Joe & Cheryl

Gold Spray Painting My Old Alarm Clock

cheryl — Thu, 30 May 2013 18:46:05 +0000

We have finally been getting around to decorating our master bedroom (the most neglected room in the apartment.) For the past two years, our mattress has been sitting on the floor. And with no night stands, my alarm clock and all bedside necessities have just been left on the floor next to the mattress. Not exactly the most inspiring situation. A few months ago, the bed frame I had been eying finally went on sale, and we had two night stands custom made. So much decorating excitement to be had! I’ll definitely be getting around to showing more of that progress soon, but for now, here’s just a little tidbit.

I’ve had this alarm clock since college… probably about 11 years. I put absolutely no thought into it when I bought it. It was just the cheapest radio alarm clock at the school store that day. Its ugly, and now that everything in the bedroom is coming together, it just did not fit in. But with money being tight right now, buying a new alarm clock just for the sake of looks seems really unnecessary. But spray paint can fix almost anything!

I’ve been obsessed with gold and black lately and I happened to have both types of spray paint in my closet, so those are the colors I went with. Gold spray paint tends to have a more rosy pinkish tint to it. If you want more of a yellow gold, I suggest going with the “brass” colored spray paint instead.

The important first step is to clean all surfaces thoroughly.

I decided to paint the buttons before painting the body, so I masked them off. In the photo you can see that I used washi tape. I don’t prefer this. Washi tape doesn’t stick as well as masking tape. It also doesn’t conform to a rounded surface as well ask masking tape either. But I was too excited about my project and didn’t want to wait till I got a chance to buy masking tape, so I used what I had on hand. Then I spray painted black.

Next I masked off the rest of the alarm clock when the buttons had fully dried. You should wait at least an hour, but I waited a few days for it to dry. And this time, I had real masking tape for the masking! I masked off every little button, dial, and even the power cord.

Other than the washi tape thing, I believe in doing things the right way and not taking short cuts. So when I do a painting project, I always prime my surface first. With spray painting, I don’t mind using a clear top coat too, so that’s what I used.

First I primed, using a big box as a spray booth. Remember, spray paint has a way of getting EVERYWHERE! Keep it contained.

I allowed that to dry for about an hour, made sure there were no dust particles stuck to it, then painted my first coat of gold. I found that the bundled up power cord made for a nice handle that allowed me to rotate the clock for spraying without messing up the painted areas.

After another hour, I lightly buffed away any unevenness or dust globs with an extremely fine sanding sponge and cleaned away the dust. I also slid over the little…what do you call it, setting slider?? so that gold paint could get under the other side during the second coat.

Then I sprayed the second coat of gold paint. After another hour, I sprayed a clear glossy top coat to give it a nice, shiny, smooth finish.

And here’s how it turned out! Joe says he thinks it looks retro. It does kind of remind me of something from Star Trek the original series. Maybe someday I’ll spurge and get one of those fancy iphone alarm clock docks, but for now, I’m very happy with this. Hopefully I’ll update with more bedroom progress soon!

Lets Make Things Clear: Leopard Prints vs. Cheetah Prints

cheryl — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:45:00 +0000

This is kind of random, but I never thought the day would come that I would actually voluntarily buy something with a leopard print on it. I’ve always found it to be super tacky. But these days I’m totally loving it! Especially when its printed on calf hair. Very chic! Here are a few great products that have been majorly tempting me lately.

1. Coat by Emerson Fry
2. Jcrew clutch
3. Madewell Ballet Flats
4. Alexander Wang Marion Bag

One thing that’s been driving me crazy as I’ve been shopping around – designers never seem to know the difference between a leopard and cheetah. They almost always use these names interchangeably when naming their prints! As a print designer AND as an animal lover, this drives me absolutely nuts! Let’s clear things up a bit, shall we? The following photos and descriptions will hopefully give you a better idea of which is which (along with a couple other wild cats that I’ve seen in prints, but are never acknowledged!)

