Wall Art with Vintage Rulers

From the fall of 2008 through the spring of 2009, I was in a program at the Rochester Institute of Technology to get my Masters degree for art education.  It was an intense nine months (yes, a complete Masters program in nine months!), full of classes, classroom observations, and student teaching, but all worth it.  During that time, I purchased a Keep Calm and Carry On poster off of Etsy and hung it in my room.  It was my grad school motto, my daily pep talk that I saw every morning before I went to class or student teaching.

At that time, in 2008, the Keep Calm poster was not widely known around here.  In 2013, though, the poster has officially become "a thing".  It's been spoofed a million times over and you can find it in stores like Barnes & Noble, plastered all over merchandise.  

When my husband and I first moved in to our apartment in 2009, we hung my grad school poster over the fireplace mantle.  Lately, I've been wanting to replace it with something, but could never find a piece of art that was interesting enough and still went along with our collection of letters and vintage cameras.

Then yesterday morning I had a brainstorm with my morning coffee!  As usual, I was browsing Pinterest while enjoying my coffee.  I was looking through a collection of patterns I had pinned for ideas for another project when a lightbulb went off - herringbone! I always love herringbone patterns, whether it's for brick sidewalks, wood floors, or tiles, so I thought why not try that with those old rulers I'd been saving?

You see, when you're an art teacher and an artist, people tend to offer you random things and ask if you could use them or want them to make something out of.  I usually say yes, knowing that I could use whatever it is for either my students and classroom or a project of my own at some point.  That's how I came in to possession of over eighty vintage wooden rulers.  I've been holding on to them for years, looking for something to use them for.  I have more than enough rulers in my classroom, so I had been saving the rulers to use for a project of my own.  Originally I had been thinking I might make a wreath out of them, but after seeing those pattern photos I'd saved on Pinterest I instantly knew that I wanted to use the rulers to make some new wall art to replace my Keep Calm poster.  

I went out and bought an 18"x24" canvas and a small hacksaw.  My plan was to use the rulers to create a pattern on top of the canvas, attaching them to the canvas with a hot glue gun.  I wasn't sure exactly what angle to start the pattern at, but I knew I wanted to make the rulers smaller.  I separated out a bunch of rulers (I wound up using 37 by the end of this) and cut them in half to make 6" segments.  I also went through the rulers and used a small pair of pliers to pull out any metal edges before I started cutting them, so that the metal wouldn't snag on the saw when I cut the rulers.  

I bought the hacksaw and a pack of replacement blades at Home Depot.  The saw itself was less than $5, and I wound up not needing the replacement blades.  Sawing through the rulers got a little tedious, but if you have access to a power saw then this step could go much quicker.  The cuts were straight cuts at around 6 inches, so I didn't have to measure out any angles or anything. I put a trash can under the table edge while cutting the rulers to help catch sawdust and wood fragments.  I used a pair of scissors to trim off any stray wood edges after cutting - the wood was generally soft and thin enough where the scissors cleaned up the edges just fine.

Once I had my pieces cut, it was time to figure out where on the canvas I wanted to start the pattern.  Since I was making this up as I went along, I wanted to make sure I had a pattern completely figured out so that I wouldn't have to make more ruler cuts than I needed.  I spent a little bit of time using the 6" ruler pieces and the full 12" rulers to plan out different arrangements on top of the 18"x24" canvas.

I finally decided on the arrangement you can see in the photo below.  I also had some almond colored spray paint leftover from another project, so before I started gluing the rulers down I took the canvas outside and spray-painted the top and the edges.  I didn't want any of the white gessoed surface of the canvas showing through between any gaps in the rulers, or along the outside edges since I wasn't planning on framing it.  The almond color was a safe enough neutral that blended nicely with the colors of the wooden rulers.

Now that I had the pattern figured out and the canvas painted, I plugged in my hot glue gun and started gluing down the 6" rulers, working out from the bottom left corner and then rotating the canvas to reach the other side.  As I got near the edges, I had to make some new cuts to make all of the pieces fit in to the shorter or more narrow areas.  I generally tried to glue the rulers so the fresh cut sides went towards the inside of the canvas and the naturally worn edges faced the outside edge of the canvas.  It made for a cleaner look to have the naturally aged edges of the rulers exposed.

Approximately three and a half hours after starting to cut the first ruler (I watched a few TV shows on Hulu while gluing pieces down), the new wall art was finished! Tada!  That might seem like a lot of time, but for an afternoon DIY that included all of my trial and error time figuring out a pattern, I thought that was a worthy time investment for my new living room art.  

