ZEBRA ROOM IDEAS

 

Hey ya'll!

My Booth #555 at Peddlers Mall has also kept me swamped. Things are selling pretty good and fast and I'm having trouble keeping it stocked up and looking good. Hectic isn't enough to describe the past month. lol.

So without anything else getting in my way, right now, lol, I'd like to share a previous craft.

Here's the before of a coat hanger that I had painted a while back, in the navy and prim yellow:

And so, after it sit for sale for a few months without anyone wanting it, I decided to give it a makeover. With the new hot style of zebra going around, I thought that's what I'd do. I'd make it into a zebra themed coat hanger so that someone may want it for their bedroom? Who knows... It could hold scarfs, hats, coats or whatever and still look cute.

And here it is after:

Thankfully, the zebra theme helped it sell finally. I'm not sure why the stars theme didn't sell though. But either way, glad someone is enjoying it!
Thank You!

I've recently been obsessed with zebra myself and here's a few ways I've incorporated it around my house.

This is the tanning room, just a spare bedroom we had. I do still have a tanning bed but we mainly do spray tans now. It's just hard to get use to.  Anyways, the big tanning bed is still in there and there's not much decorating you can do with that big hunk of bulk.

The room before was plain, with stark white walls, as it had been since we re-done this entire house about three years ago. And it had just kinda sat empty ever since.It was super plain. Nothing in there.

Well, my sister Amber, had the idea to make the room a zebra theme! And we went from there.

 I just love how it turned out. Here’s some pics:

 

And here's some printed out signs I've made to hang up on the walls:

AMERICANA Guitar for Display

This was first brought to me by a friend who won it in an auction for $2.00. It was plain, light colored wood, no strings, no knobs, and no tuning knobs. I mean plain Jane! It had been handmade by someone with a lot of patience lol.. I could not have taken the time to make this, that's for sure.

Anyways, my friend wanted it to be painted somehow so that they could display it for Fourth of July at his new house, on the porch.

And here's what I done to it. Let me say this, he did not want the "rustic" look on the guitar. That made me soooo sad, cause I know with some scuffs and such, it could have had a real nice worn look to it. I just don't care for the "just painted" look. I do wish he woulda wanted the ruffer look....oh well...

I even had to take some dowel rods and cut them with an exact o knife to get a ridge that holds the strings up. Oh, the strings I made from that crafting wire. The thin kind that you can hang ornaments with. It was kinda rusty in color.

In the pic above, you can see the black knobs holding the wire/strings. Well, those are from a black and white beaded necklace I had broken. I put a dab of hot glue on the inside, and then tacked them in with a tiny nail. The hot glue adds extra hold.

The ends of the wire, I just twirled with an ink pen. Wrap wire around it and slide out the ink pen. That's it.

It's a super long guitar. You can't really tell it when it's laying down so here's a pic to show just how long the neck is on it.

Oh, I took a cutout from a magazine of Uncle Sam and traced around him with a star. Cut it out and glued it on the top, red part for decoration. I used that modge podge to seal it.

Hard to see above, but then I just stenciled on some off white stars around Uncle Sam.

But if it were gonna be mine, I definitely would have finished it up a lot differently. A LOT! I may have even added some tiny strings of barb wire as the wires. If I could have found it, that woulda been cool! Oh, he added a guitar strap so he could hang it up on the porch. :-)

I just think most items look better roughed up.... What about you?

OUTHOUSE MASON JAR

Today I wanna share a simple little craft project I made in the fall. It's a funny addition to our "outhouse" themed bathroom lol.

I won an old glass mason jar at auction with original lid for only $3.00.

I gathered a few corn on the cobs from my garden and shucked them. Keeping the cob only and threw the corn for the birds.

Then I tied them together with some garden twine and tucked them inside the jar.

Next I took a piece of craft wood and wrote on it in black, "In case of emergency Break Glass." And tied that around the lid.

Then to top it all off, I just took a bit of grapevine and arranged it at the base.

It's now sitting on the back of our commode. I know this will not be a craft for everyone, but here in my country home, we have an "outhouse" themed bathroom. lol. And it just adds a bit of laughter to our guests that have to go. lol

See ya'll next time,

~Lisa

Flea Market Finds & Auction Goodies

OMG! I've been so happy with items I've won at local auctions lately, that I've decided to start a regular running post here about them now and then, along with my crafts. I hope you don't mind!

