Breakfast Anyone?

Who doesn't love breakfast in bed? So what if it is usually brunch time before I get out of bed on the weekends.



To get my breakfast brunch in bed, I started with one of these breakfast trays that I picked up at a thrift store and told you about here. As a refresher, this is what it looked like.




I  primed the top with the oil based primer I use on any project involving a laminate surface. It looks like this:

The rest of the tray received a basic white paint coat as primer.


Then I used the same paint I used on my Mod Podge tiered table. It is such a pretty soft blue.



I used my silhouette to make a stencil. That was my first time to use it to cut vinyl and it was amazingly easy. “like butter” I believe is the phrase.
We’ve been doing some camera switcheroo-ing and if I took any pictures after this point, I’ve lost them so lets move quickly. I sanded to give it that worn look. I stained it. I rubbed as much of the stain off as I could. (I didn’t like it much especially on the white of the top.) Then I finished it off with Minwax Finishing Wax. which looks like this:

I really like the finish this gives but I have been having trouble with lint getting caught in it. I was using an old t-shirt to apply and got black link all over the tray. Paper towel works great if you have an extremely smooth surface but another project I tried that on ended up with white bits on my dark grey paint. argh… Any suggestions?

um…where was I? oh yeah, Ta DAA! I took my breakfast brunch on a photo shoot Sunday morning.



The Desert Rose dishes were given to me by my grandma. They don’t really go with the rest of my kitchen (which is red and brown) but I love them so much. I showed you her wedding silver a while back. If you missed it you can see it here.



I really like how painting the white coat before painting the blue allows for layers to show through when lightly sanded.



I picked up this unusual fork and spoon set at a thrift store for $2. The set included two small glass dished with silver trim. I am not sure what the intended purpose of the set was but the glass and silver dishes work well as coasters.




This what the top of the tray looks like when empty. I really love this pattern even though I applied the stencil a little wonky.



And this is what happens when you go downstairs to eat your photo shoot. I feel like my toes are in danger of being licked if I don’t share my toast.
     
Bring it on pup!


If you like the pattern I used, I made it available for you to download. I made the stencil in two parts to fit my tray. You can easily modify it to fit your need. The bottom stencil can be download here. And the top can be downloaded here.

This post is having brunch with:

I Finally Finished a Project!

That is right. I did it! I finally did it! It has been several weeks since I have finished anything to post. Not for lack of trying. It just seems every project takes way longer than it should and has terrible "oh no! It is ruined!" moments. And I am not just talking about the ugly stage. That is normal. My projects lately have hit a way more than normal quota of ugly. If you are one of those that enjoys it when a blogger shows you the mishaps along the way instead of just the perfect endings, you are going to LOVE me.
Lets get started on the project I finished. This is the front entrance to my home. Yep, in that yard. In between those two buildings. Needless to say, first time visitors struggle to find us.

 

There is a sign hanging from the eaves with our house number but it easily gets lost in the shadows so I thought I would make another one that would be easier to see.
I had this old shelf that I made for my college dorm.

It has was never very sturdy and since we moved here, it has been sitting outside forlornly. So I scavenged a few boards off of it and sanded them to clean up the water stained areas and distress the paint a little bit. (the bottom one is sanded and the top to aren’t yet)

I used Gorilla wood glue to glue them together. Worked like a charm!

And then clamped them together. They tended to roll up when I had them clamped as tight as they needed to be so I put a weight on top. The drawer from the project that won’t end did the trick.

Proper assistance is key during all steps of this project. Hiya pup!

Next I broke out my beautiful Silhouette that I got for Christmas. This thing is a dream. You should see how excited I get just being able to quickly cut multiply PERFECT circles at exact dimensions. I may be a nerd for that, but circles are really hard to do by hand. A tip if you have a vinyl cutter too, you can use contact paper instead of transfer paper to take the vinyl off the backing and smoothly put it on your project. It is sooooo much cheaper.

I am showing you what it looks like because I had difficulty finding contact paper the first time but eventually found it in the drawer liner section at Wal-Mart. I first looked at craft stores and no one even knew what I was talking about.
http://myrepurposedlife.blogspot.com/2011/03/silhouette-sd-how-to-cut-and-apply.html isn’t the only one who makes a decal and sees a stencil. I put the outline of the leaf I used on wax paper to save for another time. She also has great tutorials and videos on how to apply your Silhouette-d vinyl.

Okay, here is where things started to go wrong and I stopped taking pictures because I thought I would have to scrap the whole thing anyways. I decided it would be a great idea to use my dark walnut stain to further distress my sign. For whatever reason, the white paint turned purple. A dark violet purple. It was awful. I freaked out and threw it in the kitchen sink and through some bleaching and sanding and white washing, got it un-purpled enough to move on.
I tried to clean it up well and wait patiently for it to be thoroughly dry before I applied my vinyl but apparently, I wasn’t patient enough. As soon as I got the vinyl near it, it lost its stickiness. I freaked out again and ran upstairs and grabbed some spray adhesive and clear spray paint. And then I stood there with them in my hands and stared at the sign willing it to be thoroughly dry and pouting.
When my pout the drying was done and with the front of the vinyl decal attached to the contact paper and the back-should-be-sticky-side out, I sprayed it thoroughly with the spray adhesive. I pressed it down on my boards and rubbed it firmly with a used gift card and then peeled back the contact paper. The contact paper removes more easily if you pull it back on itself as close to horizontal as possible (if you are working in a horizontal position). I rubbed it down some more with the gift card and smeared some Mod Podge under any parts that still were not sticking. After that, I gave it several good coats of the clear spray paint in hopes that it would create a bond around the edges. It seems to have worked!
I had trouble deciding where to hang it. I wanted it on the gate but there is a monster spring there. I thought maybe under the mailbox.

But that didn’t seem to really “pop” to me. So I tried it on the right side.

No. That’s not it either… I guess spring or no spring, I want it on the gate.


It isn’t as reflective as these pictures seem. I was running out of perfect daylight.
To hang my new house numbers, I simply screwed two screws into the top and tied hemp twine between them. See?

It may not make my home perfectly easy to find but I definitely think it will help people at least know if they are in the right yard. And it only cost me about $2 for the vinyl and a few tears.
If you like the leaf I used, you could swap me for your own on whoopDwhoop.
This post will be participating in the following parties.