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Category Archives: tutorials

How to Make a Graffiti Sign

Written on September 6, 2010 in DIY, gifts, tutorials

We have a young friend named Bea.

Jack has known Bea since she was a tiny sprout, and now she’s all grown up. Bea just celebrated her 21st birthday. Bea’s sister just got married and moved out, so Bea is redoing her bedroom. We’re not really birthday gift exchangers, but I wanted to make her a little sign for her room.

Now, Miss Bea is pretty much a rock star. She has a great voice and is nasty on guitar. Her bedroom color scheme is black, red, and white. It makes me furrow my brow a little as I’m in my land of lattes, whites, and soft blues, but I’m going to Bea this sign out.

I had seen on Tattered and Inked that Kelsey had made some signs and layered paints to give them some depth. And I kind of wanted to use the same technique as I did with my alphabet magnets, but with a lot more colors, and brighter, and extra Bea-ish.

So, I’m going to mix up the tutorial-ness of it.. and write the steps first, and the pictures after. Just to be mildly obnoxious. OH. All of these pictures were taken at night, so let’s just pretend that everything is really much nicer and less scary than seen in the following pictures. Except my deck. It’s the Deck of Shame. And Disease, maybe.

Step 1) I headed over to Home Depot and bought scrap wood for 51 cents. It was pretty rough, so I sanded it down, then wiped it down with a damp paper towel.

Step 2) I sprayed with red spray paint and let dry (sort of).

Step 3) I haphazardly sprayed it with a little blue paint. Then I took a paint brush and dabbed some acrylic paint onto it – in yellow and deeper blue.

Step 4) Then came one light coat of black spray paint. Let dry. (For-EV-er.)

Step 5) Sandpaper it down to let all the rad under-colors come through.

Step 6) I freehanded some letters and numbers. Specifically her initials, her age, and a cool parenthetical bracket thing. And then an arrow. Don’t worry about mistakes… it’s supposed to look messy. :)

Step 7) Sand again! Give to recipient. Tell her there’s been a gang problem in your neighborhood and that you grabbed her a souvenir.

Bea told me that she loves it, and she wasn’t under any sort of duress when she said that.

Happy birthday, Bea!

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How to Make a Dollhouse Out of Drawers

Written on August 31, 2010 in DIY, tutorials

I wanted a beat-up nightstand. Not for traditional nightstand use, which, in my case, would mean holding an absurd amount of water glasses. I need water every night, but refuse to be a responsible adult and deliver my glass to the kitchen sink every morning.

I needed it for another project (which I will reveal to you soon, I hope). But, I didn’t need the drawers. Hmm, what to do, what to do. Stood the drawers on end, back-to-back, and heyheyyyy. That would make a pretty sweet dollhouse. Here’s how I did it.

1) Get some nightstand drawers. Get a tetanus shot, then bring the drawers to the deck all other decks forsook. Scuff ‘em up. I lightly sanded the drawer fronts. (See the polka-dotted cardboard? It’s recycled from the magnet project.)

2) Measure and cut plywood to fit as shelves. I took the measurements to my local Home Depot, and they cut it for me for free. The guy in the orange apron was extra nice, and somehow only charged me a dollar for the wood. Lightly dampen the edges of the plywood; apply a thin bead of Gorilla Glue. I popped the shelf in and used a piece of wood to prop it up. Clamped the playwood with a vice, then tapped in a couple of finishing nails.

3) Attach the drawers together. This will vary by the type of drawer, I think. I (and by I, I mean the person I conned into doing it for me) simply screwed a 1×4 in on both sides. (Thanks, Dan!)

4) Spray paint! Then spray paint more! And then more. And then… more. In between coats, I ate a snack, checked my email, peeked in on my napping offspring, and threw a load of laundry in the washer. If you deviate from this pattern, you will probably still get the same spray painting results, but no guarantees. Sorry. :(

5) Mod Podge some cutie wallpaper, carpeting, a roof, a few windows. This is actually my very first time using Mod Podge, and I really struggled with the paper bubbling up. (Any amazing tips?) So, this step was the longest (and maybe the most frustrating for a Mod Podge newbie like me).

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Before I show you the final results, a little sidebar. I found little wood game pieces at the craft store and thought they would make cute little dolls. I did a little search on etsy and there are a ton of awesome little dolls made with these! I can surely make some, right? Right?

Wrong. I can’t paint to save my life. They’re so bad, I can’t show you.

Okay, fine. I’ll show you.

“Why so serious?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You know. The Joker?”
::::blank stare::::
“Never mind.”

These extremely frightening dolls are being banished to the deck we do not speak of in hopes that they’ll be eaten in the middle of the night by raccoons or baby pterodactyls.

Alright, moving on.

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The two-sided dollhouse: perfect for sharing with a friend. :)

Thanks for looking! :)

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Did this post make you LOLFRY (laugh out loud, for real, y’all)? Then you may like this!
Do you like this post cause you’re crafty? I have more tutorials here!

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How to Make a Pottery Barn Double Wall Hurricane KnockOff

Written on August 24, 2010 in home, knockoffs, tutorials

Shortest.. Post.. Ever. I feel silly even making this into a tutorial. I just posted my Pottery Barn Mercury Glass Pumpkin KnockOff, and I guess I could have combined the two into one post, but this little guy deserves love all its own. Consider this to be a “PS” to the previous post.

Pottery Barn sells a Double Wall Hurricane. It’s pretty sweet. Like the song. ”Here I am… bow-now, bow-now-now. Rock you like a hurricaaane. Come on, comeoncomeon!”

Pretty sweet. But dang, pricey at $50. So I took an old Pier 1 hurricane I had at home and inserted a glass cylinder I found at Dollar Tree for… err, a dollar. (PS. Dollar Tree? Oh man. I wrongly assumed that the store was only filled with toys laden with lead paint and ozone-diminishing toothpaste. They’ve got some gems there. They do.)

So, I stuck the cylinder in the hurricane, added a pillar candle, some cinnamon sticks, and branches. And, voila.

Hmm? Thoughts?

I’m a little concerned that the cinnamon sticks look like a) pretzels, b) small cigars, or c) joints. I don’t know. I don’t smoke pot. I leave that entirely up to those high schoolers that ride their bicycles through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru. And 1/3 of the population of Rhode Island.

But here, together with its PB knockoff siblings.