Kitchen Diys

Happy Wednesday everyone! Sorry, I took last week off, but I am back now! I have to apologize again though because the title of this blog is a little bit misleading. I will indeed be talking about some kitchen DIYs, but these DIYs didn't go exactly how I planned. Much like how this blog post may not have been what you were expecting, sometimes craft projects don't go the way that you were expecting! 

So I had some big plans for this week. I just recently reorganized our bedroom and kitchen and wanted to finish the kitchen with a few easy (at least I thought easy) projects. The first DIY was repainting a plant pot and making one of those macrame plants hangers that every person in their 20s has in their home. And I am 22 and want one of them in my home. I just cut off a little baby from one of my parents' spider plants and wanted to create a wonderful hanging home for it once it grows a little more.

However, I did not have any of the rope that is typically used to make these plant holders so I thought I could use a material that I already had to create a fun new take on the knotted plant hanger. I was very incorrect. First, I started with twine, but that just looked kind of silly because of how thin it was. 

Then I tried colored ribbon which worked a little better than twine, but still I think it looked kind of silly because the ribbon is a bit stiff and didn't hang the way I wanted it to.

So this is when I admitted defeat and bought some premade macrame hangers from Amazon. 6 for just about $12. Thats better than all the stress of trying to make one myself! Its okay to be creative, but also realize there are some things that you just can't do! I did successfully repaint the plant pot, but I don't think I deserve much praise for that. The pot had a shiny blue paint on it so I sanded it down a little to get the paint to stick better. Then I went out on the porch and gave the pot two coats of white spray paint which allowed the red paint to show up much better when I applied that later. Red is our accent color in our kitchen which is why I wanted to paint it that.  

So yes I successfully repainted a pot. Good for me! The other project I am working on for the kitchen is recovering the outdated laminate countertops with marble contact paper. This is what our counters looked like before:

Contact paper really humbled me I must say. It was not as easy as I wanted it to be. At all. I bought a smoothing tool (you also could probably use a credit card) and sharp box cutting knife to help me with this project. The best way to apply the contact paper is to lift off the backing in small sections at a time and smooth as you go. The idea is that by only working with a small piece at a time, the chance of air bubbles will be reduced. We love how the marble effect looks, but I think my first attempt at laying down some pieces wasn't perfect as there are more air bubbles than I would like left in the paper. 

These are a few pieces that I layed down and the effect of the marble is so pretty, but we bought some more contact paper so that I can redo the spots where I want to try again and finish the rest of the counter. Its hard to tell in the photo above, but there are quite a few air bubbles in the pieces above and I think I can do better! So this DIY is not a fail, but it is definitely a work in progress that brought me down a peg. Much like my mother, I have a strong belief that I can successfully complete every craft project I attempt so sometimes its nice to be brought back down to earth! Once I successfully lay down all of this contact paper (without bubbles), I think it's going to look great!

Have you guys ever started a craft project and had to change your plans or admit defeat? Let me know in the comments below!

​ - Rebecca