First, the cheetah. I’m definitely a cat lady, and cheetahs happen to be my favorite big cat. Their spots are solid black dots, evenly spaced. The Emerson Fry coat pictured above is a great example of a cheetah print! Although, I do think they took some liberties and made the ground color more white.

Leopards, on the other hand, have more complex spots. They tend to look like a black doughnut, horseshoe, or ring of dots. There is usually a brown spot in the center of the black ring. This pattern is probably the most common type of spotted cat used in prints for clothing and accessories. The Madewell shoes in the photo above are a great example of leopard!

I don’t think I’ve even seen a designer name their print after the jaguar, but I have definitely seen this animal used on prints before. Jaguar spots are very similar to leopard spots, but they tend to have a larger, more open ring of black spots. The brown spot in the middle is much larger than that of a leopard and contains a few smaller black spots in the middle. Its sort of like a more complex leopard spot. Above, the Alexander Wang bag just might be a jaguar print!

And finally, another neglected spotted cat is the ocelot. I’m sure designers shy away from using this name since it is much less well known to the general public. Ocelots also have spots that are similar to leopards and jaguars, but theirs are much more elongated. They almost look like they are stretched out, or warped. Like conjoined leopard spots, or some sort of spot/stripe hybrid. Anyway, These are beautiful cats and I’m pretty sure that the Jcrew bag above features an ocelot print.

Well, hopefully this was educational. I recently named one of my prints at work, “jaguar.” Hopefully it makes it into stores with that name intact!

Alexis’s First Birthday

cheryl — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:05:43 +0000

You may remember my post about Judy’s baby shower last year. Well, she and I teamed up again for her baby daughter’s first birthday!!

This time we decided to go for a confetti theme. It was such a fun theme because you can involve so many colors and just polka dot everything! I even tried to create a confetti effect with the flower arrangements by using flowers of several bright colors. The little yellow mums even had the circular shape of confetti!

Anyway, I think the photos speak for themselves, so enjoy!!

Its her 1.1st birthday since we celebrated about a month late!

We made these marshmallows from scratch. The white ones are almond flavored, and the pink ones are orange blossom flavored!

Signature mocktail! You'll have to ask Judy if you want to know what's in it, but cut up fruit echo the confetti theme =)

Happy mommy and baby!

Decorating Our Foyer

cheryl — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:27:22 +0000

Lately Joe and I have been on a little bit of a decorating kick. While I’m the one who generally initiates most of the projects around the apartment, this time it was Joe who pushed to make the front door hallway more functional. I think it’s part of the OCD neat freak side of his personality, rather than any sort of desire for beauty. First we got this west elm rug in an effort to track in less dirt in from our shoes. Then we got the salvaged wood bench (from etsy) for two practical reasons – for the putting on and off of shoes, and to visually make the whole shoe area look a little neater and fenced in.

These two additions worked out great for a little while. But we constantly found ourselves putting our bags, and mail, and other junk on the bench, rendering it unusable for sitting upon. This drove Joe crazy and he started pushing me to install a shelf and hooks. At first I wanted to keep things simple and just get a floating shelf, but Joe did not trust that it would hold much weight without brackets. So then I dragged my feet for a long time while I looked for brackets I liked. I’m so picky, I just couldn’t find anything that fit the image I had in my head. Finally Joe found out about custommade.com. We had SUCH a positive experience with this site. Basically, you put up your project idea and set your price, then different artisans that are connected with the site can submit proposals to you. You pick the one you like most, and in a few short weeks, you have exactly what you want! We went with a metal worker in Maryland called Moonlight Forge. I have nothing but good things to say about the experience. The brackets we ended up with may not seem like anything special to you, but they are EXACTLY what I wanted and that’s what matters.

