Cheap DIY White and Turquoise Desk and Chair Makeover

Cheap White Desk and Chair

Turquoise 

DIY

Makeover

Chevron

Pottery Barn Style

Girls Room....
you ready for this?

For Christmas this year, my 7.5 year old daughter badly wanted a desk for her room more than anything.  She's starting to feel like a big girl, growing out of the princess phase and coming into a creative big girl phase where she wants a place to sit down and write, read, be creative and she needed lots of drawers to keep all her papers, note cards, and arts and craft supplies organized.  So...although she's grown out of princesses and realized the princesses at Disney are just pretending...she hasn't grown out of Santa quite yet so she asked Santa for a white desk and chair.  

I was more than happy about this request as it made it excited about reading and writing which was our biggest battle all last year...working on reading and writing.  So if she had a place that made her inspired to do those things on her own...I was all for it.  Then I started shopping for a white desk with drawers and a wooden chair to match...um....wow...Santa wasn't planning on spending $400 on one person.  So I started searching craigslist and a thrift store that is near our house regularly.  Even on craigslist, white wooden children's desks are not cheap!  I really didn't want to spend more than $100 and in my search, for like $80-100 I could get a really cheap white desk at Ikea, Target or Walmart but with no drawers...just simple white legs and top...NOT what I was looking for.  So I stayed patient and just kept looking.

One day I dropped her off at gymnastics and then popped into the thrift store and there it was...a dingy white wooden desk with lots of drawers and a wooden chair.  The paint looked nasty...like it was yellowish and a really bad paint job and the chair had really ugly flowers painted on it...but I was SO happy!  I was ready to strip and primer vintage wooden desks I had seen on craigslist that were more that this one and this one needed a lot less work since it was already white-ish.  So for $40 I got a cheap white wooden desk and chair with 7 drawers.  So I got a small can of semi'gloss white paint and home depot and the next week knobs and drawer pulls were 50% off at hobby lobby.  I found these pretty turquoise "glass" knobs and this awesome turquoise chevron drawer liner paper that was also 50% off and I was all set to go!  

My inlaws came for Christmas so while Grammie and Grampa enjoyed the kids, I was able to sneak downstairs to "Santa's Workshop" and in no time had this baby sanded, painted and put back together.  My only hiccup was I was so excited to use the power sander for the first time.  We found it in the basement when we moved in.  I started and it was AMAZING!!!!!.....for about 1 minute and then the foam pad that holds the sanding paper to the sander started to disintegrate and foam started flying everywhere.  So I had to sad the rest by hand....which wasn't a huge deal but getting the chair smooth where those ugly thickly painted flowers were took some elbow grease!  

The paint dried fast so I would paint a coat on everything, come upstairs and be with the family...then run down later and do another quick coat...it really wasn't as big a job as I thought it would be.  

So without further ado....here is the cheap DIY white and turquoise desk and chair makeover!  My daughter LOVES it and was so excited it had lost of drawers, and was even more excited when she opened the drawers and saw the pop of color inside with the turquoise chevron drawer liners.  I love it too!  

Christmas Morning!

 side note: My son got what he wanted too, a punching bag like at karate - another thrifty find....Santa got that on craigslist!  lol!  You can't tell though, someone had bought it for their kid who did karate but who didn't use it that much...plus...really...how much wear and tear is a kid going to put on a punching bag practicing their kicks and punches...they aren't that strong! lol!)  When I picked it up from the family, the mom was laughing at me and said I was hilarious I had the kids in the car and put a black garbage bag around it and told the kids we were picking up some spare tires for daddy's car. lol!  I think she also thought it was funny that I was getting a christmas gift on craigslist but seriously...he's 4.5...I don't know how long he'll like karate for...why buy a brand new one just for the sake of having it be new when this one looks brand new anyway?

 

(hubby hadn't trimmed the end of the knobs yet because we were pretty tired Christmas eve when everything was wrapped up but it's a simple thing to do)

It really pays to be thrify and put in a little elbow grease!  Even if you can afford to buy the $400+ desk from pottery barn,to me it's more fun in the end to have gone on a treasure hunt, found the right thing and then made it pretty again...I enjoy it more, plus kids stuff rarely stays nice forever anyways so when it does get dinged up, at least I have the matching paint for touch ups!  

Here is the before & after shot...I was so excited to get started I didn't remember to take a real "before" shot before getting started.  I took a these with my iphone 3 which has a horrible camera and the lack of quality actually makes the desk and chair look better than they were! lol!
The drawers also had different colored knobs with big screws in the middle....not too cute.  The sides of the desk were a mix of not full coverage white and yellowed paint with drips.

Pink Ceiling Fan Chandelier Makeover

  DIY Girls Ceiling Fan Chandelier

So this is a recent project I completed but took a while to share because I had to wait for my hubby to have time to install the fan.  This white ceiling fan had gold hardware and used to be in the master bedroom, we updated our room with something we liked better but our daughter J said she thought the white fan was beautiful and wanted it in her room.  She had an older uglier brown and gold ceiling fan light fixture in her room.  So I got some Rust Oleum in Berry Pink GLOSS and quickly took the fan apart which was super easy and spray painted the hardware pink.  Once it was installed and hanging up, I draped these jeweled garlands that I found in the wedding section at Hobby Lobby they were maybe $5 each or less with 50% off.  For the beaded strands in the center of the chandelier fan, I used some jewelry wire to attach  it to the bottom of the fan as you can see if you look closely.  It took a long time to get this project fully complete...but the project itself was really easy and quick to do...just got drawn out because it didn't match the mounting hardware from the old fan and hubby didn't have time right away to hang it...but here it is...my daughter loves her pink chandelier fan!  We have been turning her fan on at night and if we keep it on the low setting, the jewels on the chandelier don't jiggle around much at all...but on the 2nd and 3rd settings they begin to sway and make some noise so if you want to do this just keep that in mind and make sure you just use the fan on the low setting.

