Mirrored Window Re-Do

{Before} I had already sanded the finish down a little...prepping for paint

I found this window at the Thrift Store downtown a long time ago, and I finally decided I wanted to do something with it other than let it sit in the closet gathering dust. It was actually in really good shape--real wood, nice stain and finish---it looked brand new. But I LOVE old, shabby, antique, almost ugly looking things---anything with cracked and peeling paint, rust, nicks and dents...you name it. So naturally, I had to do that to this. I decided to try crackle paint. Let's just say I've been trying to get this project done for about a month. I have FOUGHT and FOUGHT with the crackle paint. My original plan was to do a base coat of soft black paint, then use the crackle paint with a white coat over the top, so you could see the black cracks through the white. Well, I can't even tell you how many layers of black, crackle, then white I have on this baby. It was so frustrating trying to get the white paint to go on evenly with only one or two strokes (with crackle paint, if you overbrush it WON'T work). All I ended up with was streaky looking white paint, a few cracks, and lots of black showing through in a not very pretty way. Occasionally I'd get one side to look perfect, but the other sides looked horrible. I finally gave up and decided the black and white was way too stark of a contrast and that is why it wasn't working. So I went for a white base, then crackle, and a blue top coat. It WORKED! Boy was that a relief. I thought there was something wrong with me! After I did the white, crackle, then blue, I used some walnut ink stain over the top and stained it to give it an even older look. I finished it off with a sealer.

{Before the walnut ink stain}

{After the walnut ink stain} (please excuse the spots on the mirror--I hadn't cleaned it yet!)

{After} Doesn't the vinyl bird on the wall add a nice touch? :-)

Fabric Flower Ring

Since my 6th month of pregnancy I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring---I was so sad and looked forward to when I could wear it again. So when I had my baby in January, I thought, okay...I'll wait a few weeks and see if it fits again...in hopes that all my swelling would go down and I'd be somewhat back to normal. Well, I've tried my ring on every couple of weeks since then and although my swelling has long been gone, I've discovered that my knuckles are still too big. Sad! Will they ever go back? So I decided to make a temporary ring to get me through until then. I looked at the craft store for some kind of ring I could use to put something on, and I came across a "jump ring holder" in the jewelry section. I tried it on my ring finger and BINGO! It fit just right. So I thought I'd make it work. I made these cute, tiny little fabric flowers with ripped strips of fabric that I then twisted and hot glued together in a spiral. Then I sewed on some little green beads and attached the whole thing to the ring. I think it has a sort of shabby, charming look to it. Then, on Friday, I found some actual adjustable rings that I think I might try a few things with....I thought maybe some vintage-y old buttons---we'll see...

Baby Dinosaur

My husband and I were reading in a magazine that black and white patterns are really good for a baby because of the contrast, and so I thought that it would be fun to make our little boy a stuffed animal using that type of pattern. It was a bit of a trial and error process because I created my own pattern for the dinosaur, plus I've never sewn a stuffed animal--I've crocheted them before, but this is a different story. I had a blast drawing it all out and getting just the right look I wanted. The toughest part was getting the dinosaur's back just right, I had to undo my stitch around that curve and take in the red minkee. But it turned out fantastic! I thought this fabric was cute because it looked boy-ish. I used red minkee too, for the soft texture. I used felt for the eyes and a hypo-allergenic, washable polyester fiber fill for the stuffing. When I gave it to him, he grabbed for it right away---it made all that hard work worthwhile. :-)