The year-long project. Oi!

I finally finished it.

I love it.

But for many a sundry reason, it took me a year from start to finish.  Here it is:

Yes, thank you, I know the door is a little crooked--just waiting on my awesome dad to come over and help me fix it.  Other than that, isn't it fun?  

Here's the before:

Yowza.

Let me just say:  stripping is SO not my thing!  

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Get your mind out of the gutter.  I meant THIS kind of stripping:

That process only took about three weeks!  Sheesh.  And then I sanded.  Messy!  

The drawer guides all needed to be replaced, and as I am NOT a carpenter (that would be so cool, though!), I enlisted my wonderful father.  He's awesome.  He spoils me.

Then I moved the whole thing into my living room to paint it.  Fewer bugs were likely to land in the wet paint since I could mostly only paint at night after work.

This was before I had my new floors, so I wasn't totally concerned with keeping the paint/primer off of the floor.  Ha!

I didn't get any pictures of the paper process, but I just Mod Podged the wrapping paper to the front of the drawers and the door.  I also painted the inside of the cabinet and the drawers, and I lined the shelf and drawer bottoms with black and white wrapping paper.  I Mod Podged the shelf, but just stuck the paper in the drawers with double stick tape.  I didn't really feel the need to go through the extra trouble with the inside of the drawers.  I probably could have gotten away with that on the shelf, too.  I love that black and white paper, though!  It makes me want to leave the drawers and door open!  

I do believe that my favorite thing about this whole piece is the knobs!  I heart them!

I sealed all the paint, etc, and put it all together.  It's in my living room, and it's the best looking piece in there.  I need to get busy with the rest of the room!

My latest project-FINISHED!!!

So, I've been working on this project lately.  A lot.  For a VERY long time.  It's been a big learning process, I've spent too much money, and it was all so worth it!  Check it out!

How CUTE is that!?!  I had so much fun with it!  Here's what I did:

I started by decoupaging a different coordinating paper to each drawer.  It took two pieces of scrapbook paper to cover the drawers, and since I was planning on using ribbon to cover the seams anyway, I just left gap in the middle where the knobs go.

I used these adorable pink glass knobs from Hobby Lobby, and I wanted them to really stand out, so I decoupaged ribbon over gap in the paper.  It's hard to tell in the picture, but the ribbon is a dark brown color with blue thread running down each side.  The little bit of blue in the ribbon pulls the drawers together a little bit more since none of these papers have blue in them.  The ribbon serves many purposes, and it's cute!

Then I put on my ripped up, faded, old jeans and started sanding. 

I sanded, and sanded, and sanded.  (My first project like this-didn't know how much or how little I needed to sand.  So I just sanded until I felt like being done with the thing.)  Thanks for that sander, Dad!

I painted the door blue, and then distressed and aged (?) it with wood stain.  You can see the difference in color where I didn't cover the middle with stain.  I love how the colors turned out!

Once I finished with the painted part of the door, I decoupaged a final piece of coordinating scrapbook paper to the front of the door, and decoupaged a wider version of the same ribbon I used on the drawers to frame the paper.  I only had two pieces of each paper, and it would have taken at least four to cover the door like I did the drawers.  So I improvised.  This paper is where the blue comes in.  I used wood putty to fill in the hole where the original knob was, and sweetly asked my dear dad to drill a new hole for me in the top right corner where the ribbon crossed.

At this point, my puppy was feeling pretty neglected.  He kept trying to entice me to come play with him.  So I did.  How could you say no to this face?

Cute, huh?

Then I painted the cabinet 4 different colors to match the colors in the paper.  I painted the sides pink, the top green, the front (behind the drawers and door) tan, and the trim blue (the same color as the door). When I got to the piece of trim at the bottom of the cabinet, Bently (the dog) decided he just couldn't resist the temptation any more.  He came up the freshly painted piece and THUNK-he nose was blue.  He had blue paint on his face for a while.

I distressed and stained it the same way I did the door.  I don't recommend doing this in your living room.  It stinks.  And I got stain on my favorite pair of socks.  I didn't have much choice, though, since I'd rather do this in my living room and fight off the dog and cats than do this out in the dark garage and fight off of mosquitoes and other bugs.

Finally, I sealed it all, added the knobs, and reassembled the whole sha-bang.  LOVE IT!!!  It's going in my craft room which is decorated in these colors.  Once I get the whole room done, I'll put pictures up of that, too!

I will try to get a better picture later today.  Try.

What do you think?

Addendum: I learned everything I know from my mom.  And no, I didn't put this on here just because she guilted me into it.  It's true.