decoupage – Wisconsin Magpie

November 9, 2017September 5, 2018

Makeover | Decoupaged jewelry box

Here’s my latest makeover project: a jewelry box.

Here’s what it looked like when I found it at a thrift store:

The grey pleather and the plastic handles were a little sad.

But when I opened the box up and saw the beautiful blue velvet interior, I knew it had to come home with me.

I figured I’d decoupage over the pleather and see if I could find replacement handles, or at the very least, put a fresh coat of paint on the old ones.

When I dug through my crafts cache to see what I could decoupage over the box, I unearthed this roll of idea-ology tissue paper that I had bought a few months earlier just because I loved the design on it.

I basecoated the box with white paint to make sure the grey pleather wouldn’t show through the semi-transparent tissue paper. The blue inserts popped out easily so I was able to get paint into all the nooks and crannies inside.

I decided to remove the white plastic handles to make the box easier to decoupage.

Most of the pegs on the backs of the handles broke off as I pried them out, so I wasn’t going to be able to reuse them. I wasn’t sure at that point what I would use for replacement handles, but I figured I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.

In the meantime, I started decoupaging.

I used watered-down Elmer’s glue for decoupage medium, painting it onto the box one side at a time, wrapping the paper around the corners as I went along.

smoothing out wrinkles while decoupaging

I used a plastic scraper to smooth out wrinkles and bubbles.

The drawer was the last piece I decoupaged.

I couldn’t find any replacement handles with the pegs the right distance apart to fit into the holes in the box, so I ended up having to use some screw posts I found at Menards.

I didn’t like the silver color they came in, so I painted them before I screwed them into place.

The black knobs match the box’s new vintage/industrial vibe.

By the time I had the last piece of tissue paper adhered, my glue bottle was empty, so I finished the box off with a couple of thin coats of matte-finish polyurethane for protection.

Here’s what the jewelry box looks like now when it’s open.

Here’s the bottom drawer opened.

And here the box is filled up.

January 16, 2017September 4, 2018

Valentine’s Day | Hearts on a string decoration

Valentine’s Day decorations are generally not my thing. Most of the mass-produced ones out there are way too saccharine sweet and frilly for me.

So this year, I decided I’d make my own Valentine’s Day decor: something with a vintage industrial vibe that I wouldn’t mind actually hanging in my house.

I started with these little aluminum pans that I found at a thrift store. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with them when I bought them — but I knew it wasn’t going to involve baking.

Pretty much every craft project I do lately begins with a coat of black chalk paint, so that’s where I started with this one, too.

Then I cut a few hearts out of an old newspaper to layer over the black background.

And, as luck would have it, I had the letters I needed to spell out the word “LOVE” in the stash of random letters and numbers that I have hoarded over the years.

I wasn’t thrilled with the bright colors, so the letters got a coat of black chalk paint, too.

Then I put some silver craft paint over top, slapdash style, letting the black peek through for a tarnished metal effect.

I drilled holes in the top and bottom of each pan …

… just big enough to pull a piece of twine through.

I grunged up the newspaper hearts with some watered down paint and old coffee grounds…

… and I Mod Podged the newspaper onto the bottom on the pans.

To tie the hearts all together, I threaded pieces of jute twine through the holes.

I had a few beads on hand that I added here and there. (I wish I would have had more.)

The last step was to glue the letters on over the newspaper.

(The letters have magnets in them, but the pans are aluminum, and unfortunately magnets don’t stick to aluminum; hence the need for glue.)

Here’s the completed string o’ hearts. Love it.

November 22, 2016September 4, 2018

Collecting | Secondhand stars

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll collect almost anything. Except for stuff that’s made specifically to be collectible. Hummel figurines? I’ll pass. Precious Moments? God no. Those faceless Willow Tree people that everybody else loves? Not my thing.

But turn me loose in a thrift store or at a garage sale and I guarantee I will find some random castoff that has absolutely no monetary value that I will just HAVE to have.

And then I’ll find another one. And another one. And another one. Case in point: my collection of secondhand stars. Most of them cost next to nothing.

Some of them I’ve given makeovers, like these two. The star on the left was unpainted cardboard when I bought it. The one on the right was one of those plastic glow-in-the-dark models. I gave them both a coat of copper paint and now they look like they’re metal.

These were all basic pine stars that I’ve picked up one or two at a time. Most of them were unfinished wood when I bought them. One was bright blue. I painted them all white, glued a little newspaper on them and grunged them up a bit.

This one was obviously a cookie cutter that someone had drilled holes in and turned into a Christmas ornament before casting it off.

Most of these were bright shiny gold stars, which I didn’t love, so I brought them home and painted them silver.

I tend to put out a star or two here and there occasionally, but most of the time, my stars live in a box.

With Christmas coming, I decided I’d pull them all out and give them a chance to shine.

They’re still just a bunch of random, discarded, picked-up-at-a-thrift-store-for-a-quarter-each stars.

