Kid's Cow Rocking Chair
This little rocking chair was a Christmas gift from my dad. I always know people really get me when they stop gifting me store bought items and start putting bows on projects! I get a lot of my diy drive from my dad and he’s always good for a fully-sanded-ready-to-go project in lieu of a gift! I started the project with the help of my tiny humans for suggestions on what to do with it. After some debating it was unanimous that the rocking chair needed to be a cow! My love for all things farmhouse was excited for the challenge so off to Pinterest I went.
I’m no artist so finding a cow that was cute, had that farmhouse feel, AND would be easy enough to paint that it didn’t turn out looking like a potato was harder than I expected. Luckily I’m always up for a challenge and google provided some helpful how-to images to follow.
The color scheme was a little tricky as well. I’m a big fan of all things white or gray for that crisp clean look. Unfortunately, I can’t get my 3 messy monster babies to get on board with that. They tend to prefer the look of smeared pouch, cheese puff dust, and peanut butter blobs. To each their own. So I decided darker colors would be my best friend since the chair would be in the common space where the kids could play with it. Our entire house has that farmhouse look so I stuck with our navy and gray theme but darkened up the gray a few shades for ultimate baby finger smudges camouflage. I wanted a few pops of color and envisioned some flowers around the cow. Blue, pink, maroon, and purple all made perfect additions! The paint was from hobby lobby and while it was a very cost conscious option with adorable colors, the coverage wasn’t ideal for a single layer. Fortunately for this project I knew I wanted to layer and blend some colors especially for the flowers. It ended up being a perfect pickup for this project! I love reusing items on hand. The gray and navy paint were ones we’d already had. Reusing has a few notable perks: saves money, everything matches and looks put together across the house, and it prevents extra waste. If you’re anything like me you have a hundred cans of paint in a cabinet! If I didn’t reuse this stuff it would be so much extra to store and it would all go bad before I needed to touch up one specific project.
To start the project I used a pencil and had a good big eraser in hand. Like I said, I’m not an artist so when I’m actually drawing something it takes numerous attempts before I can get the look I want. First few tries my poor cow was cross eyed. Next few he looked a little demonic. I took multiple breaks where I started painting the legs and spindles. Finally I got the cow about where I wanted him. The flowers just needed to be an outline since I was planning to blend the paint to bring definition to them. I had a vague idea for coloration of the chair but for the most part I just knew the two main colors and went from there. As I finished one section I’d get an idea of what the next should be.
The cow and flowers took the majority of the time. For my flowers I started with the biggest ones first. Using wide brush strokes to create the petals. I then dipped the very ends of my brush in the accent color for the flower and started at the base of each petal making the same wide stroke. Once my big flowers were dry I used the same technique for the smaller flowers. Placing them in the gaps and alongside the bigger ones. The cow needed a few layers to get the look I was going for. I started with the base layer and just painted the main color for each part of him. Brown body, pink in the ears, cream for his spots, and black for the eyes. Once that was dry I went back over everything with a relatively dry brush adding a textured look to each part. For his body and spots I did small half circle motions with my brush and dried it off on a paper towel between each application. I used white and pink to blend out the inner ears. For the hair around the ears I wanted a more hairy look. I used long strokes with just the tips of my brush that had a pretty light layer of paint on it. Blending the cream and brown paint around the cows nose proved to be one of the biggest challenges. I had to create a very subtle gradient to get the look I wanted.
The most important step is sealing it! With three kids, snacks, and all the rough play, it is essential for everything in our house to have a few coats of polyurethane on them. If not, I’m confident they would last less time than it took to make them! For this chair I did 2 coats all over the entire chair. I debated adding felt to the bottom of the rockers since it was going to sit on the hardwood but stumbled upon this adorable rug from 5 Below. So now the chair lives on the rug.
