Old Shelf to New Age Antiquity

So it's that time again, time for the dreaded holiday shopping, and for a poor college student, the holidays can be hell. However, as my DIY self made the rounds to my fellow thrift stores, I found this beauty. An old solid shelving unit.

I decided to put pages from old books on the shelf instead of painting to make it a little more elaborate. The books were from my mom, an old german to english dictionary and linguistics, and an old tale about a ship that seemed to be published in the 1940s.

Here is what I used
Old Shelf
Mod Podge- Gloss Finish
Old Book Pages
Paint brush

I cleaned to shelf first with a damp cloth and allowed to dry. Then I applied heavy layers of Mod Podge and would then apply the book pages in variation to add depth with the the two toned pages.

I put another coat of Mod Podge on top of that and allowed to dry, and here is the finished product!

I will put another picture up when it is hanging up after Christmas ;)
And what was the cost of a project like this?

Shelf at Thrift Store $13.99
             Mod Podge $ 7.99
                   Books    FREE
TOTAL                   $21.98

Decor on a budget!

So I need some cute decorative home goods for a bathroom and I decided to do it my Green Digs way and shop thrifty and green, so I went to my neighborhood thrift store and bought...


Fake plants

Tiny old wooden mirrors

I also bought some tiny rocks, and a glass bowl. I had a shadow box frame and paint on hand. 

So I took the fake plant stalk in pic #1 and put it into the bowl, filled it with rocks to hold it in place and then I carefully took apart the other plant bundle and made a small bouquet in the middle. Took me all of 20 minutes and this is what it turned out to be!

I then painted the two small mirrors with black paint that I had on hand (Don't forget to tape off the mirror, don't want paint getting everywhere) Here's the finished gems!

Heh, sorry about the finger prints. 

And then I took the shadow box I had on hand and cut off some of the plants from fake plant bundle #2 and put it into the shadow box frame. I wanted to take advantage of the 3D effect shadow box frames allow you to play with.

Fake Plants- $3.99
Glass Bowl- $1.99
Rocks-         $1.99
Mirrors-       $2.99
Total-          $11.96

And I will update with how they look in there new home (all assembled) when I can. Thanks again for checking out Green Digs!

-The Green One

Renewing an old brass lamp

OK, so my boyfriend recently obtained two new brass lamps from his grandparents and I wanted to help make them fresh again. Before embarking on the antiques, I thought I would experiment with another lamp first. 

I went to my local thrift store (remember the idea is too consume less when DIY-ing) and grabbed this beauty.

Yeah I know, pretty rough. So I cleaned the lamp with a damp towel and then tapped off the top wiring and the bottom so I wouldn't mess up the cord. I used Rust-O-Leum spray paint on the lamp body. This particular kind gives the lamp a textured look.

And this is the finished product!

The lamp shade was purchased at a store that rhymes with FailMart. Don't ever shop there! Those superstores are one of the worst companies having little to no care for this earth. I was in extreme desperation and even now I still feel skeezy.

Lamp-           $3.81

Spray Paint-  $5.47

Lamp Shade-$14.97

Total-           $24.25

I think the lamp looks great, especially with this being one of my first times working with an antique brass lamp and I saved a pretty penny from the other guys.

Murray Feiss Commonwealth 30.5" Table Lamp in Dark Antique Brass - 9691DA Total Price- $234.95

And my $24.25 version!

                                                          

 I think my boyfriend will like it ;) What do you think?

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Hello!

This is my first post! I will slowly be divulging in projects and will update when complete. There will be very detailed instructions on all my projects but please leave comments if anything is confusing. Happy Diy-ing!