I buy all kinds of items for re-purposing and resell in my Peddlers Mall. But my last find isn't going any farther than my master bedroom.

Here's a quick pic of it from when I won it. It's a solid wood, oak cabinet. (Oh, btw, I love oak furniture the most- it's so country.)

All is intact. The doors are perfect and the two drawers. I'm 5'4" and this is just a little bit taller than me.There is very minimal scratches on it towards the trim at the bottom. All and all I'm super happy with it. I like a little wear on my items because our home is so country and "lived in" look. lol. It's going in my bedroom and house all my old quilts. And the drawers are gonna hold my sheets and such.

What did I have to pay for this? Well, I had the winning bid of only $30.00! I could not believe it it. I was loving it before the auction and I told my husband that I wanted to go up to about $80.00 on it. In no way ever, did I expect to get it for only $30.00!!!!

Do you attend flea markets or auctions?

Wooden Legs Make Great Candles

Today I made a very VERY simple set of primitive wood candles. Well, their just for looks since there's no actual light or flame. But they were cheap, cheap as in FREE and very easy to make.

I started off the day by cleaning out my neice and nephews' playhouse we built for them here. Well, there was an old kitchen play setthat had the sink/stove combo that had to go.

It was old and weathered from being out in the elements for about 3 years. Didn't look anything like the pic above when we first got it. I managed to save these blue, wooden legs off them:

There were four. I didn't know exactly what to do with them, but I brought them in anyways and threw most of the rest of the kitchen play set away.

Then I started painting them black and thought, "hum, they'd make cute fake candles." So I painted them all black and added some primitive styled stars and painted the edges a bit.

I had some flame tips saved that had came off a set of flicker candles that got broke when we moved. They were just plastic pieces shaped like a flame:

I took a small flat nail and drove it in the top of the wooden leg. And used that to slip the fake flame over. It didn't hold great, so I stuck a shot of hot glue up in the flame and then stuck it back over the nail and wa~la. Tight hold.

And that's it. A cute set of primitive styled, wooden candles for free.

TIP: Ya'll keep an eye out for wooden legs off of toys or old pieces of furniture. You can make numerous amounts of crafts with them. And if you go buy them plain at Lowes or a hardware store, you'd be surprised at the cost of plain wooden legs!

OLD SEWING MACHINE CABINET REDO

I started off with this old sewing machine, below, I won at an auction for only $5. 

I knew I could do something with it.

I had already removed the top piece by the hinges when I remembered to snap a "before" pic. 

I did plug up that sewing machine, and as old as it is, it still worked perfect.

 I tried it out before I did anything and almost kept it because it worked so good. 

But I have a few of these and room is running short.

But to make it lighter and easier to move around, I asked my husband to remove it. Which turned out to only be about six screws and two hinges. I kept it though!

I had a new cabinet door put up that I won from a previous auction, for a $1.50, I think. 

A door in which I had no idea what to do with yet. 

That is, until I got this old sewing machine.

The door is the same on both sides. And I thought that it would make a great top for my sewing machine table. And it did.

Then, as you can see above, the door/table top is a way darker brown than the bottom of the table/old sewing machine. 

So, I opened up a can of flat black, oil based paint, from Walmart. And I grabbed an old cloth rag and started smearing it on, little by little. 

I didn't want to completely paint it black. Just wanted to make it a streaky, darker color. To better match the top.

I did one coat of streaking. Let that dry. And then I added another slightly streaking coat. Then I was happy with it. And this is how it turned out:

Here's one more look at it 

BEFORE:

And here's the final look at it 

AFTER:

I priced it for $29.99 and it sold the first week that it was in my Booth #555 at the Morehead Peddlers Mall.

I had a total of $6.50 in it plus the painting. 

So I think that made for a good enough profit. 

Thanks to whoever loved it enough to grab it up so fast!

~Happy Crafting Ya'll!

Old Jelly Cabinet Remake

This isn't the average kind of post that I usually do about crafts. But I think this falls in the lines of a before and after project. So here goes.

I saved this old jelly cub-bard? when it was headed to the landfill. I knew it had potential of some sort. The front only had a hole the size of a lemon at first. But I didn't remember until hammering out most of the top, to snap a before pic. So basically, here it is before:

I finished knocking out the old thin board and I replaced it with chicken wire. The rest of it, except for the top and bottom of the door, is basically all solid wood. I purchased the chicken wire at a hardware and tractor supply store.