Stay tuned for more reveals from my little girls bedroom makeover! :)

Simply take your fan apart, keep track of where everything goes and then lay out on cardboard and paint with a glossy spray paint.  When paint is completely dry, reassemble your fan.

Install ceiling fan (see owners manual instructions if needed)

Drape jeweled garlands over the lights and metal posts.

Using jewelry wire, attach beaded/jeweled strands to hand from the center of the fan.

ENJOY!  SO CUTE AND GIRLY!  

Spray paint $4

Jeweled garlands $10-15 roughly

Update and turn an old ceiling fan into a super cute girly chandelier fan for less than $20!!!

Unicorn Canvas Art Knock Off from Rosenberry Rooms

Rosenberry Rooms Oopsey Daisy Knock Off

Unicorn Art for Girls Room

My new friend and neighbor redid her daughter's room this weekend while she was with her grandma to surprise her.  Her daughter really likes unicorns and so she found this unicorn art that she really liked on Rosenberry Rooms 

I already had a 16 x 16 canvas on hand so I just had her pick out the tissue paper, cardstock and buttons she wanted me to use.  She also brought the funnies from the newspaper to use as the unicorn's mane, (her daughter loves to read the funnies) and the original unicorn artwork appears to be a page out of a phone book or something like that.  Here is my customized knock off version of the Rosenberry Room's Oopsey Daisy Fine Art for Kids Line.  I used yellow acrylic paint, modge podge, blue ink, glitter and hot glue for the buttons....

 

I added a bit of glitter here and there to bling it up a bit

I love the buttons she picked out for the Unicorn's Eyes

Check out the funnies....I love that feature

And when my 4 yo daughter saw me finishing this up, she begged to do one too.  We had these smaller canvases that she had previously painted on in her room that were just muddled paint colors so we added to that and together we made this one for her room and have another canvas she can't wait to make another one on...she had so much fun cutting pieces of paper and ribbons and painting on the modgepodge, dumping on the glitter...I helped very little...I got in trouble if I did any helping without her instruction! lol I actually really loved how she cut out diamonds with the blue paper and said they were stars and then made them sparkle with the glitter.....we haven't really done artwork together like this before and it was so fun to watch her mind work as it evolved.

Come back tomorrow to check out an awesome new giveaway!

DIY-Tall Cylinder Vase for Tree Branches in Girls Room

How to Make a Cheap Tall Cylinder Vase 

w/ scalloped edge

Tree Branch Decor for Girls Room

I got this tree branch from our backyard after a recent storm and wanted to put it in my girls room.  Her room is a slow work in progress but it's coming along!  The bedroom theme a nature theme with birds and butterflies and her colors are yellow, pink and blue (her choice).  I was shopping around looking for a cheap vase or urn to put the branches in that would be cute, but I just could not find anything that was really worth buying let alone a good price at all.  After a bunch of looking around at tall vases, I gave up and then in that moment of giving up, this idea popped in my mind.  I could MAKE a cheap tall vase with poster board...So here it is.



Supplies:

2 coordinating or matching colors of poster board (my daughter wanted purple and pink)
modge modge or spray adhesive
stapler
small cup
pencil
scissors
glue gun/ or other strong adhesive


Cover the entire back side of the poster board with modge podge or spray glue

 Lay the other poster board on top and press and smooth the surface.

 To create the scalloped edge along the top of the vase, take a small cup and trace the curves in a straight line as pictured below (along the width of the board).  Trace your scalloped edge on the color that will be the inside of your vase so you don't see any remaining pencil marks on the outside.

 Cut along your traced lines to create the scalloped edge.

 Roll the poster board up to create a cylinder and line up the scalloped top edges.  Secure with a staple.

 Secure with a staple at the top and bottom to create you tall cylinder vase.

 Along the edge, secure fully with the glue gun.

 I placed the tree branch in an old smaller vase and put some rocks in the bottom to keep it from tipping over.

 Then slipped it inside the tall cylinder vase....

It WORKS!

 And it cost less than $2
(see that blue castle? I can't believe it still exists!  I've had to glue it back together a couple times but it was one of my first projects on this blog Dec 2009...The Diamond Castle)

 I am planning to make some birds to put in the branches but I'm trying to think if there is anything I should add to the vase, perhaps some rossettes, fabric flowers, ric rac...??? ... hmm....I'll keep thinking and let you know if and when I get around to it...for now I'm happy with it the way it is and more importantly, my 4 year old was SO thrilled when she saw this in the corner of her room.  She thinks it's AMAZING!  sometimes it doesn't take much to please them does it?  And if she thinks this simple cheap vase is great, then I'm happy to have the money to put towards other projects! 

COME BACK JOIN SCRAPPY SATURDAYS LINKY TOMORROW!