All in, the project took me a week. Keep in mind that the chair came pre-sanded as a gift and I am a full time mom of 3 kiddos. I kept the project on a towel in my kitchen on the island. I do this with most projects so the littles can’t reach but it is also within my reach to do a few minutes work on it anytime the kids are occupied. Including the rug the whole project cost me less than $10. The rocker was a gift (my dad picked it up on Facebook Marketplace in rough condition for $2), I already had the navy and gray paint, the other 3 paints I bought from Hobby lobby for $1.29 each. Overall, it was a fun project that the whole family pitched in on and they all enjoy playing with it. It’s one of the few toys in our living room that isn’t a total eyesore. So I’d call it a win!
Wooden Babydoll Crib
Our 6 year old has become baby doll and "pretend to be mommy" obsessed. In her letter to Santa she specifically asked for a baby doll crib for her favorite baby (appropriately named "Baby"). We did a quick Amazon search but all the cribs we found seemed plastic and cheap looking. So I ran to our local thrift shop which never lets me down and found this beautiful wooden rocking crib. It had some chips and scratches but structurally was still very sturdy. I happily made my $7 investment and brought home my next project.
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The color scheme was simple since Baby was dressed in the cutest pastel stared outfit that our daughter never wanted to change her out of. I lucked out and already had the robins egg, white, cream, and purple paint. A quick run to Michael's and my color pallet was complete.
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I did a quick sand on the entire crib but then went back over the chipped areas with a courser grit paper to smooth out those surfaces. I flipped the crib over and started on the bottom painting the purple first. When I can, I always try to paint one color then polyurethane it before starting the next color. I do this because and accidents I can wipe off while they are wet.
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Once I flipped the crib back over I used painters tape to start in on the pink. Two full coats plus touch ups and then a coat of polyurethane gave full coverage. The last color I painted was the robins egg.
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For the wording and stars I used my cricut. The wording was a cream vinyl with the letters cut and adhered. The stars on the back of the crib were a cricut cut and used as a stencil. After they were painted I used modge podge to adhere glitter flakes onto the stars. The effect was very cool and provided a fun texture to the crib!
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I coated the entire crib with an extra coat of polyurethane since it was a toy and would be played with often. All in the project cost me less than $10. When our daughter opened the gift on Christmas Day she was thrilled with the results and her Baby still sleeps in it a year later! Win!
NOTE: This post was create after the project had already been completed. Take a look at some other more recent projects for more in-depth tutorials and photos. Subscribe to my mailing list below to see project as they happen!
I had no projects in the works so I headed into the local thrift store just to see what was available. Among other treasures I stumbled on this baby bed. My 3 year old had already told us he NEEDED a baby bed since Sissy had a baby crib from a previous project. At $4.99 and mostly structructurely stable this felt like an obvious choice!
After getting it home and assessing how much work this baby would actually need I was pleasantly surprised that the only real structural issue was the base of the bed needed to be reattached. Some Gorilla Glue and a few staples would be an easy remedy. I did a quick sand over the entire bed. Since it was painted white and already pretty course it didn't need much else.
I turned to my 3 year old recipient next for some creative inspiration. I asked him what he wanted his baby doll bed to look like. He rolled through the list from Paw Patrol to Spiderman to monsters (obviously too scary of a choice) and finally landed on Ridley Jones. This is the flavor of the week in our house but I liked the challenge since there weren't a ton of ideas to pull from on Pinterest or Google. As with all decisions from my kids I gave them a night to sleep on it then asked him the next day. He was steadfast on Ridley Jones so I started planning out the bed.
Like most of my projects I started with a rough idea knowing I would change my mind at some point or not have the right color paint when I needed it. I'm obviously too impatient to wait for a store run so adjustments are always made. I chose a desert skyline I had found from Google as my inspiration for the bedrails and wanted to focus on the characters for the head and foot boards. Ridley's camouflage is the identifier for her team and seemed like a pattern that I could manage with my primitive artistic skills. I ran the plan by my art commissioner who was mostly satisfied. He said that he had to have the characters themselves on the bed. I have nowhere near that level of artistic ability so I figured I would turn to modge podge and a printed image to suffice. With my plan in mind I started.
