Fun Mini Filing Cabinet Makeover

Fun Mini Filing Cabinet Makeover

Lots of you have been asking about the filing cabinet featured in our last blog post and I promised a DIY tutorial so here it is! This is such an easy way of making a plain filing cabinet look fun which is perfect for studios and craft rooms where you want something less officey but still have documents to keep organised.

When I originally thought of giving our mini filing cabinet a makeover I'd thought about using decoupage but while browsing The Works the other day I came across these cute adhesive fabric packs which happened to be the perfect size and cheap too. I bought some hoping they would do the job with less mess and time than decoupage and they did!

You will need:

• A mini filing cabinet - ours was £25 from Ikea
• Adhesive fabrics - 2 packs of 4 pieces - a mixed pack of 4 was £2 in store but £3.99 online from The Works (I'm sure you could also use normal fabric or paper with glue but this is what I used and it was really easy)
• Printed labels for your drawers (or hand written if you like!)
• Scissors & a craft knife
• Screw driver
• Ruler & pen

Super easy DIY instructions:

1. Make sure your drawers are wiped clean from any dust etc so the adhesive fabric will stick smoothly and unscrew the handles.
2. Use your ruler & pen to measure out enough fabric to cover the drawer front and edges with about 1cm extra to tuck over. Cut out the fabric pieces.
3. Start from one side with a little bit peeled from the backing to keep in place and smooth over continuing to peel the backing as you move across to the other side (it's easier than it sounds but I wasn't able to photograph this stage as it involved both hands and David wasn't nearby at the time). Tuck around the edges and trim off any extra fabric.
4. Use a craft knife to make small crosses where the screw holes are and to carefully slit the fabric in the groove where the drawer label will go. This can then be tucked in neatly when you push your drawer label in.
5. Reattach the drawer handle and pop the label in. Step back and admire your pretty drawer then repeat for other drawers with whatever mix of fabrics you like. Don't worry about the order as you can faff about with this once you've finished them all and it's easier to see.

This corner of the studio always looked so plain to me before but now it's one of my favourites! The cute biscuit cushion is from Nikki McWilliams and we painted a secondhand chair with Autentico Rose chalk paint. A lovely lilac charity shop teapot filled with flowers on top of the mini filing cabinet finishes off the fun floral look. If you do decide to give your filing cabinet a makeover I'd love to see the results! 

Vintage Phone Découpage DIY

I've been meaning to do this blog post for absolutely ages since I did the actual project in February! I only just got around to finishing off the floral one though which is why it's been so delayed. This isn't really a proper 'how to' as my phone is by no means perfect and I'm sure there are better ways of doing this but I'll just explain what I did as I've had so many requests, especially since the phone below is the shop phone in Pebble and customers ask every day where it's from!

You will need: a vintage phone (or a modern phone in a similar style), tissue paper of some sort (I used a pack of 2 sheets of branded Decopatch paper but anything similar should do), a clear drying glue like PVA (again I used a branded Decopatch one but normal glues should work the same), a more hard wearing varnish, scissors and a paint brush

1. Make sure the phone is clean and there are no sticky bits or dust on it or the paper won't stick properly

2. Cut your patterned paper into small pieces, you'll need some thin strips as well as lots of squares to get into the nooks and crannies!

3. Glue them on! Paint glue straight onto the phone surface, pop a bit of paper on then more glue on top to smooth it out. You might need to cut some into funny shapes especially around the dialler. Cover the whole phone (or the bits you want covered).

4. Repeat step 3 to make a 2nd layer. Make sure there aren't any gaps and it's all smoothed out.

5. On my pink floral phone I left some bits uncovered as I wanted to paint them pink. I used an Autentico chalk paint and painted straight on and did two coats.

6. Once you're happy with the overall coverage of the decoupage paper, paint on a coat of varnish. Once that's dry you're done!

I did my pink floral phone first and I do think the one I did for my Mum below turned out a bit neater! This is the first thing I've decoupaged so I'm not great at explaining it, I hope this post has been some help though! 

If you do decide to give this a go I'd love to see how your phone turns out!

February DIY: Jewellery Cabinet (part 2)

Earlier this month my jewellery collection filled the best part of a built in cupboard and about 6 boxes that sat on the mantlepiece. As I'm moving later in the year I decided now is the time to downsize, I can only keep what I fit in this upcycled cabinet! After drilling in the screws for the adorable rose handles I got to work trying to sort through the masses of jewellery. In the end I have necklaces in the side sections - the hooks came on the cabinet already. Sentimental and precious jewellery is in the bottom, one drawer for earrings (stored in a compartment box from Home Bargains, the lid cut off) with a few of my favourite nail varnishes in the back, one for hair accessories and the top part for brooches, rings and pendants. Now it’s like browsing a shop when I decide what jewellery to wear in the morning and I can actually see everything at a glance! This is definitely encouraging me to wear different jewellery so I'll be sharing more accessories posts soon. 

January DIY: Jewellery Cabinet Up-cycle (part 1)

While helping my Mum find furniture for her new shop (Pebble, opening March 1st!) I came across this vintage style jewellery cabinet in a second hand shop. At first I wasn't sure because the roses painted on it weren't quite my style (they were all along the top too) and the handles were a black bulky metal. I did love the the way it opened out to hold necklaces and has wee compartments for my (many) rings along with a little mirror in the top so decided it was worth buying and putting a little work into. I got overexcited and took off and binned the old handles before taking the first photo but you get the idea!

It's been a nice and simply up-cycling job, just a case of filling in the old handle screw holes, sanding the roses off and painting a couple of coats of white eggshell paint all over. I want to keep it plain as then the handles can easily be changed to fit the style of the room it's in. I decided that these pinky red ceramic rose handles (about £1.50 each on ebay) would be perfect for a slightly more modern shabby chic feel. The reason I've split this post in two is so I can show off the organised inside and finished outside in the next one without going into photo overload!