Before + After
Quite a while ago I convinced my daughter to give me this empty Elvis Presely 45 display case (she removed the fake "Jail House Rock" 45 long ago... :P). I've been planning to take it apart, revamp it, and use it to display a 45 by my dad's old band Dahcotah, and I finally got around to doing it today!
Here it is after I took it apart. The original cardstock insert made a perfect template for my new and improved one, naturally.
Here it is all finished. I used some cardstock from a Martha Stewart set I got cheap at Wal-mart. There are a lot of really attractive prints in there for only around 7$, and they carry them at Michael's too, if you're opposed to Wal-mart. For the title I used self-stick letters in a circus/carnival-esque font. I love things that look like they should be at a carnival or circus! ♥
(Except for clowns...I really hate those. O_o)Anyway, a little more info...
The band was called Dahcotah, and they were from Iowa. They were active during the early to late seventies. My dad played bass, lead, and rhythm guitar at various different times. He also wrote a lot of awesome songs, sang backing vocals, and once or twice sang lead vocals. He had a great voice, and was such a talented musician and songwriter. This 45 is signed by all of the band members except for my dad, unfortunately. I purchased it through an Iowa record dealer sometime after my dad passed away in 2004. I have a record player, but can't play this record because I don't have an adapter for the larger centre hole. I know the songs, though, and I do have a remastered CD containing many of their recordings, as well as old tour posters, live & promo photos, and various other memoribilia (including some of my dad's old "rocker" clothes ^^). The A-side of this 45 is "Too Easy to Love", and was a minor hit for Dahcotah in the 70's. The B-side is "She's a Bore". :) It's kind of hard to describe what they sounded like, but if you could cross early Cheap Trick with maybe Mott the Hoople, that would be a fairly decent description.
Anyway, I have a lot more things I'd like to finish today and I don't want to get all sad and nostalgic to the point where I'm depressed, so I think I will end this here....
Labels: mementos, records, repurposed, revamp
Ridiculously easy side table makeover!
I finished upgrading my side table quite a while ago, but am just getting around to posting the pictures.
Unfortunately, I've been having a lot of issues related to my neck injury which has made it difficult and unpleasant for me to be at the computer for more than a few minutes, or really do much of anything to be honest. I'm supposed to be having a second operation soon, so hopefully that will fix everything that is wrong with me and I'll be back to "normal".
Anyway, without further ado, here are the pictures (you can click them to see the larger versions):
I didn't really think to take a "before" photo, but be assured that this was one sad, ugly side table. I bought it a year or two ago at a thrift shop for 2$. I needed something to store my knitting gear in, and it was cheap, structurally sound, and just the right size. When I purchased it, it was varnished an ugly brown wood-tone, had tacky faux-brass drawer pulls (the kind that scream 1976-bicentennial), and had several really old unicorn stickers plastered across the front of some of the drawers. They were so old that they had become almost transparent. There was also a large amount of yellow acrylic paint spilled inside and on the front of the small top drawers, not to mention random globs of glitter glue everywhere. Nice. :D
So I decided I'd paint it black. It looks better with our couch, for one thing, and it matches the paper I planned to cover the drawer fronts with.
Here are the drawers after I covered them with paper and painted the edges. That is just some of my obscenely large collection of knitting needles, crochet hooks, and gadgets, many of them vintage. There's really no room in the drawers for much of anything else, but I usually keep a few small skeins of yarn in there. You can see some vintage Red Heart and Rochelle brand wool in there, plus some random black yarn.
And here is the finished product! I am very pleased with the way this turned out. When I started this project, I didn't plan anything and I was kind of half-assed doing it while watching Cold Case and Law & Order on tv. The gift wrap I used on the drawers (purchased on clearance at Old Navy last year) is so pretty, it really made this makeover remarkably easy, and it didn't require much forethought or planning at all. I had all of the stuff I used for this laying around here already, except for the black drawer pulls...my husband picked those up at Menard's for me, and they turned out to be just perfect (when I sent him to the store, I asked him to get the cheapest, least ornate drawer pulls he could find, lol).
Anyway, the whole thing cost me maybe 10$ or so, including the cost of the table itself, gift wrap, black paint, foam applicators for the paint and mod podge, and the drawer pulls. There's nothing I like better than doing something myself, and doing it cheaply. :D
Ever since I finished the side table, I've been shrewdly eyeing all of my other furniture pieces, wondering what could be done to update them, lol.
Labels: decoupage, furniture, makeover, paper, pictures, revamp, table, thrift
