Curio cabinet to.... gecko cage?

Yes, I said it. Gecko. As in lizard like, reptile creature. Do you have the heebie jeebies yet? I know I'm not the only one in Blogland who loves animals. In our household, it's me who love the animals.

EDIT* I had someone question me on a heat source for my cage. Please don't think for a second that I would do anything that puts home decor at a higher priority than my pet's health. You'll notice that I do not have a heat source in my cage. Crested geckos need temperatures between 70-80 degrees, and our house consistently stays at 72-73 degrees. Over heating is more of a issue for these reptiles than under heating. They also do not require a UV lighting source, as they are nocturnal. High humidity is the biggest thing these guys need, not a heat source. Now would this curio cabinet transformation work for a bearded dragon, who needs gradient temperatures from 70-90 degrees, and a basking area around 100-105 degrees? No. You have to realize that not all reptile care is generic i.e. heat lamp, crickets, sand, don't touch, etc. 

Now we'll return you to your regularly scheduled programming......

I have three crested geckos. Griffin was my first. Yes, he's named after the UFC fighter Forrest Griffin. My favorite crested, Banana, died back in July. So for my birthday in August, hubby surprised me and contacted a local crested gecko breeder, we went to her house, and I was able to choose any crested I wanted. So I picked out my yellow crestie, Isis. And, another nice surprise was that she had a bunch of baby cresteds that had hatched out a couple of months prior, and she gave me one for free, so Chaos also came home to live with us.

Hubby doesn't mind my pets, but he's not a big fan of the cages and terrariums.

You know what a curio cabinet is, right? It's that glass stand cabinet thingy that people usually shove Precious Moments and other crap figurines in. But I took a curio cabinet and turned it into a new home for my geckos.

Pretty simple stuff. I found a curio cabinet on good ole Craigslist for $40. This thing was sooooo gross. The lady had it stored in her shed, and she had taped all of the glass and wood. No big deal, right? Except that it took FOREVER to get this thing apart. And I had to make hubby remove this creepy crawly bug thing that decided to hitch a ride inside of it and come home with me. I had to peel off all of the tape, unscrew and remove all of the glass, and then sit in the garage for 2 hours with a razor blade and some goo gone.

So after that, it was just a matter of cleaning it up. This thing was covered in dog hair, grime, and all around funkiness. Blech. But I guess for $40, I can't complain. Too much, anyway. I usually see curios going for $100 and up on CL. Plus the mirror and the glass were all in perfect, non stratched condition. So after cleaning it up, came taping off the back mirror and primering and painting it.

After I sprayed it a cream color, I went over it with stain. So pretty! Are you loving it yet?

And after the stain, I waterproofed the inside. No sense in having all of that hard work go down the drain and let the water I have to mist them with warp the wood. After hitting up Walmart and getting some vines and suction cups, I put it all together, and moved everyone in.

Isis and Griffin live in the top.

And Chaos lives in the bottom.

I know, I know. Reptiles are not for everybody. But you have to admit. Going from this...

To this...

Is a big improvement. Hubby was just excited to get the terrarium off the kitchen counter.

I know the pictures aren't great, it's crazy hard to take a picture of something that is surrounded by glass, all I would get in the pictures is reflections of the rest of the living room.

So from Precious Moments wasteland to a gecko cage. Whatcha think?



Partying it up at..

The Cheese Dome to Cloche Bandwagon

So, I did it. I jumped on the bandwagon of bloggers who have stalked the racks at Goodwill, eyes peeled for a cheese dome and a candlestick. Then did a happy dance because you knew that after some paint and glue, you could turn it into something fabulous.

I originally found this idea at House of Hepworths a while ago, and had it on my "Things to keep an eye out for" list. I don't have a picture of my original find, but it had an ugly, fruit printed ceramic plate in the center. But for $1, I couldn't complain. A little pressure with a simple screwdriver, and it popped it right off. I used my favorite E6000 glue, and put the cheese dome on top of a candle stick that I found and glued those together. I wish I had a picture to show these steps, but I'm sure you can imagine.

My candlestick glued to the cheese dome plate I painted black. See that $8 sticker on the candlestick? I paid $1 at GW. YAY!

I found another dome at a different thrift store, but for some reason, it didn't fit the plate cutout/crevice/circle thingy it came with? I'm thinking they didn't go together originally, but for $2 I couldn't pass it up. But, as luck would have it,  I came across this pedestal hurricane candle holder at my favorite thrift store. I found one just like it online for $35. It still has the Crate And Barrel sticker on the bottom, and guess how much I paid for it?

Yup, it says $2 on it.

And I guess it was meant to be, because my other dome fit on top of it perfectly.

Then, looking at it, I didn't like how similar the heights of these two were, so I bought a small round disc from Hobby Lobby for $1, spray painted and glued it under the dome on the left, which raised it up and I like it so much better. I don't plan on displaying them together, I like groupings in odd numbers, but you never know.

Ahhhhh. Much better.

