SHELF UPCYCLE WITH MAPS

I love this upcycle so much! I snagged these shelves at a dumpster outside of the dorms at my university. People are unbelievable when it comes to throwing things out! Many of them live out of state and have to fly or drive home so they have no choice but to throw out lots of stuff. My sister once found a down comforter and an Ipod dock in the dumpster at her school!

So anyways I grabbed these and wanted to wait to figure out what to do with them. Since school has ended I've also been trying to clean out my closet and came across a bunch of old maps! So I came up with this idea for these shelves and it fits my bathroom perfectly! Check out another DIY project that amy did with maps!

Here is the before and an after!

 

 

 SUPPLIES:

 Mod Podge, Maps, Exacto-Knife

DIRECTIONS:

1. Peel off any paper existing on the shelves, where you are going to lay the maps. If you want to paint the shelves any other color, do that now as well.

2. Figure out what area of the map you want to use. Cut the map into a smaller section so it is easier to manage, but not as small as your shelf size.

3. Put your map into the shelf and press into the corners to make creases. Run your exacto knife along the edges.

4. Put a very thin layer of Mod Podge on the shelf, then put your map section on. Use a heavy object to try to get any bubbles out. Let dry.

5. Put another layer of Mod Podge over the top of the map to seal it up!

-Jerica-

BOOKCASE UPDO

Do you have a spare hour or two? Do you have an extra bookcase already made and sitting around in your garage waiting for you to do something with it? You do?! Then this is perfect for you, PERFECT! The house I live in was from the 30's and had been in the same family from then until I came around. It was in terrible condition and my dad and I pretty much remodeled the whole thing (okay mostly just my dad). I've been living here three years now, but needless to say, I still find lots of random things around. I found this bookcase buried in the garage and unfortunately was painted a not-so-flattering lime green. I whined to my babygurllll (boyfriend) to paint it for me, and he ended up painting it a cream color that I had lying around from when the walls were painted originally. So it blended in with whatever wall I put it against. I love the trend going around of painting the back wall of shelves, so I came up with this idea to help it pop!

I used painters tape to get the edges of these lines and did not do any measurements because I wanted to have a hand-drawn look (aka I'm lazy). I also changed up the color order in each section to make it look more sporadic. For the colors, I didn't want to have to get large amounts of paint for just a few lines, so I actually used fabric paints I had lying around and they worked perfectly! After lifting the tape there will probably be some bleeding, so just use a very fine brush to touch those spots up. Now I just need a sweet color coordinated book collection like everyone else haaaas!

Sorry the lighting isn't the best in these photos, I live in the basement of the house! 

-Jerica-