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Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Altering Project(s)

Did you ever see a fabulous deal for some type of decorative item, but didn't quite like the colors or maybe it was a bit beat up? Even though it may look rough, you just knew you could fix it so it would look totally beautimous in your favorite room. Well, something similar to this happened to me recently except that I wasn't the one finding the great deal, a friend of mine did. Her daughter is turning 30 and she wanted to do a black and white theme. She found a really nice hanging plaque in Hobby Lobby for a fabulous price. The only problem was that it needed a color change. This is where I come in since I do crafts. :-) We also picked out her daughter's initials and 3 metal words (Live, Love, Laugh) for me to work on. Do you know how many styles of initials are out there and how many DO NOT go together at all? We decided to go to the craft stores together to find the perfect letters plus we needed to find something to "fix" the plaque with. Definitely paint and maybe some nice rub-on wording would fit the bill. 

So far it's sounding pretty simple, huh? The first problem was spraying the metal words. I mean it's just a bit of some black glossy spray. How hard could that be? I ended up having to wet sand, spray, and respray the words several times. Bubbles kept popping up while I was spraying. The icing on the cake was when I was spraying and the spray can got stuck ON. It was everywhere including all over me!! Besides me, it got all over a deck chair and the deck. I should have been spraying in the grass... aaaackkk!!! That can is so going back to Wal-Mart if I can find my receipt!!

The plaque was another comedy of errors. I knew I would have to sand the center to get some of the wording and paint off. That done, now I was on my way to getting this baby finished. NOT!! I couldn't get the wording to cover nicely or get the paint on smoothly. So here I was *again* wet sanding and painting over and over. Good grief! I finally decided to give gesso a try. Why did I not do this in the first place?? Gesso totally did the trick! Now I was on my way. I wish I would have taken a before and after picture. It turned out so nice! I love it! Here are a few pics. It was difficult getting a nice up-close of it; the gems and pearls aren't showing up the way your eye would see it, but you get the idea.

These initials were so much fun to do that I've bought myself several different kinds that I plan on altering to hang on my craft room wall. I love the fact that the paper on the "J" matches the plaque. The patterns are both damask, but they are opposite; the plaque is white on black and the "J" is black on white. That wasn't even planned! I love it when things come together like this. :-)

This is one of the many things I've been doing over the past few weeks. I couldn't post til today because her birthday party was last night and that's when this was being given to her.

The next week or two will be busy because my 12-year old niece is coming to visit. I'm so looking forward to having her! All kinds of fun stuff planned! We're going to be cooking, baking, going to the pool, reading (she's an avid reader just like me), stamping, shopping, and whatever else I can do to keep us busy. I'm expecting her to want to stay more than a week because I don't think a week is long enough to do everything in. We'll see. It's her first time away from home and she may want to stay but be homesick. 

OK, enough for now. I'll try to schedule some posts so I don't stay away for too long.

Happy stamping til the next time!