Jewelry Box Face Lift: Inspired To Do It My Way

My entertainment center was delivered on time yesterday! Yeah!  If you remember, I was going to work on a few mini projects while I waited. My furniture was the first delivery,which is like hitting the lottery.  I am never the first deliver or appointment for anything!  But my good fortune didn't mean that I didn't have enough time to get a few mini projects completed.  Today, I would like to show you one of the projects that I tackled.  On Monday in my blog post Thrifting, Trash Picking and Mini Project Plans,  I showed you this mini storage box. 

This little two drawer piece is about the size of a jewelry box.  In fact, I believe the light grey plush interior pretty much indicates that was its intended use.  However, what the heck is that blue galactic scene?  Does that make you want to store your jewelry inside?  Not me.  I picked this up for a few bucks thinking that it would be something that I could work on while waiting for my entertainment cabinet to be delivered. 

I almost painted it black then white, distressed it and added a few large black numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4.  I even considered making a piece to attach to the back, like a mirror attaches to a dresser.  I was going to make it out of paint sticks and chicken wire.  I have been seeing a lot of things done in this fashion all over the blogs.  Painted numbers is all the rage.

Why didn't I do that?? Something happened yesterday morning.  I read a post by Deneen at Dreaming in Color called  Bird Wall Art.  She made this completely cool bird sconce knowing that it was different and risking that it might not be received well around the blogs. I absolutely love her sconce and her tenacity inspired me to stick with what suits me.  I decided not to make it something that I thought might fit in better out in blog-land. The farmhouse white with black numbers are charming, but my personal vision for this jewelry box was different.   If Deneen could do that, why not me?!  Right?!  So with my personal preferences intact, I set out to give this little jewelry box a face lift.  Ultimately, my new jewelry box isn't as super cool as her sconce, but hey, it's something.

I decided to use some of my favorite papers and got right to work.  First, I filled in a trench between the two knobs on each drawer with my MinWax Wood Filler.  The trenches were there to create the allusion of four drawers.  There are two drawers.   I need these to be filled in for the paper to lay flush with the surface of the drawers.

Yep...this is the top of my washing machine!  I was
so impatient to get started, I didn't set up a work
space conducive to pretty blog images.

I removed the little wooden button knobs, which wasn't easy.  Those little knobs were hanging on for life!  Once I got them off, I found exposed pointy screw ends that couldn't be removed.  I knew that whatever replaced these wooden balls would have to accommodate that spike.  I then measured and precision cut the pieces for the top, sides and fronts of drawers.  I used Modge Podge and my smoothing tool to press the paper down firmly making sure the edges were tightly secured.

I stopped everything to pick up kids at school, but first ran into my local AC Moore and picked up this string of beads matching them up to the paper.  I wanted to make new knobs with these but knew that the screw head on the drawer was not going to get covered.  I thought about my daughter's beading supplies and hope that she would have something that would work.

When we returned home, I got her beads out and examined her inventory.  I found a few of those crafty beads that all the kids use at camps to create simple bracelets and such.  Perfect!  They would work wonderfully and appear as shaft-like pieces for my new knobs.  I tried Aleen's Craft Glue first, but didn't get a good enough bond.....so out came the glue gun.  I might still remove them and use Gorilla Glue at another time. This will do for now.

I then added the specialty beads to those beads to form the pull and covered the bead hole with a tiny amber crystal.  I love how they draw the details from the papers and add a little glitz with the metallic gold swirls.

Now for the final results....



Top



 Now for the Before and After shots.....

-Before-

-After-

What an improvement.  I am super please with this mini project results.  I hope you enjoyed seeing it as well.  I worked on a few other projects along side this one and I will show them later this week.  I did get a phone call from my painter, Ravi. He will be arriving soon to get started on painting the master bedroom and bath.  I am so excited.  Yeah! 

-The End-
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