How To Transfer A Vinyl Design With "Transfer Tape"

Before & After - A Thrift Store Basket Redone With A Vinyl Design

Quick Tips:

• My favorite transfer tape is Contact Paper From The Dollar Tree.  The same piece of transfer tape can be used over and over - many times.
• Which Vinyl To Buy, & Where To Buy It 
• Cricut Transfer tape is super strong, and works great for glitter vinyl, but is generally miserable to use for most regular projects. (and it's so much more expensive...I rarely recommend cricut materials.)
• Peel at an angle

Cutting out a Design with your cricut machine essentially makes a sticker.  Once you make that sticker, you want to move it to your project - but you do not want to peel off each piece and place it as if you had bought a sheet of stickers..  that would not only be time consuming, but it would be much more difficult to line up properly.  To transfer your design, use transfer tape. 

From thrift store painting to menu board

When I bought this painting at the thrift store, I actually intended for it to be a sign for my porch.  But then when I was spring cleaning my kitchen, I decided it would make a great menu board..  I had primed the entire thing off white when it was meant as a sign, but that just made it easier to make it a chalkboard.  I used raft paint on the frame, a deep dark red.  When I sprayed on the chalkboard paint some of the overspray got on the frame - I rubbed it on and added a bit more black craft paint giving it that sort of crafty antiqued look.

I'm really surprised by how much my family loves this.  They all really like knowing what is for dinner each night.  Especially my husband!

From Belt Hanger to Utensil Holder

My kitchen utensils do not fit in my kitchen drawer.  I had them in a crock, but it was messy - and I had two crocks, one for wooden spoons, one for metal/plastic utensils.  While cleaning this week, I decided I would like to hang them on the wall, and of course I wanted to do it IMMEDIATELY - patience never being my strong suit.  I stopped at Dollar General while my daughter was at her piano lesson, and found this $2.50 tie & belt hanger

The hanger part popped right off, no tools needed.

There was already a nail in the wall where I wanted to hang this.  Seriously. I have no idea why, but this project was one of my quickest ever!

Table Before & After

I need a smaller table in my kitchen.  We eat all of our meals in the dining room, so a full size table just isn't needed.  Plus, the table in my kitchen was Dan's great great Aunts, and I don't want it getting too banged up..  I'd rather put it away in the attic safely, and save it for when the kids are grown and one of them needs a nice table.

So I found this one at the Amish Sale.  It wasn't as cheap as my past deals, but it was a good price.

The chairs that came with it I did not like, so I bought the chairs on the right as well - also at the sale.

Cranberry spray paint, coated with black paint that I wiped off with a dry cloth, and antique walnut stain on the top (after sanding it lightly).  The chairs got a coat of the stain too.

Painting Plastic Chairs

I miss Krylon spray paint.  We can't get it around here anymore.  :-(  But Lowes carries a Valspar "bonds with plastic" spray paint, that did work well enough.  These chairs are OLD.  I think at least 15 years old?  There is a 3rd chair I painted, I think I sat on it here at the farm when the twins were babies.  They are almost 19 now.  So they are sturdy for plastic chairs, and were worth painting.  It took me about a can and a half to paint all 3 chairs.

There are not many color choices at our lowes though.  Brown was not my first choice, I was hoping for more of a bright lime green, but brown works.

a close up of the before

a close up of the after

Citronella Lanterns - Before & After

$3 lanterns from Family Dollar. I love them because I can fill hem with citranella oil and burn them on my deck to keep the bugs away..  but I really am not a fan of the bright colors our store had in stock.

I had some "hammered brown" spray paint leftover from painting my bike.  Much better!  :-)

Redoing The Deck

 

I started with an after picture.  Because it makes me so happy!  :-)  

I didn't take a good before photo of the deck.  It was last stained in a dark brown, more then half of which was peeling, and a good half the deck was green with mold and mildew - it's a fairly shaded area.

This is the "during" photo.  This is after spraying it with a deck wash, and then hours of power washing.  At this point I've just started spraying the railing

I didn't really choose the deck stain color.  We went to Lowes for me to choose it, and in the "oops" pile was a huge can of deck stain.  $30, for $150 worth of stain.  Yes, that color will work just fine..  :-)

Next is the furniture I got free along the side of the road.  

When I saw the price of replacement cushions, I knew why it was free.  You can buy new furniture cheaper then you can buy new cushions!  Thankfully, I can sew.  :-)

A close up of one of the chairs, before - 

First I stained all the wood - along with an adirondack love seat and a few tables that I'm using on the deck, using leftover stain from the last time we stained the deck.  Then I went to my favorite outdoor fabric store - Surplus City, and bought outdoor fabric - $30 for 5 yards.  5 yards was almost exactly what I needed - I used the last scrap to make a pillow for on the swing/hammock.. so there is literally not a one inch scrap of this fabric left.  Not bad for guessing how much I would need!

I'm so happy with the result.  Here's the same chair, after - 

I bought a flat of the flowers shown here, and added them to two old metal pans I had kept in the shed to use for something like this.  

On the other side of the deck I added a new hammock/swing, and to the far right  I am fixing my broken table (the glass shattered in one of our storms last year) and I got a pretty new umbrella..  I'll have more pics later.

Each morning I come out here with my coffee, open the canister of sunflower seeds I keep on a table, and sing to the peacock, peahen, and 5 peachicks.. who come running as soon as they hear me sing, knowing I'm going to toss them sunflower seeds.  It's the favorite part of my day!