Easy DIY: Polka Dot Painted Lampshade

The base I've had since my apartment in Boston, and the lampshade is a plain white one from Target.

I basically just bought a few different silver paints on sale at Michaels and tested them on white card stock to see how they would look. I also got a couple of different objects I thought could make cool circles.

A lot, like the mini corks I bought, were too small for this project. I settled on this round sponge brush:

I started out smushing a lot of paint on the sponge brush, and pressing it down evenly. I have things to do with my life so I wasn't going to measure out and mark exactly where the polka dots should go. I like the randomly spaced and placed dots look. If you want to measure and mark, go right ahead and send me a picture.

After the all 4 sides were done, I was all "meh..." I wanted the paint to look thicker? And, somehow, more interesting?

So I loaded on the paint and pressed it down over each dot.
It got this really cool antler or tree branch-y type look to it?

It dried and BAM. Done.

Easy DIY: Ugly Candlestick Painting

 

 

Here is a super quick and easy do it yourself-er. It came to me as I wandered the aisles of a local thrift store.

You'll need:
- metal candlesticks. I like varying heights. I like odd numbers. 5 is too many. Unless you want a matching pair or something. Whatever. I'm not your boss.
- Spray primer
- Spray paint
- Outside place

What happened is that I was in the thrift store, considering the pros and cons of buying charming mismatched china tea cups, saucers, and salad plates. Whimsical? Dumb? I wasn't sure.

But then, but THEN, I wandered into the tchotchkes aisle.

Serving trays, Precious Moments knock-off figurines (as if the originals weren't terrible enough), things made of glass and plastic, and candlesticks.

I thought "Huh. I like this, but I don't have the kind of home where I can just go around putting brass candlesticks everywhere." Then, "I will paint them."

I picked up a bunch, then narrowed the selection down to 3 by arranging them together and seeing what looked best, like SO:

I washed them, and took them outside.

I primed them using spray primer. Paint primer would have left a lot of brush marks that really aren't going to work with this project. I guess you COULD, but you'd have to wait for the primer to dry, then sand the crap out of it. Then do it again. Not for me.

I made sure every angle was covered and that the stream of primer was even.

There must be a better way to do this, but I don't know what that is. So this is what happened to my hands.

Look! They're blue! (and on the newly stained side table! See that project here.) 

Final arrangement, avec candles.

DIY Project: Prime and Paint Gross Bookshelf

Things I know (not a comprehensive list):

a. I have no money.
b. I want my house to look nice.
c. I want to have cute things in my house.
d. I have no money.

A solution to problems a and d is to buy cheap stuff.
A solution to b and c is to make that cheap stuff look nice.

I saw a bookshelf at a thrift store. It was $5.88.

And I was all like "Hey, I should buy this ugly bookshelf and paint it a nice color and put it under the wall of picture frames in my house!"

...and so I did. And so I did.

Here is the before!

I know. 

Right now, you are all like "Betsy, why did you buy this?" 

Because it was 5 dollars and 88 cents.

The first thing I had to do was clean it. You can buy a spray to do that. So I sprayed the stuff on. I wiped it off. Boom.Clean.

The next thing I had to do was sand the crap out of it. Because the surface was uneven and weird. So I did that. That took longer than I wanted, but eventually I evened things out.

I got some primer. I painted on a coat with a paint brush.
Waited an hour.
Sanded the primer.
Waited 2 hours.
Sanded it with a really fine sandpaper. (to get some larger brush strokes out)

I probbbbbably didn't sand it as much as I should have, but these things happen.

This is what it looked like after the primer:

I bought high gloss black spray paint because I wanted it to be shiny.

This is what it looked like after first coat:

And after the second coat:

In its new home, empty.

In its new home, with THINGS, you guys:

(Ed. note: I just piled a bunch of stuff in there.Other things will end up filling the shelves. I know we were all very concerned.)