Old furniture given new life!

For as a long as I can remember I have had the same bedroom furniture.  When my husband and I bought our home we needed a bedroom suit and my childhood furniture came with us until we were ready to buy new furniture.  Well it has been about 6 years since we moved in and the furniture is still here.  I think we have purchased new furniture for every room except for ours.  Recently I kept looking at the furniture and thinking we either need to buy new stuff or redo the stuff we have.  I hated the idea of going to buy furniture and spend tons of money.  We have a pretty large bedroom and there are 2 large dressers and 2 small end tables.  So buying furniture to fill the space would be an investment to say the least.

While searching Pinterest one day I decided to to check out some tutorials on how to paint furniture.  After doing some researching I finally decided to test out my painting skills on one piece.  I decided on DIY chalk paint.  At first I looked at purchasing actual chalk paint, but boy is it expensive.  My dad who used to own a furniture restoration business thought I was crazy, but I talked to him about the technique I was going to try and he said give it a shot.

My next thought was what color??  Rustic blue, green, mustard or red?   Too many choices...  I then made a quick trip to Lowes and found a color that caught my eye: Valspar Bossa Nova.

For the project I bought:

• Sample jar of Valspar Bossa Nova (about $3)
• Plaster of Paris (about $7)
• Varies sizes of sponge brushes (about $5 total)
• Minwax Finishing Wax (about $8)
• Sandpaper

Chalk Paint Recipe:

1. Mix 1 part warm water (1/4 C)  with 1 part Plaster of Paris (1/4 C) until all lumps are gone
2. Add 3 parts paint (3/4 C)

Original Piece

I started the project the very next day in my dining room while I had one kid running around and another hanging out  I started by doing very light sanding and wiping down the dresser with a damp cloth afterwards.  I then did a coat of paint.  I was surprised how smooth and fast it went on.  There was virtually no dry time...all the better with young kids running around.

After the 1st Coat

I did an additional 2 coast in about 2 hours time.  After completely drying I did some sanding to distress it and then wiped with a damp cloth again. 

3rd Coat prior to distressing

I then put 3 layers of wax on to shine it up a bit.

Finally I decided it needed some new hardware.  I went to Hobby Lobby and found some great knobs at $3 a piece.  All in all I'm happy with how it turned out and I can't wait until I do them all.  I figured it would be just over $100 to do all 4 pieces including the hardware.  Not bad at all and I love it!

Lemon Blueberry Layer Cake

Some know me as the cupcake maker and I haven't baked cakes or cupcakes in awhile so I decided this weekend was the time to bake again.  My parents are coming for dinner tomorrow and so I thought that was the perfect excuse to make a recipe I've wanted to try.  I found this recipe on Pinterest and it looked wonderful and slightly intimidating.  LEMON BLUEBERRY LAYER CAKE from Sallys Baking Addiction...who doesn't LOVE that combo??

In this recipe you are to use 3 round cake pans and bake at the same time.  This made me a little nervous for 2 reasons:
#1  I don't have 3 round cake pans
#2 I don't have any that are the size described

I decided to give it a go anyways and I made some slight adaptations.  I used one 10 inch round cake pan and filled it with half the batter.  After it was done baking I removed it to cool and added the rest of the batter to the same pan.   This pan was larger than the suggested so I decided it was alright to have 2 pans instead of 3.  I just had to bake them a little bit longer than expected. 

Here it is all done!  I have to say it was really good!  The perfect combination of lemon and blueberries!  Perfect for spring!