Anyway, we went to Home Depot to buy a piece of wood to go with the brackets, and I stained and finished it myself. I bought pine because I was feeling cheap, but I don’t recommend this to anyone else. I’m happy with how it turned out, but Pine takes stain really strangely. It tends to go on too darkly, unevenly, and unpredictably. For example, I used the same stain on the shelf as for the bench (which we bought unfinished) and on our hardwood floors. All three types of wood turned out completely different from each other. But while the floor and bench (which are both hardwood) remained more dark brownish, the pine shelf stained an uneven black black black-ish…greenish?? No biggie though, luckily I like how it looks. But if you want to do something like this for yourself, avoid pine and get some sort of hardwood.

Here are some pics from my process. A while back I posted about finishing an Ikea table using Minwax Polyshades stain and polyurethane in one. I still like this product for quick, cheap projects; but since then, I’ve preferred using stain and sealer separately. I find that it gives you a little more control. Just my personal preference.

1. raw wood, 2. stain applied, 3. sealer half applied

Once my shelf and brackets were all ready, we spent quite a bit of time one Saturday installing everything. Since we wanted this shelf to be able to handle substantial weight, we needed to make sure the brackets were firmly sintalled into the studs in the wall. So we found two studs using a handy dandy stud finder, marked their locations, and measured the distance between them.

Then I positioned the brackets onto the shelf, centering them according to the distance between the studs. I also used a flat piece of wood as a guide in positioning them so that they would sit against the wall properly.

As much as I don’t recommend pine, the great thing about it is that it is SO soft, that you don’t even need to pre-drill any holes. You can just screw right in with your wood screws.

Now for the next step, it helps to have two people. Joe held the bracket/shelf combo up to the wall, while I lined everything up properly and used a level to make sure it was level. Then I used a pencil to mark the screw holes on the wall.

Finally we drilled holes, inserted plastic drywall anchors, and screwed in the screws. Similar steps were applied to the hooks, minus the stud finding. One thing we had to be careful about was not drilling into any of the wiring in the fuse box which is on the same wall. It took a bit of strategic positioning to make sure everything was centered, lined up with the studs, but also NOT lined up with the fuse box.

Oh yeah, in case you are wondering where we got the cast iron hooks, I actually bought them from Anthopologie about four years ago and never used them. They are no longer available, but you can find the same ones in brass here, or similar ones in cast iron here!

So here are more pics of the finished update. Nothing dramatic, but I love how it turned out. Unfortunately, I kind of hate our call box and the fact that it was installed crookedly. I also don’t like that the fuse box doors are so ugly, but what can you do. Maybe someday I can find a way to creatively cover them up in a way that is still functional?

Hand Made Wet Felted Puppets

cheryl — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:27:07 +0000

Wow, it has been quite a while since I’ve updated the blog. Summer is always just so packed full of activity and travel. On top of that, my responsibilities at work have nearly doubled causing me to feel a lot more swamped and tired out by the end of the day. Hopefully, now that its fall and my schedule is less packed, I’ll be able to post more often (although maybe not quite once a week like I had tried to in the past).

So this past weekend, my church held it’s annual “Harvest Fest” – a Halloween celebration for the children, full of fun and games. My group was in charge of putting on a puppet show, so I eagerly volunteered to make the puppets (much to my husband’s chagrin – my projects always create a HUGE mess!) Here’s the final result!

For these puppets, I decided to try “wet felting” for the first time ever. Wet felting (from what I’ve read) is one of the oldest forms of textile making. I decided that wet felting to a mold – a similar process that hat makers use – would be the best way to make a clean, seamless puppet while giving lots of character. After my past needle felting experiences, I figured, how hard could it be? Actually, its significantly more difficult than needle felting. haha.

SUPPLIES

1. 1 lb wool roving (this was enough for two puppets. Finer seems to work better)
2. Assorted packs of multicolor wool roving
3. Felting Needles
4. Felting Foam
5. Soap (for felting – I used laundry detergent because that’s what I had lying around, but I’ve seen tutorials that use olive oil soap bars)
6. Hot water
7. A small bowl
8. Styrofoam Balls cut in two pieces
9. Aluminum foil
10. Saran wrap
11. A mesh laundry bag
12. Needle and thread
13. Any type of woven fabric
14. Polyester stuffing or fiber fill
15. Clear packing tape
16. Mat board or something flat, stiff and cuttable
17. Other optional extras like buttons for eyes, ribbons, etc.