But all together, they make a lovely collection.

October 17, 2015September 5, 2018

Makeover | Painting and decoupaging pumpkins

Over the years I have collected a hodgepodge of fake pumpkins and gourds from thrift stores and garage sales.

Some are Styrofoam. Some are plastic. One is really heavy (and I have no idea what it’s made of).

This year, I decided to give them a makeover.

I started by basecoating them all in white. (I used gesso, just because I had a bottle of it stored in my basement that I bought for a project a couple years ago. I’m sure white craft paint or primer would have worked just as well.)

I liked the white, but I wanted some variation amongst the pieces, so I decoupaged newspaper strips on a few.

The newspaper was a little heavy and hard to work with, especially around all the curves of the pumpkins, so I scanned part of a newspaper page into my computer and printed it out onto a piece of tissue paper — which is harder than it sounds. I had to tape the tissue paper to a piece of regular 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper to get it to feed through my printer, and it took more than a few tries before I managed to get a piece to emerge from the printer un-torn.

Decoupaging on the tissue paper was easier than working with real newspaper.

After I ran out of the newspaper-printed tissue paper, I remembered I had some tissue paper with faux handwriting on it, so I dug that out of my stash.

I decoupaged the faux handwritten tissue paper onto a few of the pumpkins and gourds.

On the remaining plain white pumpkins, I dripped and splattered some paint on, using browns and blacks and beiges.

I wound jute twine around the tops of the pumpkins. To make the twine spiral, I dipped it in watered down Mod Podge, then wound it around a pencil until it dried.

I had pictures of that process, but they were taken on an old point-and-shoot digital camera during the time when I couldn’t access my iPhone photos. And then I robbed the memory card out of the point-and-shoot to use in my work camera. And then when I downloaded the work pictures, I apparently deleted the blog pictures. Grrr.

Anyhoo, I’m much happier with how the pumpkins and gourds look now than they did before.

An old crackle pumpkin (that I always set in the back because it seemed a little garish) now looks like this:

The number 4 is from an old perpetual calendar that I bought at a thrift store. I repurposed the calendar part long ago, but the numbers were still in a cabinet, waiting to be used. I may tie a few more to some of the other pumpkins.

This fakey fake big orange pumpkin has now been transformed….

… into this. I like it ever so much more now.

I did this project about month ago. It just took me forever to get photos rounded up and get everything together because (if you read my last post you know) my life was kind of in chaos from about Sept. 14 through about yesterday (knock on wood). I started a new job, was taking a night class and my home computer died.

I also somehow managed to get Mod Podge on the lens cover of my old point-and-shoot when I was attempting to use that as a backup for my iPhone camera. Now the lens cover won’t open at all. So my old Cannon Power Shot may be joining my old Windows Vista PC in technology heaven.

March 22, 2015September 5, 2018

Crafting | Decoupaged chicks

I don’t decorate much for Easter these days. Primarily because most of my Easter decorations look something like this:

I admit I have a huge soft spot for kitschy flocked holiday decorations (which is why I own these chicks in the first place). But I don’t do pastels anymore. And most Easter decorations are some baby-soft shade of pink, purple or, like my little chicks, yellow.

Instead of leaving the chicks languishing in a box on a closet shelf again this spring, I decided I’d give them a makeover and then set them out on display. Step one in the makeover: Tear off the faux velvet covering…

… which left me with three naked, slightly scary looking plastic chicks. I grabbed a stack of old newspapers and a container of Mod Podge to proceed with the makeover when The Boss showed up.

I swear that cat has a sixth sense. He can be on the other side of the house — or the other side of the planet — but the minute I set a bowl of cereal or an open container of Mod Podge in front of me — BOOM — there he is. Blocking me from eating/decoupaging and shedding his fur all over my breakfast/project.

I decoupaged the chicks in three parts: the wings and tails first, then the breast area and finally the head, using different parts of the newspaper as I went along.

When I started, I thought this was going to be a quick little project. But, as usual, I’d drastically underestimated the amount of time and detail work involved…

… and I forgot to factor in the additional time involved in removing each of the individual cat hairs that kept appearing in my Mod Podge.

I debated whether the chicks should have eyes or not. But they looked a little freaky being eyeless. So I popped the original plastic eyes back in initially.

After I was done with all of the decoupage, I scrounged around the house looking for other alternatives to use for eyes and found some old brads that were the right size. I thought the brads gave them a more vintage industrial look that matched their new personalities better than the plastic eyes.

Then I painted all of the beaks orange to match their feet.

After a few touchups and a light coat of watered down white paint over everything, the chicks were done.

I dug out some dried moss and glass jars and started playing around with ways to display the chicks.

Does anybody else see Dumb Donald from “Fat Albert” when they look at the chick above?

Anyhoo, I liked how they looked under glass.

And look who showed up again while I was taking pictures of the completed project:

I think he was disappointed to see there was no open container of Mod Podge anymore, so he quickly stalked off.