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and think it looks great on the wall.  The cost to make this was extremely low, too.  I already had the rulers, spray paint, glue gun and glue sticks.  I spent $8.09 (used a 50% off coupon) at Michael's on a two pack of 18"x24" canvas (so approximately $4 for one canvas) and $12.48 at Home Depot for the saw and replacement blades, of which I wound up not using the replacement blades and can use the saw for future projects.  Between the Mouse sander this summer, and the saw this weekend, my collection of tools is slowly growing!  

Not too shabby for a weekend project!  

Materials:

• 18"x24" canvas
• almond spray paint for the background (optional)
• 37 12" wooden rulers, cut in half to 6" segments
• hot glue gun with replacement hot glue sticks
• small hacksaw
• scissors
• small pliers (for pulling metal edge out of rulers)
• pencil for marking cuts on the rulers

Vintage Cabinet Upcycle - Part 2

My vintage cabinet is finally finished!  It's been living in my kitchen for a few weeks and it is already proving itself to be quite useful.  The first post about the beginning of the job can be found here.  The remainder of this post will explain how I finished painting and fixing up the cabinet.

Once I finished sanding enough of the old paint off of the cabinet, it was time to take apart the wheels and clean them.  There was an awful lot of old gunk built up around the wheels, so it definitely needed a thorough cleaning before I could use it in my kitchen.  It took some work with pliers to loosen the bolts, but they finally came off.  You can see a cabinet leg minus the wheel below.  I also used the Mouse sander to take a good bit of rust off that part of the wheel, though I forgot to take an "after" picture before I reassembled everything.

I brought the wheel bits and the drawer pulls inside to clean them off.  I soaked everything in a mixture of warm water and CLR to help clean a lot of the older gunk off.  All of the pieces were then individually scrubbed with a toothbrush before I rinsed and dried them.  The handles shined up nicely while still retaining some of their weathered patina, which was perfect.  I wanted them to look clean, but not like they had just come off the manufacturing line.  The wheels looked much better, and the cleaned bolts also allowed the wheels to turn much more freely once I reassembled everything.

I put the wheels back on the legs before painting the primer coat on the cabinet so that I could move it around easily when needed.  I didn't want paint to get on the newly cleaned wheels, so I covered them with aluminum foil.  The foil was much easier to mash around the wheels for proper coverage instead of trying to tape them off.  

I used a Rust-Oleum spray primer to cover all inside and outside areas of the cabinet.  The surface of the cabinet looked patchy, but was smooth and level for the primer paint.  I ended up using almost two and a half cans of primer (the one half can was left over from a previous project).  Below is a picture of the primed cabinet and the drawer.

At this point, I had to delay painting for several days to weather - I live in a second floor apartment, so I try to do projects like this either out in the garage or the driveway.  However, I wound up becoming impatient with waiting, so one day I moved the cabinet inside for painting.  I made sure to open windows and set up lots of fans so that the apartment wouldn't smell like paint.  I also covered the floors so I wouldn't drip any paint.  

For the colors, I purchased two small cans (30 fl. oz.) of Behr's Low Odor Zero VOC paint.  The darker color is Teal Zeal and the lighter color that I used for the door, drawer, and cabinet interior is Jamaica Bay.  I used a small foam roller like this one to apply the paint, which allowed me to get a nice even coat.  Two coats of paint was plenty for getting the color even.  I have a decent amount of paint leftover, but that was the plan because I want to use these colors for a few other projects as well.

I let the paint thoroughly dry for a few days (the weather was still very humid and I wanted to be very sure that the surface was dry) and then moved everything back outside so that I could apply a spray coat finish to seal everything.  The paint probably didn't need a sealant, but since I planned to use this in the kitchen I wanted to apply a sealant so that the surface could be properly cleaned when needed without damaging the color.  I used Rust-Oleum's Crystal Clear Enamel spray to coat the surface.

When the clear coat was dry, all that was left was to re-attach the hardware and the cabinet countertop.   Ta-da!  I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

The cabinet is now in my kitchen and is being put to good use.  I use it to hold recipes on the countertop while I'm cooking, and I'm working on how to best utilize it for storage.  It's currently holding my teakettle and immersion blender.

I also bought three plastic placemats for $1.99 each from Target and trimmed them to fit the drawer and the interior shelves.  I had thought about lining the drawers with contact paper, but then decided on plastic placemats because I can easily remove them for cleaning in the future when needed.  

