As I mentioned in my Friday Finds post, I collected a bunch of old bottles and was brainstorming some ideas of what I could do with them. I decided to make pencil holders out of a few of the smaller jars that had some cool detail on them. My old pencil jars were tin cans with spray paint and string. It was time for something different.
Below is a picture from my college apartment, and you can see my old pencil holder on the right.
First I put all my pens and pencils in the jars to make sure they would all fit, and the jars were the appropriate heights.
Then I took the jars outside and gave them a couple coats of black metallic spray paint.
I liked how they looked, but I thought they needed something that would bring out the cool details in the jars. (the one on the far left doesn’t have anything special)
To try to bring out the details more I sanded the ridged areas.
You can tell from the angle above that I sanded the jars, but you can’t see a lot of difference from the outside.
Like basically no difference at all. 🙁
SO, I decided to pull out some of my craft paints and paint the insides of the jars.
I used a craft brush and painted the two jars with aqua and one with lilac. I also painted slightly on the rims too.
Here is what the jars look like from the top. I didn’t bother making the paint thick because the jars will be filled and from the outside it looks solid.
Here they are all settled on my china cabinet with some DIY canvas art I did a while ago.
What do you think? Do you like the chippy look of the jars?
Now that I’ve been settled in to my apartment for almost two weeks I figured it’s time to give you a little tour of my bedroom! The main goal with my room was to fill as much of the wall space with color as I could. I ordered a tapestry from Amazon and it practically fills up my entire East wall. To the right of my wall I hung a big map from my kayaking trip last summer.
Above is the panoramic view of my room. I was standing in the doorway when I took this picture. As you can see the room isn’t huge, but it’s a decent size.
This is supposed to be an entryway bench but I use it to store jeans, pajama pants, and leggings. I put the bench on risers so it would be easier to grab stuff and I wouldn’t have to bend way over. It also makes it blend in with the room better because all of my furniture is about the same height. On top of the bench I have my textbooks, a jar of change, my jewelry holder, and upcycled cans used for holding pens, pencils, and what not. The lampshade is for a future DIY project.
This is my small gallery to the left of my window. Once I print out pictures I will add them here to fill in the spaces.
Here are the little details on my bed. I love the idea of having basic black and whites and adding splashes of color with artwork and small objects. The puppy was a valentine’s day present from my boyfriend and he keeps me from getting homesick (yes I know that sounds childish).
Everything you see in the gallery above my desk is a DIY I made. I made my calendar from a cheap poster frame with paint samples and washi tape to divide up the days and weeks. I write on it with a whiteboard marker. The vase is a spray painted wine bottle with “flowers” made from melted CD’s and gold wire.
My closet isn’t very pretty but for now it’s pretty functional. I have two different sets of drawers for more clothes and the black bin is all my extra shoes. To the left is my laundry basket, a box full of sweaters, and on top of that I have a bag full of purses I’m currently not using and other bags. On the shelf I fold all my sweatshirts, t-shirts, and tank tops as well as extra sheets for my bed.
This is my scarf rack inside my closet. I made this by putting two command hooks on each end and using a curtain rod. Most of the scarves are hung up with shower curtain rings. I didn’t quite have enough otherwise they’d all be hung on rings. The winter fluffy scarves are towards the back and the lighter scarves are in the front.
I keep my printer on top of this storage ottoman. In the ottoman are random things for hanging pictures and just stuff I don’t use on a regular basis. Below the Arctic Monkeys poster I plan on hanging two sheets of paper. One will have all of my professors office hours and contact information, and the other paper will have the detailed goals that I set for this semester. When I took this picture I just realized the trim on the closet and the trim on the door are different colors and grain :’D gotta love college housing.
I love how cozy my room turned out and it’s definitely nice being able to have a space to call my own since I don’t have that at home. So what do you think? Did I do a good job hiding the fact that I live in cheap bland apartment?
Lately I’ve been stressed out about finishing projects around the house before I move back to school in the fall. During time off of school I live at home with my boyfriend, Chris, and during the school year I live on campus with friends. Last year was my first year so I lived in a dorm with two other girls. This year I will be living in an apartment with those two girls plus 3 other roommates. I come home quite often since I don’t live far from the college, but this year I want to make a point to relax on the weekends instead of worrying about homework or trying to do major home improvement projects.
Today I did a simple craft to take my mind off the things I feel like I “have” to do. For this craft you will need:
Bottles
Mod podge
Paintbrush
Food coloring
You can use old bottles for this craft such as snapple bottles, starbucks iced coffee bottles, or you can buy some from a craft store. I had a few snapple bottles on hand so I decided to use those. (I’m saving my starbucks bottles for a coffee candle craft 😉 )
If you are reusing bottles you will need to peel the label off and get off any extra gunk. I used a mixture of mostly baking soda and a little bit of vegetable oil and scrubbed the bottles with paper towel.
This is what they looked like after de-gunking:
Then I mixed up a combination of mod podge and food coloring. I used 6 drops of blue and 4 drops of green. For this project I used hard coat mod podge. This is what my mod podge looked like after adding in the food coloring:
I applied the mixture to my bottles with a brush and tried to keep brush marks to a minimum.
On the left is the bottle mostly dry, the middle is just after applying mod podge. I was trying to follow a tutorial I found on Pinterest to make the bottles look like sea glass, but I didn’t have matte mod podge and used the hard coat instead. They turned out nice in the end, though. I don’t quite have a spot for them but I think maybe they can travel to school with me. Maybe I’ll make a pallet shelf for the bathroom and put them up there. The main thing is that this was a nice de-stressing craft 🙂
What kinds of things do you do to de-stress? Would you like to hear about my DIY adventures in my college apartment too? Drop by the comments and let me know what you think!
