Thriftin', and Sprayin', and Wishin, and Hopin'

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So, the long weekend meant there was time for a little bit of crafty adventure-y goodness...

On Saturday, Betsy, Laura and I met up, and decided to do a little shopping.
Betsy wanted to get some frames to spraypaint at a local, giant, thrift store, Savers.
And I have been dying to scope this Savers business out for a long time.

Betsy scored BIG TIME with a ton of awesome frames, with plenty of texture and character that she has been spraying away.

I was in the market for just about anything that would be fun to paint.
I am really, REALLY happy with my purchases...

 

I found this lovely green carafe (not for spraypainting, just for awesomeness), a gold lame tissue box, a napkin holder, and my personal favorite find a flour/sugar/coffee/tea cannister set.

 

I unscrewed the brass letters, and wiped down all of the boxes, and removed the plastic inserts (and washed those with plenty of hot soapy water), and let everything dry. 

Meanwhile, I got to work on the smaller items...

Also, I have a better method for keeping spraypaint residue from covering my walkway...it's not cute, but it's functional.

And yes, I basically changed the tissue holder from gold, to golden yellow. Not a huge change...but still way cuter. And also, was inspired by Andrea's fabulous bathroom remodel.

The napkin holder, I sprayed aqua...and then Monday decided I didn't love it...so I sprayed it dark gray. The aqua paint is a satin finish, the gray is glossy. I totally noticed a huge difference here...the glossy makes all the difference in the world. If only aqua came in glossy...that would solve a LOT of my problems...

Much better.

So...back to the cannisters...
I cleaned.
I primed.
I painted.

I forgot a side...

Whoops.

I let everything dry.
And then next day, I went out to finish that one last side...
And add a glossy coat to the rest of the boxes.

I sprayed the glossy coating...went inside to let everything dry...and came back out to find this disaster:

Um, WHAT?!?!

This box got it the worst. But almost every single box had this wrinkly, peely effect. My dad called it "orange peeling".

I was SO, SO, SO sad.

Prior to the glossy coat, everything was hunky-dory.

Post-glossy, not so hunky.

But thankfully, on my latest trip to the H-Dizz (which BTW, we are starting to get along a little better....although the parking lot is one half-step up from the Costco parking lot of doom...not my favorite), Betsy encouraged me to get some sandpaper.  So, me and my tender little hands, got to sanding. We sanded away all of the peely, bubbly, ugliness. Well as much as could be.

And I reprimed.
And repainted.

And um, by the way...here is my ever growing collection. Thankfully, I have found a secure hiding place for my paraphernalia.  Fun, right?

So, on the second, sanded down, carefully reprimed coat...things were back to their hunky selves.

Everything dried. Overnight. Actually, over several nights.

So I went for it.

I glossed.

And yep, orange peels.

RUDE glossy coat, RUDE.

You win, Rustoleum. This time.

Rustoleum....are you out there? You stopped by last time and said hello...but any words of wisdom on this horrific tragedy? Why does the glossy spray exist if it counteracts with your other sprays? I am perplexed. And so is one of my readers who had the same thing happen!

Anyway...thankfully, perfectionism is not one of my spiritual gifts. So, I just sucked it up. And decided my poor tender thumbs were not up to the sanding process again. So, I screwed the labels back on their boxes and admitted defeat called it a victory.

Flour and Coffee made out alright. Sugar and Tea...well, they aren't so sweet.

I used Dark Gray - GLOSSY - for the letters. And I think it's by far my favorite color. I love the way everything turns out. SUPER glossy looking. So pretty.

Also, I already had a flour and sugar canister set - just regular stainless steel types - but, since I basically run an amateur bakery out of my kitchen, I have five kinds of flour (all-purpose, cake, self-rising, whole wheat bread, and white bread) and three kinds of sugar (granulated, brown, and powdered) - I am using these sets for different than my standard all-purpose/granulated combo. Whole wheat bread flour and powdered sugar made the cut!

For their final placement, I rearranged my sink windowsill display.  (Because really, in a tiny galley kitchen, real estate is hard to come by).

Mission complete.

For now.

Linking up over here...