The orange color was a leftover sample from my 3 year olds 1st nursery (he had 3 thanks to a move and change of mind on room assignments) and the rest of the colors were in my stock that I keep on hand. Aside from the purple which had to be mixed from a lavender and magenta (I wasn't lying when I said I had no patience for store runs). If you ever run into a situation where you need to save paint like this, a ziploc bag over your bowl works perfect for a day or two. I painted down the orange and robin's egg blue first for the base. The next step was my makeshift character sticker which was just an image printed out and placed on some modge podge to hold it down. If you have never done decoupage my biggest suggestion is to do thin layers. The paper tends to wrinkle if each layer isn't thin. Even with my thin spreads of modge podge I still had to flatten it out after every application. I did one layer underneath the image and two on top. I knew I would cover the entire area in polyurethane so I wasn't too concerned with it scratching or coming off. After the image was in place I hand drew the camouflage around it and repeated the pattern on the front and back of the other sides of the head and footboard. Each color took 3 coats to eliminate brush strokes and make the color look as rich as it was.
The bed rails were the most fun for me! I started with the yellow sun and free hand painted on the left side. It took three coats to get full coverage and I didn't worry about the bottom of the sun too much since I knew it would be covered by the mountains. After the sun dried I put a coat of modge podge over the entire side of the bedrail. I've learned from trial and error that when using painters tape a layer of polyurethane or modge podge will save the paint underneath from peeling up. Nothing is more frustrating than being toward the end of the project then losing a line of paint pulling off the tape for the final reveal. I created a mountain range with the painters tape and chose a beige for the background mountains. After three coats they were fully coated and again, I didn't worry about the bottom too much since the closer range would be covering it anyway. After the beige was dry I painted another coat of modge podge and repeated the process for the black mountains.
I gave my toddler a handful of options for silhouettes in the skyline and he opted for 2 planes, a space shuttle, a sphynx, and a camel. Who was I to argue? I drew these using a Sharpie with a broad point and fine tip. I basically went back to doodling in highschool to summon the ability to replicate the Google images I found. They were toddler approved so I called it a win and repeated the exact same process on the other side.
Once the painting and drawing was finished I coated the entire bed in a layer of polyurethane and let it cure. My three year old said he loved it so I did a little happy dance and it was time to tuck all of his dinosaurs in for bed in their new museum bed.
Ridley Jones Baby Doll Bed Makeover
This adorable little step stool was gifted to me as a project blank. Having family that knows my hobby has proven very beneficial for holiday and birthday gifts! I got this stool the Christmas before my last baby was born which made it a perfect little project for nesting.
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The stool was very sturdy but pretty chipped up and still coated in a protective seal in some spots. I started out the project by giving it a good sand all around. I used the navy paint from my son's floor bed project for the base. To keep a clean line on the top I used painters tape. I painted down a robins egg blue for the flat surface of the stool's top.
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I pulled out my cricut for the planes, name, and cloud. I painted down a red rectangle in the center of the stool. I printed out a cloud from my cricut with "Airo" cut out in the middle. When I centered it and laid it down on the red rectangle I got the colored name effect. I wanted the airplanes to look hand-painted but didn't have the motivation or skill to tackle that chore at 6 months pregnant. Instead, I printed the planes off my cricut and used them as a stencil. I used a sponge brush to blot down paint on top of the stencil. The heart and loopy contrails I made using white paint and a tooth pick. I drew my contrail lines lightly in pencil first and after the white paint dried I went over it all with an eraser to hide my outline.
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Like every single project in my home I finished it off with two coats of polyurethane. Since this project is a step stool that will have lots of traffic on top of it I made sure the protective layer was thicker than normal to prevent chipping from tiny little feet.
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This was hands down one of my favorite projects because of its timing. Since this was our third baby we didn't have much to purchase for Airo's bedroom and the Expecting Mama in me NEEDED to do something to prepare for my little one. This project gave me some peace of mind that our new babe would be coming into a space specifically for him and not just a room full of hand-me-downs.
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NOTE: This post was create after the project had already been completed. Take a look at some other more recent projects for more in-depth tutorials and photos. Subscribe to my mailing list below to see project as they happen!
Wooden Step Stool
