Military crate into sofa table

Military runs through my roots on both sides of my family. My mother served in Wisconsin National Guard and the Reserves and I myself served in the United States Army. I have several uncles, cousins, great grandparents, and friends who have served as well. Last summer I was out antique shopping, which is a favorite past time for me, my mom, and my daughter to spend time together. We went into the little western antique store here in my little mountain town, and in the back room sat this dusty old Howitzer artillery crate. I saw it and had to have it. There was literally no leaving until I had that box! I didn't quite have a plan for this old guy yet, but I knew I'd find something special for it. 

I and my husband are brand new home owners and we haven't quite acquired a whole lot of furniture yet. I decided that this old crate, that was collecting more dust in the corner of my entryway, was going to become a beautiful display piece. I decided it would become a sofa table. 
Hubs and I had a few things to pick up at Home Depot, our usual DIY hub, so while I was there I picked up 4 screw on table legs and 4 plates for the legs to screw into. 

I started off by cleaning up the old crate. I vacuumed out the cobwebs from the inside and swept off the dust from the outside. And since I really like the character and the patina look to the wood, I left the box untouched. For the legs, I actually distressed them a bit by adding dents and scratches to the wood. I then added a coat of Minwax Weathered Oak stain to each leg. The color came out looking like a grey old wood, which matched my crate perfectly!

While the stain was drying, I went ahead and flipped the crate over and screwed the four plates onto the bottom corners. I left about 1/2 inch between the edges and the plates. 

Once the legs were almost completely dry, I wiped off the access stain. I then secured the legs to the bottom and that was it! 

I actually think it turned out amazingly! 

Just a little history on the box: it is a Howitzer artillery shell crate. This particular crate is from the Vietnam War. It held 2, 105 mm cartridges. The closure clasp is the original and it is very rusted, so I think it will stay closed. The date printed on the crate is September 1966.  

Wisconsin Tribute

As most of my followers know I'm a Wisconsin native. I was born and raised in south central Wisconsin on a small farm, in a small farming community. We had raised everything from chickens, ducks, and turkey's to beef steers, rabbits, and horses. While growing up I was active in 4-H and FFA, and even spent my sophomore year in high school serving as the Green County Dairy Princess. But with all that comes my love for my state, and you can't be a true Wisconsinite if you don't have love for the Milwaukee Brewers, the Green Bay Packers, and the Wisconsin Badgers. Well needless to say, I'm a die hard Wisconsin Badgers fan through and through!!! So, I found the perfect way to pay tribute to my favorite team that's 20 hours away.

While my husband, daughter, and I were shopping at Home Depot (of course right? Where else) we came across the a shelf of stone pavers that fit together for patios, or sidewalks, or what have you. Well, my husband noticed that one particular set of stones were in the shape of Wisconsin.

As you can see it looks just like Wisconsin, with the exception of the missing Door County thumb! So, I got the instant idea to take it home and paint it and use it as a decoration in my garden!

I kept things fairly easy and inexpensive as well. I went to Michael's and bought a small can of Krylon in black, a set of nice camel hair craft brushes by Artist's Loft, and some gloss enamel in white and red by Americana. 

I started things off as anyone would normally expect, I spray painted the entire paver black.

I sprayed it probably a total of 3x to get a nice black color.

I then free-handed the "W" onto the stone with the white enamel.

and filled it in with the white enamel also. (horrible picture. Sorry)

After waiting for the white to dry, I then free-handed the shadow look around the "W" with the red enamel. 

I think it turned out really nice and is a great tribute to my favorite team in my front flower garden. If I could change anything, I would have probably painted the whole paver Red, kept the "W" white, but did the shadow in black. All in all though it was a extremely easy and it was all under $20!

