Hope your week is going well! I am feeling surprisingly chipper and excited about the weekend’s big event – With only three days until our wedding, there’s really nothing more that I can do. Projects are wrapped up, my planner is coming over this evening to check out all of the many DIY projects we’ve put together and now I can finally breathe knowing that I’ve done the absolute best I can.
I told John that the one time I will probably break down and cry during the big day is when I see our reception space filled with all of the things I’ve created with the help of my family and friends. I’m sure seeing everything finally pulled together, knowing that it was all thanks to dedicated creativity and effort on our part will be very emotional. (Not to say that our wedding ceremony won’t be FAR more emotional, but I have a feeling we will be so focused on saying the lines correctly that we won’t have time to cry. But I’m sure that could all change in the moment. We’ll see!)
Today, I am back to share a non-wedding-related project (I know, crazy – right?). After using Martha Stewart’s metallic craft paint on my frames, I decided that I couldn’t stop there. With a recent affinity for fashion and accessories, I decided to amp up my table-top jewelry display starting with this little wooden box that I use for my rings and stud earrings.
The piece came from a craft store and was originally raw, unfinished wood. After bringing it home I quickly took care of the plain wood situation by painting it a creamy pale green (although, based on today’s trends of color dipping, I probably would have painted it only partially green and left part of the raw wood showing, sort of like this – Maybe next time). It turned out nicely but a couple of years later and I was ready for a little upgrade.
So, using Martha’s gold paint once again, I added a fun chevron pattern to my little green jewelry box.
To get the pattern right, I unrolled a long piece of masking tape and stuck it to the edge of my ruler. Then, using scissors, I cut a slit in the tape every inch – That way, I could remove the tape from the ruler and could carefully and accurately cut out multiple little pieces of tape in 1-inch lengths.
Then I simply smoothed the tape against the box, making a zigzag pattern by alternating the direction of the strips. I just kind of eye-balled it and used the width of the tape as a “ruler” of sorts for where to start the next one. I wasn’t going to worry about perfection with this project. It was at this point (twenty minutes into the project with only the amount of taping seen below complete) that I realized I would need to switch up my method or else I’d be there all night. So instead of using 1-inch lengths of tape, I removed what I had started and began again with 2-inch lengths. It still gave me the chevron pattern I wanted, but with a quicker completion time.
Just had to share my line of tape strips…Although tedious at times, you get a sort of system down and pretty soon I was barely paying attention, instead focusing on the Friends marathon on TV.
An hour and a half or so later, my little jewelry box was looking ziggy zaggy and ready for some gold paint.
Using a small foam paint brush, I lightly painted the box with one coat of the craft paint. I let it dry for about twenty minutes before putting on a second coat. If you want a solid finish with none of the undercoat showing through, you may want to put on a third coat. My particular box has always looked a little shabby chic, so the idea of a little undercoat showing through seemed fitting – I liked the idea of a washed look, so two coats did the trick for me.
Here is my newly styled jewelry box, sparkling it up in our master bathroom. I love how you can see the subtle sheen in the metallic finish towards the bottom of the box pictured below. It is just enough of a pattern to give it some much-needed personality, but not enough to make it scream in our soft green, peaceful space.
For a grand total of about $1, I’d say this was a DIY well done. What do you think?