Vintage Cabinet Upcycle - Part 1

Back at the beginning of June, I went to annual Syracuse Funky Flea outside of the Everson Museum.  For those who aren't familiar with it, the Funky Flea is a one day market that has vintage goods, work from local artists, and some excellent food from local vendors.  My main score from the Funky Flea was this vintage cabinet.  The whole thing is painted metal, has a laminate top, and legs with wheels.  I thought I could put it to use in either my kitchen or as art supply storage.  The seller wanted $35, but I offered $30 and they accepted, so I walked away happy.

The cabinet has a shelf inside the large door as well as a towel bar in the inside.  After some thinking, I've decided to use it in my kitchen because I could use an extra countertop space by the stove, and the cabinet is almost the perfect height for that.  

That also means that this metal cabinet needs a serious makeover.  For starters, can we talk about that shade of pink? Yuck!  The whole cabinet is going to get a new paint job.  The top is in good condition, and I like the knobs (which will look good as new after some cleaning), so a new paint job will go a long way in sprucing up this cabinet.

I took the cabinet out in the driveway today to start sanding off the old paint.  The tapered legs and the corners of the cabinet are in the worst shape in terms of scratches and dings.  The wheels are also kind of grungy right now (as you can see above), so I've removed those for cleaning and polishing.  I also pulled out the drawer, removed both knobs, and unscrewed and removed the laminate top as well.  

Then I broke out my Mouse sander, some 80 grit sandpaper, and a face mask.  After a bit of work, I discovered that whoever had painted this cabinet pink put the paint on really really thick.  In some places, the paint is flaking off in chunks, but in other spots it's taking a lot of work to remove it.  In fact, let's take a look at the layers of old paint on this cabinet.  It almost looks like a topographical map!

That's six layers of paint before you get to the original surface!  Crazy!  The pink paint is the toughest right now because both layers of it were put on so thick.  Originally my plan was to get down to the original surface of the cabinet before priming and re-painting, but let's be honest, ain't nobody got time for that.  After working outside sanding for several hours, I have amended my plan to just sanding off the pink layers, which are the most noticeably bumpy and pitted, and then just to make it an even enough surface before I put the primer on.  The areas where I've gotten all of the pink paint off already feel pretty smooth and level, even though you can still see different patches of color.  Once the primer is on, you won't be able to tell the difference.  

I had to stop work on the cabinet a little earlier than I would have liked due to incoming rain and thunder, but when I came back inside I decided to do a little bit of research on my vintage cabinet - and this is where I found out some interesting things! After thoroughly checking the cabinet, I wasn't able to find a manufacturing stamp or label, but I knew that the factory printed faux wood grain that I found under the paint could help point me in the right direction.  

I haven't been able to find an exact match to my cabinet, but I've found enough to estimate that it's from the 1930's to 1950's.  I'd guess around 1940 or so judging from some of the other cabinets I found online.  It was most likely part of a medical office.  The two brands I found that look the most similar in style are Simmons and Hamilton.  For example, here is a metal 1930s Simmons wheeled cabinet with a faux wood grain on Etsy - selling for $350!  I also found another online shop selling vintage medical and apothecary cabinets that are similar to mine - but the lowest starting price is $495!  I don't know if my metal cabinet is worth anything like that, but I'm willing to bet that my $30 I spent at the Funky Flea was an excellent bargain!

I'm hoping to work more on the cabinet this weekend.  I'd like to finish the last bits of sanding and then prime it so I can start painting.  Now to pick out the colors!

Part 2 of this project can be read here.

Recycled Book Wreath

Earlier this week I made a new wreath for the front door, since the holiday one I made has once again been put into storage for the year.

I've seen people make wreaths out of books and sheet music before, so I thought that would be fun to try with some discarded library books that I had. Originally, when I thought of the project a while back, I was going to cut out lots of leaves, but I decided that would take too long. I had seen one made of sheet music on Etsy before where the papers were rolled, so that seemed like a good method to try for this project. I flipped over a large pad of newsprint drawing paper to use as a work surface, since I was sitting on the carpet and didn't want to get any stray glue on it.

I started off by cutting a base ring out of a cardboard box. If you have trouble drawing even circles, and don't have a compass, you can use different size plates and bowls to trace.  The book I used for this project is a discarded paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone that I took from the free pile at the library (I feel that the choice of book makes the wreath all the more suitable for my home). Just ask at your local library, or even a used book store, to see if they have any books they are discarding or giving away.  I am always picking up discarded books to save for future projects.  The only other materials I used are scissors and a hot glue gun. You could probably also use regular Elmer's Glue instead of hot glue, but I was impatient and I also thought that the hot glue might be a bit sturdier in the long run.

