Wall Decal Made of Painted Contact Paper!

I was so thrilled about my wall decal tutorial being featured over at Beyond the Picket Fence that it motivated me to do another one last night. This time the decal was for a rather boring white wall in our living room. We have an accent wall in olive green, but the other two walls are white, and this one blank space in particular haunts me. It's kind of like I decorated the sides and corners of that wall, but I just had no idea what to do with the middle, which is why it was the perfect candidate for some experimental decal-ing. The experimental part is that I painted white contact paper with acrylic paint. 

And it worked!!! Couldn't believe it. I guess I imagined the paint wrinkling the contact paper or something. But it went on easily and dried in about 20 minutes. I think you could do it either way, but I chose to cut out the shapes first and then paint them. I think you waste less paint that way because you are only painting what you know you are going to use. 

Contact paper is so thin that it really just molds itself to the wall. It almost looks like I painted it directly on the wall, so I can see how this extra step of painting the contact paper and applying it to the wall would be a waste of time for some people. I'm a renter, though, so I am fond of projects like this that can easily be undone. And, by the way, the pieces are easily removable and replaceable - I had to move around some circles a couple of times before I liked it. 

So, the process can be kind of messy. he he! 

 Here is an in progress pic:

 The finished product!

Now that I know the painting contact paper method works, I think I need to spruce up my lab space at work with a few decals. I keep saying I'm going to make a tree, but geez that would take a while.... :) Guess I'm lazy.

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How to reupholster a desk chair {tutorial}

I imagine most people at one point or another have owned one of your basic standard black desk chairs. They are not much to look at, but they serve their purpose, which is why I have hung onto mine for...well, let's see...since I was 16? Yep, that's right. My desk chair and I go back...way back. Somewhere along the way she got a stain. Do you see it? Ha! That's a joke. Of course you do! It's gross. Eww. Anyway, I decided that I needed to give my chair a new look. I wanted to brighten her up, so that she fits in better with the decorating and color scheme of our study/guest bedroom. 

So, how did my desk chair go from this....

...to this?

I would be thrilled to tell you!

Materials

• Staple gun ($20) with 3/8 inch staples
• 1.5 yards of fabric or less (Mine is a cotton fabric from Walmart, which I chose mostly because it is only $2.50/yard.)
• Spray paint (optional; $5 for Krylon Fusion for plastics white)
• Screw driver (already own)
• Scissors for cutting the fabric (already own)

Time - It took about 30 minutes to take the chair a part and reupholster the fabric, but it took much longer to spray several coats of paint on the base of the chair.

First, you will need to remove the hardcover backing of the backrest, as well as the seat from the base. It is a lot easier than it looks, and putting it back together isn't a whole lot harder. 

At this point, you will have the back of the chair, with the hardcover removed. Cut out some fabric of generous proportions. 

Start stapling! :) Already? Yes, go ahead. Mistakes can be fixed by pulling out staples with the back of a hammer. 

I don't know if maybe I was doing something wrong (this is my first time to use a staple gun), but occasionally the staple would refuse to go in all the way, so I would have to hammer in the part of the staple that was still poking out. No problem! 

For clean edges, you will want to scrunch up the fabric (as shown above) when you staple.

 Cut off the excess fabric after you finish stapling.

By the way, just a reminder to make sure you are not covering the holes where the screws go in with fabric. I wasn't thinking and made the mistake of stapling over those holes, and then having to remove some staples to fix the problem. Oops!

The photos below are what the backrest part should look like after you finish stapling around it.

Yay! Almost done!

Now just repeat these steps on the seat of the chair.

If you only want to reupholster the seat and backrest, then you are done. Way to go! Put the chair back together and you are ready to sit and admire your fresh and beautiful desk chair. 

Alternatively, you can do what I did and paint the base of the chair and the hardcover of the backrest. I am so happy I did, but that's because the black didn't fit in our color scheme. I used Krylon Fusion for Plastics spray paint in white. It has held up really well. I tend to put my bare feet or shoe-ed feet on the base of the chair as I'm sitting, but not a single scuff mark is visible! (By the way, it took a whole can of spray paint and several coats to cover every nook and cranny of this chair. But so worth it I think!

Another little thing I attempted to do is add a flower to the backrest cushion. I cut out white fabric and ironed on some Heat 'N Bond to the back, and then I tried to iron it on to my already upholstered cushion. Bad bad idea.

The petals of the flower all fell off. But I was left with this! :)

I'm pretty happy with this subtle flower impression!

I am so happy I tried this project! I was kind of nervous I would mess it up, but it was way easier than I had imagined.


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Dishwasher magnet!

So, here is a little project I worked on today.

It was super duper easy and took maybe 15 minutes, and that was because I was working slow. I found the idea for this dishwasher magnet at Joy is at Home. As soon as I saw hers, I knew I was going to make one. Hence, why I HAD to make this today rather than some other day when I might have had some downtime. Ha ha...I'm starting to realize how impulsive I can be.

So, it was really easy, as I said. You just need these materials : Mod Podge, scissors, 2 different types of scrapbook paper, letter stickers for the words "dirty" and "clean", ribbon, a magnet, and maybe a flower sticker for the middle like the one I added.

Some of the materials you will need

Scrapbook paper

Also, can I say this project was free? Technically, I did have all of the materials on hand, so that counts, right? Even if you have to go out an buy the materials, this project would still only cost around $2. Another reason to love it!

So, you will trace around the CD and cut out the scrapbook paper. Then, apply your Mod Podge to the paper and adhere it to the CD. Make a smaller circle for the middle (I traced mine with a mug), and adhere it to the CD as well.

Next, add some ribbon across the middle of the CD.

Then, add your letter stickers to form "clean" and "dirty" on opposite sides of the ribbon line.

Lastly, you will want to adhere the magnet to the back of the CD. (By the way, the magnet I used was one that had been on a magnet list pad that I was about to throw away. It was the perfect size.) I tried using Mod Podge for this step, but alas it failed. Joy is at Home also had some trouble using a glue gun. She ended up attaching the magnet with Gorilla Glue. I didn't have any of that laying around, but weirdly enough I did have some Welder contact adhesive in my craft drawer. This is the heavy duty stuff that has warning labels all over it. Haha! Oh well, all I can say is it worked!  :)

Have a great day!

(P.S. After I wrote this, I realized how dumb I must sound to spell out the steps for you. It's pretty self-explanatory.)

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Make It for Monday @ Cottage Instincts