The first step is to create a mold from the styrofoam ball(s). I used a bread knife to saw it into two pieces. The two pieces are about 70% and 30% of the whole. 70% for the upper part of the head, and 30% for the lower “jaw.”

Next I used aluminum foil to sculpt a snout and add shape to the “skull.”

When I was happy with the shape, I tightly wrapped up both halves separately with saran wrap and secured it with clear packing tape. Then attached the upper half to the lower half with the packing tape, but only in the back so that you can still open and shut the “mouth.”

Now that the molds are done, we can move on to the felting. Normally if you are wet felting a flat sheet, needle felting is not necessary, but since I was felting to a 3D mold, I had to first roughly needle felt a hollow shape. I started with a diamond shape for the “mouth” that would fold in half to create movable jaws. You can follow my needle felting tips from this old post.

Then I added on extra white roving to create the top part of the head and the lower jaw.

An important thing to keep in mind is criss crossing your strands of roving (as pictured below). It will add strength to the felting by kind of weaving the fibers together. Strands should go in all directions (0 degrees, 90 degrees, 45 degrees, etc.)

Just as I did, you’ll also want to needle felt and attach any “protrusions” you might have and would prefer not to sew on later – such as ears.

I slowly added to and built up the head. Keep in mind the size and rough shape of the mold, and remember that everything will shrink about 20%. It doesn’t have to be perfect though, wet felting it to the mold will refine the shape a little closer to perfection. As you can see, my head looks a little deformed at this point. Its just big enough for the mold to loosely fit inside.

On to the “wet” part of wet felting… I think this is best done in a sink where you’ll have some sort of drainage. I filled a small bowl with water as hot as I could bear skin contact with. I also mixed in a small amount of soap – probably one or two teaspoons?

I stuffed my mold inside my hollow-needle-felted head and placed the whole thing in the sink. I then slowly scooped small amounts of the hot water mixture onto it. I did this until it was fully saturated, but not dripping soaking wet either. It may seem strange, but the soap actually acts like a glue that holds everything together. On my first attempt I hastily neglected to add soap and all of my wool just melted off the mold in an oozing mass. Soap is very important!

Now I gently massaged every part of it to encourage it to take its shape and add to the “tangling” effect. Make sure to shift features like ears and nose to their appropriate locations as they will be sliding around a bit. You’ll already notice that the wool is slightly shrinking. In the photos below, you’ll see that I created a little fold of excess felt at the corners of the mouth. You don’t have to do this and I did not do this for the second puppet I made. I added this detail for the fox character to create a furry fringe which you’ll see later.

After about 10-15 minutes of molding and sculpting, I folded the ears down and tightly tied a mesh laundry bag around it. The snout tends to fit nicely into the corner of the bag. Make sure you tie it tightly enough that it starts to wring out the water. You can even use a little hot water to rinse off the excess soap since the mesh will hold everything in place, which is what I did.

At this point I just left it in the tub over night to dry, but it doesn’t hurt to help it along with a hot blow dryer. In fact, it can only help with the felting/shrinking process.

When it was totally dry, I removed it from the laundry bag. In the picture below, you can see just how much the wool has shrunk by the empty pocket of the laundry bag by the nose.

I then removed the mold from the felt exterior.

I trimmed off the excess ragged felt from the neck and went back and needle felted in extra details. For the fox, I trimmed that fold at the corner of the mouth into a spiky fur fringe shape and needled it into a smoother shape. I also stitched it with needle and thread so that it would hold together better. I also needled in little eye lashes and sewed on buttons for the eyes. For the boxer pup puppet, I needled on a black nose and sewed on a pink tongue.

