Is There Life After Retirement?

All photos are “clickable” for a larger image

So a few weeks ago,  Sara Irene Smith tossed out a challenge to her social media partners in crime regarding Earth Day and her company’s product.  Sara is the founder of Wrappily, a company that advertises itself as offering “chic gift wrap with an eco-friendly twist.”  Oh, save me a couple hundred words by checking it out yourself here and then come back.

Did you?  Cool, yeah?  Anyway, back to the story…

She offered to send a supply of gift wrap to anyone who was willing to use it for a project and photograph the results, to be used in conjuction with Earth Day.

Of course I raised my cyber hand.

Now most normal people would receive the paper and use it in a nice gift-wrap kinda way.  But since I’m on this insane Mod Podge-ing cheap used furniture tangent,  so that’s what I decided to tackle.   She chose the design, so when I received my goodie bag, I had two designs to choose from: a green/blue abstract pattern and the one you’ll see in the following pictures.  I have to say – I loved the product, and immediately wanted to buy people presents, just so I could wrap them.  But back to the project …

Couldn’t find the right piece of furniture at Salvation Army so I decided to re-vamp my own little beat up particle board night stand.  I think I bought it as a do-it-yourself piece of furniture for my son’s first bedroom.  He turns 21 next month.  So….

It needed some help.

My bedroom is an odd assortment  of pinks and burgundies, so I figured I’d make this match.  First step: spray paint.

Second step: remember to not leave a heavy piece of particle board furniture on a flimsy plastic platform.  It fell over and took me forever to unstick all the grass from the side.  Yes, I swore a lot.

My first disaster

After painting all areas except the ones that I planned to cover with the Wrappily paper, I was ready to begin.  The paper – which has a different print on each side, btw – had soft creases, as gift wrap does.  For this project, I decided to iron the sheets, to smooth out the lines a bit.  Note: this is the opposite side, and also a very cool print.

Ironing the paper to give it a crisp feel

Normally I use a heavier paper, so this was challenging.  It’s newsprint, which is PERFECT for gift wrap but a little light for Mod Podge-ing.  But I’ve done it a lot so I made sure to give it plenty of drying time between coats.

Originally, my plan was to use the paper on the top, drawer front, and bottom skirt panel.  But when I did it, although I liked the look in general, I knew it would be too much for my room.  I simply have too many other crazy designs going on in there.

After walking around it in my living room for a couple of days, I finally decided to change the front panel to a solid burgundy:

I thought that worked a lot better in my room, so I’m glad I made the change.  The next step is always the most challenging for me … finding a drawer pull that I like.  I couldn’t find anything in Lahaina, and I really needed to get the darn thing out of my living room (remote controlling “around it” was an interesting gymnastic maneuver) so I reverted to a trick I used when I couldn’t find drawer pulls for my desk.  I raided my bead stash and came up with this, as a makeshift drawer pull:

Beaded Drawer Pull detail

Isn’t that cute?  I really like it.  Cautionary note about beads as drawer pulls – make sure that whatever material you use to string them is strong, and likewise for the method of fastening it.  I strung them on a hemp cord (hemp is nearly indestructible) and knotted it like a sailor on steroids, on the inside.

Well, I finally got it back where it belongs and here it is:

The finished product!

I still would like to do some sort of finishing around the top edges, where the particle board has gotten a little funky, but haven’t figured out what or how.  But I will.  In the meantime, I love my spiffy little updated nightstand, and am now happily a Wrappily customer forever.

Sorry, had to do the “happily Wrappily” thing.  Couldn’t resist.

Anyway … Mahalo, Sara.  That was fun!