In the dome on the left, I just have a simple cream colored candle, surrounded by some fake branchy stuff (picked up a huge bundle of it at a thrift store for 75 cents). I really want to do a bird on the fatter dome like Decorchick put in hers, but I'm not having any luck finding a bird that will fit in there. So for now, it sits empty. I have a feeling that if I keep my eyes peeled, I'll find one. I keep seeing little birds that people are picking up at the Dollar Tree and making them super cute, so maybe I'll have to check there.

*If you find a dome without the wood plate (I found a TON of lone domes), or if it comes on a tray (instead of on a plate) it still might be worth picking up. You might find a pedestal like I did that it will fit on. Or maybe you could use a ceramic plate? Use your imagination
*If you are going to be putting a wood disc under the candlestick, either to beef it up, or raise it higher, you'll want to sand it first before painting. I didn't, and after I thought I was finished, I had a bunch of little wood thingies hanging off the bottom. So I had to sand and respray. Lesson learned.
*Again, if you're going the wood disc route, unfinished wood soaks up spray paint like a sponge. So it might be worth using a primer, or be prepared to do a lot of layers with the spray paint
*And lastly, with the wood disc, you might want to set it on the floor when you're at the craft store to make sure it's level. Or, you could end up with a really warped one like I did, and have to send hubsters back to the store to exchange it for you.

Have you jumped on the bandwagon? How'd it turn out?

Happy Crafting!

Wall Medallions

You know, the hardest part of this whole project was trying to figure out what I'd call these in my post. I was pretty sure that there was a better name for these than "wall circle hangy thingies." But with help from my friend Megan, we decided on "disc wall decor." Sounds fancy, doesn't it?

*edit* an awesome reader commented on my MEDALLIONS. I knew there was a name for these! Post title changed with a Thank you Amnah! 

I picked these up a couple of weeks ago when I was out with my Grandmother. She was down visiting from Michigan. We love going to thrift stores together. That lady is like a bloodhound, and if there is a good deal for an item, she'll sniff it out. I'll go down an aisle, and not see anything I like. Then she'll go through the same aisle, and she'll say "Look at this gorgeous (candlestick/frame/mirror/etc) and it's only ($1/$2/some other steal of a price). But I did happen to stumble across these on my own. Guess how much I paid for them? $1 a piece. Woot woot.

I can always tell when hubby isn't thrilled with something I bring home, because he'll look at it and say "And that's going where?" But I knew these could be turned into something fabulous. And yes, he loves them now.

So my first step? Let's get out one of my favorite things: spray paint. I'm pretty sure spray paint has to be in the top 100 inventions of all time.

I love this color. And next we're going to set up our spray painting area. It's super fancy, don't be jealous.

Yeah, we're going to pretend I didn't get spray paint on the grass from a previous project. Shhhh.

And then, with spray painting, less is more. It's much better to do a bunch of thin coats, than heavy coats. Then you're stuck with uneven coverage, drips, globs, etc.

See how thin my first couple of coats are?

So I decided to try out a new (to me) product. I've seen a lot of people "age" crafts, and it looks super cute. So I grabbed this product at Hobby Lobby. They didn't have a 40% off coupon that week, but I didn't want to wait. My awesome father in law spoiled me at Christmas with a really nice gift card to HL, so I used that to purchase the $3 antiquing medium.

So then I set up my work station. My work station = my kitchen counter. I'm not cool  lucky enough to have a dedicated craft room. But I'm not jealous. Nope. Not. Jealous. At. All.

And yes, a Coke is a necessity when I craft. And eat. And watch TV.

The antiquing medium says to use a foam brush, which I have a ton of laying around. But if you don't, I think you can pick up a 4 pack at HL for a buck or two. I'm using the 1 inch brush, I knew I'd have a harder time getting into all the small crevices with a larger brush. And I save the paper that they use at HL to pack up your breakables when you check out (the cream colored paper under my largest disc). It's great to use under my projects when I'm painting. And yay for using them before just throwing them away.

So the above picture shows the middle part that I already did, and the outer part that I'm starting on. I added just a teeny amount of water to the medium, but I don't think it's 100% necessary. I just wanted to give myself a bit more time to mess with the product before it set. But it seemed to work fine on it's own. I made sure to get the medium into the crevices, since that's what we're trying to bring out.

Finished with the first one.

The antiquing medium says to brush it on with a foam brush, and then use a soft cloth to wipe it off. I didn't have any tee shirts on hand (one suggestion I've read). But we do have a bunch of Viva paper towels. I normally don't buy such expensive paper towels, but we had to use them as baby wipes for a while (Ava had really bad diaper rash and the pediatrician suggested to use Viva paper towels and water). Anywho, I used these paper towels, and they were awesome. No little fuzzies came off (like with cheap paper towels). I only used two paper towels for this whole project. I did use q-tips on the smaller discs to get into the crevices.

Here is a before and after.
 

And here it is on my wall. Not bad for $6. And that wooden bowl underneath? Another Grandma find for $5.

*A little stain goes a long way. I didn't use very much antiquing medium to do all three discs.
*Dabbing the stain off seemed to work a lot better than just wiping it off (would leave streaks) or rubbing the paper towel in small circles (it would sometimes take off too much from the crevices.)
*Work in small sections. You don't want to get too ahead of yourself, and it starts to dry before you've been able to remove the stain from the places it's not supposed to be. 

Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think! Happy crafting!






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