A Rolling Dictionary

Whew! She's all done. I was going for the dry brush look, but ended up with another grey glazed piece. Oh whelps! The dictionary pages on the top and the twine knob make it more ME.

You saw how she started out in my last post, so here's what she looked like after my attempt at dry brushing.

Looks decent in the pictures, but in person it was a mess. I think because of the boxiness, the dry brush look just made it look like I was a lazy painter. I added 2 coats of Sherwin Williams Grey Screen on top of the paint I mentioned in this post to prove I wasn't a slacker. Next, I brushed on Minwax Dark Walnut stain. Apparently I have a new method because every time I add stain, I think I've gone too far and I dry brush over it to get the perfect glazed look. You may remember I did the same thing with my cottage headboard. I guess it's what works for me!

Much better! And sorry to disappoint, but I re-did the burlap knob you all loved. It just didn't look right with this cabinet. I considered buying a new knob, but reminded myself that one of my main goals for refurbishing furniture was to reuse and make do with the supplies that I had on hand. I tore off all the burlap and removed the dried up hot glue from the knob using denatured alcohol. I was back to this.

I went through several possibilities to redo the knob to match the cabinet: Use a glass wine cork (but that required cutting or drilling glass), glue on a glass stone (but the stone was too small and looked odd), wrap it in twine...that's it! I just used some twine recently to wrap this wire bottle carrier. I tied a knot in a piece of twine and hot glued it to the center of the knob. Then I slowly wrapped the twine around and around using hot glue as I went. Perfect!

Now that the knob was taken care of, I had to decide what to use to cover the top of the cabinet. The wood on top was in decent shape, but I knew it was missing something. It needed the "Emily" touch :)! So I found a dictionary from the 50's that was falling apart and mod podged pages on top. I used a foam brush and made sure to put glue both on the wood and on the back of the dictionary pages. I think it turned out beautiful! And no bubbles! I used a old plastic insurance card to smooth the paper out. I know a roller works better, but why buy one when I have a free handy little tool around the house.

Apologies for the craptastic photos. I didn't have time to take pictures during the day and I wanted to post the reveal tonight. So if you can deal with it, here are more crappy pictures of my favorite pages/words/pictures on the cabinet.

Hee hee! The goatee man never fails to make me laugh. After another layer of mod podge on top, I used a rag to apply some wipe-on poly (waiting about 4 hours in between). I also rubbed clear Briwax on the rest of the cabinet. Annnnnd...DONE!

A happy way to end the week. Can't wait to link up! See you all there!

Loving,

Emily

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