Craft It Unique

Hello there guys and dolls!

As you know from my studio door post, I am trying to revamp my studio. It had wood paneling and was just not functional as a studio (no shelving or storage!) and it was just dark and dank and not cute. See:

So my idea: Paint the paneling white! It will brighten it up and make it not feel so much like being in a pine box. What didn't occur to me? Research. Which is really weird because I LOVE to research EVERYTHING. But I got excited and went to get some paint and slapped it on the wall.

Problem #1? As I soon discovered, if you put latex paint onto wood paneling, you release sap from the wood that leaves horribly ugly yellow streaks down the wall. Yeah. Not quite the look I was going for.

So i had to make an emergency run to Lowe's and get some Oil based primer that will keep that from happening. So now that my wall looked fantastic, I discovered problem #2 . Oil based paint is STRONG in the fume department. My cousin and I were getting quite woozy even with the windows and door open and fans going.

Because of that, we decided to take a break to let the fumes dissipate. This is when problem #3 reared its ugly little head. Having never worked with oil based paint, I wasn't aware that water will not rinse this stuff off of you. You must have turpentine. Cue emergency Lowe's run #2.

Then in trying to get all the paint cleaned up, we used all the turpentine. I absolutely WAS NOT making another emergency Lowe's run! WAS NOT! So the walls are about 1/2 done. We are going to need another weekend to finish, but what's done looks great!


So. Yeah. My weekend was a series of missteps and messups. But we did have fun. Even if we are going to spend forever trying to get paint out of our hair.

~Happy Crafting~
Amanda

Hello there after such a long time!

I know I haven't put anything on the old blog in FOREVER, but I've been staying busy and staying crafty. Hopefully (if the internet cooperates) I will be putting up several entries in the next few days. Please internet gods be with me ;).

So anyways, this particular post is about my studio door. About a week ago, I was sitting in my studio, praying for inspiration and getting severely off task. And it hit me...no inspiration or creativity because my studio space seriously is dark and drab and boring! Its got very 70s dark wood paneling :( Love the 70s, just not the wood paneling. So I came up with a plan to revamp the studio.

Step one: Brighten up the plain white door. 

See! Doesn't it look soooo much better? Also look at that horrible paneling. Ugh. I have a plan for that too. Also for the bottom panel of the door, but all that's for a little later.

What you need:
* Painters Tape (the blue kind)
* Sand paper
* Pencil
* Paint in your choice of color (I used craft paint, but you could use indoor paint. It will save you a step, but cost more and you WILL have paint left over.
* Protective clear coat paint (I used the spray paint one, but be careful and don't inhale. High from crafts is not a pretty picture!)
* A Protective mask (for sanding and paint fumes)
* Protective Goggles
* Ruler
* Foam Paint brushes

If the paint on your door is slick, you are going to want to sand it a bit to rough it up first!...oh and if you sand, use a mask. They used to put weird cancer giving things in paint (ie. lead and asbestos).  Better safe than sorry I always say...actually that's my mom...I say that Safety is Sexy! See:

Ok...not so sexy, but necessary regardless!

So basically what I did next was to take a painters tape (you know the blue kind) and mark off the panel thing on the door, so you don't paint outside of the panel.


Then I marked off the sides and top with my measurements. In my case, I wanted the diamonds to be kinda big and longer than they were wider, so I did 3 inch increments on top and bottom and 6 inches on the sides. That way my diamonds were 6 in tall and 3 in wide.



You may even get help with this from inquisitive kitties...

...OR NOT.



Then I took the painters tape and marked off my diamonds all the way across the paneling.

It was at this point, my other kitty helper, Elle came to help. She's not as "into stuff" as Cam is so I was pretty ok with her inspecting.


***MAKE SURE THAT YOU REALLY PUSH THE TAPE INTO THE CREASES ON THE EDGES, OTHERWISE YOU HAVE BLOBBIES LIKE THIS INSTEAD OF A CRISP LINE!***



Now for the fun part! TIME TO PAINT!! Not yet. Psyched you out didn't I? One more step before painting. I basically had 5 colors that I wanted to incorporate into the door: Red, a groovy pea green, teal blue, orange, and purple. And I didn't want any of the diamonds to be next to a diamond of the same color so i took that into account when I was marking which diamonds were which color. I put a little code on the wood itself to mark which were which color. "B" for blue, p for purple...you get the idea.


NOW its time to paint...no really...I'm serious this time. At this point, its kind of like a coloring book or paint by numbers. Paint inside the lines.

 I wanted a really vibrant color, so I put 2 coats. This is one coat:

Spotty right? This is with 2:


Like I mentioned before, I used regular craft paint. I did this for a few reasons. ONE...you won't use a lot of paint for this. TWO...craft paint is cheaper and comes in more varied colors (and I like cheaper). THREE...I already had the craft paint.


But if you use craft paint, you WILL have to put a clear protective coat on it. And that is the next step. (AFTER THE CRAFT PAINT DRIES COMPLETELY! OR YOU WILL SMEAR!) If you use interior paint, you don't have to do this step. And if you used craft paint and skip the protective coat...well...you will knock paint off every time you use the door...or touch the door...or the kids touch the door...you get the drift.

So finally we have our beautiful, bright, unique finished product:

 
I am soooo happy with my studio door. Only, I want to do the bottom panel in the same colors but different pattern, but that's a story for another post.