What has been going on?

I have been up to a number of crafty things lately.

I spent a ton of time getting a vintage door knob, which I got at ReStore, a little less rusty. I spent the most time getting the back plate cleaned off. For some reason the rust was a lot easier to get off this part than the actual knob- so you can get an idea of how bad they were before I cleaned them off at all.

I also kept the inside of the door knob mechanism because I thought that was pretty cool too. Ignore the lack of spray paint inside the numbered pots. I had about 100 different ideas of what I was going to do with these before I decided on the numbers. And, that was after I ran out of spray paint, since I was planning on sanding some of it off the outside originally anyway. 

I love how these look so far. The little bit of rust on the door mechanism I find charming. It surely isn't for everyone.

For those of you who may be wondering how I removed the rust from all the different parts of the door knob- here is what I tried. 1. I tried vinegar and salt. I always used distilled vinegar, but I did try different types of salt ( including kosher, sea salt, and just run of the mill table salt. 2. I also tried ketchup. I tried this because my mom suggested it. It worked to some degree- but it was harder to rub and frankly, it was a little gross.  3. I tried steel wool. I only used that on the back plates. It was a last resort. 

I bought a pack of stencils to do the numbered pots. I wanted to make a sign. However, I was trying to budget money and didn't want to spend money on wood. Luckily, my boyfriend let me use scrap wood from re-doing his house. I selected this pointed one for my sign. I roughed the letters up after painting them with a block sander. 

I also made this one for my boyfriend. It is above the pantry door in the kitchen. 

Happy Monday!

Deer Antler Art

My boyfriend really wanted me to craft something for his house. Considering that at this point- the house was mostly empty. I wasn't really sure what to do. But, I decided on this antler art for him. I would have rather redone furniture, but with so many rooms that still need stuff narrowing it down would have been pretty hard.

I started with three black and white antlers. I purchased the canvas on sale at Michael's. I used a permanent marker on the canvas for the antler image. I considered painting it- and if I was going to have more time to turn it around I might have done that. But I did not want to wait for that to dry. However, I didn't want to leave them black and white.  And, yes, I am crafting on top of a TV box. My boyfriend got me a new TV for Christmas  and I haven't thrown it out because it is such a good painting and crafting surface.

So, I created a mixture of paint and water to tone down the white a little bit.

This is about as good of a picture of the mixture that I could get.  I used three different craft paint colors and added some water.  I put the paint on and I was just going to use a dry brush, but I didn't like that finish. So I ended up using paper towels to remove some of the paint.

Here is the finished product.