Gutter Shelves

So I was talking to a good friend of mine back in Wisconsin awhile ago, and he was telling me about these shelves that he had built for his son's books. He said they were super easy and inexpensive. All he used was rain gutters! WHA?! Well I actually ran across a pinterest post on the rain gutter shelves. My daughter is 2, so even though they are plastic and kind of flimsy, they work for her for now. They actually have been up on her wall for awhile now and I honestly am not sure if it was the greatest idea. They serve their purpose for now until daddy and mommy can come up with wood to make some real shelves. We use them to hold books that our little peanut can't quite look at on her own. She has a fascination with ripping the bindings off of her books and also ripping the pages out. They are perfect for a few books but not as many as this little girl acquires. Every time we go to the store she gets a new book.... That's a lot of books!!! ANYWAYS! I bought all of my rain gutter pieces from Home Depot (go figure). I threw a fun twist into her gutters though by painting them silver and adding silver glitter spray paint on top. 

I bought 2 center junctions, 4 corner caps, and 2 gutters which my husband had to take the skill saw and cut each in half. 

I then assembled the pieces together and glued the junction pieces and caps with PVC glue that my handy husband already had on hand. 

I painted each with silver Rust-oleum spray paint for plastic. Once they were dry, I sprayed the outside with silver glitter spray which I actually picked up from Michael's for another project. 

I had to let these guys sit in my garage for a night to dry out completely and to get that spray paint smell completely off of them. Don't need my little girl breathing in spray paint fumes! 

The next day my husband and I hung them in my daughter room with regular self tapping screws. We also used our handy little stud finder/leveler. After they were up and secured tightly, we put her books on, and I even hung a nice pair of decorative lights on the bottom and called it good! 

Color meshing

We moved into our brand new house in April 2013. It's a beautiful home, on the hill in a subdivision, facing the Sleeping Giant Mountain Range. It's all neutral colors on the outside, a tan colored siding with greenish/brown trim and a red/brown door. Very earthy in other words. Well, up until about 2 months ago, the house was absolutely nothing but painters flat white. Every single room was just white! I'm sure the builders intentions were to keep the house a solid white, so when the home owner moved in they could choose their colors. Well needless to say, after living in a house of all white walls for almost a year, I needed some color to my life. Plus, this winter was incredibly long and looking out the window and seeing more white just killed me even more.
My husband and I went to Home Depot and took a bunch of earth toned color swatches and went through them and decided to stick with our brown and tan tones. For some reason we are both drawn to earthy colors. Well long story short, we painted our hallways, kitchen, and dining room these beautiful brown and tan tones and it turned out amazingly!
Well I had about a quarter of each color left in each can. I didn't want to throw away what was left, so I went on YouTube and looked up painting techniques. I came across a company called The Woolie Company. They have a really great video collection of techniques that you can do with their patent brush, The Woolie. I fell in love with their technique called, Color Meshing. I didn't wanted to pay the price that they sold their brush for so I decided to keep looking. Well with some luck, I found a wool mitten used for painting and staining at Home Depot, which was perfect to do this project!
Ever since I finished my first wall with this technique, I found out its super easy and it looks amazing.

So to start, if you don't have a color that can be easily color meshed, you'll want to either put a primer on or else just pick a darker tone to neutralize the color underneath.

Next, you'll want to pick three colors. You'll want the to be of the same color. I picked a dark brown, medium milk chocolate brown, and a light tan.

You'll need a large flat bristle brush. I actually used a medium size and it worked just fine.

To start, you'll want to take your brush and dip it in any of the three colors and slap it on the wall. Now it sounds super strange but make sure the colors are dripping down the wall when you put it on. Also, make sure you stagger the colors apart so they mix well.

Now after you've put all three colors on the wall, take your brush and mix them together. Once your done mixing the colors with your brush, you're going to put your wool mitten on and start dabbing the colors on the wall. It will created a mixed, stippling effect. Just keep doing this technique all over your wall and it should look like this!

My finished product came out different then seen on The Woolie Company's video. Keep in mind, I am using a mitten not a brush like she is. Either way, I'm in love with the way it turned out. Now, I have to finish the rest of my living room like that!

This is the link if you are interested in Color Meshing!
http://youtu.be/JbAD1dIqfU0