Next I cut out pieces of mat board to sew into the top and bottom parts of the mouth to create stiffness. Bookmaking cardboard or some sort of plastic might have been even better and stiffer, but this is what I had around.

The head will eventually be stuffed with stuffing, but you’ll need to stick your hand in there somehow to operate the puppet. So I made a duck-billed mitten sort of thing to sew into the head using whatever fabric I had lying around. Make sure the glove opening is the same circumference as the opening of the head. I attached the finger part of the glove to the cardboard of the mouth. Then sewed the glove opening to the opening of the head, leaving a small hole for the stuffing to go into.

Once the glove was sewn in, I filled the head with stuffing and closed up the stuffing hole. You’ll notice that the stuffing will push the head evenly outward, creating a stupid bulbous look. You can correct this by sewing behind the eyes and anchoring the string to the back of the head and anchoring both eyes together. The tension will pull the eyes inward creating an eye socket look. Before and after pics are below:

Now for the body. I used the same wet felting techniques that I used for the head and create two long-skinny cylinders for the arms, and one large cylinder for the body. I stuffed the arms and trimmed the body. Then I attached all three parts to the head.

I kind of hated the look of this seam at the neck, so I gave the fox a scarf and the boxer pup a neck tie (Joe tied a fabulous double windsor knot for me). I also added a grosgrain bow for the girl. Then finally, I painted a dowel rod black and attached it to the left arm to make the arm movable too!

I’m pretty happy with the final results considering it was my first time ever trying this technique. In the future, I hope I can learn how to make it less fluffy/spongy but more dense/stiff like a brimmed wool hat. But ultimately, the important thing is that the kids absolutely loved them!

It’s Wedding Season – Time to Sew Another Dress

cheryl — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 19:42:01 +0000

It has been my goal to update the blog once a week. Unfortunately, a combination of changes at work, vacations, and the general busyness of the summer has kept me from blogging for over a month now! So I have a lot a catching up to do – please bear with me.

Back in May, wedding season started for us, and I wasn’t really crazy about any of the more affordable dresses out there on the market. So of course, I decided to make myself a little something to wear to weddings this summer.

I’ve been loving the open back, cut out look so that’s what I did. It’s not perfect though. I’m thinking of dying it a brighter mint color, and I’ll probably cut out the tulle ruffle for the next wedding I attend (to make it more minimal). I think the skirt could have been slightly less full too. But over all, it’s a perfectly cute dress!

Here’s a quick summary of my process.

I didn’t have any draping tape so I just outlined my shape by pinning whatever ribbon I had lying around.

Next I created a pattern using muslin. 3/8 inch seam allowance.

Then I cut my fabric.

For the bodice, I wanted a very stiff, crisp, tailored look so I backed all of my fabric with a heavy fusible interfacing.

Now I sewed the bodice and the bodice lining separately.

Then I sewed both pieces together for a nice clean edge.

But I was dumb. I didn’t properly measure the straps and made them too short. I had to sew in an extra ugly little segment. Like they say, measure twice, cut (and sew) once. Oops!

Here’s the back. It closes with a hook and eye closure, but at this point I’ve only sewn in the eyes (and just the top hook). I wanted the attachment loops hidden into the seam. I also tacked padded bra cups into the lining of the bust. You’ll get a glimpse of them in a later picture.

At this point the bodice is done, so I attached the skirt which is basically just a rectangle that is shirred at the top (no interfacing on this part).

Next I created the lining for the skirt with a nice full tulle ruffle.

Now for the finishing touches. The zipper can be added since the lining is in. Notice the bra cups behind the lining of the pic below.

And finally I sewed in the last hooks and eyes

And here’s the finished dress again. I’ll try to post pics after I dye it and cut out the tulle.

watch – bracelet – ring – bag – necklace – hair pin

Brimfield Followup

cheryl — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 17:44:35 +0000

As promised, here are some photos of the items I bought at the Brimfield Antique Show. Like I said before, I didn’t buy much, and I only bought small items, so this might not be that exciting.

