It's Friday...

It's Friday and it's been two weeks since my last post - better rectify that

Today is a day off for me and I didn't get outta bed till 11am; it's currently after 12pm and I'm still in my PJ's - Bliss. I know I really shouldn't boast about that, my mum's probably horrified I've just announced it to the world. The dog couldn't even hack the long lie-in; he abandoned me about 9:12am and the next time I saw the clock it was 10:14am. I blame the osteopath treatment yesterday - that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Today's plan was to make a card for my niece's birthday, submit a layout to a NZ magazine, and complete projects to submit to a design team call for a South Island Scrapbook company. I am thankful that the deadline for the submission is Monday so I still have the weekend to get it all together. One part of me wonders why I am putting myself through extra work again and the other part of me misses the challenge of creating from only the product supplied. And to be honest, I miss the free, latest product! It's funny now that I have decided to apply, the self-doubts have crept in. What if I don't get selected? Does that mean my work isn't good enough? etc. But, I am going to apply because you never know what can happen in life. I once saw a fridge magnet that read: 80% of life is just turning up. That phrase resonated with me - if I don't apply/turn up then I definitely won't be considered.

To apply for the design team I need to submit 2 Layouts, 1 card and 1 project using product that the company stocks. The dilemma for me is that I have a wonderful scrap stash and I buy wherever is cheapest. I am very lucky to have family in the USA so I can order items there (cheaper) and impose on the Grandparents (my parents) to bring stuff back for me on their many visits (and a very good friend who brought back a Clip-it-up for me this year which I really love - both the clip-it-up and my friend!). The USA family is coming to NZ later this year and Aunty Manda has a sizable stash for them to bring back already. It is truly lucky that our families have to love us because one of the items is an octagonal, yes, octagonal, storage unit for my desk. Sooooo lucky that they have to love me. My fabulous sister-in-law will bring it out for me but I have had to promise not to order anymore things for them to bring and I had to solemnly swear 'no more octagonal things'! I did push my luck and ask if hexagonal was ok?

I guess the submission isn't going to happen if I continue to sit here, in my PJ's, so I will sign off and get to work. I will keep you posted if I am successful.

Follow up on the spray paint comment

I resisted getting the latest Kaisercraft shelf unit, oh, for about a minute, then purchased one at my LSS on sale. I decided to make my life easier by spray painting it. Now, I know that it is important to prime MDF and it gives a much better finish to the overall job but as I stated earlier I was opting for the easiest, less time-consuming option. So, I thought High Gloss spray paint would be thick enough to cover the MDF in only two coats. Well, after one really patchy and streaking coat I realised that I miscalculated. Not only was one can not going to be enough (which meant it was no longer the cheapest option) neither was two coats going to suffice. This required me breaking my lazy Easter weekend and actually getting out of my comfy bed and trotting myself off to Bunnings to buy more paint (which I hadn't budgeted for). What's worse, an out-of-town friend had come down to spend the day with me and I dragged her to the hardware store with me. We did do coffee and Chai Latte later, I'm not a complete slave driver.

It was Saturday at this stage and I thought the whole painting bit would be all over by now (saving me the hours of priming, painting and cleaning the brushes at each stage). How wrong was I. I decided to assemble the shelf unit and spray it as one piece instead of painting each piece seperately as I started (which would've given me a more smooth, professional finish). The paint finish was still streaky and kept soaking into the MDF but by the end of Sunday I was totally over the painting thing and had inhaled enough aerosol from the spray cans that I decided to call it done and cover what I couldn't fix with paper.

So, I started working on the boxes. I thought they would have flaps for adhering the sides together, turns out they don't. My original idea was to spray paint the flat surfaces and only adhere paper to the fronts (the non-existant 'flaps' would hold it all together in my mind) but we all now know about the success I had had with the spray paint. So, I had to prestick the boxes together with masking tape before covering the boxes with patterned paper. Of course, you can tell it is all going smoothly at this point, the boxes needed paper strips of more than 12" to go around all sides! Did I mention that the masking tape wasn't providing a longterm bond either?

They look pretty though -just don't pull them out all the way to check them out because a) they may fall apart, and b) you will see a lovely combination of patchy spray painted chipboard with masking tape in all directions. I have an amazing stash of scrapbooking supplies that I have been adding to for 5+ years so I am trying to use up items in my stash (means I can buy more, new stuff right?). I used a DCWV paper stack (Luxury - apparently now deleted - go figure) so all the papers matched. I also added a bit of glitter embossing powder to some stamp images because I decided, after the boxes were all assembled and [partially] covered in paper, that one of the paper sheets really didn't work with the others - grrrr!

Of course, during the many stages of embossing the paper (already attached to the project) I managed to 'forget' to put a sheet of paper under my work surface to catch the embossing powder when I poured it out. And naturally, it is not like me to clean as I go so the glitter embossing powder spread everywhere. At one point I forgot about it being on my hands and rubbed my right eye. It didn't sting but I had amber glitter twinkling off my nose for the rest of the day. I even had some on my arm when I went to work on Tuesday (yes, I had showered). It got everywhere and spread throughout the whole house. I can still sees spots of it when the sun hits the carpet in the lounge - 5 days later. I am really over the glitter embossing thing too btw.

It doesn't stop there. I adhered the patterned paper to the shelves with double-sided tape because a) it was quick and I was getting to the stage where I was over the shelf unit too, and b) I wanted to save myself the effort/work involved with using Modge Podge. No, I didn't sand the surfaces first and remember the pesky glitter that was everywhere? Yes, the pieces of paper are lifting off the MDF but I am totally over the shelves now too so I have decided to not care and just keep pushing it back onto the surfaces everytime I go past. I think the peeling paper will make it easier to completely 'update' the unit at a later date (way, way in the future, when I've forgotten how over it I am).

In saying all of that- it is quite a blog post isn't it? - I am really happy with the general look of the unit. I have put felt on the bottom so it won't scratch the surfaces and have placed it on the window shelf beside my creative table - it fits perfectly (atleast something did with this project).

Oh, and in the pictures you will notice that one of the inserts for the nameplates is missing - I didn't notice till after taking the photos and loading them to my computer. I have located the missing piece, way, way in the back under the table, behind the picture frames, cutting mats, heater etc. BTW if you see anything else that is amiss with my finished project (like I stuck the paper on upside down or back-to-front or something), please don't tell me - I'm so over it!