Hubby had these drawers (a lot of them!) to house his cassette tape collection. Younger readers hop on to Wikipedia for an explanation of what cassette tapes are. He got rid of his cassette tapes when we moved from Scotland three years ago, and the drawers found new homes in his garage (for screws and stuff) and in the children's bedrooms (for bits-and-bobs). Ever since, I've been promising the children that I would give them a lick of paint to go nicely in their bedrooms, and label them so they knew what was inside each one.
Bug had done her best to label hers herself. Inside she keeps all her stationery, badges, fossils, beads, bracelets, shells, marbles, Kinder egg toys and so on.
My first decision needed to be about paint. I stood in the diy shop deliberating for a while. I liked the idea of the chalky furniture paints, but they didn't have the range of colours that I was looking for and were pretty pricy. In then end I plumped for acrylics from the craft aisle. I've used acrylic paint before to paint my fence decorations, so I know they apply well to wood, the colour range is outstanding, and they are pretty affordable. I bought four spring-time colours for Bug's drawers, and some dark blue for when I do Bear's.
Next, paint! So that I wouldn't have difficulty with drawers sticking, I only painted the front of each drawer. I had three sets of drawers to do, so I did each case in a different colour, then I did six pink drawers, and four each in purple, green and blue. Acrylic dries pretty quickly, so by the time I'd finished doing all the first coats, I was able to start again and get the second coat on.
An hour or so later I came back, arranged all the drawers in a decent pattern of colours, rearranged the contents so they were in a logical order, and used a permanent marker and neat handwriting to label each drawer with its contents.I had started the whole project at 7.30pm when Bug went to bed, I completed it by sneaking back into her bedroom and replacing the drawers at about 11pm.
She is delighted with the result, as not only are the colours pretty, but she can also find things more easily and is even more inclined to put them away since she can see straight away where they belong. We are planning to buy some butterfly stickers to add to the drawers and make them even prettier. I'm going to get Bear's drawers next (later this week I hope) and paint them in blues, purples and greens.
What crafty / upcycling project are you doing this week?
