How To Give Your Pig A Fresh Look

THIS POST IS FROM ROOM REMIX - THE BLOG .

You know how much fun it was to type this post title, right? :-)

So here's the scoop. As you may remember, I'm (slowly) trying to incorporate a fresh look into my home. Obviously, like all of you, I can't just clean out the place and start over so I'm trying to reuse and freshen up some things that I already have.

I went through a phase where I really liked these "so ugly they're cute" pigs. I thought they were fun and whimsical. This one has been in my kitchen for a long time, and I'm really completely over it. BUT rather than getting rid of it I wanted to try to give it a new look.  Since I've been wanting to try silver leaf on something, I thought this pig might be just the ticket...

I started out by spray painting the entire pig with oil rubbed bronze spray paint to give it a more uniform finish. (yep. you're right. We can't spray paint outside here in the winter. I spray painted this last fall and am just now getting around to posting it.)

Once that was dry I:

• applied a thin coat of liquid silver adhesive (I bought it and the silver leaf from Michaels)
• let it dry for an hour
• placed silver leaf one piece at a time on the surface of the pig and brushed it into place with a soft brush.  This was probably more challenging because of all the nooks and crannies, but it was actually kind of fun to do.

• After the pig was completely silver leafed, it became blatantly obvious that you couldn't see the detail of the pig when it was sitting on the kitchen cabinet. It was just a bright silver blob. So... I rubbed a very light coat of antiquing glaze on to tame the sheen down a bit and then took a rag and rubbed the silver leaf off slightly on the edges of the ears, arms, eyes, hat, etc. to give it more dimension. Once that was done I took small pieces of silver leaf and just rubbed them on here and there (with my fingers) to add even more dimension (a little like an aged mercury glass look). Totally a trial and error process that I was making up as I went along but it worked out okay.

I love how my bowl turned out! The original pig came with a metal bowl and a brush that was painted red. (I'm not exactly sure why I took them off when I took the before photo this past fall? I guess I was thinking "pig before". literally.) I decided to paint the brush handle black, but wanted to do a completely different bowl. After looking around a bit, I found the perfect white porcelain one at Pier 1.

I was so excited to find something the exact same size! The bowl was perfect, but it was a little plain so I jazzed it up a bit with some vinyl letters sort of randomly placed on the inside of the bowl.

The silver leaf was fun and it would be great to another project sometime. And even though I don't think I would seek out a silver leaf pig for my kitchen at this point, I'm pleased enough with the end result that I'm keeping him and feel like he'll fit in much better!


He was a little hard to photograph because of the reflective quality of the silver leaf, but hopefully you get the idea. And, no, I'm not using this fabric. Even though I love trellis, navy isn't part of my plans. :-)) It's just a fabric sample (with grommets in it that I strategically hid behind the pig). It came to be in the photo because I was tired of fighting the shadows on the wall and put the fabric up to solve that problem.

So there you have it. My solution for giving your pig (or mine) a fresh look. :-)

LINKING TO:
- Show and Share Day at Just A Girl...
- Weekend Wrap-Up at Tatertots and Jello

One Way To Keep A Bedskirt In Place

THIS POST IS FROM ROOM REMIX - THE BLOG .

Janell did a bedskirt post the other day and there was discussion in the comments about how everyone kept theirs from moving around (or not). I said that I would do a post about a solution that works for me, so here goes!

The rug pad is a little bit more of an initial investment than other solutions might be, but I've had it for 5 years and it's still good as new so I'm assuming I'll never really have to change it out. When I'm ready for a new bedskirt I'll just detach this bedskirt, sew or glue velcro to the new one, attach it and call it good.

The rug pad really does want to stick to the mattress, which is the idea, but when you're putting it on for the first time or rotating the mattress it definitely takes two people because the mattress won't slide on the pad. Once it's in place though you're good to go because it's not movin'! It's been the perfect solution for me, so maybe it will be for some of you as well. Nice to have options. :-)

Craft Closet Folding Work Surface Tutorial

Some of you were interested in a tutorial for the folding work surface that we created for PHASE 1 (prior to prettification) of my Closet Craft Room.

Click HERE for tutorial

Craft Closet Shelves and Undermount Bins Tutorial

I've decide to just link to tutorials when I do them rather than putting the entire thing in a post. The tutorial today is showing how we we made the shelves and mounted the undermount bins shown above for the Craft Closet.

Click HERE for complete tutorial.

DIY Mudroom/Laundry Room Bench

My original vision for this makeover didn't pan out. I had envisioned doing a bench with the chairs facing each other, but we tried several templates for the seat and neither of us (hubby or I) were happy with how we thought it would look. In retrospect, I wish we would have tried a little harder to make it work because it would have been more unique.

I bought the chairs at Pottery Barn about 8 years ago (I had already started sanding the red one by the time I remembered to take a photo, so it looks trashed but it wasn't:-)). Unfortunately, when we moved into this house, I really didn't have a place to use them, so they've been more in the way than anything. Initially, it seemed almost a shame to use them because they were perfectly good chairs, but I decided I wouldn't get anything for them if I sold them and why buy a bench when I already had these?
(edited to add tutorial portion):
We used the original seats (set apart a tish so the seat would comfortably accomodate two people) as a template

to trace a bench seat on a piece of MDF.

Cut it out using a jigsaw.

Sanded the mdf seat to prepare it for paint and round the corners a bit. Then screwed it on using the original holes that were there for the chair screws. (I had already primed the chairs at this point)

Primed the seat and then painted the entire bench. We used a little paint sprayer that my husband already had and I think the finish turned out a lot better because of it.

We saved the original seats, and didn't modify the chairs in any way, so if at some point I want to use them as chairs again we just remove the bench seat, replace the chair seats, repaint and Ta-Da - chairs again!

I still need to make a bench cushion or something for it, but thought I should get it posted before everyone quit believing I actually had a bench in the works! :-) To be honest, once I realized I couldn't do it the way I had wanted, I lost my motivation and just let it sit for a while. Then it got cold here sooner than I anticipated so I had to keep my fingers crossed for some warm days to spray the paint on. Thankfully, they finally came!

I'll be adding links to this post for the various blog parties as they happen and the links become available.

Tutorial Link-up - The Lettered Cottage
Metamorphasis Monday - Between Naps on the Porch

It's So Very Creative - It's So Very Cheri

DIY Day - A Soft Place To Land

Trash to Treasure - Reinvented

Get Your Craft on Tuesday - Today's Creative Blog

The Boardwalk Bragfest - Bobbypins Boardwalk

Transformation Thursday - The Shabby Chic Cottage

Surprise Party - The DIY Showoff

Furniture Feature Friday - Mustard Seeds Creative Blog

Creative Cats Friday - Poppies at Play

Saturday Nite Special - Funky Junk Interiors

Frugal Friday - The Shabby Nest