reading “Family Time with Kil’n Time Studio!”

Learning Henna

Henna is something that I had seen before, but hadn’t had any personal exposure to until around a year ago, when I went to a small gathering teaching about henna. I didn’t do any myself, but was shown how to and had a design done on my hand. I was hooked! I immediately went home and started researching, reading as much as I could. I ordered some from Henna Caravan shortly after that and started practicing. I honestly haven’t done much yet, but I am slowly working to build my confidence.

Here is some designs I did last summer.  Continue reading “Learning Henna”

Ciccotti Art Glass and Our Anniversary!

Hey all! This is the first post in a new monthly series on this blog spotlighting (mostly) local places that I think are neat, awesome and more! This will give you a look into a great local place, an overview of my experience, and general estimated costs (if there are any). While I realize that most people will not be local to central Iowa, I hope that maybe this will give you some ideas for new businesses and places to search out in your areas as well!

Now that the rundown of the series plan is over, I can get on to the fun stuff! 😉 The BF and I just celebrated our 1 year anniversary! To celebrate, we took some time off of work, relaxed at home together and wanted to do something fun, new and memorable for our anniversary date. We decided on taking a workshop at Ciccotti Art Glass. Continue reading “Ciccotti Art Glass and Our Anniversary!”

DIY Spring Wreath

Hey all! I’ve got a quick and easy DIY spring decor project that I think you are going to love! I know I do!

Decorating for the seasons is something I only just started really doing in the last year or so. It’s something I always wanted to do more of….it just has a way of making a house feel more homey to me. Growing up, my mom would always pull out the seasonal decor as soon as she possibly could when the season started changing. Each room throughout the house would get at least a few touches and the house always was warm, inviting and beautiful. I never really thought much about how the decor played a part in that until I moved out, but she put so much effort into making our house into a lovely home. Now she is my inspiration in many ways, and was the motivation for me creating this wreath! Continue reading “DIY Spring Wreath”