I just snipped the wire with wire cutters, while holding it up, to get the basic size. Then, I stapled it into place with a heavy duty stapler. And then did some more snipping of the edges of the wire to make it more neat. That was basically it.

And here's the finished cabinet below.

I wish I'd gotten a better picture of it, cause it does look a little better in person lol. Well, I think so anyways. And I decided to just leave the old flowery wall paper on the inside. Well, for now anyways.

Happy Crafting!

Distressed Wood Sign

I'm posting about making my Booth #555 sign because it can apply to any worded sign you may want to do. Just find or buy you a preferably blank piece of wood. And you can print out any saying you'd like (fresh eggs, welcome, ect.) simply by using:

Microsoft Word
an ink pen
sharpie marker
acrylic craft paint

I wanted to make a new booth sign so passer bys could easily remember my booth number. Most booths at the Peddlers Mall only have tiny printed out numbers taped on the outside wall of their booth. I have always wanted a way to stand out. So here's how I made it.

I started out with an old broken wooden wine rack, (I'm guessing) that I won from an auction.

First off, I printed out a few different size "5's using Microsoft Word. 

Then I unscrewed the two screws holding on the broken wine hangers and removed them.

I ended up using the one that was almost center of a regular printer size paper. It was perfect for my size board.

Then I eyeballed it and centered the middle one as best as I could, leaving room for the other two. And I used a ball point pen and traced the 5 onto the board. Pushing enough so that there would be an imprint left behind for me to paint along.

And after tracing, here's what I was left with. A good enough impression to keep me painting straight. Look close and you can see it.

Next step was to paint all the 5's in with an off white, acrylic craft paint.

Plaid-Craft MS32100-23 Martha Stewart Pearl Acrylic Craft Paint 2 Ounc (Google Affiliate Ad)

one by one........

Ah, it was finally starting to come together now. Then I decided to take a shortcut and use a black sharpie marker to outline all the 5's. I just figured it would be way faster than painting those thin little lines and it was. I was worried about feathering from the marker on the wood, but thankfully it didn't happen. Be careful with yours!

I did the same lines on each one, to try and keep it consistent. Then I came back and forth until complete. Be careful that your hand doesn't smear the marker before completely dry!

I then let it all dry for about 20 minutes. I didn't want to take a risk because my next step involved sand paper. lol. I took some medium grit and roughed it all up a bit. Kinda giving it a worn look, but not over doing it by rubbing off an entire 5 or anything.

Then I got out my all purpose sealer and put on a light coat. I did this 2 times so that my sign can withstand being dropped, scraped, thrown in the back of my truck and so forth. lol I'm kinda rough on items unless they are really fragile!

After that dried, I thought it could still use a bit of something. So I got out some pieces of grapevine garland and stapled some on the edges. I also hung a little metal brown star in the middle,  look close, and I wrote "crafts by Lisa." And then I was finally done and happy with it. Here it is all finished.

I hope this gives you the gumption to start making a wood sign. Ideas could include, Fresh Eggs, Welcome, Primitive, Laundry, Cottage....the list goes on and on. Keep in mind that it was super easy with the pre-printed out 5's! And it's now sitting on a shelf right in the center of my Booth #555 at the Peddlers Mall in Morehead, KY.

Happy Crafting ya'll!

~Lisa

Primitive Easter Eggs

I am in the crafting mood! lol. Seems like I just can't get enough crafts done this week. Today, I made some more Primitive Easter Eggs for my local craft booth.

If you'd like to make some adorable Easter eggs in the prim style, here's how I done it.

I started out with some plain, brownish crafting eggs. 

They look like this and I buy them in bulk packages of 40.

Then, I paint on a first coat in an acrylic color. Then on a few, I dry brushed on a few streaks of another color, to give it a more prim look. I stick with base colors such as greens, browns and reds.
  
Then, to add a country look. I load a toothbrush with some off white and fling little dots of color all over some. This was a great tip I still recall from my high school art teacher!

Next I draw on my sayings consisting of, "fresh eggs, free range, 5 cents, ect." Or I will stencil on some stars using my Delta stencil paint. And then let all that dry.

And finally, all that is left to do is match them up in sets of two, package them in a cello bag and tie them off with a bit of homespun fabric.

And wa~la. Here's some cute Primitive Easter Eggs ready to go into my craft booth at the Peddlers Mall.

Here's some more pics of them finished. I don't know why I can't keep all my eggs in a basket. lol.

Thank ya'll for stopping in.

 See ya next time,

~Lisa