I separated the book pages from the glued binding by ripping the book into a few smaller sections and then carefully tearing the pages off one by one. It came apart pretty easily and I hardly had to use the scissors at all. I quite like the slightly ragged edges that some of the rolls of paper have from ripping them instead of clean cut edges.

After separating the pages, I then rolled them into tubes, securing them closed with a strip of hot glue at the end of the roll. I started hot gluing the rolls of paper around the cardboard ring. The first layer of paper rolls was glued so that half the roll was on the cardboard ring and half was sticking out. The second layer was then glued on top of the paper rolls, moving in towards the center of the ring. Eventually there were three of four layers of paper, with the top layers being made of paper rolls that were cut in half to add some shape variety.

Ideally, I should have more carefully planned out the spacing of the tubes before gluing them, something I figured out too late into the project. I may have also been slightly distracted by watching Dr. Who on Netflix while I was sitting on the carpet working. Oops! There are a few gaps I might try and fix, but I only have a couple pages from the book left over and I don't want to mix in pages from another book and risk having the difference in paper color stand out. I might try again at some point with a different style of wreath, but overall it's not too bad for a first attempt.

All in all, the wreath measures about 18 inches across. It's not heavy at all, and all of the layered rolls of paper actually make it quite sturdy. I cut a U-shape out of cardboard and hot glued it to the back of the cardboard ring to make a hook for hanging it on the door. The wreath is easily lightweight enough to hang from a 3M hook.  I'm pretty happy with the way it came out, and it didn't cost me a penny since I either had the supplies on hand or was recycling.

Painted Wooden Kitchen Stool

A few months back I picked up a wooden stool that was being discarded. It was pretty dirty and had paint smears and drips all over it. After cleaning it up and sanding off the paint globs, I sprayed it with primer. Then I re-sanded a few rough patches, spray painted on the base green color, and then hand painted the dark green trim and the leaf on the seat. The final step was to spray a clear coat finish over everything to seal it all.

Voila! A new stool for the kitchen.

Recycled Plastic Bag Christmas Wreath

Earlier this week I made a Christmas wreath for the apartment's front door. It actually looks great as just a general winter wreath, so I plan on keeping it up beyond the holiday season.


There was a pile of plastic grocery store bags in my kitchen that I kept forgetting to recycle at the store. I was gathering them all together when I got the idea to make something out of them. I've seen Christmas wreaths made out of rags before, so I thought why not try that with the plastic bags?


I started with a green wire wreath frame from Michael's, purchased rather inexpensively by using a coupon and my teacher discount. However, I thought that with that frame alone, the finished wreath would look too skinny.  You could also make your own frame out of wire, if you have enough, but I was looking to cut out that step by purchasing the ready to go wire frame.  If you do make your own frame, I suggesting twisting the wire double for more durability, like I did with the extra ring I added below.


I solved that issue by adding an inner ring to the frame with some aluminum wire that I had already on hand, twisting it double for strength. I used thinner wire to hold it to the frame.


After that I just started tying plastic strips cut from the bags onto the wire frame, using a double knot so that they wouldn't come undone. No glue is needed.  I didn't cut the strips in any uniform manner because I wanted the plastic to look somewhat leafy when I was done. I also cut off any letters or logos because I didn't want those to show. The bags I used were all either white plastic bags (from Target) or transparent grocery bags (from Wegmans).  It is also easy enough to go back and trim any overly large pieces of plastic bag at the end if there are any bits that are sticking out too much.


When I bought the wreath frame, I also bought some plastic silver leaves and small branches to include in the wreath, found in the holiday fake flower section at Michael's. I used the thinner wire to secure the branches onto the wire frame, and then I tied the plastic strips over the stem to hide it. The supplies for this project were cheap, with the branches costing anywhere from $0.29 to $0.49. I bought the stems on a separate day from the wire frame so that I could use more than one coupon.  All told, I spent maybe $10 at the most on supplies.


I didn't keep an exact count of how many bags I used, but it had to be at least 30 plastic bags or more. Tying all of the plastic strips on took a while, but it was an easy project to work on while watching some DVDs. The finished wreath is about 20" wide and very lightweight, so it's easy to hang with a 3M plastic hook and sticky tape. I definitely plan on saving this wreath to use next year.