Show 'N Tell: Mini Shelf Makeover

Crafting is my favorite! It's a release for me; it is productive. It turns out making adorable things out of what may be called "shabby" before.

I plan on submitting this simple project to some of my favorite crafting blogs, but for now, for my friends and readers (all 2 of you), I am here to show off my work in a non-tutorial kind of way. :-)

Here are the cute mini shelves my Momma gave me a good year (plus) ago. They're alright the way they are, but I kept envisioning them over my sink (on my ugly white kitchen cabinets. They can hold knick knacks or (GASP!) flowers and such...just something to draw the eye away from my overly painted uglified atrocious cabinets.

Okay - so I forgot to take a FULL "before" shot. Bear with me. The right one is before sanding. It's cute enough, right? You just wait...The left one is after sanding #1 (there were 3 sets of sanding. Didn't take much other than the shine off. Below is the Sanded x 3 version.

Next, I wiped them clean with a warm washcloth, let it dry, and then did it one more time for good measure. Then I spray painted...or should I say "WE" spray painted. Dillon thought this process was SO cool (the first 2 coats)...after that, he was pretty much annoyed that we weren't playing out there anymore. We would take "breaks" and go put another coat on when the timer went off. As you can tell, this has been months in the making b/c we all know we haven't seen the sun here in IL for a good 2-2.5 weeks.



That there was my last coat. First time ever experiencing spray paint, so as you can tell by the running (which I then had to sand AGAIN), I need to work on even distribution...and not spraying too much!

Then, the easiest and most time consuming part came in: painting. I found a cheap paint at a large box store (which will remain unnamed) with "navy" as the title. It didn't look terribly navy, but hey...it was cheap. 7 coats later, it wasn't navy. Imagine that. Went to my favorite craft store and purchased an acrylic brand I trust that called theirs navy, and 2 coats later - BAM...the cutest little shelves ever!

My sweet hubs got them up this week, and I already have some cute stuff on one of them! It won't take me long to fill the other one!

And yes, those are real flowers. And yes, they're from my favorite brown-eyed 4 year old. And no, they are not for "no reason." Those are birthday flowers! :-) In my opinion, they look fantastic on my mini shelf.

Easy peasy. PS - this project cost me $4.5o (would have been $3 if I wouldn't have bought that cheap paint to start off with!).

I linked up with