fudge

Monday 28 November 2016

How (or more to the point WHY) Did She Do THAT!!!

It's been a while since I last brought you one of my expert guides hasn't it?

In fact it's been a while since I brought you anything much!

Well, this week I'm looking to rectify that and I'm going to start by giving you an expert guide in not one but TWO different areas.

Firstly - do you remember last year when I decided I was going to make all my own Christmas decorations and I got a load of old toilet roll inners, covered them in silver glitter paper, cut them up and made paper chains?

Well, that didn't go so well really - they all popped apart and I was just left with loads of scraps of glitter covered cardboard.

BUT!!!

I'm not one to let a little thing like complete failure put me off so I decided that this year I would ....  Wait for it ....

MAKE ALL MY OWN CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!!

After the HUGE success of my pom pom garland for my niece (and that fact that I found a load of white wool) I thought I'd make some pom pom snowballs.

Only I got bored after making one.

But I found a great use for it:



And I got excited again so I thought I'd give it another go and make a pom pom snowman for Miss Mac.

Here he is ...



She LOVED it said there was no way she was hanging that in her bedroom, it would give her nightmares!

Ungrateful child - It's no worse than the decorations I found in Sainsburys!!

Now that IS the thing of nightmares!


So anyway, I'm going to carry on making my own decorations and I might even bring you something later in the week that will surprise you!

Moving swiftly on ...

I'll bet at some point everyone has had (or still has) a piece of pine furniture.

I've got lots because it's inexpensive and everyone needs furniture don't they?

Anyway, I'm not a HUGE fan of pine despite having so much of it and I'd been feeling my house was rather ....  ginger!!!

The thing that was bothering me most was this:



No, NOT Miss Mac (although she can be fairly bothersome from time to time).

The pine cabinet behind her.

I know, all GOOD bloggers take proper photos as they go alone with projects but well, I'm not one of those so I had to dig around for a photo with the cabinet in it before I did anything to it.

The first thing I did was remove that trim at the top, it was too frou frou for me and it immediately looked much better without it (luckily it was only held on with a couple of screws).

I wanted to paint it but SD really didn't like that idea so I decided it might look nice if I stained it a light oak colour:



NOT the colour I was going for at ALL!!!  Also NOT the colour it said it was on the tin!

I hated it even more.  Obviously AFTER staining it I did a bit of research and discovered that pine really doesn't take stain very well and you are supposed to use some kind of sealer before staining it to stop it absorbing the colour unevenly.

Fortunately SD hated it too and agreed that I could now paint it (all the while telling me mournfully that he had quite liked it the way it was before I'd done anything to it - VERY helpful SD!!).

So now I'm painting it.

And painting it ...  And painting it AGAIN!!!

I think I possibly should have sealed the stain before painting it ...

That bloody colour KEEPS bleeding through as it dries giving it a pinky tinge ...


Not to mention the fact that there are 8 paned of glass in each section which means there are 96 - I said NINETY SIX!!! edges to paint each time!!!

It's a complete nightmare.  I haven't masked the glass off because I'm rubbish at doing that and I either mask over the bits I need to paint or end up pulling half the paint off with the tape so I've got a couple of razor blades from a friend who resprays cars so I can chip the paint off the glass when it's dry.

Having said all that (and really - DON'T ever do it yourself!), I do like it much more that I did before although I now wish I'd left the top and the knobs natural wood and just waxed them.

Who knows, I might actually get it finished at some point, maybe in time fro Christmas ...

9 comments:

Terry said...

I liked the white cabinet. It's cool.

Sarn said...

I am WITH you and feel your pain . . . after I revamped my fitted wardrobes a couple of months ago.

At least they didn't have any glass areas . . . but after slaving away with 2 layers of chalk paint and buffing with wax TWICE . . . the result was PANTS! The chalk paint was VERY uneven, but it doesn't even look shabby chic . . . just shabby! Ah well, I have learnt to embrace imperfection BECAUSE I'M NOT RE-DOING THEM!

I think your pine cabinet looks great in pinky white. *Cough*

xxx

Sarah said...

Thank you Terry, I think I'm going to like it once I stop hating how much work it's been :-)

God Sarn, I was thinking of shabby chic'ing it by artfully sanding edges to give it a worn look but you just know it's going to look terrible if I do don't you? I'm giving it ONE more coat and if it still looks pink then pink it will stay (all I'll need to do it completely redecorate the room so it fits in ,,,) xx

joeh said...

I like the natural wood look, but it can get too dark. Looks good painted as well, I can imagine it was a lot of work with all those panes (pains). I agree the knobs would look good as the stained wood, I'm sure you could strip them or even easier probably buy some unfinished for very little.

Di said...

Oh Sarah - they do say that God loved a trier - or is that tryer?! :) And you sure are determined.

Here, you could come and join us in the Playground with your Christmas deccies - a snippets can be anything at all, wool, paper, you name it! We do love to see innovative ideas! :)

If the patches are tiny you could try rubbing them with Brasso wadding - god knows how it works but Len used it when we had some colour come through in a teeny spot on our white headboard. Ha, it did eventually come back again so I can only assoooooooome it's from the original wood not being sealed properly before the headboard was made? Thank you Bensons for Beds - I love you too :( Ha, I just pile cushions there during the day now!

Hugs

Di xx

Sarah said...

I probably will buy some new knobs Joe, I think it needs something to break up the (pink) white. I'm still not done with it yet, it needs a top coat - only another 96 edges to go ...

Oh, I didn't know that Di, I thought it was just cards!!! I will definitely join up with my next post - thank you for the invite :-). Unfortunately it's more than just patches, I'm hoping a top coat will do the trick but I'll bear your tip in mind if it doesn't (how on earth did Len know about that ...?).

Di said...

Len is a fountain of knowledge of all things obscure- and some of them are very useful! He's also a bit of a mad professor at times :)

Val said...

Well, thank goodness you went to work on the cabinet, and not on Miss Mac.

Sarah said...

I like to thin I have a bit of the mad professor about me too :-)

If she'd still been standing there she probably would have got a coat of paint too Val - I'm unstoppable once I get going!