One of my favorite purchases were these petrified wood book ends. They sell something very similar at Anthropologie right now, but I got mine for a fraction of the cost!

I also got this beautiful Turkish onyx jar. I love the wood-like ringlets. Its also slightly translucent, so if you were to put a candle in it, the whole jar would glow!

Its currently sitting on my entryway console table, but I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it there….

I also bought this fun piece of coral, but I don’t know where to put it. Right now its sitting on a shelf with my figurines and anime toys, but hopefully I’ll find a better home for it at some point.

I mentioned in my last post about the Indian textile printing blocks I saw… I bought three in different sizes, but didn’t photograph them because I haven’t decided what on earth to do with them yet.

And finally, I also bought this cool mounted deer skull. I got it from this little German shop, and its also one of my favorite things from the weekend. I plan on putting a wall shelf above the bed in the master bedroom, kind of like a mantle for displaying framed art of various sizes. Most likely the antlers/skull will be displayed there too. But I’ve also toyed around the idea of hanging it below the wall clock in the living room. We shall see. for now its sitting on the floor of my bedroom with all the art that will eventually be on the wall too.

Judy bought much more exciting things than I did, like an amazing mid century arm chair, and beautiful antique jewelry. I’m still kicking myself for not getting this one antique ring I saw. Oh well, I definitely plan to go back, so maybe next time!!

The Brimfield Antique Show

cheryl — Wed, 16 May 2012 23:01:27 +0000

Photo courtesy of Judy To =)

This past weekend I traveled to Massachusetts to experience the Brimfield Antique Show. And let me just tell you, it really was an experience. I didn’t actually buy that much, but I kind of felt like I was in some sort of time machine developing a deeper understanding of eras long past. With my friend Judy as my antiquing companion, we swam through vast fields of furniture, products, and knick knacks in search of treasure. I kind of wished I had taken this trip a year ago when we first moved into our apartment and still had no furniture. Many of the items that I fell in love with, we already owned or did not have room for. It also made me wish I had a bigger apartment. I reluctantly walked away from many amazing finds, but here are some of my favorite things I saw and some of the Brimfield tips I learned along the way:

The show is basically vast fields littered with tents of various sizes that the vendors use to display their goods. Not every vendor is there every day, so if you can find out when their last day is, you can sometimes come back and they’ll have lowered their prices. Many tents we visited became somewhat desperate to get rid of everything when they knew they’d have to pack everything up soon. Most are also willing to bargain somewhat.

One thing I learned is that this event has become very commercialized. There are a lot of fashion brands and major companies that shop here for unique items to fill their showrooms or retail spaces. Unfortunately, they buy up a lot of the good stuff, and they are willing to spend a pretty penny on it. That drives up the prices for regular people like me.

Judy and I found that there were some larger tents that, as soon as you walked in, you immediately knew that the prices would be higher than what would be comfortable. These tents were usually arranged like a retail space, perfectly styled and coordinated. They were clearly catering towards those who might be here on business, not as interested in digging and searching, with company funding to back their purchases. Some of the most beautiful items were found in spaces like these, but we could only look since they were always out of our price range. We ended up finding the best deals at the smaller tents with a more random assortment of items.

Beautiful leather chairs on display in one of the larger tents. Much too expensive for me.

These mounted antlers were also being sold at a high price at one of the larger tents. I found the exact same antlers in one of the tiny tents for much less. Sometimes it pays off to shop around because different shops will carry the same items.

Pictured below is the item that I walked away from most regretfully.

I already have a dresser set in our bedroom that I love – and we simply don’t have the space to squeeze in a piece of furniture this large into any other room. But this had to be one of the most beautiful dressers I’ve ever seen, and the vendors were only charging $170 for it!! Amazing! It was really solidly built and just look at that beautiful hardware. The only problem is that it had a little mold growing on the bottom, but I’m sure that’s easily fixable.

The drawer pulls! The keyholes!

These dishes were fun to see. My mom had a set just like it when I was a kid.

