craftylady

Your trash is  my treasure  when I can make a great gift for practically nothing. Finding unwanted furniture can be made into a very desired Christmas gift.

Christmas is on a limited budget this year and is definitely a challenge .

I wrote a post recently about using recycled items to make gifts and today I am going to discuss a project that I did a number of years ago for very little money. I don’t have the photo of the item since I gave it as a gift and is currently located in another state.

My mom loves to go to garage sales and in her travels she comes across a lot of stuff. She found some old, small, odd handmade tables that no one wanted ,after a garage sale. The end tables didn’t match any thing in the house and were unique.

I decided to try to dress up one of the odd pieces she bought. It looked to be an old fashioned telephone table; they kind that had a lower shelf  for the phone book.

I began by sanding down the old finish and then sealed it with linseed oil.

After a few days, I painted it with whitewash; a thin watered down pain that was semi-transparent. When it was dry, I gathered by oil paints, small brushes and stencils of grapes . I also used stamps  of leaves.

I free-handed a vine on the table going from the bottom of the table and circling the legs and ending at the top. The grape stencils came next and finally stamped the leaves.All of these pieces of equipment were left over from previous projects.

Altogether the project probably costs around $5.00. The end product could have fetched $50.00 but mom fell in love with it and she still has it today.

Here is a link to watch how recycled pieces of furniture can be reclaimed into works of art and make great gifts!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXYI9Vs8KNo

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