Do it yourself!

I am cheap. Well, concerning some things...I am cheap. But that gives me a lot of opportunities to express my creativity. Tonight, I started painting my hand-me-down desk.

It started out (dirty) white with yucky "gold" drawer pulls. A couple summers ago, I got bored and painted the fronts of the drawers lime green, framed each drawer with a blue-green. The effect was distressed and kinda fun, but it only took 2 weeks before I was annoyed.

After dropping off 3 boxes of junk to Goodwill (one's trash is another's treasure) I had enough wiggle room to pull out the desk, unscrew the handles and start sanding. Just enough to roughen up the old paint. I have no desire to sand to bare wood, I'm anxious for it to be done!

After I got done coughing, I wiped most of the dust off with a damp rag, dried the desk and drawers off and got to work. Painting anything in an apartment is no small job--I had a fan going and the window open. Covering up white paint with black takes a lot of coats--I'm on my 2nd and its still not done.

I took the drawer pulls outside to spray paint a nice silver. They're outside drying--I thought this would be a nice way to put that terrible wind to good use.

So, my "vision" of this project is turning my Grandma's white desk to a sleek, modern piece. Plus, I hate white. I was stuck with white walls in my bedroom as a kid and I'm surrounded by white walls in my apartment. And at the risk of being charged an enormous amount of money when I move out, I decided I wouldn't touch the walls.

Does all this have a point and how can this relate to education AND technology?
Well, a lot of painting projects I learned from watching my parents. But, it doesn't help to look for advice on the internet. The DIYnetwork site and HGTV.com are full of information to help you with projects step-by-step. The DIYnetwork also has a kids section that features instructions from the show. This is a great place to find inspiration for classroom projects.

I didn't have a "before" picture of the desk, but my coffee table is going to be my next project.
It was a pain-staking process to paint this, but it no longer fits my 'grown-up' decor. What I'm planning to do is paint it all black, and create a mosaic with glass pebbles around the border where the checked paint is now. Of course, I'm already scouring my favorite sites for directions.

And, incase anyone would like to know--I did design the lizard myself. I outlined it on paper first, cut it out to create a stencil. I taped it to the table (after painting yellow) and outlined it with a black Sharpie, then painted VERY carefully. Ta da!