Mint Madness

I’m obsessed with the color mint green. Like it. Love it. Gotta have it. (Cold Stone Creamery reference, anyone?) So, I have a whole can of mint green paint left from my DIY vintage nightstand, and I’ve been painting everything in sight. I thought I’d share a few of my most recent projects.

First off, I recently found this small wooden ladder from a garage sale for $2! ( If you wanted to imitate this DIY, I did a little searching and found a similar ladder on Ebay for $11.24.)

 I painted the ladder with my lovely mint paint and distressed it with sandpaper. My paint is Walmart interior flat Norwegian Vintage Green. I plan to lean this against the wall in my bathroom and hang washcloths & hand towels on it.

Secondly, I distressed an old wooden frame and added some mint accents. I simply sanded the edges and crevices of the frame, dusted it off, and painted accents of mint (I used the same paint used above but acrylic paint would work for this too). To achieve the distressed look, make sure there is NOT much paint on your paintbrush. I used a paper towel to dab up excess paint or rub areas where paint went on too thick!

Lastly, I painted a cheap vase from the Dollar Store using a method I saw on pinterest. All you do is drip some paint inside your vase, and tilt your vase around to cover the inside. To fill in all the holes, just set your vase upside down and leave it to drip and dry. I touched up a few places on the top of mine after it had dried. I imagine acrylic paint would work just as well or better than the paint I used. I love the subtle mint with some bright flowers.

And that sums up my dose of mint for the day! 

-A

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DIY Vintage Dresser

I’ve spent the past few days searching through just about every thrift store in Knoxville looking for an old dresser to re-do. Unfortunately, I just never found one that I loved. I knew I had a cheap Target dresser stored somewhere, but, being that it’s made out of cheap wood and particle wood, I thought there was no way I could re-do it. Well, it wasn’t until I ran out of thrift stores that I turned to my storage closet. I pulled the dresser out to see what I could possibly make of it. After some brainstorming and some suggestions, I came up with a plan. I was so pleasantly surprised with my end product that I had to share! The neat thing about this furniture tutorial is that you could probably find almost the exact dresser at Target or Walmart.

Materials Needed:

a dresser

enough slats of wood to cover the top of your dresser (mine took 7 pieces of 2.5x33” wood)

power saw

wood screws

drill

wood stain & a paint brush (my stain is Minwax Weathered Oak 270)

tape

knobs of your choice

medium grit and fine grit sandpaper

Measure the top of your dresser and determine how you need to cut your wood to fit it.

Mark your pieces of wood and cut them with your power saw.

It may seem like you could lay your pieces on your dresser in any order, but there is actually a little strategy to it. Try different pieces of wood in different places, and eventually they should sort of fit together. Mark tiny numbers on each piece so you know where they go.

Sand each piece of wood with medium grit sandpaper followed by fine grit sandpaper. Wipe down each piece of wood with a wet paper towel.

Starting at one end of your dresser, place your first piece of wood down. Firmly hold it in place and drill a small pilot hole in one side. Now, screw in a wood screw. Drill a hole in the other side and in the middle, and screw your wood screws in those holes too.  Follow this procedure for each piece of wood, making sure your screws are aligned. Some of my pieces of wood were warped, so I had someone push my piece of wood against the dresser as I screwed it in to prevent a bumpy surface.

After your pieces of wood are all attached, tape the dresser directly under your wood.

Paint a layer of stain on your wood and wait 15 minutes. Now, wipe your wood with a rag. Let your stain sit for 4-6 hours.

While your stain is drying, you can change out your knobs! I found mine at Home Depot for $1.20 each.

After your knobs are in, sand the corners and edges of your dresser. I did most of my distressing on my drawers, because they were the best quality wood, and thus, easiest to sand down.

After 4-6 hours have passed, you can decide whether you want to add another layer of stain or not. If so, just repeat the same process as earlier. (I did 3 layers of stain on mine.) 

Let all that stain dry, and there you are -- your vintage dresser is complete! It hardly looks like the same piece of furniture if you ask me. :)

-A

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DIY Crayon Canvas

I think the whole crayons-melting-vertically-down-your-canvas is really neat and all, but when I came across a different spin on the project, I knew I needed to go crayon hunting. Luckily, my mom has saved just about every single crayon we ever wrote with as children, so I had 2 bags full! This craft is so easy and I think it ends up turning out so neat! All you need is a hairdryer, a fork, a canvas, and some crayons!

Pick out your favorite colors of crayon, and take off paper wrapper. I probably only ended up using about 12 crayons.

Decide where you want your splash of color to be. Break off a piece of your first crayon. Stab your crayon piece with a metal fork and hold it over your selected area. Turn on your hairdryer directly above your crayon until the crayon melts and begins splattering. You can do as little or as much of this part as you’d like! Repeat with all your colors all over your canvas. Be careful about mixing certain colors that may yield brown!

You can even blow dry your splatters after you’ve taken your crayon away to spread the color out more.

And voila! Your own crayon explosion canvas!

-A


I linked up @ It's Just Called Spicy!

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Ooey Gooey Turtle Bars

It was about time for me to make a drool-worthy dessert- and what better time than the Bachelorette finale?! (Side note: Jef and Emily are SO cute!) These bars are the perfect mix of cookie and gooey turtle! I love how easy this recipe is; the crust is pre-made sugar cookie dough! You can also make tons of substitutions depending on what your sweet tooth is craving (peanut butter chips instead of chocolate chips, no nuts, different nuts, etc).

(adapted from an old Knoxville News Sentinel recipe)

Ingredients:

1 roll of refrigerated sugar cookies

1 ¼ cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 cups chopped pecans

½ cup butter

½ cup packed light brow sugar

1 jar (12.25 oz.) caramel ice cream topping (mine was Smucker’s brand)

1 cup of graham cracker crumbs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Press roll of cookie dough in the bottom of an ungreased 9x13” pan.

Sprinkle ¾ cup of chocolate chips and 1 cup of chopped pecans on top of the sugar cookie.

Lightly press into the dough. Set aside.

Melt butter on medium-high in a 2 qt. saucepan. 

Stir in graham crackers, brown sugar, and caramel topping. Heat to a boil.

Pour the mixture over the sugar cookie crust.

Sprinkle the remaining ½ cup of chocolate chips and 1 cup pecans on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. The recipe is meant to cool for about 3 hours to form a bar-like consistency, but I won’t lie… I love it straight out of the oven on top of ice cream! It’s a wonderfully delicious gooey mess! BUT, if you’re serving them as bars, let them sit on a cooling rack for about 30 minutes. Loosen the sides from the pan. Let them cool for another 3 hours, cut in squares, and serve! The recipe makes about 24 bars.

-A

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