Hartford Denim Company was also set up at a fun little shop I came across. They had a guy set up at one of the antique sewing tables making raw denim garments. I know my buddy Andrew at 3sixteen would have appreciated it. And with my love of sewing, it was also really fun to see one of the antique machines in working condition and in action.

Also related to my fashion/sewing/textile print background, there was an amazing shop (and a few others too) selling a huge variety of Indian textiles and rugs.

My favorite thing at this tent were these wooden batik printing blocks. As a textile print designer, I thought these would make the perfect decorative addition to my home. I bought a set of three =)

And here are a bunch more things we saw!

Tons of Eames chairs!

Authentic Thonet bentwood chairs.

Child sized vintage glasses. We also saw a lot of vintage jewelry and accessories.

Vintage suitcases and trunks. This was also very tempting, but again, no space in my home.

Cool gramophone!

Very Mad Hatter-esque floor lamps

More beautiful furniture I couldn't afford

Preserved bugs and creatures

Antique theater seats

Antique hand powered hair buzzer/trimmer

I love this settee. I will have one in my future larger home.

Pretty mirrors

Another thing I’ll say is that I’m glad we came to the May show, and not the one in July. It was hot and my scalp got a little sun burned. You spend a lot of time walking for miles scouring each tent. It was exhausting, but would have been worse in the summer. If you go, definitely wear good shoes.

Also, come early and leave early each day. Traffic is crazy and you’ll beat the rush that way. Parking will be easier earlier too.

In my next post I’ll write about the actual items I ended up taking home with me and where they ended up in my home. It was such a fun experience and I’d love to come back again in the future (especially if we ever get a bigger place maybe 5-10 years from now).

Happy Mother’s Day!

cheryl — Sun, 13 May 2012 10:00:10 +0000

I’m not able to go home for Mother’s Day this year, but in honor of my mom, I bought her favorite – Peonies! (they are in season now, you know).

And of course I didn’t just buy flowers for myeslf… I had flowers sent to her too. Happy Mother’s Day Ma!

DIY Painted Ballet Flat Knock Offs

cheryl — Thu, 10 May 2012 19:01:12 +0000

Last month when I went to visit my sister in Georgetown, we made a stop at the Rag and Bone location there. I’m always sad when I go into that store because everything is so beautiful, but ridiculously expensive. This trip I totally fell in love with these canvas ballet flats!

Hanalei Ballet Flats by Rag and Bone - photo taken on my iphone =)

Hanalei Ballet Flats by Rag and Bone - photo from shopbop.com

They cost a whopping $295. I wouldn’t even spend that much on leather dress shoes, let alone canvas flats. That’s when my DIY gears got turning. I found these Kenneth Cole linen flats for only $56.05 and decided to paint that stripe on myself!

Here’s what you’ll need to do this project:

- Any pair of reasonably priced canvas or fabric ballet flats (like the Kenneth Cole ones above!)
- Masking tape
- Paint (I used Jacquard brand Fluorescent Textile color, but you can also use acrylic paint or puffy paint)
- A paint brush
- Water, for thinning out the paint

Start by masking off the area you’d like to paint.

Next mix your paint color. I mixed fluorescent yellow and pink to make a nice hot orange color. Then I thinned it out significantly with water.

The reason you want it thin is so that it paints on with transparency. To get that rich painterly look that the original Rag and Bone shoes have, you’ll want to paint several, thin, uneven layers.

After your first thin layer, wait for it to dry. Then you can increase the thickness of your paint for the second layer. Two or three layers should do it. Remember, you still want to be able to see the texture of the fabric under the paint. Don’t go too opaque.

Once you are happy with the look of your paint, allow it to fully dry, then remove the masking tape. Now you’re all done!! Easy peasy. They are not quite as sophisticated as the original (I wish it could have the leather trim and wooden heel), but it totally achieves the same look! In total, I spent $62.63 on this project. I feel like I could have found even cheaper canvas shoes, but overall, its way better than $295.